Pleasantville weekly press. (Pleasantville, N.J.) 1890-1911, 1898-09-07
Whole Number, 446.
Letter from Nova Scotia.

LoUIsBURG, CAPE BRETON ISLAND, AUG. 25
1898.
To the Editor of The Pleasantville
Press
As | am now in one of the Oldest
places in North America l thought
would write you letter relating to it,
hoping that some of the readers of your
paper would feel interested in it. get
my Information from an old English
History have at present along side of
me as a reference to explain some of the
old ruins see here. From my authority
at hand the supposition is that this
place is the land that the great Naviga-
tor Sebastian Cabot first discovered, but
my reference at hand says that there
are traditions, and also records, of the
Norman fishermen coming here several
years before. But my authority says it
is not reliable, so what / say about the
old ruins | say only from what | see and
my old English History of Cape Breton
tells me. This harbor is land-locked
and large enough to harbor at least two
hundred sail OF vessels of deep draught
The entrance is about one-third of a
mile wide-one side high rocky bluff,
the western a reef of rocks with some
swash at half tide and small rocky
Islands. The town of LOuisburg is on
the North East side of the harbor. The
houses are small low wooden buildings,
| don't think there is half a dozen houses
in the town that cost over five hundred
dollars. There are only two streets in
town, and they can hardly be called
more than country roads with no side
walks. Sheep and cattle run at large.
The town has about four hundred pop
ulation. The present town is what they
call new Louisburg. The old original
town was situated on the western side
of the harbor of which now nothing re-
mains but old irunins of the fortifica-
ton, which were commenced in the year
1920 by the French when it was a
French Colonial settlement. The fortif-
cations were in their time very formid-
able and called the "Gibralter of Amer-
ica." 1t was built out of porphyritic
trap, prevailing kind of rock in this
vicinity, and a portion of the fine
material such as brick and stone
masonry was brought from France
and completed about 1748 costing the
French government over ton million dol
lars. There is but little or no business
here except fishing and shipping coal.
The coal mines are only about II miles
from here. There is not one frst-class
store here, and several places they call
stores, are not as good as the
poorest in Pleasantville, and they
tell us they renew stock but twice q
year and that is done by one through
runner or drammer from Halifax.
There is no drug store or baker shop,
but plenty of rum shops. [ must say
one thing in favor of the stores. They
sell no tobacco in them. Rum and to-
bacco are sold together and since have
been here have not seen one of the
natives under the influence of liquor.
There is but one Blacksmithin town aud
he don't seem to have work enough to
keep him awake. There are one or two
shops they call wheel wright shops.
Every thing is carried on very cheap
scale. Every man is a sort of mechan-
ic getting along in a fashion so as not to
pay out any money. You seldom see a
carpet on the floor, and only about half
of the houses have stoves in them. They
have open CRATES or fire places aud burn
soft coal which has just enough SCOT
and smoke in it to keep the women in
first class fighting trim provided they
had been used to living as our American
women. There are four churches here
Catholic, Methodist, Baptist and Pres
byterian. The Catholic church is the
largest. The rest are small affairs. There
is NO fire department and the schools are
far below the common American
schools. Most of the poor class drees in
home spun goods raising their own
sheep and then converting the wool into
cloth which would set some of our
Pleasantville women to thinking how
they would get their new Sunday dress
if they had to shear the sheep and then
manufacture the cloth and make their
dresses. There is not enough lumber
grown here for export. The trees are
small and "serubby" and only fit for
fire wood. Garden vegetable are scar
cely known and all they have are pota-
toes turnips, and beans. American salt
beef sells for $40 barrel. Fowls 40 to
so cents pair. Eggs 10 cents dozen.
Butter Is to Is cents per pound. Fresh
| fish of all-kinds one cent per pound.
Fog is free and furnished in abundance.
1t has now been twelve days since 1
sailed from Portland, Maine, and we
have not had one day clear of fog.
Navigating vessel on this coast, at
TINS Time OF year, IL Hi guess WOrk anu
| dumb luck combined. Ny wife and 1
have been over the old ruins of Louis
burg and have few pieces of the rock
that formed the Notifications built in
1920. Tomorrow, if the weather per-
mits we go by rail to the coal mines to
go under ground and see them mine
coal. In some future letter will give
| sketch of what we saw. We sail with
a cargo of coal on the 9th for Boston
| Mass. L. C. l..