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Lucy Maud Montgomery in Leaskdale L.M. Montgomery came as the bride of Ewan macdonald, the minister of St. Paul’s Presbyterian Church, Leaskdale, in 1911. She was already famous, having published "Anne of Green Gables" three years before. The village was agog, and welcomed her with enthusiasm. But she was always homesick for her beloved Prince Edward Island. The Leaskdale Church was only 5 years old when she came, a small country church, but well designed and built, with beautiful stained glass windows, and polished pews.
  Ewan’s congregation had two sections, Leaskdale and Zephyr. She describes the Leaskdale congregation as being "all quite nice, being for the most part well-to-do farmers". Of the manse she writes in her journal:
"The manse is quite prettily situated. It is not an ideal house by any means, but it will do, and it is certainly much more comfortable and convenient than my old home. It is built of white brick in the ugly 'L' design so common among country houses. My greatest disappointment in connection with it is that it has no bathroom or toilet. I had hoped that I might have a home with these at least. But what is to be will be! It is Allah! We must submit!" September 27, 1913 [after a visit to Cavendish, P.E.I]
Up to the very moment of getting here I was not reconciled to coming back. The drive from Uxbridge home depressed me... The air seemed dull and languid after the tang of the gulf breezes. But when our gate shut behind us it vanished. I was suddenly glad to be back - to be home! Glad to see again my garden, grown out of all recognition in my absence, glad to see my flowers, gray Daffy, my books and pictures, my own comfortable room. My house looked pretty nice to me. I saw it with a stranger’s eye after my absence and when my impression of it was not blurred by familiarity, I liked it! Yes, it was good to be home again among all my own household gods.
 Maud and Ewan’s sons, Chester and Stuart, were born in Leaskdale, in the upstairs master bedroom. Another son, Hugh, was stillborn, and is buried in the cemetery south of Leaskdale.
 While living in the village of Leaskdale, Montgomery wrote eleven of her twenty-two novels. Thursday, October 5, 1916
"Today I finished Anne’s House of Dreams. I never wrote a book in so short a time and amid so much strain of mind and body. Yet I rather enjoyed it and I think it isn’t too bad a piece of work. I am glad it is done however. It has taken a lot out of me." While they lived in Leaskdale, Ewan Macdonald began to show symptoms of what was known as religious melancholia. He experienced severe headaches. "... for the most part he sat or lay in gloomy silence. He was so utterly unlike himself that he seemed to me like a stranger. He never took the slightest notice of the children and seemed to have absolutely no interest in them or anything..."
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