The Bedeque area is among the oldest places of habitation on Prince Edward Island. The Mi’kmaq gathered clams, quahogs, oysters, fish and lobster from the abundant waters of the Bedeque Bay long before the first white settlers arrived in 1752. These early Acadian pioneers, evicted from Nova Scotia, remained only six years. In 1758 the Island of St. John was surrendered by the French to the British, and the Acadians were again dispossessed. 

In July, 1784, a group of Loyalist refugees from the newly independent thirteen US Colonies arrived and were given leases with the option to purchase land. The Stephen Wright family of Westchester, New York, was among these refugees. The Wright family was allotted 500 acres in the area and began to create a new life. The Wright family established a grist mill on the banks of the Dunk River and established the Island’s first wool carding mill. "Maplethorpe" was built in the 1860's by Major Wright, a third generation son of the Wright family. Maplethorpe was a properly imposing home, indicative of the owner's status as a prominent businessman, postmaster and Justice of the Peace. The Maplethorpe property was also the site of a mercantile business operated by Major Wright and his cousin, Charles C. Gardiner, under the name of Wright and Gardiner, General Dealers.