The Burial of Big Donald

Dec26

Big Donald MacDonald was born at East Earltown in 1859 on the farm which was settled by his grandparents in 1818. His grandparents were Donald MacDonald and Esther Sinclair, natives of Caithness. There is a strong tradition that Esther was the daughter of Sir James Sinclair, Earl of Caithness, who disapproved of Esther’s marriage to someone beneath her station. That is a story for another post.

Donald’s parents were Donald MacDonald and Betsy Matheson who also lived on the farm which straddled the county line on the road to West Branch. The rest of the family married and moved away leaving Donald to take over the homestead. By all accounts he was a big man which earned him another title – The Bear. Later in his relatively short life, he married Eliza MacKay of West Earltown. They had no family although Eliza had a child to a previous relationship.

Donald died in the heat of the summer in 1903. It was suspected that he died of a virus which caused some concern among the neighbours. The men of the area decided to bury him in the family plot at Gunn’s Cemetery in the dark of night. It was hoped the cool night air might prevent the spread of germs, not to mention the convenience of not having to interrupt their busy harvest season. Apparently the men smoked their pipes as an added precaution.

Finley Ross, the local blacksmith and a renowned wit, was present at the burial and penned the following poem, a parody of a well known poem “The Burial of Sir John Moore”. True to the Gaelic tradition, references were made to various nicknames, family feuds, and partisan politics. Offense was taken by some of the families mentioned so the poem went “underground” for many years. While interviewing some elderly people in the 1970’s, this writer was told on several occasions that we mustn’t talk of such things!!

Despite the morbid circumstances, the verses are a delightful reflection of the comical culture of the time.

The Burial of Big Donald

Not a note of solemn music was heard,

As his corpse to Clydesdale we hurried.

Not a Ross discharged a farewell shot

O’er the grave where our hero was buried.

We buried him darkly in the dead of night,

The sods with our hay forks turning.

By the struggling moonbeam’s misty light,

And Hughie Clinkie’s lantern dimly burning.

No beautiful coffin enclosed his breast.

In sheet and in shroud we wound him.

He lay like a warrior taking his rest

With Big Christy’s Cloak wrapped around him.

Few and short were the prayers Big Jim said.

The MacLeans spoke not a word of sorrow.

But we steadily gazed on the road ahead

And thought how we would sleep tomorrow.

We thought as we hollowed his narrow bed,

And smoothed down his lonely pillow,

That the foe and the stranger would walk on his bed

And the Spar far away on the billow.

The Grits will talk lightly of the spirit that’s gone

And o’er their black rum they’ll upbraid him.

But little they’ll reck if they let him sleep on

In the grave where the Bishop had laid him.

But half of our heavy task was done,

When Geoff Gunn gave the word for retiring.

We heard the distant and random lie

That Supp was solemnly telling.

Slowly and sadly we laid him down

Far from his fields of willow and carroway.

We carved not a line and we raised not a stone,

But left Big Donald alone in his glory.

Attributed to Finley G. Ross, (1872-1954)

Notes:

1. Big Christy : Christy MacKay, daughter of Big Jim and wife of Peter Gratto

2. The Spar : John Bain, West Branch

3. The Bishop: Peter Gratto, native of River John and later resident of East Earltown

4. Geoff Gunn: Dan Gunn who lived next to the cemetery

5. Supp : Big Jim Graham, another local story teller

6. The MacLeans: An extended family that lived on neighbouring farms across the line in Pictou County.

Sons of the Bear on Matheson Brook

Oct27

(The upland remains of Lettaidh with Ardachu in the distance)

An old Irish tribe named the MhicMathain, (Sons of the Bear), arrived in Scotland in the 9th century and made their base at Loch Alsh. There are fantastic legends of how a branch of the clan became established in Sutherland however the most plausible theory posits that they were planted in most of the parishes of the See by their kin, Bishop Alexander MacMhathan, around 1400. The main branch evolved along the shores of Loch Shin in the Parish of Lairg.

Another branch made their home between Lairg and Rogart on a remote upland above the River Leatty. The earliest recorded generation were three brothers who were born in the 1760’s, George, Angus and David. George, the eventual immigrant, served in the British army in the 1780’s and later. His notebook, still in existence, mentions sailing on the Clyde in 1785 and being in Appleby, England prior to that.

Recently an article has surfaced in Calgary written by John K. Sutherland of Hanna, Alberta, and originally of North Earltown. The article is written from the perspective of George’s military issue musket which was gifted to John K. when he left Earltown for the west. The story tells that George was also in the Napoleonic Wars along with a brother Alex, who was a piper, and a Matheson cousin. Their adventures took them to Portugal and then on to Spain where they were involved in several battles. They were then sent to Belgium and saw action in the Battle of Waterloo.

After his discharge, he returned to Rogart and rented a small farm on the Bratton of Leatty. His brother Angus lived nearby and David lived a couple of miles east in Morness.

George married Elspeth MacPherson. Between 1789 and 1808 they had eight children born on the Bratton. Family tradition always claimed that they emigrated 1814. However correspondence in the Sutherland Estate papers indicate that George accepted an offer from the estate in late 1819 permitting him to remain on his lease until the following year provided he then leave without causing trouble. George is the first tenant listed indicating he was singled out to lead the opinion of others. Not all the neighbours accepted these terms. It now appears that George arrived in Earltown in 1820 along with various tenants from Strathbrora who had negotiated similar terms of removal with the estate.

Years later we would learn why 1814 was burned in our tribal memory. David Craig, in his book, “On the Crofters’ Trail“, shares a memoir of a lady who was living as a child in Inchcape, near Lettaidh, in 1814:

She remembered being woken by her mother and taken to the window, and she looked out into the darkness and saw a red glow in the hills opposite. She asked what it was, and her mother said in a grim voice, “They are putting fire to Lettaidh. The people have been put out.” The child was frightened, naturally enough, since they had relatives in Lettaidh themselves, but she was reassured when told it would not happen to her house, since all the men were still there. All the men from Lettaidh had been recruited, by the Sutherland Estate factors, to go to fight in the Napoleonic wars, and then the factors seized the chance to evict the women and children without fear of resistance.

As the widespread clearance did not happen until the 1819-1820 period, it is hard to say what this lady witnessed. There were undoubtedly men away in the Napoleonic wars in 1814. It may have been an isolated situation in which a family or families were removed for other reasons.

One tradition claims that when George and his family came to Pictou, they sought out former neighbours and relatives in West Pictou. They located Donald MacIntosh, a former resident of Leattaidh, who by this time was established as one of the first settlers at Clydesdale. George “squatted” on land close to MacIntosh. George never received a ticket for the lot but was directed to the bowl at the headwaters of the Matheson Brook. George settled a short distance east of Matheson Corner while his son Alexander settled meadowland west of the Church Road and son Donald settled at the corner itself.

They were joined by eldest daughter Annie who had been married in Scotland to Robert Munro, also of Lettaidh. The Munro’s settled an unforgiving patch of land on Back Mountain but later moved to East Earltown.

Another daughter, Jane, married William MacDonald, native of Rovie, Rogart and an early childhood settler of Earltown Village. This couple settled a farm at the end of the Alex MacDonald Road. The youngest daughter, Margaret, married Donald MacIntosh who arrived a few years later from Rogart. They were the progenitors of the MacIntosh family near Earltown Village.

Meanwhile all three sons married Sutherland women and continued a tradition of weaving, a skill learned in the old country.

There are no Mathesons today on the Matheson Brook but there are several of that tribe still living in the surrounding area. Research has located descendants, at various times, in New Brunswick, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, California, Montana, Illinois, the New England states and likely the other states as well.

George and Espeth rest in the old section of the Earltown Village Cemetery. They died in the 1840’s of “old age”.

The original homestead and the first generation homes are on this map: https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?hl=en&authuser=0&mid=zWuNe7Aar9m4.k8l_jnZwwot4

Donald MacIntosh – Co-Founder of the Earltown District

Sep25

Donald MacIntosh, 1763-1831, along with Angus Sutherland “Prince”, was a founder of the District of Earltown in 1813. In fact he predated the naming of the community by several years and may not have been aware that he was creating a new district.

Donald, his wife Nancy Murray, and four young children had lived in the Parish of Rogart, Sutherlandshire. They farmed a croft in an upland township called Leatty which was located high above Strath Fleet. People from Rogart had been migrating to Nova Scotia since 1773 so it was a logical destination for Donald when circumstances dictated that emigration was necessary. By 1813 the Napoleonic Wars were over and sea travel was once again safe. He arrived in Pictou and went to the Roger’s Hill area where others from his neighbourhood had settled. At this point the closest ungranted land was located along the present day Pictou-Colchester county line. His grant was located near what is now the junction of the Stewart and Clydesdale Roads and extended up the hill towards Gunn Cemetery.

Unlike his next door neighbour, Mr. Sutherland, Donald did not have the advantage of previous land clearing experience. It is doubtful whether he had ever used an axe before coming to Nova Scotia. There were other hardships such as starvation. One historical account tells that during a particularly harsh winter, food ran scarce. His neighbours were almost in the same circumstances. Donald was ill at the time so it fell upon Nancy to walk to Dalhousie Mountain and get a bag of potatoes from relatives. As it was late winter, the crust on the snow was breaking. It was reported that Nancy could be tracked for miles as her ankles bled from being chaffed by the broken crust.

Donald died at age 68 in 1831 leaving a widow and five surviving children. In his will, he divided his farm with his eldest son Hugh getting the west portion and his widow and son John getting the east. Hugh did not marry and appears absent for many years, likely working in the lumber camps. John married Marion MacKay of Diamond whose people, the Bratten MacKays, had come from Leatty as well. Of Donald’s daughters, Nancy married Donald MacDonald “Doolie”, and Margaret married Kenneth MacKay Ächany of Central Earltown.

John’s son Robert obtained the Hugh MacIntosh lot and another son, Dan, retained the homestead. Robert’s son Charles was the last to live on the MacIntosh grant. It was vacated in the 1950’s.

These MacIntoshes were related to William MacIntosh who settled the Earltown end of the Clydesdale Road and to Donald MacIntosh who lived near Earltown Village.

Where did everyone go????

Nov11

In its prime, Earltown District took in a trading area of over 2000 people who mostly belonged to a distinct ethnic subgroup from Sutherland, Scotland. It was a patchwork of farms separated by an equal proportion of woodlands. Today it is mainly settled with scattered homes along a couple of main roads. Much of the area is a network of old roads joining long since vacated farms that have returned to forest. Where did everyone go?

Like many of the upland communities in Northern Nova Scotia, Earltown was phase one of a migratory process. It was a destination in the early 1800’s for Highlanders who were either cleared from their ancestral homeland or who chose to seek a more stable existence in North America. At that point in history, they still had strong tribal instincts which led to them locating and settling near their kinfolk when they arrived on these shores. They also were Gaelic speaking which led to further isolation for a couple of generations.

In their new environment they had better access to food, a healthier lifestyle, no military service obligations as well as less exposure to disease. This resulted in larger families, a reduced infant mortality rate and longer life expectancy. The one and two hundred acre grants were not sufficiently large enough to subdivide among sons. The soil was initially quite fertile due to hundreds of years of organic build up and was further enhanced with ash created during land clearing. The soil lost many of its nutrients after a generation and agricultural practices had not evolved to the point of replenishing the land. Therefore yields dropped and, with it, the ability to support large multi-generation families.

Another factor was the hunger for education and advancement. Writing in the Statistical Account of Scotland in the late 1700’s, a minister in Sutherland noted that his flock possessed a thirst for knowledge and were capable of scholarly pursuits if not for their crushing poverty and lack of affordable education. With immigration to Nova Scotia came access to the crude rural schools which provided the basic building building blocks for academic advancement. The growth in population created an urgent need for more schoolmasters and clergymen. Older siblings with a cash income were then able to lend money to younger siblings for education. Thus the community of Earltown provided clergy, teachers, doctors and lawyers at a disproportionate rate to its population.

Armed either with a marketable education or experience in breaking new farmland, young individuals and families looked to other parts of North America to better their circumstances. As Nova Scotian towns were already at a mature state before the Scots arrived in Earltown, they had to look much further afield for opportunity.

The earliest migrations appear to have been to the “Boston States””. Boston was easily accessible by boat from Halifax. It had an appetite in the 1850’s and later for carpenters, teamsters and other labourers. From that port, the Earltown boys ventured into other areas of New England.

By the 1870’s, it was well known that there were opportunities west of the Great Lakes. The earliest complete families to migrate sailed west across the Great Lakes and appear to have disembarked at Chicago. Some put down roots north of Saint Louis, Minnesota. Families from the Corktown region chose to settle in Wisconsin while the Hendersons, MacKays and Munro’s claimed homesteads in Manitoba. The Morrison clan from West Earltown were among the first settlers of Ardoch, North Dakota. The Donald Murray family of The Falls first settled in Illinois but later made Iowa their permanent home.

The more adventurous went west to look for gold in Colorado. One such person was Alex Polson of Upper North River, a member of the Earltown Congregation, who was advised in Colorado that the real gold was the tall timber of the Pacific Coast. He heeded the advice and eventually founded a logging and milling empire near Hoquiam, Washington. Many of his workers over the next few decades were young single men from Earltown and Kemptown. Most chose to settle in that country.

By 1900, Alberta was a favored destination and it was not long before several found their way into the mining settlements of Cranbrook and Trail. Others found their way to the lower mainland of British Columbia by way of California.

In the meantime, single women left the community to teach school in other parts of the province. Few returned. Women, who were not suited to teaching, went in great numbers to Boston between 1850 and 1920 where they found work as domestics or in clothing factories. Again, few returned.

The end result of all this movement was an abundance of bachelors left behind to look after the old folks. Some died alone on the family homestead. Others deeded their farms to local merchants in exchange for food and necessities. Some ended up at the Poor Farm with their farms auctioned off at a tax sale.

Every province in Canada as well as the Yukon have welcomed Earltowners. South of the border, we have found our people in the six New England states, New York, Connecticut, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Idaho, Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Texas, Nevada, Washington, Oregon, California, Arkansas, Florida and Alaska.
One, a Joseph Murray, found his way to South Africa and to Central America. Rev. John MacKay, a missionary, was labouring in British Guinea when he met an untimely death.

Settler’s Scottish Home the Site of an Archaeological Dig

Aug11

For the past few years the Clyne Heritage Society under the guidance of Nick Lindsay, a local archeologist, has been busy excavating and documenting ruins in the long vacant township of Kilpheddermore.

The former township is located on the bank of the River Brora and is located approximately nine miles inland from the town of Brora. Its name indicates that it may have contained a cell or hut of an early monk by the name of Peter. For at least a 1000 years, and probably much longer, it was farmed by generations of crofters. In May of 1820 the Sutherland Estate cleared the inhabitants to further sheep farming. Prior to the clearance, the township contained a grist mill and smiddy shop on the bank of the river.

For several years the grist mill was operated by George Ferguson, (b. ca 1780), who seems to have originated in the neighbouring township of Urachyle. He married Catherine Graham, (1784-1865), daughter of William Graham and Isabel MacKay of Urachyle. Together they settled at Kilpheddermore and leased the mill from the Estate.

Clyne residents had been departing for Nova Scotia as far back as 1813 as a result of some small scale clearances. It would be a matter of time before Kilpheddermore would suffer the same fate. George started to make plans to relocate his young family to free lands in the Pictou area. However he was strickened with cancer and died around 1817. It was his wish that Catherine would establish their children in Nova Scotia.

In 1820, Catherine emigrated to Nova Scotia and was directed to Earltown along with a number of families from Rogart. She was accompanied by her sons William and Robert age 16, John, age 10 and Donald, age 8 as well as daughters Christy, age 12 and Georgina age 2. Although two of the sons were 16, it must have been a daunting task for the young widow to establish a homestead. In a very short time, she had a functioning farm behind the subsequently established Knox Church, in fact she donated the land for a church and cemetery. William and Robert relocated to Balmoral when they came of age, John cleared a farm on the Matheson Brook and Donald took over the eastern part of the home grant. Christy married John Sutherland “MacIan” of Elanan, Clyne, an early settler at The Falls. Georgina married Red Robert MacKay of Aschoilbeg, Clyne and settled next to her brothers on Back Mountain.

Erosion is threatening the ruins of Kilpheddermore site therefore the Clyne Heritage Society is being proactive in capturing its history before nature does its thing. Among the interesting finds are fragments of old mill stones of which some may have been used or fashioned by George Ferguson.

For more detailed information on the site, go to http://kilfeddermore.blogspot.ca/

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Heritage Tidbits from Earltown, Nova Scotia

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