It is just 195 years this month since 115 Colonsay inhabitants arrived in Prince Edward Island aboard the "Spencer"; the youngest was a babe in arms, four were over seventy and the eldest was seventy-eight years old. The ship was about 100 ft. long, 330 tons displacement. It is believed that the passengers embarked at Port Olmsa.

A number of sailing ships are in regular use today which would be able to follow in the "Spencer"'s wake; many are used for sail training, and are operated by or in association with charitable trusts. Such ships have to plan their programme well in advance, but it is not yet too late to arrange a bicentennial voyage. It would be possible to leave Colonsay at the start of the school holiday in 2006, cross the Atlantic and visit the farmlands and memorials of Colonsay's pioneers and then fly back before the holidays are over. Priority would no doubt go to the young folk of Colonsay, but the voyage could be open to all, including the descendants of those pioneers. Perhaps up to forty places would be possible, with maybe half provisionally reserved for Colonsay residents. There is plenty of time for fair allocation of places, and for raising of funds - but the key to it all is the ship. Obviously a return voyage is also involved, either available to another group or for use by our own over-subscribed applicants.

The possible benefits are no doubt self-evident. All of us would welcome closer links between Colonsay residents of today and those whose roots are in the island; all of us would gain from wider horizons and experience, and the younger participants would have an experience to treasure all their lives. Invaluable publicity could be generated, not just for Colonsay, but for the whole of Scotland - it could be a catalyst to encourage the forging of closer links between many transatlantic cultures.

At this stage it is important to investigate available ships and to begin to shape things up. Once there is an outline proposal, the Community Council could hold a public meeting and a working committee could take it from there. It is understood that Andrew MacGregor (a naval architect, now resident in Colonsay) may be prepared to make the initial enquiries and to play a guiding role. Any encouragement will be invaluable - anybody who might be prepared to participate (even in their wildest dreams) should please contact Andrew or the Editor. Please do get in touch - it is very important to be able to gauge the level of interest. Cost is the least of your worries...

Part of the recent exhibition of model ships by Edward Rose

If any reader has had similar situations resolved, details will be welcome. It will be in everybody's interest if we can clarify these matters.

The Old Waiting Room:
13 - 26th August: Marion MacPhee - Paintings
18 August: Ceilidh and Dance in Hall by Sea Angling and Fishing Club
20 August, 8pm: Public Meeting to discuss Minimum Ferry Service
21 August: Primary School re-opens for pupils
28 August - 15 September: Lucy McNeill & Barbara Clark - Paintings and Photographs

Quiz in the Hotel every Wednesday at 9.30 pm.
Barbecues, music and other events - see notices locally.
Church services every Sunday: 11 am at the Church of Scotland, Scalasaig, and 12 noon at the Baptist Church, Kilchattan.
Colonsay House Gardens: Open every Wednesday. Al Fresco meals, organic produce etc. (Also Friday lunchtime).

Colonsay & Oronsay Artists - Entirely new Exhibition this year, open before every ferry, in the CalMac VIP Lounge at Pier.
25th - 26th August: BANNAL - Concert and Gaelic Song workshops. (An all-female group specialising in performing and teaching traditional Gaelic song... well known for their renditions of "waulking" songs.)
Sunday 9 September: Clan Macfie membership to visit their ancestral home - (three day formal programme)
Please note a warm invitation to one and all to attend the following:
Monday 10th September: Clan Macfie ceilidh in the Village Hall
Tuesday 11th September: Unveiling of Dun Eibhinn's cairn Tuesday 11th September:Closing ceilidh in Hall

The "King Cnut Memorial Bench" is making progress and is now only submerged at high tide; excellent weather for the Glassard barbecue, but lately the weather has seemed very poor; in fact excellent quantities of silage and hay were saved without rain last week - the miserable spell can only have lasted for a very few days; somebody emptied a barbecue tray into the new £450 waste bin on the pier and burned a huge hole in the base; 500 lambs and a quantity of calves left the island this week; big Visitors' Ceilidh in the Hall last Saturday raised lots of money for the Hall Funds; work has started beside Achadh Tarsuinn for an information notice about Dun Eibhinn:

Mickey Brown and fellow Mason

The Magazine Section

A Schoolboy Explores Riasg Buidhe, 1971

At 10.15am the three of us set out for the ruined village of Raisg Buidhe and after stopping at the shops we got there at about 11.30. We looked around for an hour or so before having lunch in front of the row of crofts looking out to a rather misty Jura. We were only at the village another couple of hours because the weather was not too good and because we saw a rabbit with myxamatosis which we thought should be reported.

We ran down into Scalasaig and told a man we had already met about the rabbit but somehow we digressed into talking about Raisg Buidhe and discovered the gardener at Colonsay House was born at the ruins. We decided to visit him on Tuesday. When we got back to camp that night we found out about some of the tombstones in the graveyard near the ruined church at Raisg Buidhe. The next day it was decided to look for the church and the graveyard. We set out from camp at 10.15 and on reaching Scalasaig decided to go along the coast to the ruined village instead of going over the hills. To our luck we found two small stone buildings which we thought could have belonged to the village. In one of these houses was a very old boathook and this meant, maybe, that the villagers went fishing. Also along the coast we found a small cave with four old boat oars propped up against it. This walk along the coast seemed to prove that the village was a fishing settlement.

When we reached the village we started the search for the church and graveyard. We noticed a large building on its own; when we explored it more closely we found that one of the walls was curved. In front of this building were four walls. This, we thought, was the church and graveyard but we could not be sure as with a lot of the other buildings.

After eating our packed lunch we set off on the road to Colonsay House. Soon we were face to face with the gardener who had spent his early days living in these houses. We asked him a lot of questions and discovered the villagers went fishing for lobsters. The two buildings we found on the coast turned out to be stores for the lobster fishing equipment. The building was the church and in front of the church was the graveyard with a larch tree. Under the larch tree were the graves. He told us that his ancestors had lived there since 1752. All the outhouses were used for keeping pigs, etc.

Our next task for the following day was to find the gravestones and to measure the different buildings for a scale drawing of the village. We set out at 10.30 and by 11.45 had started the measuring of all the remains we could possibly find. After lunch we wandered around the graveyard to look for the tombstones. We started digging under the larch tree where we had been told the tombstones were. What we thought was an easy job turned out to be difficult. With the tombstones being uninscribed we had to take care in finding stones that looked as though the shape had been curved at the top. However, we managed to uncover four tombstones which we measured and drew.

The village itself consists of about 20 buildings, and the larger crofts were lived in until about 1925 but many were evacuated during the period 1918-21 mainly because they thought it would be a more profitable life in Scalasaig. There were three wells in the village, all of which have now fallen in, and at the north of the village are two large gateposts where a track came from Kiloran. A cross dating back to the 13th or 14th century was once erected in the graveyard but it is now at St Oran's Well in the grounds of Colonsay House.

THE AMERICANS, THE EARL OF SELKIRK, AND COLONSAY'S 1806 EMIGRANTS TO PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND

June/July 2001

John W Sheets
Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Archives and Museum
JCK Library 1470
Central Missouri State University
Warrensburg, Missouri 64093 USA
e-mail: sheets@cmsu1.cmsu.edu

ABSTRACT In September 1806 the ship "Spencer" landed at Prince Edward Island with over one hundred people from the island of Colonsay, Argyll, Scotland. Travelling in large, extended families, they had responded to a local laird, John McNeill, "Improving" their lives and to the Earl of Selkirk offering land across the Atlantic. Selkirk wanted Gaelic-speaking emigrants to block colonial America on the verge of expansion. His promotion of Prince Edward Island led to the "Baldoon" settlement in the Great Lakes and to the "Red River" settlement at Lake Winnipeg. Success of the Colonsay settlers started a "chain of migration" into Canada that depopulated the isolated, tiny island. Early 19th century emigrations from Gaelic Scotland often involved planning and sponsors reacting to the politics, personalities and changing spaces in the era of Jefferson and Napoleon.

Part II of IV

Under warm, foggy and "rather boisterous weather" in the Gulf of St Lawrence, on 8 August 1803 the "Dykes" sailed into Murray Harbour on the southeast corner of Prince Edward Island. Selkirk went ashore and, unbeknown to anyone, walked over the future home of Colonsay's emigrants where "the muskettoes [sic] made vehement attack on us…The wood is small, and nothing but spruce and birch…At one place, I went a little into the wood and saw large stumps…this coast had been laid waste by a great fire 30 or 40 years ago-The soil appears very poor sand-This is Lot 62…" Within days the "Dykes" had a load of timber and Selkirk began a survey of lots. The settlers-some with Colonsay-like surnames of McFee and McMillan-favoured the marshes or bays where seaweed meant good thatching and fertiliser back home. Rev McAulay wanted his land at Point Prim, between Orwell Bay and Pinette Harbour, near Belfast village in Lots 57 and 58. Giving dispute over lots and prices, the Ross and Skye people engaged him in groups of extended kin, according to the earl: "The proposals came in pretty generally by Partnerships of 3, 4 and 5 families of connections who clubbed together for the quantities of land each proposed to purchase and agreed to take one joint lot to be afterwards divided by themselves." He wrote, and believed, "I had been talking my best Gaelic, and divided my dinner with them, which seemed to have won their hearts." When the "Oughton" finally arrived on August 27th, its Catholics went to Lot 53 in St George's Parish, near Three Rivers Harbour on the east coast. He thought them "very dirty-lazy…a very poor set of people…I did not like to mix these people with the Skye settlers…" Very soon everyone was clearing the land, building temporary cabins, and stocking provisions from the agents and from the forests or shores of their new home. Selkirk, meanwhile, had learned his first lessons about the business of emigration. Next time "the lands of different parties should have some intervals between them, which they could invite their friends to come after them and occupy…it appears clear that the numbers engaged in it were inconveniently great…the careful selection of a few families consisting mostly of young people in the prime of life, and all working hands-One or two parents of an age rather advanced…they might be kept together and close [to] succeed in preparing the way for a greater number."

By September 1803, Selkirk prepared to leave Prince Edward Island for a sojourn in the northern United States, then to Upper Canada where he hoped to establish a second settlement of emigrants. On the 18th, going to Pictou, he again traversed Lot 62 but with a different opinion: "Day light found us very near the spot where I first landed on the island, we continued with the Ebb along shore toward Wood Islands…The land is good above the Bank…This high ridge seems to continue all the way from Wood Islands inland to Belfast…" From Halifax he sailed to Boston, then overland to upper New York where many Highlanders had settled, his father had owned property and he kept a breeding stock of sheep. At every stop, young Selkirk gathered facts about agriculture, economics, politics, or whatever, and nowhere was this more evident than in the capital of Albany and in the company of Alexander Hamilton, son of a Scottish merchant (who had emigrated from Ayr to the Caribbean). Finally, here was a famous American with British sympathies. Hamilton had served George Washington as the first Secretary of the Treasury from 1789 to 1795. In 1803, though, practising law on the margin of American politics, he still deeply doubted Jefferson's dispersion of powers among the individual states. After all, what good was a "democratic leveling" of society? The Constitution barred him from the Presidency by a foreign birth in the West Indies; he had opposed Jefferson in the protracted election in 1800-01, only to switch sides against Aaron Burr, now the Vice President and a fatal nemesis in New York. With Hamilton, Selkirk felt he "seldom passed a pleasanter day-nor met with a man of whom I formed a higher opinion…[Hamilton] joins a degree of candour in discussion very rarely to be met with…He seems to be rather dejected at the prevalence of the democratic [Jefferson's] party--& very roundly avowed that he thought the British Govt contained as much liberty as was consistent with a stable government." And Hamilton did not limit himself to parlor-room exchanges between gentlemen. Upon hearing of Jefferson's "Purchase of Louisiana," he had quickly published a reaction in the New York Evening Post of 5 July 1803: "Every man, however, possessed of the least candour and reflection will readily acknowledge that the acquisition has been solely owing to a fortuitous concurrence of unforeseen and unexpected circumstances, and not to any wise or vigorous measures on the part of the American government." No doubt such opinions swayed the Earl of Selkirk who disliked and feared the pioneer mob on its way north and west.

He pushed on to Niagara Falls, thinking "every Gentleman who is acquainted with the back settlers speaks with disgust of their moral character" and arriving at York (soon "Toronto") in late November. There he met the Lieutenant-Governor and an agent about a "settlement of Highlanders to a Township near Lake Erie." On horseback, he followed the north shore of Lake Ontario to Glengarry where Gaelic language and its speakers prospered. Into French Canada, he further witnessed the tenacity of culture around both Quebec City (at the legislature) and Montreal (with fur traders of the Northwest Company). The New Year brought him back to New England and New York; in Albany's state senate he listened to Alexander Hamilton "twice on abstract Law Questions which he reasoned closely & perspicuously without any attempt at flourish…" Perhaps enlightened by his American friend, in May and June 1804 by horse and by boat, Selkirk went to a site on Lake St Clair between Lakes Erie and Huron; he christened it "Baldoon" for a family estate in Kirkcudbright. Amid such ample woods and water, even more Gaelic-speakers could maintain their language while forming another wedge between British interests and American influences. The earl left Baldoon in late July to meet its 102 settlers at Queenstown aboard the "Oughton," by now on passage from Tobermory. No one warned them about the challenges ahead; Baldoon's marshes spawned malaria that presaged nothing but years of struggle. On 30 September 1804, Selkirk visited Father Burke, the Roman Catholic Vicar-General of Halifax, who shared a "cordial aversion to the Yankees…relative to the importance of the Southwest of Canada, and the necessity of a solid settlement there distinct from the Americans." He returned to Prince Edward Island on October 2nd for a final inspection before crossing the Atlantic. There were problems between Rev McAulay and the other agents over winter provisions, but Selkirk's thoughts were on the future: "To new Settlers likely to bring followers from Europe, to give land 20 or 25 per cent below current rate of the country." Days later he made notes about a "Road to Wood Islands" and his "intention of encouraging Europeans and insulating [a] settlement to prevent Yankee ideas and principles…" The Earl of Selkirk boarded a ship in New York harbour on 20 November 1804, a Scottish aristocrat headed home with new schemes in mind for his spaces of the New World.

To borrow a very American phrase, Thomas Douglas 'hit the ground running' once in London. The Tory government, so inimical to Selkirk's late father and Scottish peers, was under siege. News from Baldoon was not good, but no news from Prince Edward Island possibly meant a better situation. He immediately converted the many thoughts and notes from North America into a spring 1805 publication, Observations on the Present State of the Highlands. To justify and promote more Gaelic emigration, he attacked its critics, the Highland lairds. Their "Improvements" to the land merely imported capitalised farming for profits in distant markets, eventually excluding the crofter and the labourer already being "Cleared" from their homes. Manufacturing would never come to the Highlands, with its few minerals and fewer roads; its dispossessed bore little chance of success in any city of industry. He especially dissected the motives of the Royal Highland Society and Parliament's Select Committee. According to him, they formulated the Ship's Passenger Act in 1803 more to supply the proprietors and the army with men than to protect a Highlander on a timber ship. Destinations like Prince Edward Island let emigrants keep their families and cultures intact, new spaces where small strips of land with small cabins suited their old ways. Ostensibly, Selkirk championed the trans-Atlantic emigration of whole kindreds of Gaels from the same locale-the more non-English speakers in one place, the better. Ulteriorly, such "National Settlements" under the aristocracy would, and must, thwart an expanding America-better and cheaper than sending British troops now needed against Napoleon.

Positive reviews of Observations appeared in respectable journals like the Scots Magazine and the Edinburgh Review. The earl petitioned an ailing Pitt about the lax land laws, low prices and more Americans in the Canadian colonies, with scant reaction. In the summer of 1805 he presented "Outlines of a Plan for the Settlement and Security of Canada" wherein the government should convince the Dutch, the Germans, the Welsh, even the Irish to emigrate under its aegis, "…in short any who speak a different language from the English…to preserve themselves from the contagion of American manners." By year's end, the news from Baldoon grew worse, citizens in Prince Edward Island demanded land seizures from absentee owners, so Selkirk considered a Scottish candidacy in the House of Lords. Pitt's death in January 1806 coincided with the first full, usually anonymous rebuttals of Observations. According to the critics, Highlanders and their culture were not admirable, they should stay home to work and fight for the Crown, America was no "Land of Opportunity," and the Earl of Selkirk's self-interest predicated his Observations. Nevertheless, Canada attracted more emigrants, America needed a new British minister, and Thomas Douglas practiced the role of a diplomat to Thomas Jefferson. To contain France, he proposed liberating Spain's Latin American colonies, even ceding Florida to America as a gesture of trust. However, in "Granting Lands in North America," he revived a favourite theme (now based on the Rev Thomas Malthus and his popular 1798 Essay on Population): "…in a Colony where an original nucleus of population has been planted, that population increasing at a certain rate, will be capable of carrying forward the improvement of the country with a proportional degree of rapidity…" Selkirk launched a second edition of his Observations, with few changes, an Edinburgh publisher and more appendices. One appendix explained the "Importance of the Emigrants for Our Colonies [and] Custom of Settling in the United States…"; another advertised his "Measures Adopted [and] Settlement Formed in Prince Edward Island…Progress [and] Final Success." This second one closes, "Of the possibility of inducing the Highlanders to go to our own Colonies, I presume that no further doubt can be entertained…In some considerable districts, the current appears already to be decidedly turned." Once his chance to represent the Crown in America faded, Selkirk necessarily paid more attention to Prince Edward Island, Baldoon and a settlement further west.

Islanders had abandoned Colonsay for Britain's trans-Atlantic colonies throughout the 18th century. Their evidence remains anecdotal, yet focused in "The Best Poor Man's Land" of the Carolinas. Soon after North Carolina achieved "Royal Colony" status in 1729, Governor Gabriel Johnston (1699-1752) used his Scottish circle to encourage more emigrants. An "Argyll Committee" visited and chose the hill country of Cross Creek, not Cape Fear's peninsula; back home, they recruited an "Argyll Colony" mainly from its larger islands of Islay, Jura and Mull. In February 1739, members petitioned the Inveraray Presbytery for a minister to accompany them. No minister boarded "Black Neil" McNeill's ship at Campbeltown, Kintyre, in July, but other McNeills and a few McDuffies did. Were some of them from Colonsay? In an estate cemetery southwest of Cross Creek (later Fayetteville) lies "Murdoch Currie, native of Colonsay, Scotland, died in 1775 aged 60 years." Another gravestone reads "Angus Currie, born in the island of Colonsay, 17 September 1770, came to America in 1791 and died 10 June 1845. He was long a ruling elder in the Presbyterian Church." The "Edinburgh" sailed from Campbeltown on 29 August 1770 with seven crewmen and provisions for emigrants; about a dozen spaces were reserved for "Donald Curry," "John Curry" and their families. From Colonsay's quay in Scalasaig (Hut Bay or Skalli's Bay), did elderly Murdoch Currie also board the "Edinburgh," survive the weeks at sea, then arrive near Cape Fear and Wilmington a few years before the Revolution? At that time, Colonsay traditions place its laird, Archibald McNeill, on the military staff of South Carolina's governor. In 1791 the ship "General Washington" brought "138 Souls" to Wilmington, possibly with Angus Currie who followed the Cape's waterway one hundred miles inland to previous settlers from Islay, Jura, Mull and Colonsay. Emigration so infected Colonsay's people that Rev Francis Stewart admonished it in his 1792 parish summary for Scotland's first Statistical Account: "…in summer 1791, a considerable proportion of the inhabitants crossed the Atlantic…Instead of trying the effects of industry at home, they foster the notion of getting at once into a state of ease and opulence, with their relations beyond the Atlantic." Colonel Archibald McNeill organized and commanded the 3rd Argyll Fencibles in 1799 and, after a posting to Gibraltar for two years, found himself overextended. He and his wife, daughter of the 5th Earl of Granard, "had no children" and, after a survey of Colonsay and its southern parcel, Oronsay, sold both to his cousin John McNeill in 1805 for "a certain adequate price"; as the Earl of Selkirk might say, the 'current had decidedly turned.'

REACTION TO THE EMIGRATION STORY

"Dear Professor Sheets:

As a descendant of one of the emigrant families who reached PEI in 1806 aboard the "Spencer", I am delighted to have your contribution to our history. The way you tied their undertaking to the events of the times was most interesting. It was enlightening to me to find that the Earl of Selkirk was no philanthropist but instead an advocate of aristocracy.

In correspondence with Kevin Byrne of Colonsay, I learned that the Passenger List of the "Spencer" was not made out until the passengers disembarked. As you made note, the Collector of the Customs or his scribe mangled a few of the Gaelic names. "Sarah" which is "Mor" or "Morag" in Gaelic may have been taken as "Mary" or "Marion", and "Donald"distorted as "Duncan". "McDuff" is one of several variations of "McPhee".

Pass. No. Name Listed Age Relationship English Version Est. Birth Date

42 Mary McDuff 72 Grandmother Sarah McPhee 1733
33 Duncan McDuff 54 Father Donald McPhee 1751
24 Mary McNeil 40 Mother Sarah(McNeil)McPhee 1765
25 Margaret McDuff 20 Daughter Margaret McPhee 1785
29 Nancy McDuff 19 Daughter Nancy(McPhee)Currie 1786
36 James Currie 30 Son-in-law James Currie 1775
30 Mary Currie 7 mos. Granddaughter Mary Currie 1806
34 Dugald 17 Son Dugald McPhee 1788
26 Janet McDuff 14 Daughter Janet McPhee 1791
27 Catherine McDuff 9 Daughter Catherine McPhee 1796
28 Effy McDuff 5 Daughter Effy McPhee 1800
35 Donald McDuff * 21/2 Son Donald McPhee 1803
* My grandfather

On January 19, 1833 Donald (the son) married Catherine McQuarrie. Witnesses present were Dugald McPhee, Alex McQuarrie and Donald Campbell. Marr. Book 1832-1840 p.3 and Marr. Book 1832-1840 p.80. On March 4'th 1859 an obituary notice on p. 3 of the "Islander" "Died at West River on Wed. 15'th ult. ,in the 95'th year of her age ,Sarah relic of the .late Donald McPhee.The deceased emmigrated to this Island from Colonsay, Argylshire, Scotland in 1806. She had left 8 children; 58 grandchildren; 138 g-grandchildren; and 10 g-g-grandchildren."

The Census of 1841 shows Donald (my g-grandfather) a ship builder. His household contained 10 males aged 16-45 yrs. old; 4 males aged 45-60 yrs. old. and 5 females. Of the total, 16 were Presbyterian, and 3 were Roman Catholic. This would indicate to me that Donald and Catherine ran a boarding house to house the skilled help necessary in ship building.

We have a copy of Donald McPhee's lease with the Earl of Selkirk, dated March 12'th 1839. A Lot Plan from the National Archives in Charlottetown, shows Donald (the father) settled next to Dugald his oldest son, on the north side of West River in Lot #31 in what is now the Town of Dunedin. The father's farm was believed to have been passed on to the younger son, Donald who became the ship builder. The boat yard was located on McPhee's Creek which feeds into the West River.

The family burial site is in the Pioneer Cemetery in St. Catherines across the West River but in view of the homestead. There is a McNeil buried there who's head stone mentions emmigrating in 1806 from Colonsay, Scotland.
Alexander McPhee, my grandfather (3'd generation) was sent over to Liverpool, England by his father( Donald the ship builder) when he was 14 years of age. He was assigned as an apprentice to a Master Carpenter. After 4 years apprenticeship, he went to sea as a ship's carpenter and sailed around the "Horn" of S. America to Peru. They brought over a cargo of machinery and returned with guano, mined by the prison colonies. I can recall his telling me, that he and his family continued to speak in Gaelic up until he was 10 or 12 years of age. Alec died in his 100'th year in 1949."

A Visit to Colonsay, 1961

To our Macdonald Cousins and Relatives
Notes on our Visit to the Island of Colonsay, Argyll, Scotland, in 1961

Colonsay, an island of about 15,000 acres, is 7 1/2 m long by 3 m broad. The coast line is much indented with beautiful sandy beaches. On the west side are picturesque cliffs. To the south, separated by a strait that is fordable at low tide, is the Isle of Oronsay, 2 ½ m long by 2 1/2 m wide on which are the ruins of the ancient Priory. The ownership has always included Colonsay and Oronsay together. Most of the people speak Gaelic and use it frequently.

Colonsay was purchased from the MacNeill family in 1904 by Lord Strathcona. His grand-son is now in possession of the property and lives at Colonsay House. Unfortunately he and his family were away when we visited the island. Colonsay House was built in 1715 by a McNeill (the older one probably torn down) and rebuilt and modernised by Lord Strathcona after 1904. About this time, Lord Strathcona also imported semitropical trees and plants from all over the world and laid out the many acres of beautiful gardens which are still well kept and listed as one of the finest in all of Scotland.

Apparently the great exodus of people from Colonsay occurred from 1800 to 1840. In 1800, the population was listed as 1,000 persons. Prince Edward Island and the area around Paisley and Collingwood, Ontario, Canada were the principal places to which they emigrated.

Unfortunately, we found that the records of marriages, deaths and christenings for the period our ancestors were on Colonsay were incomplete and sparse and had been copied from various sources and sent to the Registry in Edinburgh. We did not have time to search them thoroughly but did find the following:

Vol. I Parochial Registers, Co. of Argyll, Colonsay, Marriages 1796-1819
1798 Feb. 6 John McDonald and Mary Blu
1803 Jan. 22 James Currie and Pegy McNeill
1803 June 6 James Currie and Jeny McNeill
1810 Nov. 21 Ranold Bell and Catherine McDonald
1812 July 6 James McDonald and Christian Brown

Vol. II 1813-1854
1820 John McDonald and Marrion Blue
1822 Jan. 26 Angus Brown and Mary McFaden
1827 Alex McDonald and Marion Campbell
1830 Duncan McNeill and Catherine Currie

Christening Register
1796 June 12 Donald Currie and Jeny Catherine
1806 Feb.23 John McDonald and Peggy McNeill Alexander
1810 July 2 Neil McNeill and Margaret Currie Margrat
1811 June 29 John McDonald and Peggy McNeill Donald
1812 Ronald Bell and Catherine McDonald Margrat
1814 Feb. 1 Ronald Bell and Catherine McDonald Mary
1815 Feb. 5 James McDonald and Christian Brown Margrat
1817 James McDonald and Mary Brown Margrat

It seems that the recording of deaths did not begin until about 1848.

While on the Island we were invited to the home of Mr. and Mrs. John MacAllister. She remembered that her mother's aunt corresponded. with a Miss Bella Brown who had gone to Canada and lived near Paisley, Ontario, teaching school there. The name was familiar to me because Bella Brown was a niece of my father's granduncle Brown. By coincidence she lived at the house of my mother (Jemimah Catherine Cameron) and. was one of mother's school teachers. Mrs. MacAllister' s grandmother was Catherine Currie MacNeil. John MacNeil, a Baptist missionary, from Colonsay who went to Toronto, Canada, was a cousin of her grandmother.

This Granduncle Brown whom my father remembered so vividly emigrated to Ontario, too. He had been Factor for Laird McNeill who owned Colonsay. He is the one who told the story of my father's great grandfather Macdonald who as a young child was rowed in a long boat by seven or eight men to the Island of Colonsay after the Battle of Culloden in 1745. The boy's father was said. to have been killed at Culloden leading a part of the Macdonald clan, probably from the area of Moidart, a place mentioned especially by Factor Brown when telling the experience of this ancestor of ours. The boy was raised by the MacNeill of Colonsay, a friend of his father. A Macdonald relative in France assisted in the support of this boy. The boy later married a daughter of the MacNeill family. His son, James Macdonald, married a Brown who was a sister of my father's Granduncle Brown" ( or grandson )

James Macdonald with his family emigrated to Prince Edward Island, Canada, and settled at St. Peter's Point now called Rice Point. We are not sure of the date of his emigration but the eldest son, Donald, states in his Bible that he was born on Colonsay in 1813. This Donald is the ancestor of most of the Macdonald cousins now in Prince Edward Island. A look at the christening dates would indicate that the emigration was after 1817 since the daughter Margrat (probably Margaret) daughter of James Macdonald and Mary Brown was born on Colonsay in 1817. Their youngest son, John Macdonald., my grand-father was born on Prince Edward Island about 1828. Therefore the date of emigration was between 1817 and 1828.

Please note that there is a marriage of James McDonald and Christian Brown (probably) Christine) for July 6, 1812. On Feb. 5, 1815, a daughter Margrat was born to James McDonald and Christian Brown and then in 1817 the record of a daughter Margrat born to James McDonald and Mary Brown. In my notes from mother, there was something about a first wife dying and the marriage to a sister of the first wife.

My grandfather, John Macdonald was raised on Prince Edward Island and was married in 1811.9 to Mary Currie who was born on Colonsay, I believe. My father, Neil Currie Macdonald(named for a brother of Mary Currie) was born on Oct. 21, 1850 at St. Peter's Point, now Rice Point, on Prince Edward Island. When he was about a year old, his parents, John and. Mary Macdonald decided to leave Prince Edward Island. and go to Ontario, Canada, near Paisley and Collingwood where his Uncle Brown had taken up land. John took up land about seven miles from his Uncle's place. Some of the MacNeils came from Colonsay to the same area about this time, too, and my father often recalled the visits of the MacNeill cousins to his home when he was a boy.

Although I have not used my first name, it is Alexander. I was named for my father's brother, Dr. Alexander Macdonald who was said to have been named for an ancestor.

Most of the residents of Colonsay are of the older generation. The young leave be-cause of the lack of work opportunities. They go to many parts of the world as did many before them. We found those we met to be most hospitable, kind and interesting and the Island a beautiful, serene place.

I would appreciate very much any additional information which you may be able to send me.
Sincerely, (Alexander) Sinclair Macdonald

UI DHUBHTHAIGH NEWS

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E-mail: uidhubhthaigh@tesco.net
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Hon.Treasurer/Hon. Secretary Mrs Joyce Morgan (as above)

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We are pleased to advise you that PETER DUFFY, author of "Clan Duffy", who was born in Mace, Rathowen, Co.Westmeath, Ireland in April 1946 has consented to become President of the Ui Dhubhthaigh Society. A graduate in engineering in 1969 from University College, Dublin, where he took his Masters Degree the following year in diesel engine design, in 1988 he took a Master of Business Adnministration degree with Fordham University, New York. He is now a Power Engineering Consultant based in Lisduff, Longford, Co.Longford Ireland.

Website to Explore: ISLAND REGISTER

As readers will be aware, we hope to create the momentum to properly commemorate in 2006 the bicentennial of the voyage of the Spencer from Colonsay to Prince Edward Island. Prof. Sheets has kindly afforded us the use of his study of the context, which we are reproducing as a series in "The Corncrake".

Happily, our friends in P.E.I. are also taking an interest in this subject - they have published Colonsay gravestones from Wood Islands and other Pioneer cemeteries, as well as shipping lists and other material. They have also published the full text of Professor Sheet's paper and we mention it here in case any of our own readers are impatient! In all honesty, one must admit that their version is rather better, inasmuch as the editor of "The Corncrake" is struggling with the footnotes. One notes that Dave Hunter in PEI says airily "… I have been able to resolve the "footnote" problem by exporting the file to Rich text format, then doing the conversion to HTML via another program, so that is no longer a problem... " Hmmm.

If you are visiting this site, do bookmark it and find time to explore. It has been highlighted here before, but the full text of John Sheets' article is a good reason to mention it again: it is at:

COLONSAY WEATHER January - July 2001

Regulars

Readers Write

Dear Kevin,

Although I have no direct connection with the person buried on Eilean nan Ron, the association with my husband's grand father, Giuseppe Capella, came naturally when I saw the burial place.

His body was never recovered. But I thought that that one should be considered as THE grave for all those who had died in such a horrid way for no reason at all, and whose bodies had never been found.

I don't think many of the Italians there had any connection with the Italian regime of the time. Many of them were anti fascist or Jewish people who had fled Italy. Giuseppe Capella, for instance, had migrated to England at the beginning of the century. He, like many others on the boat, was a waiter at the Savoy. Professor Limentani, one of the few survivors, was a Jewish intellectual. He taught Italian literature in a British University until he died a few years ago.

I thought that the fact that a body from the Arandora Star was resting on the island gave some sort of humane ending to an otherwise utterly inhumane story.

Thank you for opening a debate about it. It is important not to forget.
All the best - Angela Vegliante