Leaskdale Country Store

Leaskdale Country Store. A Community Centre for Over 125 Years. , Established in 1869 as a home site, it was then used as a hotel from 1879 to 1897. , Albert Cook expanded the building and opened the general store in 1898. , Herb Harrison was the proprietor from 1919 to 1949. The store was, and still is, the local post office. , Norman Archibald bought the store in 1949 and proceeded to expand the business. , Concession 7 (Durham Road 1) was paved in 1960. Mr. Archibald put in gas pumps. The store became a popular stopping place for cottage goers. The original store burned in the 1970s and was rebuilt in 1988. , From 1911 to 1926 Reverend Ewan Macdonald, husband of L.M. Montgomery, collected the mail every day, including the first editions of Montgomery's books as they arrived from the publisher. , During World War I, Montgomery was so anxious for news she walked to the store herself: , “Yesterday I again went for the mail and the headline was, ‘Even Berlin Admits the Offensive Checked’. I exclaimed aloud, ‘Oh thank God’, not caring if all the loafers in [the store] heard me.” , Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery Vol. 2 , Anson and Shirley Long owned the store from 1989 to 2003. The Longs valued the history of the store and its connection to Lucy Maud Montgomery. They helped with the move to have the manse designated a National Historic Site. , The famous author of Anne of Green Gables, L.M. Montgomery, moved to Leaskdale in 1911 as the bride of the Presbyterian minister, Ewan Macdonald. The couple and their two sons lived in the manse across the bridge south of the store. , Montgomery lived in Leaskdale until 1926. While here she wrote 11 of her 22 books:

Chronicles of Avonlea , The Golden Road , Anne of the Island , The Watchman and Other Poems , Anne's House of Dreams , Rainbow Valley , Further Chronicles of Avonlea , Rilla of Ingleside , Emily of New Moon , Emily Climbs , The Blue Castle

, , , , , , , , , , . “I went down to the Post Office in the forenoon and looked over to Mr. Leask's hayfields on my left. Wave after wave of sinuous glistening wind-shadows were going over it [...] I caught a glimpse of Eternal and Infinite Beauty which “Emily” called her “flash”. [...] Then I went into the Post Office and bought two cans of peas and a packet of Cream of Barley....” Selected Journals, [photo caption] , . Spring time floods from Sucker Creek spread across the road before the bridge was put in.