MacNeil/Wells/Smith (Georgeville\BLDW60_531.html)

 

This house site is located west off the Glebe Road near Georgeville.  It was once occupied by John H. MacNeil.  Lennie Wells says that this should be indicated on the Church map.  However, the Church map has a D. MacNeil at this site.  Bernie MacIsaac had said Angus MacNeil.  Probably D. MacNeil was the father of John H. MacNeil.  John H married Margaret MacDougall from Lakevale.  They had two daughters Mary and Margaret who died of pneumonia and appendicitis.  The parents adopted John Wells in 1909 from the orphanage (in Antigonish?) so they could have a son.  They had another daughter Tina Marie.  Lennie was John Well’s son.  He inherited the farm and sold it in 1973 or 1975 to a couple by the name of Smith (Lennie says he left in 1980).  These were schoolteachers and back-to-the-landers.  They split up, and the one who got this property left, and around 1990 decided to have the house burned.

 

Lennie Wells kept 3 acres on the Glebe Road and returned there to live alone in a one room shack because he found it easier than living in Antigonish.  He worked for Charlie Teasdale for many years.  He found social interaction very difficult.

 

Charlie asked about lame Angus MacNeil, who Lennie said may have lived to the west of this site.  However, the Church map shows an A Macdonald and an M MacDonald on the road west from here, but no more MacNeils on this road.

 

The cellar is another “C” shaped one with the chimney in the middle.  We did not measure it.  Much of the wood remains from the walls.  To the west, near the road is the well which is about 12 ft deep and rock-lined.

 

The barn is still standing, and to the west of it an old single blade plough that has had a tree grow around it.

 

The tree has completely encircled the steel.

 

 

Lennie Wells and Charlie Teasdae, Glebe Road; Bernie MacIsaac, Georgeville, May 20, 2008.