Lucille H. Campey - An Unstoppable Force: The Scottish Exodus to Canada

The Scottish Exodus to Canada

Lucille H. Campey

Copyright 2008 Lucille H. Campey

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Published by Natural Heritage Books
A Member of The Dundurn Group
3 Church Street, Suite 500
Toronto, Ontario, M5E 1M2, Canada
www.dundurn.com

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Campey, Lucille H

An unstoppable force : the Scottish exodus to Canada / Lucille H. Campey.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-55002-811-9

1. Scotland--Emigration and immigration--History. 2. Canada--Emigration and immigration--History. 3. Scots--Canada--History. I. Title.

FC106.S3C285 2008 971.004'91630903 C2008-900385-3

Front cover: A Coronach in the Backwoods, oil painting by George W. Simson (17911862) dated 1859. Courtesy of National Museums of Scotland 000-000-574-758-0.

Back cover: Curling on the Lakes, near Halifax, Nova Scotia, by Lawrence Henry Buckton (active 186668) Photogravure published c. 1867 by Thomas McLean. Courtesy of Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1970-188-2074, W.H. Coverdale Collection of Canadiana.

Cover design by Erin Mallory
Text design by Heidy Lawrance, WeMakeBooks.ca
Edited by Jane Gibson
Printed by Transcontinental

Printed and bound in Canada

Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.
J. Kirk Howard, President

We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books and the Government of Canada through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit Program and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

To Geoff

Also by Lucille H. Campey

A Very Fine Class of Immigrants:
Prince Edward Islands Scottish Pioneers, 17701850

Fast Sailing and Copper-Bottomed:
Aberdeen Sailing Ships and the Emigrant Scots
They Carried to Canada, 17741855

The Silver Chief:
Lord Selkirk and the Scottish Pioneers of Belfast,
Baldoon and Red River

After the Hector:
The Scottish Pioneers of Nova Scotia and Cape Breton, 17731852

The Scottish Pioneers of Upper Canada,
17841855: Glengarry and Beyond

Les cossais:
The Scottish Pioneers of Lower Canada, 17631855

With Axe and Bible:
The Scottish Pioneers of New Brunswick, 17841874

All published by Natural Heritage Books,
A Member of The Dundurn Group, Toronto

Lucille Campey has her own Web site: www.scotstocanada.com

I AM INDEBTED TO MANY PEOPLE. I wish first of all to thank Mrs Betty R.L. Rhind (ne Brown) of Montreal, for her generous permission to use John Rhinds superb account of the Jane Boyds crossing from Aberdeen to Montreal in 1854. I am also extremely grateful to Gail Dever for bringing John Rhinds diary to my attention. I also thank Andrew Laing of Peterborough, Ontario, for sending me his mothers copy of yet another splendid ships diary. This one, produced by John Hart, describes the Carletons crossing from Glasgow to Quebec in 1842. I am also very grateful to Claire Banton of Library and Archives Canada and Tim Sanford of the Archives of Ontario for their help during my recent visits.

Thanks are due particularly to the staff members at the National Archives of Canada for their help in obtaining manuscript and published sources, as well as in locating material for illustrations. As ever I thank staff members at the National Library of Scotland and the National Archives of Scotland for their assistance. I also wish to thank the staff at the Toronto Reference Library and the Aberdeen University Library for kind help on my various visits.

I am very grateful, as well, to the people who have helped me to obtain illustrations. I thank Margaret Wilson of the National Museums of Scotland for her help in obtaining the right to reproduce the magnificent A Coronach in the Backwoods painting, on the front cover of this book. I thank Pam Williams of the Central Library, Birmingham, England, Mike Craig of the University of Aberdeen, and Wanda Lyons of the Public Archives of New Brunswick for their help in locating illustrations. I also thank Jill MacMicken Wilson of the Public Archives and Records Office of Prince Edward Island and Deborah Holder of the Archives of Ontario for their assistance in resolving copyright issues. I am also very grateful to the Most Reverend Vernon Fougere, bishop of Charlottetown, for his permission to reproduce a portrait of Bishop Angus MacEachern.

I would also like to acknowledge the part played by my own family roots. My great-great-grandfather William Thomson left Drainie (Lossiemouth area) in Morayshire in the early 1800s and, but for a last-minute change, would have settled in Prince Edward Island. Instead he and his family went to Digby, Nova Scotia, and later to Antigonish, where he established Maple Grove Farm at West River. I mention him because my search for him in Scotland and Nova Scotia inspired my interest in early Scottish emigration and greatly influenced my approach to the subject.

As ever I am indebted to Jane Gibson for her painstaking work during the editing phase and much-appreciated encouragement and support. I wish also to thank my friend Jean Lucas for reading the original manuscript and providing me with such helpful comments. Most of all I thank my husband, Geoff, for cheering me on while giving me so much practical help. He has produced all of the tables, figures, and appendices, located or produced the illustrations, and carried out background research. I rely on Geoff more than words can say.

I HAD TWO OBJECTIVES IN WRITING THIS book. Having previously studied Scottish emigration from a provincial perspective, I was aware of the many positive factors that drew emigrant Scots to particular provinces in Canada. My first objective in the current book has been to build on these regional studies and assess the overall impact of Canadas enormous pulling power in directing emigrant streams from Scotland. I have therefore examined the progress of Scottish colonization across Canada, in the context of both the factors that caused people to leave Scotland and the factors in Canada that attracted them. My second objective, which I develop in later chapters of the book, has been to challenge the popular misconception that this emigration was driven principally by dire happenings in Scotland.

The exodus of people from Scotland to Canada continues to be enveloped in a great deal of negative imagery, much of it undeserved. This seems especially strange given the enormous success that Scots achieved in Canada, not just as pioneer farmers but in every field of endeavour. However, for people who mourn their loss to Scotland, the happy ending is irrelevant. The doleful scene on the front cover of this book typifies the sadness that is easily engendered by the subject. Why did people tear themselves away from their loved ones in Scotland and endure the discomforts and expense of a sea crossing just to come to a gloomy wilderness like this? But of course this artists interpretation is intended to arouse sympathy. There is another side to pioneer life that is not shown. Scots began with wildernesses but ended up as prosperous farmers. The happy curling scene that is depicted on the back cover of this book more accurately reflects the outcome of this emigration saga.