Elliott, Bruce, 2004-2005: Emigrant Recruitment by the New Brunswick Land Company: The Pioneer Settlers of Stanley and Harvey.

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The Skye Settlers

The year that saw the arrival of the Wooler party also saw the arrival of a larger party of Gaelic-speaking Scots, some from Arisaig and Glengarry, but mostly from the Isle of Skye.⁽⁶⁴⁾  While Company Commissioner Kendall had begun recruitment in Northumberland in February 1836,⁽⁶⁵⁾ and the Berwick party had left for New Brunswick early in May, Company agent Norman R. Nicholson commenced recruitment in Skye only in July.⁽⁶⁶⁾  The party did not sail from Greenock until 1 September and arrived at Saint John aboard the Royal Adelaide only on 14 October, tragically late in the season.⁽⁶⁷⁾  Within two weeks temperatures had plunged to 7 to 10 degrees below freezing, and snow had begun to fall.⁽⁶⁸⁾  The houses that had been promised were unfinished, and the early start to winter made it impossible to complete the chimneys that season.

 

The Scots protested that the houses prepared for them were inadequate for the ensuing winter.   The English immigrants reported with horror the deaths of many of the Scots as 41 of that party succumbed to cold.⁽⁶⁹⁾  The problem was compounded when the Scots refused offers of work, insisting that they were to be maintained at Company expense.   They also claimed they had been misled into thinking their passages were free.

 

Table 3   Signers of petition of the Scottish settlers at Stanley, 1838

Sequence	Name	mark
21	Campbell William	x
2	Ferguson John
23	Gillis John	x
16	Hossack Donald
29	Matheson John	x
28	Matheson Rory	x
12	McCuaig Rory	x
10	McDonal Hugh
32	Macdonald Austin
13	McDonald Widow	x
6	McDonald Allan	x
19	McDonell Angus	x
4	McDonell Ranald	x
5	McDougald Archibald
15	McDougall Donald	x
9	McDougall Duncan	x
25	McGillivray Charles
Sequence	Name	mark
17	McGillivray Donald Sen r	x
33	McGillivray Donald Jun r
30	McKenzie Kenneth	x
1	MacKinnon James
11	McKinnon Martin	x
20	McLeod Alexander
27	MacLennan James
14	McLennan John
31	McMillan Donald	x
26	MacPherson Murdoch
24	McPherson Niel
3	MacPhie Donald
22	McRae Donald	x
7	Smith Ranald	x
18	Stewart John	x
8	Urquhart Alex'r
Witness	Urquhart John

Source :   PANB, RS24 1838/pe file 4, #77, January 1838
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(64) In 1835 the Company paid £30 "travelling expenses to Scotland" for Andrew Duncan (the agent at Campbell?); it is not known whether this trip had any connection with the emigration from Skye and Glengarry the following year.   CIHM N.8808, 26.

 

(65) C.O. 188/57, f. 58, reel B-12.

 

(66) PANB, House of Assembly Sessional Papers, RS24 1838/pe file 4, no. 77, petition of James MacKinnon and 32 other Scottish immigrants.

 

(67) The party traveled on to Fredericton aboard the steamboat Novelly .   New Brunswick Courier, 15 October 1836, p. 2, col. 3; 22 October 1836, p. 2, col. 2.

 

(68) City Gazette, 27 October 1836, p. 2, col. 5; Weekly Chronicle, 28 October 1836, p. 2, col. 6.

 

(69) PANB, RS24 1838/pe file 4, no. 77; RS24 1838/re file 1; C.O. 188/60, ff. 142-4, petition of John McLennan and ten other Scottish immigrants.