Chapter 1: c. 1904 to 2009

This little house located in Murray River, Prince Edward Island, Canada has been the gathering place for my branch of the Munn family tree for a half century.

The story goes that the house was built along the tracks further west toward Hopefield as a kitchen/ bunk house for the construction of the Murray Harbour Branch of the Prince Edward Island Railway. This work was begun at the turn of the last century and it is noted in the Department of Railways and Canals Annual Report 1904 that the tracks from Murray River to Murray Harbour, the end of the line, were completed that year.

The architect of record for the Railway was CB Chappell, who designed the stations, station master houses and other buildings throughout the province. It is not unreasonable to assume that he designed this house as well although no direct proof has yet been found.

A farmer named George Lowe bought the house from the railway in 1907 and moved it to its current location.

Soon after George bought the place he added a larger kitchen and a pantry, and later a rear sun room and a small front porch. He also constructed a built-in china cabinet with glass front doors in the parlour, and added hardwood flooring in the parlour and dining room. His signature is still on the north kitchen window. The land is a small three sided ¾ of an acre wedge located in a valley between the railway tracks and the road on the north and south sides respectively, and a wooded lot to the east. George was a fox farmer. The yard contained several buildings and a garage by the road. Today, all that remains of the outbuildings are the foundation and corner stones of various barns, the shell of the fallen down garage, and the outhouse, which is still in use.

1916 map of the farm

George was married to Catherine MacSwain who was bedridden with a heart condition for much of her adult life so they employed housekeepers to help Catherine manage the house. My grandmother, then Janie Buell, was their housekeeper before she married my grandfather in 1932.

This George at the kitchen door.

Catherine eventually died, and Janie’s mother Mary Ann (MacDonald) Buell was also widowed by that time, so she became George’s housekeeper. As he and Catherine had no children, George left the house to Mary Ann upon his death in 1948.

Mary Ann at the front door

Mary Ann owned the house until her death in 1961. She lived with my grandparents in her final years, leaving the house empty. Mary Ann left the house to my grandmother and over the next few years my grandparents began to spend their summer vacations there, and the house was rediscovered by the family. It had sat empty for quite a while by the mid ‘60’s, and the floor in the front hall had fallen into the cellar. My grandfather repaired this and put on a new roof on the west side, and they spent the rest of their summers in the house. It became a summer gathering place for the family which continues today.

The house has remained virtually unchanged since George’s day. Today, the pump in the kitchen is our source of water, meals are prepared on the wood stove, the only source of heat in the house, lights are kerosene lamps, and the outhouse across the field is the only bathroom.

kitchen

Ownership passed to my father, Walter, and me when my grandmother passed away in 1997. Since then, Dad and I replaced the west side of the roof and rebuilt the porch and we still spend our vacations there.

Dad on the roof

In 2006 we held Munn 200 at the house, a family reunion celebrating 200 years since the Munn’s left Scotland and settled in the area.

Munn 200, July 29, 2006

Now the house is 100+ years old. A century of no central heat, and being closed up over the past 50 winters has taken its toll on the sandstone foundation. The well has dried up, and for some reason, nobody wants to use the outhouse anymore. It is time to save it or lose it. We are going to save it. This blog is about what that is going to take.