Page 31 - Starting with Our Cover Photograph" A Visit with Mary and William Crowdis

ISSUE : Issue 30

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1981/12/1

Cover Photograph Story them together. William: The Frenchman, he was the schemer. But there were a lot of people--they weren't like they have today-- the people ganged right there to help them bring the house down. Mary: They didn't hire anybody. William: Hired nobody. Every? body went. The neighbours. This is a long time ago. (Do you remember when they moved the house?) Mary: No, no, I was only 6 months old. (Was there a community up there on Fraser's Mountain?) No. There was just my grandfather went there in the wilderness-- my grandfather, Malcolm Fraser. It was nothing but woods. And he cleared that Fra? ser 's Mountain. William: I was reading this morning a his- tory book that I have here. (From John F. Hart's History of Northeast Margaree: "Si? mon Fraser of Skye, Scotland, first lived in Prince Edward Island after coming to this side of the Atlantic. His wife was formerly Margaret MacDonald, sister of John MacDonald, who had settled at Rivulet, in Northeast Margaree. When Simon Fraser died in P.E.I., his widow moved to Marga? ree to be near her brother, bringing with her her three children, Alexander, Kitty,_ and Malcolm. Alexander went to the United States, Kitty married John MacLeod, and Malcolm settled on what is now known as Eraser's Mountain at Margaree Valley....") Malcolm Faser went up there and cleaned that out himself with oxen--you got under? neath the root and pried it out--and burnt. Mary: He just cleared the land like that, cleared that farm. William: It's a big farm. Mary: There's nobody living there. William: Now, he didn't do this in an eve? ning. He was years doing this. (And doing nothing else.) Well, that was his idea of farming. Mary: That's what he had to do, making a living with that. William: That's what everybody lived on. Mary: He'd burn a piece of land and he'd plant his garden there--they called it the burnt patch. Hp planted turnips and potatoes • His family was all bom there. My father, two of his brothers, and his two sisters--were all CONTINUED FROM INSIDE FRONT COVER bom up there. And they came down--my fa? ther took the house down. Where he took it there (on the Egypt Road), that was my mother's father's home--was the Burton property. But they still maintained the mountain farm. They made hay there. Now my nephew pastures his stock there. But right up until recently they made hay up there. (Is it because they came late they ended way up there on the mountain?) Mary: Well, he couldn't have been very late, because he died way in his eighties and he was down there living with my father when he died--and he was only a young boy when he went up there and cleared that. He came with just his mother--his father was dead. Well, if you'd see the farm you'd wonder how he ever did that. William: And I've heard my father say, when the people down in Rossville here--and they were supposed to be big farms--were out of hay, they'd go up to Malcolm Eraser's on the mountain to get a little hay for to put in. Now this was very essential, for the horses to pull the plow, for to plant a few potatoes. ResenratiOQDLS: 564-6417 "Rates as low as or lower than our major competi- tots in this city!' Featuring the fUel efficient Citation ty General Motors. Where Canada's smart money rents its cars. Our U.S. atmate iaHMonal Car RarMI AIR CANADA ' SERVING CANADA CX)AST TO COAST EUROPE ?? CARRIBEAN THE UNITED STATES. .For information call yo UNITED KINGDOM • r Travel Agent or CHICKEN CHALET Tried Soutleis to sene'you- C.B. Shopping Plaza, Sydney Riyer Sydney Shopping IMall, Prince St. Blowers St., Norih Sydney sterling Mall, Glace Bay Plummer Ave.. New Waterford (31)

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