James H. Fitzgerald and
it Prince Edward Isle, Adieu
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by John Cousins
•Perhaps the most vivid and lasting record of anti-Confederation sentiment
on the Island is the song ' Prince
Edward Isle, Adieu." Despite its importance, little is known about the song's
author and date of origin. Speculations
on the writer's identity have centered
around our two best-known songmakers, Larry Gorman and Lawrence
Doyle. However, a third oral tradition
names James H. Fitzgerald, and while
little known, his claim seems strongest.
Before considering this claim, it seems
only fair to review those made for
Doyle and Gorman.
Gorman, a prolific maker of songs
and jibes in rhyme, became notorious
for his fierce satires and the topical,
local nature of his songs, as shown in
Edward D. Ives's Larry Gorman: The
Man Who Made the Songs (1964).
However, Gorman never seems to
have displayed the concern for larger
social and political issues that is such a
feature of "Prince Edward Island,
Adieu." It is almost certain, as Ives
himself later concludes in Lawrence
Doyle: The Farmer Poet of Prince
Edward Island (1971), that the song is
not Gorman's.
Similarly, Ives's suggestion that
Doyle wrote "Prince Edward Isle,
Adieu" does not stand up well to a
comparison of the song's style and
content with those of Doyle's known
works. Doyle's songs are lilting comic
ditties, never harsh in tone or political
in nature. Occasionally he wrote of
some local political skullduggery — as
in "The Bay Bridge" — but never on
the grand scale of "Prince Edward Isle,
Adieu."
Also, the song seems to have been
written too early for it to be Doyle's. A
bitter diatribe against Confederation,
the Island railway, and the land tenure
system, it reflects issues that were most
crucial to Islanders during 1872-1875.
Although Ives dates it to about 1880,
by that time Island songmakers were
more concerned with post-Confederation issues. In any case, Doyle's
earliest known song dates from 1885,
and most originated in the following
decade. "Prince Edward Isle, Adieu" —
a mature work and not in Doyle's style
— was unlikely to have come from him
ten years before the main body of his
songs.
The third candidate for authorship,
Lot 7 schoolteacher James Heran
Fitzgerald, has long been identified
locally as the songmaker. Two West
Prince champions of Fitzgerald, both
now deceased, were Frank O'Halloran
of Campbellton and Harry Thomson
of Glengarry. O'Halloran and Thomson were authorities on the history and
folklore of their communities, and their
information has been invariably found
correct where it could be checked.
They strongly refuted the possibility of
Gorman's authorship, with Thompson
pointing out that, as far as we know,
Gorman never began a song with
"Come all ye," the formulaic opening
of "Prince Edward Isle, Adieu." Both
agreed that Fitzgerald's authorship has
always been accepted in the Lot 7
area. Also handed down, they noted,
is the legend of Fitzgerald's celebrated
peevishness. O'Halloran said that his
students infuriated him by calling him
"Bounce" — a name the significance
of which has been lost.
Details of Fitzgerald's life are scant.
He was born in Ireland in 1796, and
came to Prince Edward Island in 1827.
According to a tradition in the
Richmond area, told to me by Ben
Praught, he came here in search of a
brother who had previously immigrated. Virtually nothing is known of
Fitzgerald's early years on the Island,
but he apparently taught school, for by
the 1840s he was considered an ex-
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vide for their children all the education their means will allow. The
school is under the charge of one of
the most experienced teachers in the
colony and whose remuneration is
not equal to the length nor the
utility of his services in the cause of
instruction.
Photo by Jeff Hornby
James H. Fitzgerald.
perienced schoolmaster by the
"School Visitors," travelling inspectors
whose reports appeared in the Assembly Journals.
We know that he was living in Lot 7
in 1839, for that fall he opened the
area's first school — in fact, the only
one on the coast between West Point
and North Cape. According to the
account in Fitzgerald's diary, this was
not an easy task. The struggling Irish
community in Lot 7, less than 20
years old, was just beginning to beat
back the wilderness. In a letter to the
Summerside Progress (December 24,
1866), Fitzgerald described the early
settlement of Halloran's,
now
Campbellton, as "the thicket of a
forest and the haunt of wild beasts."
Its inhabitants, he noted, eagerly
awaited the spring when they could
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flock "to Hallorn's b r o o k . . . to get
smelts." He complained of having
waited "nearly four months" before he
received his newspaper.
Because he had a wife and a
growing family, Fitzgerald added to his
income by leasing a farm from the
Stewarts (of Strathgartney), who were
the local landowners. He built the
school on a neighbouring farm, owned
by Thomas Doyle, and there remained
for six years.
According to the remarks of the
School Visitor, Fitzgerald did a good
job as teacher. In 1845, John MacNeill
reported:
This school has for several years
proved of much benefit to the inhabitants of this remote settlement
who are laudably ambitious to pro-
In spite of his good record, Fitzgerald
moved from Lot 7 in 1845. An old
friend, Donald Mclnnis, encouraged
him to "keep school" in Grand River.
This he did, and in 1848 he leased a
farm from the proprietors of Lot 14,
the Cunards. This farm was located in
what is now the village of Richmond.
Over the next two decades
Fitzgerald continued along this pattern,
teaching school and farming. The education section of the Assembly Journals reveals his professional travels —
teaching at Seven Mile Bay, Quagmire
(Wellington Centre), Linkletter, Mount
Pleasant, Trout River, and Grand
River. Somehow he managed, with
the help of his young sons, Michael
and David, to carry on farming operations. The daily journal which he kept
reveals his constant struggle against
privation and loneliness in impoverished and isolated school districts.
This journal, of which the 1855-58
and 1859-65 portions still survive,
reveals a great deal of the man. He
wrote of strong, emotional feelings
towards everybody and everything that
affected him. We learn of his worries
about his own health and that of his
children, and his anxiety when separated from his family for extended
periods. "I feel unhappy," he wrote,
"at keeping school so far from home."
He even suffered a very real worry
that he would freeze to death in one
of the schoolhouses where he was
forced to spend months alone, often
with little or no firewood. On December 23, 1856, he wrote: " . . .
stayed in the schoolhouse a l o n e . . .
these days were awful wild and frosty
and storms uncommon so I nearly
perished for want of firewood in the
Trout River schoolhouse." The next
year: "Out of firewood at the school,
so I cut up one of the benches."
At times young hoodlums in the
community tortured him cruelly, attacking the school house where he
slept. In December, 1855, he wrote:
"On the night of Thursday the 4 a
violent attack was made on me in the
School House with Stones and
Prince Edward Isle, Adieu
Come all ye hardy sons of toil
Pray lend an ear to me
Whilst I relate the dismal state
Of this our country
I will not pause to name the cause
But keep it close in view;
For comrades grieve when they must leave
And bid this Isle adieu.
In days of yore, from Scotland's shores
Our Fathers crossed the main;
Tho dark and drear, they settled here
To quit the "Tyrant's" chain;
With hearts so stout, they put to rout
The forest beasts so wild;
Rough logs they cut, to build their huts
Upon Prince Edward Isle.
There is a band within this land
Who live in pomp and pride;
To swell their stores they rob the poor;
On pleasures' wings they ride.
With dishes fine their tables shine,
They live in princely style.
Those are the knaves who made us slaves,
And sold Prince Edward Isle.
With ax well ground, they levelled down
The forest far and wide;
With spade and hoe the seed they sowed,
The plow was left untried;
With sickle hooks they cut their stooks,
No "Buckeyes" were in style;
They spent their days — their ashes lay
Upon Prince Edward Isle.
The Father's boy, his only joy,
Must bid a sad farewell;
They're parting here, no more to meet
On earth, for who can tell.
Far from the Isle, in prairies wild,
In countries now that's new,
Content they stay, and bless the day
They bid this Isle adieu.
The place was new, the roads were few,
The people lived content,
The landlords came, their fields to claim;
Each settler must pay rent.
So now you see, the turning tide
That drove us to exile,
Begin again to cross the main,
And leave Prince Edward Isle.
Our daughters fair, in deep despair,
Must leave their native land;
To foreign shores they're swiftly borne,
As I do understand.
The tide it flows, they all must go
There's nothing else to do;
While parents grieve as they must leave
And bid this Isle adieu.
But changes great have come of late,
And brought some curious things;
Dominion men have brought us in,
The Isle with railways ring;
There's maps and charts, and towns apart,
And tramps of every style;
There's doctors mute and lawyers cute,
Upon Prince Edward Isle.
Through want and care and scanty fare,
The poor man drags along;
He hears a whistle loud and shrill,
The "Iron Horse" speeds on;
He throws his pack upon his back,
There's nothing left to do;
He boards the train for Bangor, Maine,
Prince Edward Isle adieu.
There's judges too, who find a clue
To all the merchants' bills;
There's school trustees, who want no fees
For using all their skill;
There's laws for dogs, for geese, for hogs,
At this pray do not smile,
For changes great have come of late,
Upon Prince Edward Isle.
The reason why so many fly,
And leave their Island home;
Because 'tis clear, they can't stay here,
For work to do there's none;
In other climes there's better times,
There can't be worse 'tis true;
So weal or woe, away they go,
Prince Edward Isle adieu.
So here's success to all who press
The question of Free Trade;
Join hand in hand, our cause is grand;
They're plainly in the shade.
The mainland route, the world throughout,
Take courage now, stand true,
My verse is run, my song is done,
Prince Edward Isle adieu.
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Sticks." The siege was resumed the
next night "by 8 persons coming from
a Frolic whereby I was glad to escape
with my life."
Some people enjoy strife, however,
and it appears that Fitzgerald was such
a one. His trials might have been less
severe had he not quarrelled so easily
and so much. He spared no one his
wrath, confiding with peevishness that
he had left Lot 7 in a huff, because of
"ingratitude and necessity." Scarcely
had he settled in Grand River, though,
when the priest denounced him from
the altar for "having the audacity of
telling one of the Committee of Trustees (at his telling me that protestant
teachers could teach the Catholic faith
as well as me) that I imputed his
observation to his ignorance." He experienced a similar problem at Searletown. As for the community of Quagmire, it was, in Fitzgerald's opinion,
"infected by evil."
His vindictiveness was often brought
to bear on individuals as well as
communities. After a dispute, John
Ramsay took his son out of Trout River
school. He then "advocated several
false charges against me." But, Fitzgerald crowed, "I called a meeting of
the Trustees and completely refuted his
absurd balderdash — feel happy his son
was taken away for he was an incorrigible fool." On another occasion, he
claimed that James Yeo, the prominent
Port Hill shipbuilder, had forged Fitzgerald's son's name on some agreement
or other, thus doing the boy out of
money he had earned: "Damning him
[Yeo] for his roguery and falsehood."
Almost everyone with whom he
boarded vexed him in some way or
another. "Left off boarding at Thos.
Gormans after 5 days time," he noted,
"owing to his snarling disposition."
This, in spite of the fact that Thomas,
the father of the folk songmaker Larry
Gorman, was one of his best friends.
Larry Gorman would have known
Fitzgerald and might even have been
taught by him. This connection between
the younger Gorman and Fitzgerald is
interesting because of the later association of Gorman's name with "Prince
Edward Isle, Adieu."
During these pioneer years in the
wilderness of West Prince, Fitzgerald
pursued a variety of interests, the
natural tasks of a man of letters in such a
remote and largely illiterate community.
He was a public-spirited man who took
responsibility for petitioning for roads
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Confederation Centre Art Gallery and Museum.
This Robert Harris sketch shows a mid-nineteenth century rural Island schoolhouse
at Canoe Cove.
and writing letters to newspapers on
matters of community interest. He even
went so far as to deliver public lectures
in the schoolhouses. He wrote:
Gave a lecture in Port Hill School
House on Wednesday night 29th,
April 1857 about the state of Education, morality, & Religion in the
United States, England, Scotland, &
Prince Edward Island and proved that
Prince Edward Island ranked higher
in Education morality and Religion
than either of the t h r e e . . . . I likewise
gave an eloquent discourse in poetry,
on pride and the awful deaths which
lately happen'd through fire fever &
drowning. The lecture was considered very eloquent — about 200
people were present. I got great
applause — had tea at Mr. Yeo's and
a glass of punch after the lecture...
had another lecture at my own school
on the night of Thursday the 30th. It
could not be exceeded... there was
a large attendance... the poetry
went well.
Fitzgerald had an intense interest in
the whole Confederation question. As
early as 1865 he confided in his diary
that he had given a lecture in the Grand
River schoolhouse and written letters
and poetry to Island newspapers, all on
the topic of the proposed union of the
colonies. These writings were probably
not published as no trace of them can
be found.
Fitzgerald was very fond of expressing
himself in verse. The names of dozens
of his poems and songs are recorded in
his journal, and presumably others have
been lost with the rest of his writings.
Two poems survived because they were
included in letters that he wrote to the
Summerside Progress and Charlottetown Examiner. The themes of these
poems and letters are remarkably similar to the deeply patriotic, antiConfederate "Prince Edward Isle,
Adieu." We know that Fitzgerald was
against Confederation because he wrote
a letter to the anti-Confederation Progress in which he expressed support for
that newspaper's "principles, objects,
and intentions."
We know also that he despised the
Conservative government which
brought the Island into the Union. This
was the government which had severely
cut his teacher's salary in 1866. He
wrote to the Progress (December 24,
1866):
I find everything flourishing as time
progresses but myself, a pioneer in
the field of education at the West —
mentioned more than once by the
School Visitor in his report who gave
me the flattering distinction of being
one of the most experienced teachers
in the colonies — my salary, which at
no time was sufficiently remunerative,
has been of late cut down to the
miserable pittance of thirty pounds
and this in the face of my passing four
different examinations before the
Board of Education. I would not
intrude this personal matter on the
public, but I am reminded of it by
having had the question asked me the
other day — by a member of the
present dominant party — if I were a
"licenced teacher." I thought it bad
enough after serving the cause of
education for over forty years to be
cut down in my salary by the
Government but to be asked such an
insulting question was a little too
much.
He also feared and hated the Conservative Premier, J.C. Pope, into whose
debt he had fallen in the 1850s. At times
he even slept in the schoolhouse to
avoid meeting Pope. "Did not go home
last Sunday," he wrote on February 6,
1856, "uneasy for fear of being sued by
Pope. Owe him £4-0-0." Thus it is not
surprising that Pope and the Conservatives were heavily criticized in "Prince
Edward Isle, Adieu."
Another Fitzgerald preoccupation,
which takes up two stanzas of the song,
is the loss of the Island youth, who "in
deep despair" were forced to seek their
fortunes elsewhere while "parents
grieve." Fitzgerald felt deeply the loss of
his own son, David, who left for the
mainland "leaving us all in grief and
disconsolation." He refers to this personal tragedy often in his diary.
"Prince Edward Isle, Adieu" pictures
pioneer life with its "forests far and
wide, the forest beasts so wild," the
clearing of land, and the lack of roads. It
is a picture very similar to Fitzgerald's
description of his pioneering days in Lot
7, as expressed in his previously cited
letter in the Progress (December 24,
1866):
The greater part of the West was an
unbroken forest where the surveyor
and hunter alone penetrated. There
were ho roads like those of today in
the place. The only way was by
woodpath, zigzagged and crooked,
from tree to tree kneedeep in mud
and mire o r . . . creeping along the
brow of the cliffs eighty or one
hundred feet above the surfy beach,
and attended with no small danger to
life and limb.
The anti-landlord sentiment of the
song expressed a feeling common to
many tenant farmers in the last century.
Fitzgerald had been a tenant, first in Lot
7, under the Stewarts, and later in Lot 14
where he leased land from the Cunards.
This brought him into conflict with
James Yeo who was acting as Cunard's
sub-agent. Trouble began when
Fitzgerald occupied part of a neighbouring farm: "That is, the piece of common
pasture on the other side of our farm."
Yeo appeared, demanding rent on the
property. Fitzgerald paid grudgingly.
Th<e song put it this way:
The landlords came, their fields to
claim;
Each settler must pay rent.
Moreover, Fitzgerald had lived
through the turbulent days of the Land
Question on the Island. As a publicminded man he knew the issues. That,
added to his dealings with Yeo, gave
him more than enough ammunition for
the volley he fired at the landowners.
Fitzgerald fell sick early in 1878 and
died in November of that year at the age
of 82. His unmarked grave is in the old
churchyard on the bank of the Grand
River, just behind the Church. Perhaps
to atone for his battles with the clergy,
he left a cow to the parish priest.
Fitzgerald's name as a poet and
songmaker almost died with him.
"Prince Edward Isle, Adieu" has come
down to us but he is rarely credited
with it. Neither is he recognized as one
of the truly notable Island schoolteachers — a man who gave the
greater part of his life and energy to
education in the pioneer settlements of
Prince County.
Sources
I drew the information for this article
from four main sources. First was
Fitzgerald's diary, of which two fragments survive: one (1855-58) was
kindly lent to me by David Weale of
the University of Prince Edward Island;
the other (1859-65) is in the possession
of Mr. and Mrs. Vernon Burch of
Richmond and was brought to my
attention by Allan Graham, Alberton.
The second source was a series of
references to Fitzgerald's teaching
career which I found in the Education
Section of the Journals of the House
of Assembly (1840-65). Third was
Fitzgerald's few but revealing letters to
newspaper editors, particularly to the
Summerside Progress in the mid18605. Perhaps the most important
source was the oral tradition handed
down to me by Elbridge Cousins, Ben
Praught, the late Harry Thomson, and
the late Frank O'Halloran.
The pioneering work on Island folk
music by Edward Ives — particularly
his study of Larry Gorman — has
been an inspiration to me.
Photo by Jeff Hornby
Desk owned by James H. Fitzgerald.
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