SUMMERSIDE

town, seat (1876) of Prince county, on the southern coast of Prince Edward Island, Canada. The town lies along Bedeque Bay and Northumberland Strait, 38 miles (61 km) west of Charlottetown. Settled in 1780 as Green's Shore by Daniel Green (a Quaker Loyalist from Pennsylvania, U.S.), it was renamed for an inn, Summerside House, established there in 1840 by Joseph Green, the youngest son of the founder. Now a fishing port and summer resort, the town is the centre of a silver fox- and mink-farming region and of the Malpeque Bay oyster industry. The town's Acadian Museum has early 19th-century farm implements. Nearby is an airport. Inc. 1877. Pop. (1991) town, 7,474; metropolitan area, 15,237.