IN the early part of the last century several emigrants from the Old Country found their way to Prospect Farm, with whom family friendships were formed and remained unbroken for many years. The Davis family is one of these.
Daniel Davis came from a small town near Bristol, England. He was a weaver by trade, but owing to the introduction of the power loom in Great Britain, which ruined the hand-loom industry, Mr. Davis came to America in the hope of finding some other means of gaining a livelihood. He with his wife and one child came to Prince Edward Island in 1812. They were greatly disappointed with the appearance of things on the island, and Mrs. Davis says she cried nearly all the time they stayed there. After a year on the island Mr. Davis moved to Point de Bute. Although he was a small man and not accustomed to farm work, he remained in Point de Bute for ten years and made a good living for his increasing family. At the end of that time he got a grant of good land in Little Shemogue, on what is now called the Davis Road. On this land Mr. Davis put up a log house and moved his family there. After undergoing most of the privations incidental to such an experience, success came, and with is a comfortable and happy old age. In his later years Mr. Davis made a trip to his old home in England, and received a substantial legacy that awaited him there. He had a family of ten children, five sons and five daughters. Henry, the second son, was a member of the family at Prospect for fourteen years, and came to be looked upon almost as a son. John settled in Leicester, N.S., and was a successful farmer, with a large family. One son is a Methodist minister in the Nova Scotia Conference, and another is stipendiary magistrate for the town of Amherst.
Henry Davis was a miller, and settled first in Amherst. One of his sons, T. T. Davis, is a professor in a western College. The other sons of Daniel Davis were farmers, two of whom remained at the old home in Shemogue, where some of their descendants still live.
John Woods was another of the early emigrants who found his way to Prospect. He was a Manxman. After a time he bought a farm at Tidnish, N.S., and subsequently moved to the Gulf Shore, Wallace. Mr. Woods visited Prospect Farm in the seventies, and was greatly delighted to see the old place again.