From Lanarkshire to Lanark County

Click on the title for a 19th century map of the townships of
Lanark County, Ontario.

Lucille H. Campey's book entitled, The Scottish Pioneers
of Upper Canada, 1784-1855 (Natural Heritage Books,
2005) provides details of Scots immigration to Upper Canada,
and in particular, to the settlement of Lanark County which
attracted our Gavin ancestors several decades after the first
groups emigrated from Lanarkshire, Scotland.

"Thousands of people from the Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire
textile districts in Scotland were pouring into....(Lanark)
county. The introduction of power looms and the growing
influx of poorly paid migrant workers to the Clyde region
(of Scotland) had created catastrophic conditions for the
hand loom weavers. Having been faced with very low wage
rates or redundancy, many of them emigrated. Acting
collectively by forming themselves into emigration societies,
whole communities raised money to fund their resettlement
costs. Local businessmen and landowners made charitable
donations while the government provided some financial
assistance and free land in the Rideau Valley. Because of its
strategic defence location, this was the one region of Upper
Canada where the government was particularly anxious to
encourage loyal Scots. In all, nearly three thousand people
were assisted to emigrate in 1820 and 1821. Taking up land
in the four townships of Lanark, Dalhousie, North Sherbrooke
and Ramsay, they founded the so-called Lanark settlement
lying to the north of Perth." (p. 52)

Robert Gavin, according to the 1841 Scottish census, was born
in Ireland; however, his wife and young family were born in
Scotland. Perhaps Robert was among the Irish migrant
workers who came originally to Scotland to find work and
who inadvertantly lowered the wages for hand loom weavers.
The children of Robert and Sarah were born in a number of
small towns in Lanarkshire, south of Glasgow. One child,
according to family records, was born in Girvan, Ayreshire
(on the western coast opposite Ireland) which had a large
Irish population of weavers. However, the writing was on the
wall for hand loom weavers as technology outpaced their skills.

The first groups of settlers arrived in Lanark County
(Ontario) about twenty years before Robert and Sarah left
Scotland. Perhaps the Gavins had family who participated in
this first wave of settlement, or perhaps they were
encouraged by the feedback from the settlers who had gladly
given up their trade in Scotland to own their own land in
Upper Canada.

According to Campey's account, the weavers adjusted well to
farming life, even though there was very little fertile land in
the four townships mentioned above. Weavers continued to
petition the government in Scotland to emigrate to Canada.
And, "when the hand loom weaving districts in the
southwest......were hit by yet another severe economic
slump in the early 1840's, Lanark County experienced
a further influx of Scots" (pg 89).

"About three thousand members of the various Glasgow
Emigration Societies, which had suddenly sprouted to raise
funds for fares and provisioning, arrived in Quebec between
1841 and 1843" (p. 89). On the whole, they were very poor
and some arrived without funds for further transportation
and settlement costs. Some settlers from the earlier groups
of immigrants had moved onto western Ontario where
fertile land in the Huron Tract had become available. This
movement west may have made land available again in
Lanark County.

There are published lists of emigrants' names, but to date, I
have not found Robert and Sarah among these names. There-
fore, they may have made their own arrangements. It is
possible that because they did not live in the urban Glasgow
area, their financial situation was not as desperate as many
of the city weavers.

What they came to in Lanark County in the 1840's was a
predominantly Scots area. The Gavins might have had family
or acquaintenances there to help them adjust. Their
sixth daughter, Elizabeth, was born in Dalhousie Township
in early October, 1843.

In the next post we will look at the 1851 census for Dalhousie
Township which will provide some insight into how the
first decade progressed for them.