For residents in New London, Prince Edward Island, seeing a large building being moved is unusual, and to see the same building moved twice in a century caused one resident to recall the differing technologies used to achieve the move. George P. MacLeod, in his nineties, recalled as a young boy the moving of the same building when "the old manse from MacIntyre's Creek", took up it's new role as a general store and carpentry shop. The 1855 Presbyterian manse, had been replaced with a modern parsonage next to the church. Sometime after 1905, Sammy Dunning a local house builder used capstans, horses, and greased logs to inch the building up a one mile hill to the new site. Adding a store front with a mansard roof, he and his wife Lilly established, a general store with a woodworking shop on the second floor. Other members of the Dunning family had experience in the storekeeping trade and knew the location at the corner of two main roads would be a good spot for a general store. |
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In
1944 the Dunnings retired to
French
River, PEI and sold the business to a younger generation
of
storekeepers,
Rutherford and Catherine Cotton known locally as Rud and Kitty.
Rud had suffered an accident while farming and had to find work that
wasn't
too strenuous on his injured arm. Taking over the store with Kitty they
expanded
the operation under the Lucky Dollar chain name by added a walk-in
meat
cooler and generally expanded the operation. The store included a post
office and a gas pump and was at the centre of the community. After
Rud's sudden death in 1960, Kitty attempted
to operate the business alone but quickly realized that it was too much
so moved the post office into her home where she continued as New
London's post mistress until her retirement in 1969. |
Cotton's Lucky Dollar Store in 1953 |
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Empty as a store, the building was sold to Irving Oil Ltd. in 1962 who owned the gas station next door and wanted the land. While demolition was still in the plan, Jackie Clarke a neighbour arranged to get access and turned the building into an autobody repair shop. Clarke eventually built a new workshop nearby, leaving the building again empty. |
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![]() In 1973 Daphne Large a potter from Charlottetown returned to the Island after graduation from the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design with plans to open a studio and discovered that the store was empty while staying at the family summerhouse nearby. Arrangements were made and the building was rented and opened as a summer studio and craft store that same year. Several college friends and family members pitched in to haul away the old car parts, paint cans and broken plaster, and start the cleaning and restoration process. Established as Village Pottery, it is now known as New London Village Pottery. Gallery in 1973 |
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Teaching part-time at Holland College during the winters, Daphne met Ian Scott an instructor and leather craftsman who eventually joined her in the business. In 1976 they married and established home studios in Charlottetown and summer studios in the Village Pottery business. In 1994 the Scotts purchased the building and moved it across the road and a few hundred meters west. Adding a new studio that opens on a meadow at the back of the shop, the move created a third level to the building. |
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e-mail to: VillagePottery
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