Our History

The Anne of Green Gables Museum, located in peaceful Park Corner, is the fulfillment of James Campbell’s dream of opening a museum dedicated to the author Lucy Maud Montgomery (best known for her worldwide classic Anne of Green Gables), whom he affectionately called Aunt Maud (even though she was actually his cousin).  Ruth Campbell fulfilled her husband’s wish of opening the museum, and now her son, George Campbell, and his family keep his father’s (James Campbell) dream alive, still owning and operating the Museum in the home he grew up in.  The home was built in 1872, but the first Campbell family settled on the property in 1776, and it is still in the Campbell family after over 240 years.  On this historic 110-acre property you will find not only the family home turned museum, but also beautiful flower gardens, a gift shop with the finest licensed Anne of Green Gables products available, the Lake of Shining Waters, Matthew’s Carriage Rides, a playground for the children, and some of the most beautiful scenery on Prince Edward Island in any season you visit it.  Yes, it’s even open in the winter (by reservation), for those who prefer the quieter, snowier time of year.
​
The Campbell family home was built in 1872 by her Uncle John and Aunt Annie Campbell (her mother’s sister).  Lucy Maud Montgomery dearly loved this home and called it “the wonder castle of my childhood”.  She wrote in her journal "I have always liked its arrangement better than that of any other house I have ever known.  I only wish I could have a house of my own like it and I would be satisfied."  Come to know the olden gladness, beauty, and welcome that filled L. M. Montgomery’s heart when she visited her Campbell family here throughout the years until her death in 1942. 
 
Be welcomed into the family home through the kitchen, just like L. M. Montgomery would have been when she came to visit.  See the still functioning wood stove that family meals would have been cooked on and the actual Blue Chest from the Story Girl (her favourite book to write because it was all based on true stories).   Enter the parlour where L. M. Montgomery chose to be married in front of the fireplace in her beloved Aunt Annie Campbell’s home on July 5, 1911.   The same organ and furnishings that were used at the time of L. M. Montgomery’s wedding are still in the parlour and can be used today when couples from around the world come to the Campbell family home to be married.  See your own hazy reflection in the enchanted bookcase, and perhaps for a moment imagine it isn’t your reflection but an imaginary friend smiling back at you, like Anne would so often do in Anne of Green Gables.  Throughout the house are many photographs that L. M. Montgomery not only took, but also developed by hand, allowing you to see the world through the eyes of the author loved around the world.  Upstairs, you can visit the author’s “own little bedroom” she stayed in when she came to visit, a collection of her books she signed to her family (some with a little cat drawn by them, for she loved cats), and her crazy patchwork quilt.  She worked on the quilt for five years, from the ages of 12 to 16, and got scraps for it everywhere she could, from old boxes and drawers, to bits of trimming from any new dresses or hats of her friends, to pieces from her mother’s and aunts’ dresses, and even occasionally a package of pieces cut from remnants from an American silk firm (leading to much imagining by the author and her friends of what dresses they would have made from those fine, expensive fabrics if they could).  The result was a quilt “compact of old memories”, even though it was out of fashion by the time she was finished, so it was thankfully stored away instead of being used, and is thus wonderfully intact.