Moore Farmstead, Milton

     Two weeks ago I photographed this old house when I heard of the passing of 89-year-old John Milton Moore on Halloween day.  He was born in 1925 and the son of Henry "Harry" and Annie (Munroe) Moore.  
    The property is located in Lot 32 in Milton on the Malpeque Road (Rte.2) between the Rustico Road (Rte.7) and the North Yorke River Road (Rte.148).
    The house sits very close to the highway and faces north.  The style is "center dormer" popular in the mid-1800's here on the Island.  An uncommon feature of this house is that it has another center dormer on the rear facing south.

     The Cumin's 1928 Atlas of Prince Edward Island shows Harry Moore living here with the following children: Marjorie, Russell, Robert, Wesley and John.  It shows the farm with 62 acres.
    The Meacham's 1880 Atlas of Prince Edward Island shows Geo. Moore living here with 62 acres.

     Near a decade ago two ladies recorded a mini documentary about this place which aired on CBC Radio's program Outfront ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outfront ).  The ladies interviewed Mr. Moore first asking him if they could paint his barns - he replied, "oh dear, I don't know if I want my barns painted."  He  misunderstood the ladies, they wanted to do an artists interpretation of the old weathered buildings - he thought they wanted to physically paint them.  I forget much of the rest of the 15-minute show, but it was fun to listen to a story about a place here on Prince Edward Island.

     Tomorrow, November 15, 2014 an auction will be held at the homestead by Roberts Auctioneering - see their website for photographs of items for auction - I've included a few here.

http://www.robertsauctionspei.com/roberts/auction1.html

Above: An aerial photo of the farmstead.

Below: today the machinery was all outside for the auction tomorrow.

Pleasant Valley Memorial Church - shingling complete

     The new shingles are all on the south of the church.  Note the scaffolding is still standing there - that's not part of the architectural detailing.

     Ricky Ellis of West Point has done work here for years - he specializes in Island church renovations and painting.  Below are two other churches he's carried out work on.  The first is St. Marks Anglican Church in Milton (designed by Wm. Harris) before & after- the church was completely re-shingled in 2008; the second image is of Holy Trinity Anglican Church in Alma.

Old Saw Mill, Milton (aka Curtisdale)

     I took the winter photos below of the old sawmill in Milton on December 20, 1987.  The mill was situated on Route 2 (Malpeque Road), down the hill, east of the Anglican Church where the Lower Malpeque Road meets the Malpeque Road.  None of these buildings remain today.
     The first owner of mills here was William Curtis in the late 1820's - he operated a sawmill and grist mill here and had several houses too, probably for workers.  For more information about the Curtis family see: http://familyhistory.homestead.com/CurtisPEI.html 

     The buildings here were not likely the original buildings mentioned in the Curtis family history.   This area was originally called Curtisdale and later called Milton - possibly for all the mills in the area.   Click on images to enlarge.

 

      The following summer photograph was taken in the late 1980's.   The mill collapsed in the mid-1990's and was demolished.

     I found a reference online on the Prince Edward Island Public Archives and Records Office website - www.archives.pe.ca  where they note an old photograph, "one large format mounted photograph of the saw mill at Milton, Prince Edward Island between 1910 and 1920"  Acc 4737.
     The 1880-1881 Alpine's PEI Directory http://www.islandregister.com/alpines.html also notes Thos. Crabbe and D. Moore also owning sawmills in Milton - the directory lists 50 mills on Prince Edward Island.