This is a series of snapshots showing St. Andrews in various forms of period dress – St. Andrews the Loyalist town, St. Andrews the shipping and ship-building town, St. Andrews the railroad town, St. Andrews the garrison town, St. Andrews the seat of County correction. It confines itself more or less the to the 18th and 19th centuries, with a peep or two into the early 20th. Its emphasis is always on St. Andrews the working town, as opposed to St. Andrews the tourist town, the town that was always there, and continued on after the summer visitors had left. As such, there are sections on the ice-cutting business, the turnip trade, the temperance movement, fires and the struggle to obtain a permanent water supply. Some exciting events are recorded, such as the Saxby Gale, the Fenian scare; some sobering, such as its three executions, and some just fun, such as arts and entertainment over the years and – appropriately for a book consisting mostly of snippets from the local newspapers - a portrait of the trials and tribulations of the country editor. There are sections on what was once a substantial black population; on the St. Andrews Poor House, and a look at the Passamaquoddy people as represented then by the venerable Chief John Nicholas. I've tossed in a few portraits of local individuals – Black Violet, a former slave; James Starkie, the last of the town's major shipwrights; Edward Bannister, an expatriate black painter who made a name for himself in Rhode Island; Bartholomeu O'Donohue, railway conductor; Andrew Sampson, centenarian, among the many worthies who could be mentioned. As much as anything, this book is a tribute to our local newspapers. Between 1818 and 1919 St. Andrews had seven, at times several running simultaneously. In his 1880 farewell to the St. Andrews Standard, which for a time was the longest running newspaper in the province, editor Adam Smith stated truly that "a perusal of its files would furnish a history of the County for the last fifty years." Add to this the Herald, Bay Pilot and Beacon, and we may extend the number to an even hundred. Without these noble vessels, the history of St. Andrews and Charlotte would be a much poorer thing.