Theatricals. All the people were familiar with the great family, while the better part of them were bidden to theatrical performances, for which the Admiral composed songs. It is doubtful whether he chose as early hours for his amateur shows as did the theatre manager of New Brunswick; for on the first occasion of a dramatic performance in that Province, March 28, 1789, the doors were opened at half-past five and the play began at half-past six o'clock.
Other merry-makings occurred on the Island, justified, perhaps, by the occasional homage of gifts sent to the mother country; for the Admiral's diary bears record that "three large, eleven middle, and fourteen small, masts were hoisted on board a vessel, and sent as a tribute to England." Then, whenever a roof-raising occurred, he knew how to send the children home to look after the chores, that their elders might join in the merriment.
Smugglers' Cave. The inhabitants themselves were rather enterprising in business; for rum and lumber were exchangeable quantities with the venturesome Campobello captains, who traded with the southern ports and West Indies, and carried Nova Scotia grindstones to the States. Bolder, but the quieter in action, were the smugglers, who, deep amid the woods, near the only fresh-water pond of the Island, alternately came and vanished. Much of their spare time was spent in digging for an iron chest of Spanish doubloons, buried by ancient buccaneers. The Admiral and his family often rode through the woods to watch the men in their hopeless work, and to obtain their share of treasure-trove if ever it were found. One bright morning every digger had fled, leaving a deep excavation in the ground; but far down on its side, marked out by the iron rust which had clung to the earth, the outlines of a chest were visible. A cart track and the ruins of four or five huts are all that now remain of the site of this mysterious activity. With the departure of these smugglers disappeared the steady excitement of years, the perpetual topic of conversation. Thereafter the people could only question each other about the strange wreck whose rotting timbers were old a century before. Its last remnants have now been carved into love tokens.
Saddest were the days when the Admiral strode up and down his imaginary quarter-deck, his empire a fishing settlement, where boys' wages had once been three cents a day. Eastport still owned the islands around it. The people brought in their fish, and sold it for groceries and other articles at stores where it was credited to them. The little vessels crossing the bay made it gay for the Admiral's eyes. But his spirit sank, as he fancied that some boat might be drifting around an inlet, with its owner frozen to the mast amid the supplies he was bringing to his family, who were waiting in vain for the father to return; or as he thought of the burden of this ever-increasing debit and credit system, or of the perils of the smugglers.
Later, when the duties were taken off by the United States, smuggling disappeared, and Campobello business went down. Could it ever have been said to exist? A few persons possessed enough ready money to build the picturesque weirs which fringe the Island with their stakes, driven three or four feet apart, and ribboned together with small round poles. The dried foliage and the dripping seaweed clinging to them give a ghastly beauty to this living mausoleum of the herring.
The Bank. Remittances did not always come promptly from England, and money was needed in the Island; so the Admiral set up his own bank, and issued one-dollar certificates, surmounted by the crest and his motto, "Flecti non Frangi." But somehow the time never came when he was called upon "to pay one dollar on demand to the bearer at Welsh Pool," and the certificates remain, to be utilized, perhaps, under a new epoch of good will and foolish trust.
Titles. The Island must have had some law and order before the advent of the Admiral, for the town records for the parish of Campobello date from April 15, 1824, James M. Parker, town clerk. At the general session of the peace, holden at St. Andrews, the shire town of Charlotte County, New Brunswick, thirty-two officers were chosen for the small population of Campobello. As in the old German principalities, every Welsh Pooler must have craved a title. There were commissioners and surveyors of highways, overseers of poor and of fisheries, assessors, trustees of schools, inspectors of fish for home consumption and for exports, for smoked herring and boxes. There were cullers of staves, fence-viewers and hog-reeves, and surveyors of lumber and cordwood, lest that which should properly be used for purposes of building or export be consumed on andirons or in kitchen stoves.
Paupers. In those days there was no poorhouse; though town paupers existed, for one, Peter Lion by name, was boarded about for one hundred dollars, and furnished with suitable food, raiment, lodging, and medical aid. No one kept him long at a time, whether it was because others wanted the price paid for his support, or because he was an unwelcome inmate, is unknown. Prices depend on supply; therefore, it happened that the next pauper was boarded for fifty dollars. Again, a lower price for board brought about a lower tax rate for the householders; and, in course of time, another pauper was set up at public auction, and the lowest bidder was entrusted with his care and maintenance.
By 1829 the exports from the Island justified the creation of harbor masters and port wardens,—more titles to be coveted.
Ferryman. A ferry was established from Campobello to Indian Island and Eastport. The ferryman was "recognized in the sum of two pounds, and was conditioned to keep a good and sufficient boat, with sails and oars, to carry all persons who required between the appointed places, to ask, demand, and receive for each person so ferried one shilling and three pence, and no more." If any other than the appointee should have the hardihood to make a little money by transporting a weary traveller, such persons should be fined ten shillings, half of it to go to the informer and half to the ferryman, unless he had previously arranged with the licensee that he would afford him due and righteous satisfaction for each person so carried.