Green Gables House, Cavendish, Prince Edward Island. The farmhouse that inspired the 1908 novel Anne of Green Gables, by Lucy Montgomery. Canadian law requires a reference to the novel in every article about the island (not really, it just seems that way). A white clapboard house with a green gabled roof.
2 July 2021
Prince Edward Island is the smallest in area of the Canadian provinces and territories. It is an island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, lying just off the northern and eastern coasts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
Its Mi’kmaq name is Epekwitk (cradled on the waves), which is often transliterated as Abegweit.
The French dubbed it Île Saint-Jean, and until 1799 it was known to the English settler-colonists as St. John’s Island. But in that year, it was renamed after Edward, the son of King George III, who commanded British forces in Nova Scotia from 1794–98, when a fall from a horse forced his return to England for recovery. He was subsequently created Duke of Kent, and Strathearn and returned to North America in command of all British forces there. He also subsequently fathered a daughter who would become Queen Victoria.
The following is a 25 January 1799 letter from Edward thanking the government and people of what would soon become Prince Edward Island for petitioning the king to rename the island in his honor. Edward only obliquely refers to the “honour,” but when it was later published in the Sun newspaper, the editors noted that the island had been renamed after him:
To His Excellency Major-General EDMUND FANNING, L.L.D. Lieutenant-Governor, &c. &c. in and over His Majesty’s Island of St. John, and His Majesty’s Council and House of Assembly, &c. &c. &c.
“GENTLEMEN,
“I am highly flattered by the distinguished Honour conferred upon me in your Address of the 26th of November, 1798, for which I have to request that you will accept of my best Thanks.
“Nothing could be more gratifying to my feelings, than to receive the assurance of your devoted attachment to His Majesty, and the whole of his Family; nor could any thing be more pleasing personally to myself, than to learn that you were so good as to feel for the accident which occasioned my departure from North America.
“I feel as I ought to do, the very handsome manner in which you are pleased to speak of the attention I was enabled (in the line of my Profession), to pay to the concerns of the Island to which you belong; and believe me, that I shall ever feel great pride in the recollection of the public testimony you have thus given of your approbation of my Services while in the Command of your District.
“I shall conclude, Gentlemen, with offering my warmest acknowledgements for the good wishes so handsomely expressed at the end of your Address, and desiring you to believe that I shall ever take the warmest interest in everything that concerns the Island of St. John’s.
“EDWARD,
“Lieutenant-General, late commanding the Forces in Nova Scotia and its Dependencies.“London, January 25, 1799.”
N.B. The above Island has since been honoured by the name of Prince Edward Island.
Sources:
Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn. “Letter.” The Sun (London), 12 October 1799, 1. Gale Primary Sources: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Burney Newspapers Collection.
Everett-Heath, John. Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Place Names, sixth ed. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2020. Oxfordreference.com.
Pearce, Margaret Wickens. Coming Home to Indigenous Place Names in Canada (map). Canadian-American Center, University of Maine, 2017.
Rayburn, Alan. Oxford Dictionary of Canadian Place Names. Don Mills, Ontario: Oxford UP Canada, 1999.
Photo credit: Markus Gregory http://ggrexy.zenfolio.com/ , 2014. Used under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.