Page 59 - Visit with Will Pringle, Richmond County

ISSUE : Issue 63

Published by Ronald Caplan on 1993/6/1

Visit with Will Pringle, Richmond County (Your house is up here on the hill--the view from your painting--it seems so far from the road. Any idea why they built way up here?) Will Pringle: I think they found it very cold down there. It was blasting across (the Bras d'Or Lake), in the winter, from the ice. There's a kind of a valley there. And there was also a chill from the brook, coming down the brook. And there was also some trouble over water. The broth? ers' wives, they agreed to disagree. One was a MacLean--Margaret Mac- Lean- -and the other was, I think it was Sally Murray. Sally claimed that the line fence was a little bit out on their side in the brook, and the cattle and so on were watering there. There was something about that. And there was a disagreement. So they moved up here. (So at first they did build down by the lake?) Yes. On the side of the road.... The first log cabin was down near the road, and then the next one was where that apple tree is (up here on the hill). Mar? garet MacLean planted it, and she also planted the elm tree there. She said, "It'll be growing while I'm sleeping, and when I'm gone it'll be a monument to me." And it's quite true, that big elm tree there in the yard.... (Do we know who were the first Pringles in here?) Yes. Down in the old house down there--it's older than this one. James Pringle, he'd be my great-grandfather. He came from Scotland. His wife Peggy or Margaret MacLean died in Scotland, and he--he had courage--he came over here with 5 or 6 young chil? dren. And no wife. And built the log cabin. Then he built the house there. One fellow said he must have been a smart man. (Because) after not too many years, my father re? membered of him shipping cattle and geese to Newfoundland from a wharf Will Pringle was bom at The Points, West Bay, January 10,1914 down in the harbour called the Old Wharf. One of our sons that works in Halifax-- Billy, a carpenter--he got in the archives there some letters from James Pringle to his son in regard to building the grist mill down here. (Am I to understand, he put all these businesses together: a grist mill; he got a vessel that he could ship--was it his vessel that was shipping...?) No. (But in a short while he had things to export.) Yes, yes, he had things to export. And the ships came from, I suppose, Newfoundland SERVING CAPE BRETON SINCE 1907 Celebrating Our 85th Year Men's & Boys' Wear Ltd. 320 CHARLOTTE ST., SYDNEY • 564-8415 Quality Selection & Service 59

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