Alberton is a Canadian town located in Prince County, Prince Edward Island. It is situated in the western part of the county in the township of Lot 5.
Alberton is a service centre for local fishing and farming communities, and is adjacent to the community and harbour of Northport.
History
The area was long settled by the Mi'kmaq Nation. Europeans first ventured to the area in 1534 when French explorer Jacques Cartier recorded making landfall at nearby Cape Kildare during his journey of discovery in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and St. Lawrence River. Acadians settled on the island in small numbers through the 17th and 18th centuries but only moved in greater numbers to the western part of Ile-Saint-Jean and specifically north of present-day Alberton to the Tignish area following their expulsion by British military forces in the late 1750s.
Following British victory over France, the island's sovereignty passed to Britain in 1763. In 1765, Captain Samuel Holland surveyed the island and the British government instituted a feudal system of land ownership. The township of Lot 5, which contains present-day Alberton, was granted to Edward Lewis, a British Member of Parliament in the 1767 land lottery.
Northport, located near present-day Alberton began to be settled in the 1780s after Lewis made plans for a small trading town called "Lewis Town". Located at Bury Head in Northport, it was established in June 1788 and was first populated by local Acadians who had escaped expulsion three decades before British settlements. Scottish and Devonshire settlers were brought in by Lewis to settle his township.
A local shipbuilding industry and lumber trade at Northport brought prosperity to the area throughout the 1800s, although this went into decline as more forested areas were lost to agriculture, on account of the excellent soils in the area.
Alberton started to take shape in the 1840s and underwent several name changes including Cross Roads, The Cross, and Stump Town. The nearby shipbuilding, lumber and shipping industries had resulted in developing a sustainable community which was a major trade centre in western Prince County. In 1862, it was named in honour of Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales, who later became King Edward VII and who had visited Prince Edward Island in 1860. The community was named Alberton on 27 June 1862.
Railways and other constructions
In 1872, the Prince Edward Island Railway was constructed, making the port at Northport, adjacent to Alberton, its western terminus. It connected Alberton with communities to the east such as O'Leary, Summerside, Charlottetown, Georgetown and Souris.
The western terminus was subsequently extended further from Alberton to Tignish in a sharp diversion just east of the Alberton passenger station, where a wye was constructed and a small railway yard, leading to the spur to Northport. Alberton went into its own terminus during this period, with various mills, manufacturing businesses, stores and services. The community became a village in 1878, and became home to a court house and justice centre for western Prince County that year.
Alberton became the centre of the worldwide silver fox industry when Charles Dalton and Robert Oulton began farming the fur-bearing animals on an island in the harbour at Northport in 1894, bringing tremendous prosperity to area residents and business owners. Despite a fire that devastated part of the town the following year, Alberton quickly reflected its growing economic importance of the village. The railway constructed a new passenger station designed by architect Charles Benjamin Chappell for Alberton in the early 1900s entirely out of stone, one of only two such stations on the island (the other being in Kensington).
The fox farming industry brought increased growth in the population and tax base for the community, which resulted in an upgrade from village status, becoming an incorporated town in May 1913. Silver fox farming remained profitable through the 1940s. Many distinctive houses in the community are a reminder of the fortunes that were made during this period.
The Western Hospital was constructed in 1945 and was the first hospital built west of Summerside. The public library opened in 1951, followed by the federal government building in 1962 and the Jacques Cartier Arena and a community museum in 1964. The original Maplewood Manor nursing home operated from 1967 to 2011, and was replaced by the new Maplewood Manor nursing home, in the autumn of 2011.