Adventurers And Exiles_The Great Scottish Exodus

by Marjory Harper

  5. Ibid., 88—222, Isabella Ritchie Henderson diary, 28 July 1863.

  6. Aberdeen Journal, 21 January 1835.

  7. Ibid., 17 November 1852.

  8. Aberdeen Herald, 16 June 1855; Aberdeen Journal, 18 June 1856.

  9. NLA, MS 596, diary of William Shennan, 1870, typed transcription by Mrs M. R. Shennan, 1987.

  10. Illustrated London News, 6 July 1850, p. 21.

  11. Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal, vol. I, n.s., no. 15 (13 April 1844), p. 229; vol. XV, no. 388 (7 June 1851), p. 360.

  12. E. C. Guillet, The Great Migration: The Atlantic Crossing by Sailing Ship since 1770 (Toronto, 1963).

  13. Thomas Fowler, The Journal of a Tour through British North America to the Falls of Niagara (Aberdeen, 1832).

  14. Counsel for Emigrants, p. 70.

  15. Chambers’ Edinburgh Journal, vol. 8, no. 406 (9 November 1839), p. 334.

  16. Counsel for Emigrants, p. 59.

  17. Robert MacDougall, The Emigrant’s Guide to North America, translated and edited by Elizabeth Thomson (Toronto, 1998), pp. 14—15.

  18. Counsel for Emigrants, p. 57.

  19. Aberdeen Journal, 9 August 1854; Andrew Picken, The Canadas, as they at present commend themselves to the enterprise of emigrants, colonists and capitalists (London, 1832); W. H. Smith, Canada; past, present and future (Toronto, 1851), vol. II, p. 541.

  20. F. S. Buchanan, ‘The Emigration of Scottish Mormons to Utah, 1849—1900’ (MSc thesis, University of Utah, 1961), pp. 82—3, from Matthew Rowan, Journal, p. 55.

  21. John Ronaldson to Eliza Ronaldson, 21 May 1852, quoted in Dallas L. Jones, ‘The Background and Motives of Scottish Emigration to the United States of America in the period 1815—1861’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Edinburgh, 1970), p. 142. See also p. 308.

  22. NLNZ, ATL, qMS-0131, Jane Bannerman (née Burns), retrospective account of a voyage from Scotland to Otago in 1847.

  23. Ibid., MS Papers 4275, Agnes MacGregor diary, 26 July 1881.

  24. John Mann, Travels in North America, particularly in the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada and New Brunswick, and in the States of Maine, Massachusets [sic] and New York (Glasgow, 1824), pp. 1—2.

  25. Fowler, The Journal of a Tour …, p. 13.

  26. NLNZ, ATL, Jessie Campbell diary, 31 August 1840.

  27. NLA, MS 685, diary of John Mackenzie, 23 September 1841.

  28. William Wallace, My Dear Maggie: Letters from a Western Manitoba Pioneer, edited by Kenneth S. Coates and William R. Morrison (Regina, Sask.,1991); The Countess of Aberdeen, Through Canada with a Kodak, new edition, introduction by Marjory Harper (Toronto, 1994), pp. xxxvi—xxxvii, 3.

  29. NLNZ, ATL, Isabella Ritchie Henderson diary, 19 July 1863.

  30. PP 1854 (296), LX, Report on the wreck of the Emigrant Ship Annie Jane and alleged grievances of the Emigrant passengers on board; with appendices. See also Bob Charnley, Shipwrecked on Vatersay! (Portree, 1992).

  31. NLA, MS 1412, Rev. Mr Tait diary, 1837.

  32. NLNZ, ATL, Jessie Campbell diary, 12 September 1840.

  33. NLNZ, ATL, MS Papers 2534, diary of a passage from Glasgow to Otago by John Anderson, steerage passenger.

  34. William Gordon Tulloch, ‘John Scott Tulloch — an Early Emigrant to New Zealand’, New Shetlander, no. 165 (Hairst 1988), pp. 6—8; NLNZ, ATL, Isabella Ritchie Henderson diary; ibid., MS Papers 1678, Jane Findlayson diary, typescript.

  35. Wellington County Museum, Fergus, Ontario, Journal of Robert Cromar, MU 8 975. 82.1.

  36. Diary of Mrs D. Bonthrow, Wed., 29 July; Sabbath, 30 August 1863. Typed transcription, given to author by Len Gray of Auckland in 1997.

  37. NAC, MG 24 I 193.

  38. NLA, MS 685, John Mackenzie diary, 8 November 1841.

  39. NLNZ, ATL, Isabella Ritchie Henderson diary, 8 October 1863.

  40. NLNZ, ATL, Jessie Campbell diary.

  41. Ibid., 30 August 1840.

  42. Ibid., 5 and 10 September, 7 November 1840.

  43. NLNZ, ATL, Isabella Ritchie Henderson diary, 31 July 1863.

  44. NLNZ, ATL, Jessie Campbell diary, 6 September 1840.

  45. Ibid., 29 October 1840.

  46. NLNZ, ATL, John Anderson diary, 13 August 1862.

  47. Stevenson, From Scotland to Silverado, pp. 6, 23, 52.

  48. NLNZ, ATL, Jessie Campbell diary, 15 December 1840.

  49. Ibid., 6 September 1840.

  50. NLNZ, ATL, Isabella Ritchie Henderson diary, 2 August 1863.

  51. NLNZ, ATL, Jane Findlayson diary, 8 October 1876.

  52. Alexander Muir, From Aberdeen to Ottawa in 1845: The Diary of Alexander Muir, edited by George A. Mackenzie (Aberdeen, 1990), p. 3.

  53. NLA, Rev. Mr Tait diary, 1 September 1837.

  54. NLNZ, ATL, John Anderson diary, 30 July 1862.

  55. NLNZ, ATL, Jane Findlayson diary, 4 October 1876.

  56. NLA, William Shennan diary, 15 February 1870.

  57. NLA, MS 2117, Rev. William Hamilton diary, 1 and 12 May, 1, 2 and 13 June 1837; MS 1412, Rev. Mr Tait diary, 1837.

  58. NLA, MS 2717, ‘Log kept on board the North Briton from Leith to Sidney [sic] 1838 by John Sceales, late of Gardner Crescent, Edinburgh’.

  59. NLNZ, ATL, Jessie Campbell diary, 27 August, 12 September, 21 November, 31 December 1840.

  60. AUA, MS 2884/1/5/2, 2 September 1855, John Chalmers to his parents.

  61. NLNZ, ATL, Jessie Campbell diary, 3 September 1840.

  62. NLNZ, ATL, Jane Findlayson diary, 12 November 1876.

  63. NLNZ, ATL, John Anderson diary, 18 August 1862.

  64. NLNZ, ATL, Isabella Ritchie Henderson diary, 1 and 6 August 1863.

  65. NLA, William Shennan diary, 21 and 31 March, 19 April 1870.

  66. NLA, John Mackenzie diary, 30 November 1841.

  67. NLNZ, ATL, MS Papers 3427, Dr G. Todd letter; Jessie Campbell diary, 27 December 1840.

  68. NLNZ, ATL, MS Papers 3609, William Smith diary, 12 August 1862.

  69. Lord Durham’s Report on the Affairs of British North America, edited by C. P. Lucas, 3 vols, (Oxford, 1912), vol. II, pp. 243—4.

  70. Susanna Moodie, Roughing it in the Bush, or Forest Life in Canada (London, 1852), edited by Carl Ballstadt (Ottawa, 1988), p. 46.

  71. NLNZ, ATL, John Anderson diary, 24 September 1862.

  72. Moodie, Roughing it in the Bush, pp. 83—4.

  73. Stevenson, From Scotland to Silverado, p. 86.

  74. Ibid., pp. 100, 120.

  75. George Sangster of Belhelvie, Aberdeenshire, manuscript diary (photocopy), given to the author by Mr Sangster’s family.

  76. NLA, William Hamilton diary; ibid., John Sceales diary; NLNZ, ATL, Dr G. Todd letter; ibid., Jane Bannerman diary; ibid., William Smith diary, 12, 13, 15 and 16 August 1862.

  Chapter 7: The Emigrant Experience

  1. Aberdeen Evening Gazette, 30 May 1913, Maggie Masson to Isabella Stewart.

  2. Wellington County Museum, Fergus, Ontario, MU 33 A 981. 26, Watt/Argo Family Papers, 1836—44, 4 October 1836, Margaret Argo Duthie, Tarves, Aberdeenshire, to Barbara Argo Watt, Bon Accord, Upper Canada.

  3. Wellington County Museum, Connon Collection, Elizabeth Connon to Thomas Connon, 3 March 1853, 1 January 1855, 26 November 1856.

  4. Aberdeen Journal, 12 May 1852.

  5. Saskatchewan Archives Board, S-A83; William Gibson Papers, Ayrshire Post, 1884—92.

  6. AUA, MS 3184, McBean correspondence: John McBean to Margaret McBean, 10 March 1903; John McBean to Andrew McBean, 7 April 1905. See also Marjory Harper, Emigration from North East Scotland, vol. 2, Beyond the Broad Atlantic (Aberdeen, 1988), pp. 77—94.

  7. Lloyd Reynolds, The British Immigrant, His Social and Economic Adjustment in Canada (Oxford, 1935), p. 211; Charlotte Erickson, Invisible Immigrants: The Adaptation of English and Scottish Immigrants in Nineteenth-century America (Ithaca and London, 1972), pp. 5—6.

  8. Elgin Courier, quoted in Aberdeen Journal, 20 November 1833.

  9. John McEachrin, Shetl
and Times, 22 December 1873.

  10. Marjory Harper, ‘Probing the Pioneer Questionnaires: British Settlement in Saskatchewan, 1887—1914’, Saskatchewan History, vol. 52, no. 2 (Fall 2000), pp. 28—46.

  11. NAS, GD1/814/5/3, 10 December 1823, Mary and Arthur Stocks to John Colquon, c/o Betty Boyd, Well Meadow Street, Paisley.

  12. AUA, MS 2787/5/2/18/15 and 16, Robert Seton to Alexander Anderson Seton, 21 November 1831, 2 July 1832, 19 May 1833, 31 December 1838.

  13. NRA(S), North-East Survey, MS 2844, undated letter from William Webster to James Webster, Alehousehill, Aberdeenshire.

  14. James Thompson, For Friends at Home: A Scottish Emigrant’s Letters from Canada, California and the Cariboo, 1844—1864, edited by Richard A. Preston (Montreal and London, 1974), pp. 209—10, James Thomson to Alexander Thomson, 11 April 1854.

  15. AUA, MS 3470/8/274, Castle Fraser Papers, Michie and Mary Ewing, Township of Downie, to Colonel Charles Fraser, 14 March 1857. Thanks to Myrtle Anderson-Smith for drawing this reference to my attention.

  16. Inverness Journal, 2 October 1849.

  17. Ibid., 23 October 1849.

  18. NAS, GD403/27/2, Captain Donald McNeil to Captain William McNeil, June 1849. For details of Highland settlement in Cape Breton and the Eastern Townships of Quebec, see, respectively, Stephen J. Hornsby, Nineteenth Century Cape Breton: A Historical Geography (Montreal and Kingston, 1992) and J. I. Little, Crofters and Habitants: Settler Society, Economy and Culture in a QuebecTownship, 1848—1881 (Montreal and Kingston, 1991).

  19. Saskatchewan Archives Board, William Gibson Papers, ‘Further Experience of Farming Life in Manitoba’, 15 December 1887, p. 63.

  20. NAS, GD40/16/57, Lothian Muniments, Report on Killarney and Saltcoats.

  21. Saskatchewan Archives Questionnaire, no. 2, Pioneer Experiences: A General Questionnaire, x2/2 [hereafter SAQ] (1883), Q. 23, Norman McDonald.

  22. Wayne R. Norton, Help Us to a Better Land: Crofter Colonies in the Prairie West (Regina, 1994), p. xiii.

  23. SAQ (1889), QQ. 10—11, 13—15, 23—4, Archibald Angus Docherty.

  24. Ibid. (1882), Q. 10, John Laidlaw.

  25. Ibid. (1891), memorandum dated 17 April 1953 Peter Fraser; 1892, Q. 23, William Harkness; (1897), Q. 10, 21, 24, 33, James Davison Tulloch; (1904), QQ. 14, 22, George Bruce.

  26. Ibid. (1903), Q. 23, Andrew M. Veitch.

  27. Ibid. (1892), Q. 23, Robert Golder Wood.

  28. William Wallace, My Dear Maggie: Letters from a Western Manitoba Pioneer, edited by Kenneth S. Coates and William R. Morrison (Regina, Sask., 1991), pp. 20—22, letter dated 29 June 1881.

  29. Ibid., pp. 84 (26 June 1882), 81 (15 June 1882).

  30. Ibid., pp. 209 (18 March 1885).

  31. AUA, MS 3184, McBean correspondence. John McBean to Margaret McBean, 2 September 1902.

  32. Ibid., John McBean to Margaret McBean, 20 August 1902.

  33. Aberdeen Journal, 11 August 1903.

  34. NAS, GD16/35/68, Airlie muniments, James Robertson, Still Water Village, Easter County of Washington, to Patrick Kennedy, 17 January 1830.

  35. Shetland Times, 1 May 1875; Janette Stevenson Murray, ‘Lairds of North Tama’, Iowa Journal of History and Politics, vol. XL (1942), pp. 256—60.

  36. Aberdeen Daily Free Press, 3 January 1873.

  37. Ferenc M. Szasz, Scots in the North American West, 1790-1917 (Norman, Ok., 2000), pp. 83—4; James L. Forsythe, ‘George Grant of Victoria: Man and Myth’, Kansas History, vol. 9, no. 3 (Autumn 1986), pp. 102—14; Brian P. Birch, ‘Victoria Vanquished: The Scottish Press and the Failure of George Grant’s Colony’, ibid., pp. 115—25.

  38. Eric Richards, Alexia Howe, Ian Donnachie and Adrian Graves, That Land of Exiles: Scots in Australia, 1788—1914 (Edinburgh, 1988), p. 34; Margaret Kiddle, Men of Yesterday: A Social History of the Western District of Victoria, 1834—1890 (Melbourne, 1961), p. 469.

  39. NAS, GD403/36/1, Mackenzie Papers, Godfrey McKinnon to John McDonald, 18 March 1864.

  40. NAS, GD68/2/140/1, Lintrose Writs, D. S. Murray to Mrs Murray, Woodside Cottage, Couper [sic] Angus, 1 January 1839.

  41. Don Watson, Caledonia Australis: Scottish Highlanders on the Frontier of Australia (Sydney, 1984), pp. 166—7.

  42. NAS, GD21/482/1/86, Cunninghame of Thornton Papers, George Wrey to his aunt, 23 December 1877; GD21/482/1/119, Cunninghame of Thornton Papers, George Wrey to his aunt, n.d. [1878].

  43. Hans P. Rheinheimer, Topo: The Story of a Scottish Colony near Caracas, 1825—1827 (Edinburgh, 1988), pp. 60, 112, 115. See also Sir Robert Ker Porter, Caracas Diary: A British Diplomat in a Newborn Nation (Caracas, 1966).

  44. Iain A. D. Stewart (ed.), From Caledonia to the Pampas. Two Accounts by Early Scottish Emigrants to the Argentine (Phantassie, East Linton, 2000), p. 80.

  45. Annual Report of the Superintendent of Immigrants at East London, 21 March 1881, Cape Town Directory (1882), pp. 2, 383—7. See also University of Cape Town Library, Manuscripts and Archives, Laburn Collection, B 1038, A6, Gonubie Presbyterian Church Centenary Booklet (n.p., n.d.), pp. 24, 27—8.

  46. Alexander MacKenzie, The History of the Highland Clearances (Inverness, 1883), p. 313.

  47. Thompson, For Friends at Home, p. 45.

  48. Ibid., pp. 67—8, James Thompson to Helen Thompson, 3 November 1844.

  49. Ibid., 125, James Thompson to Alexander Thompson, 16 July 1849.

  50. Erickson, Invisible Immigrants, p. 243.

  51. NAS, GD50/186/125/3/3, James McCowan to James McGregor, July 1819.

  52. R. T. Berthoff, British Immigrants in Industrial America, 1790—1950 (Cambridge, Mass., 1952), pp. 39, 44, 46. See also pp. 104.5.

  53. David Laing to his sister, 19 February 1873, quoted in Erickson, Invisible Immigrants, p. 362.

  54. Ibid., p. 363, letter dated 8 June 1873.

  55. Ibid., p. 366, letter dated 13 July 1876.

  56. Shetland Archives, SC.12/6/1915, James Mouat Garriock to Mary Garriock, 9 June 1891. Thanks to Dr Brian Smith for this reference.

  57. Aberdeen Evening Gazette, 17 May 1886.

  58. Austin Daily Statesman, 11 August 1886. For further details on this incident, see Marjory Harper, ‘Emigrant Strikebreakers: Scottish Granite Cutters and the Texas Capitol Boycott’, Southwestern Historical Quarterly, vol. 95 (April 1992), pp. 465—86.

  59. The Stanstead Company dispute is discussed in Harper, Emigration from North East Scotland, vol. 2, pp. 163—5.

  60. Thompson, For Friends at Home, pp. 136, 141, 156, 166, 297, 303.

  61. NLS, Acc 6655, James M. Dodds to Mr and Mrs Jas. Dodds, Dunfermline, 18 March 1898, Dawson City, North West Territory, Alaska.

  62. NAS, GD139/455/2, Sutherland of Forse Muniments, Dr William Sutherland, Portland, Victoria, to his sisters, 11 April 1852.

  63. Inverness Advertiser, 20 June 1854, 11 July 1854, 29 June 1852.

  64. Tom Steel, The Life and Death of St Kilda (London, 1975), pp. 35—6.

  65. Janet Richardson, ‘Journal of our Voyage to Port Phillip’, in Philip L. Brown (ed.), The Clyde Company Papers, 7 vols. (London, 1941—56), vol. V, pp. 617—18. See also ibid., vol. II, pp. 241, 270—1; vol. III, p. 77; vol. V, p. 291; and Richards et al., That Land of Exiles, p. 92.

  66. Catharine Parr Traill, The Backwoods of Canada (Ottawa, 1997), pp. 64, 185—8, 194—5; Susanna Moodie, Roughing it in the Bush, or Forest Life in Canada, edited by Carl Ballstadt (Ottawa, 1988), pp. 83—4.

  67. Wallace, My Dear Maggie, pp. 121, 214—15, letters dated 2 March 1883, 24 April 1885.

  68. SAQ (1906), Margaret Smith, Jessie Mathieson Ross, Margaret Thomson McManus.

  69. Inverness Advertiser, 24 June 1851.

  70. Marjory Harper, Emigration from North East Scotland, vol. 1, Willing Exiles (Aberdeen, 1988), pp. 145—8.

  71. Aberdeen Ladies’ Union, Emigration Reports, 1886, 1889, 1896.

  72. The Canadian Journal of Lady Aberdeen, edited by J. T. Saywell (Toronto, 1960), pp. 15—16, entry dated 1 October 1893.

&
nbsp; 73. NAC, RG 76, C-10627, vol. 538, file 803839, part 2, Paton to the Canadian government emigration agent, Aberdeen, 14 January 1914.

  74. Harper, Emigration from North East Scotland, vol. 2, pp. 241—2.

  75. Stonehaven Journal, 13 March 1873.

  76. Aberdeen Evening Gazette, 30 May 1913.

  77. Inverness Journal, 20 June 1845.

  78. Aberdeen Journal, 30 October 1872.

  79. Wallace, My Dear Maggie, p. 53, letter dated 12 January 1882.

  Chapter 8: The Temporary Emigrant

  1. Thomas Hamilton, Men and Manners in America (Edinburgh, 1833), p. 125.

  2. OSA, vol. XVIII (Inverness, Ross and Cromarty), p. 96; ibid., vol. IX (Logie Pert), p. 51; ibid., vol. XII (Fetteresso), pp. 593, 594; ibid., vol. IV (Kells), p. 264.

  3. Douglas J. Hamilton, ‘Patronage and Profit: Scottish Networks in the British West Indies, c. 1763—1807’ (unpublished PhD thesis, University of Aberdeen, 1999), pp. 290—322; NAS, vol. V (Ayr), p. 81; ibid., vol. VII (Glenurchy), p. 102.

  4. Roderick A. McDonald (ed.), Between Slavery and Freedom. Special Magistrate John Anderson’s Journal of St. Vincent during the Apprenticeship (Philadelphia, 2001), pp. 66, 133, 142, 145, 183.

  5. Sir Arthur Sinclair, In Tropical Lands. Recent Travels to the Source of the Amazon, the West Indian Islands, and Ceylon (Aberdeen, 1895), p. 164.

  6. L. Mackintosh, Elgin Past & Present: A Guide and History (Elgin, 1891), pp. 26—8, 41; A. A. Cormack, More About the Founder of Fordyce Academy (Banff, 1957), pp. 2—4. For discussion of the employment of Scots in India in the eighteenth century, see Linda Colley, Britons: Forging the Nation, 1707—1837 (London, 1992), pp. 127—9.

  7. Sir Walter Scott, The Surgeon’s Daughter (Edinburgh, 1903), p. 226.

  8. John Galt, The Last of the Lairds (Edinburgh, 1976), p. 73.

  9. Ibid., pp. 25—6.

  10. AUA, MSS 2884, Letters and Papers of the Family of Alexander Wallace Chalmers.

  11. Ibid., MS 2884/1/5/3, John Chalmers [JC] to Alexander Wallace Chalmers [AWC], 6 January 1857.

  12. Marjory Harper, ‘The Challenges and Rewards of Databases: Two Decades of Aberdeen Students, 1860—c. 1880’, in J. J. Carter and D. J. Withrington (eds), The Scottish Universities System: Distinctiveness and Diversity (Edinburgh, 1992), pp. 147—55.

  13. AUA, MS 2284/1/3/1—2, no. 39, 20 May 1855.