In my November 11, 2008 post entitled 'From Lanarkshire to Lanark County', the emigration of the Gavins after 1841 was noted. However, two families in our ancestral lineage emigrated from Scotland about twenty years before the Gavins, and these families, the Machans and the Horns, inter-married with our Gavin ancestors.Excerpts from 'Scottish Emigration to the Ottawa Area, 1784-1826'by Allan W. Lewis, 2003 - click on the title to see the originalThe above-mentioned article compares two documents about Scottish emigration to Upper Canada which were written by different authors. The one document refers to a second wave of emigration, namely the immigrants who went to Lanark County, Ontario after 1815. The article is entitled "“The Politics of Emigration: Scotland and Assisted Emigration to Upper Canada, 1815-1826” and was written by Michael E. Vance. Below are excerpts referring to these Scottish settlers who went to Lanark County. The Horns and the Machans were among this group. The other article is “Peopling Glengarry County: The Scottish Origins of a Canadian Community” by Marianne McLean. I have included some description of the earlier Scots immigrants who went to Glengarry County because they were Gaelic-speaking highlanders. A number of years ago, I learned that Margaret Forbes Horn, Mrs. Robert Gavin was a Gaelic speaker. (More recently, I learned that there were Gaelic speakers among the family of Thomas Horn and Jane Gavin of PEI.) And I think there are some similarities to the earlier Highland settlers. Horns were involved in lumbering, as were Gavins, and all our ancestors were subsistence farmers in those early years.
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Lanark County Group-4,000 weavers and artisans, from Scottish Lowlands to Lanark Co. after 1815
- Financially assisted, organized by emigrant societies. Presbyterian and Anglican
-Reasons for Emigration - economic opportunity for politicized emigrants
Glengarry County Group-2,500 subsistence farmers from the Scottish Highlands to Glengarry County before 1815
-No financial assistance, organized by families, led by Highland patriarchs.
Catholic and Presbyterian
-Reasons for Emigration maintain traditional economic lifestyle and culture
"McLean’s goal is to identify the precise geographical origins and the context of the emigration of the
Glengarry settlers. Her research finds that they came from Inverness and the western islands of Scotland. Their lifestyle had been threatened as a result of the defeat of the Jacobites in 1745 and subsequent clearances of tenants from their traditional homesteads. Isolated and Gaelic-speaking, their social and economic structure still reflected the influence of a clan-based society with a minimum of English “civilizing”. Their society existed during a time of mercantilist philosophy -- a nation’s population was part of it’s capital stock and was an asset to be retained at home. Emigration was discouraged both at the central government level and by local leaders such as Lord Glengarry and the Earl of Breadalbane. However, small family-based groups of Highlanders sent representatives to Greenock and Glasgow to charter ships and they arranged to pick up emigrants from scattered highland ports.
"Vance emphasizes the political aspects of assisted emigrations after 1815. He describes the emigration of Scottish artisans from the industrial neighbourhood of Glasgow. This region had been profoundly affected by the depression which occurred at the end of the Napoleonic wars. Mostly weavers, these disgruntled urban Lowlanders became active in early labour politics and formed Emigrant Societies, as an extension of their craft guilds. Their home environment was more advanced than the Highlanders and exhibited strong effects of English culture, law and politics. This facilitated the creation of politically involved emigrant societies who interacted with the local gentry and members of parliament to influence emigration to Upper Canada. After 1815, the British government changed its attitude toward domestic population levels and, instead of discouraging emigration, tried to direct it towards places of strategic importance in the colonies. Earl Bathurst, the Secretary of State for the Colonies, was a proponent of settling Lanark County in Upper Canada under the aegis of the military and administrative centers at Perth and Lanark
Villages. The townships of the Bathurst District had already been surveyed and the settlers, in common with the Highlanders at Glengarry, would supply a ready and loyal militia presence in Upper Canada as well as furnish staple goods (particularly lumber) to the mother country in exchange for British manufactured goods.
"By 1815, the Glasgow and Edinburgh area was well served by roads and canals and the Clyde River ports became the central point of embarkation for emigrants. 1 The Navigation Acts had been used as a tool to control emigration. In 1803 the price of transatlantic fares was increased and higher on-board standards (e.g. medical supervision and improvements in passenger
rations) were implemented to deter emigration. These regulations were relaxed by 1820 when it became apparent that only the more desirable class of passengers, those possessing capital and initiative, would emigrate.
"Both authors have chosen the year 1815 as a demarcation point in their studies. Thecombination of the two articles provides a useful study of Scottish emigration to the two eastern Ontario communities - both a spatial and a temporal analysis. Vance remarks about the radical (reform) politics which occurred in the Lanark settlement during the 1830's, a continuation of the political protest of Scotland.
"Glengarry County is flat and fertile, ideally suited for the traditional Highland cattle farmers, supplemented by winter work in the logging industries across the Ottawa River in Lower Canada. Lanark County is hilly, rocky and contains many rivers and lakes. This area, building on the textile industry background of its settlers, became a center of Eastern Ontario’s textile industry.
The rivers allowed the construction of mills at Carleton Place, Lanark Village and Almonte. The Highlanders and Lowlanders were both able to continue their economic traditions in their new country. There were also political and religious differences between the two communities. The Lowland emigrants came from an environment of a well-developed English political and legal system. The earlier Glengarry Highlanders had far less exposure to English ways. There was less religious tension in the Glengarry settlement. The common Scottish heritage of the highland Catholics and Presbyterians, abetted by the friendly intercession of the Catholic Bishop Alexander MacDonnell, superceded religious differences to a large degree (although inter-denominational
marriage was rare). In contrast, the Lanark settlers were already highly politicized (Vance) on their arrival in Canada and settled close to many Irish and English Protestants. There were incidents of armed conflict with nearby Irish Catholics (the 1823 Peter Robinson settlers) as early as 1824.
"McLean emphasizes that the Glengarry immigrants were kinship-based, and a culturally homogeneous group. This is reflected in the retention of Highland traditions in Canada. Today, the Glengarry community has a much higher proportion of persons who speak Gaelic well, are Presbyterians, send their children to Scottish dance classes and participate in Highland Games. In
contrast, among the Lanark County descendants of the Lowlanders, there are almost no Gaelic speakers - their ancestors spoke English as their first language - and the Scottish tradition has become closely integrated with their Anglican and Methodist neighbours.
"The articles by Marianne McLean and Michael Vance provide well documented background allowing readers to better understand the different types of early Scottish emigration to the Ottawa area."
Authored by: Allan W. Lewis
September 2003
Map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Firthofclydemap.png
