page_title: Georgetown, Prince Edward Island
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Georgetown, Prince Edward Island / History
caption_attribution_description: English: View of the sandstone courthouse in Georgetown Prince Edward Island Canada. It was designed by Island native William Critchlow Harris and erected in 1887.
context_page_description: Georgetown is a former town located within the town of Three Rivers in Kings County, Prince Edward Island, Canada. It is the Capital of Kings County. It amalgamated with the town of Montague, the rural municipalities of Brudenell, Cardigan, Lorne Valley, Lower Montague, and Valleyfield, and portions of three adjacent unincorporated areas in 2018.
context_section_description: This area of eastern Prince Edward Island traces its history of human settlement to the Mi'kmaq Nation which inhabited the area. These people were referred to as "Epegoitnag" and for them, the region was an Acadian forest wilderness containing wild game, as well as fruit, berries and wild nuts for gathering, as well as plentiful marine resources in the nearby rivers and Northumberland Strait.  The land in this area was called "Samkook" which translates to 'the land of the sandy shore'.
  Georgetown lies opposite Brudenell Point, which divides the Brudenell River to the north from the Montague River to the south.  Brudenell Point was the location of the first permanent Acadian settlement on what the French called Ile-Saint-Jean. Here, entrepreneur Jean Pierre Roma landed in 1732 with approximately 100 settlers to begin a commercial settlement to grow food and catch fish for provisioning the French military garrison at Fortress of Louisbourg on Ile-Royale (now Cape Breton Island). French settlers called the area Trois-Rivieres (Three Rivers). The British burned the village in 1745, the same time they took control of Port-la-Joye.
  Following the transfer of control of Acadia to Britain at the conclusion of the Seven Years' War in 1763, the British government survey of St. John's Island by Captain Samuel Holland selected the entirety of Cardigan Point for the capital of Kings County and designated it as the township of Kings Royalty.
  The county capital was to be named Georgetown in honour of King George III. The settlement was oriented on magnetic north and a broad street network was designed.
  Present-day Georgetown's collection of heritage buildings mostly dates to the late Victorian Era at the height of Georgetown's importance in the wooden shipbuilding industry. As one of the most important ports in the colony of Prince Edward Island, the port was selected in 1870 to be the eastern terminus of the Prince Edward Island Railway (PEIR) and became a steamship terminal with connections to the Intercolonial Railway on the mainland at Pictou, Nova Scotia. Georgetown's harbour was frequently the only port on the island to be usable during the winter months on account of prevailing wind and tide directions (this being before the Canso Causeway altered sea ice patterns in the Northumberland Strait).
  On September 28, 2018, the Town of Georgetown amalgamated with the Town of Montague, five nearby rural municipalities – Brudenell, Cardigan, Lorne Valley, Lower Montague, and Valleyfield – and portions of three adjacent unincorporated areas.
caption: Georgetown, being the shiretown for Kings County, hosts the county's only provincial court house. It was erected in 1887
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