Big Cape School, Monticello, P.E.I.

This old schoolhouse, the Big Cape School, is is located in Monticello in eastern P.E.I. on Route 16.  It was built in 1840 and restored in 1982.

The interior photos were taken through the windows.

The corners feature a great detail of a 3/4-round trim - not sure if this is original.

A Monument to the Past

Arnold Smith and I visited this site first in 1993 and observed the remains of this central chimney style house - it had all fallen down around the island sandstone fireplace leaving it as if a monument to its past.  The house was built in 1790 by Angus Owen MacDonald.  We returned ten years later in the spring of 2003 and took these photos - the site was much as it was ten years earlier.  The central chimney with double fireplaces measures about 8' square with the largest fireplace opening into the kitchen.  The mortar was mostly all washed away being exposed to the elements for so many years - the original mortar would have been made of brick clay, straw and mussel shells.