L.M. Montgomery was not writing history in creating the world of Anne of Green Gables, but rather it wasinformed by her upbringing and coloured by her experience and perspective.
"Cavendish is, to a large extent, Avonlea. Green Gables was drawn from David MacNeill's house, though not so much the house itself as the situation and scenery, and the truth of my description of it is attested by the fact that everyone has recognized it."
Cavendish, the real-life counterpart to the fictional town of "Avonlea", was where L.M. Montgomery lived for a lage part of her life (1876 – 1911) and where she wrote Anne of Green Gables (1908).Located on the northern shore of Canada’s Prince Edward Island, it sees hundreds of thousands of tourists each summer, but in Montgomery's time it was an ordinary farming community of about 150 people. It had a post office, a one-room schoolhouse, and two churches. There were fields of red soil, sand dunes announcing the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and, at the center of it all, a large farmhouse that would one day become associated with Green Gables.
People’s lives were dictated by the distance they could travel by horse and buggy, and cars were rare and expensive. Most rural homes had no plumbing and electricity, and outhouses and hand pumps were used. Homes were heated with coal or wood stoves, and pets were less valuable than farm animals and horses.
With farms forming the building blocks of rural communities, social institutions were the pillars that brought people together. They included places such as the general store, the blacksmith shop, sawmill, churches, and schools.
The general store was the heart of rural and small-town communities. It was a one-stop shop that provided a variety of goods from food, household items, to clothing. While rural families produced most of their own food, the general store provided necessities that farmers could not grow. It was also a masculine place, where mostly men did the shopping, while women stayed at home and managed the household. By the mid-20th century, many general stores faced increased competition from department stores and eventually closed, while some survived until today, to exist as museums or nostalgic country stores.
Avonlea Blacksmith Shop, from the Sullivan Series Road To Avonlea
Blacksmith shops were one of the earliest businesses to appear and were normally located at a crossroads, like taverns or inns. They made and repaired farm equipment, wagon parts, and other household metal goods. Blacksmiths also worked as farriers, shoeing horses, every few months. Shops usually had large front doors to permit the entry of horses and wagons, and to provide better ventilation for smoke and heat. Their role began to decline later in the century due to mass-produced factory goods, with blacksmiths eventually evolving to work as modern artisans and specialists.
Tourists can visit the Orwell Corner which still has one of the few historic Blacksmith shops that exists today in PEI, along with a general store and an old school house; reminiscent of a small PEI crossroads of the 1890s Orwell Corner Historic Village | PEI Museum and Heritage Foundation.
Sawmills and gristmills were essential to community development, providing essential building materials and employment. Many mills relied on waterpower from rivers and streams to process wood into standardized lumber (sawmills) and grind grain into flour (gristmills). Some notable examples are George Gard’s Sawmill (c. 1910) and The Grist Mill located in Hunter River (just south of Cavendish), where some filming was also done for Anne of Green Gables. Mills were crucial infrastructures in shaping the character and economy of rural PEI in the 20th century.
The Grist Mill, Hunter River, PEI
The Post Office
The Avonlea Post Office, from the Sullivan series Road To Avonlea
Before radio, the post office was the main connection between rural communities and the outside world. It was normally located in someone’s home or general store, while urban cities had dedicated or grand public buildings. In Cavendish, the post office was located in Montgomery’s grandparents’ home. In charge of the mailbag, Montgomery worked as the assistant postmaster handling mail from their kitchen, and residents would come to the house to pick up mail. Montgomery indicated that, had it not been for her personal connection to the post office, she might never have gotten published.
The Macneill family operated the Cavendish Post Office for generations, from its opening in 1833 until it closed in 1913. The house with the kitchen still exists and remains intact today, including the old desk and scales from the Post Office.
In 1908, following the lead of the US,Canada introduced the Rural Free Delivery (RFD). It was a major milestone that allowed rural families to receive mail and newspapers directly to their farm. By 1912 the program expanded to eastern Canada.
Church membership may not have been required, but it was expected. Roman Catholics formed about 45% of the population, while Protestants claimed the majority. Montgomery also actively participated in church by singing in the choir and playing the organ at The Cavendish United Church from 1903 – 1911. The organ she donated and played remains on display. Ewan Macdonald, Montgomery’s future husband, also served as pastor at The Cavendish United Church from 1903–1906.
The Long River Church where Montgomery attended on occasion when visiting relatives in Park Corner, was moved and currently resides at the tourist attraction Avonlea Village – Avonlea Village.
Schools
The Avonlea School, from the Sullivan Series, Road To Avonlea
The “Free Schools Act” of 1852 put education within reach of almost every child in the colony. Schools were one room buildings that held to an older system where students progressed through a series of ‘readers’, instead of grades. Most rural students did not stay past age 14, and left to help with farm work. Others. like L.M. Montgomery, went on to become teachers and qualified by studying at the Prince of Wales College (the “Queen’s College” of Anne of Green Gables), the publicly funded college in the provincial capital of Charlottetown.
The Cavendish school that L.M. Montgomery attended was first located just south of the Cavendish Community Cemetery, then moved to the Montgomery Park. It has since been removed. The one-room schoolhouse in which Montgomery taught for a year in Belmont (1896–97) was restored and moved to the tourist attraction Avonlea Village – Avonlea Village.
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