Clan MacQuarrie:  A History, by R. W. Munro and Alan Macquarrie

THE SCATTERED CLAN

 

From the lone sheiling of the misty island,

Mountains divide us and a waste of seas -

Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland,

And we in dreams behold the Hebrides.

Canadian Boat Song (Authorship disputed)

 

MEMBERS of the Clan MacQuarrie have spread throughout the world and it is the aim of this chapter to give some impression of how this came about. It would be quite impossible to tell the whole story and to pile up details on individual families, or to trace a series of separate genealogies would be unreadable and besides, it would still only tell part of a much wider whole. It seems to me, however, that it would be worth writing of MacQuarrie 'pioneers' in various countries and so to gather together - in what may appear to be a somewhat haphazard and even invidious manner - a collection of 'samples' with facts gleaned wherever possible from contemporary record sources. It will not be possible, of course, to follow out each line to its present-day descendants, even when these are known; but blank pages at the end of the book can be filled in by any who wish to record their ancestry or to indicate their families' descent from any of the emigrants mentioned in this chapter.

It will be realized that as we move from continent to continent, different periods will emerge as starting-points as new places for permanent settlement became available.

It was not until the last quarter of the 18th century that emigration from the Highlands of Scotland began in earnest and the name MacQuarrie became widely known beyond the seas. The first of these settlers went to the British colonies in America and then to Canada (which has remained one of the most favoured resorts ever since) and eventually the flow turned to Australia and New Zealand. But even before that there went out some individual skirmishers including soldiers and seamen swept along where the tides of war and trade directed them. Some of these have been mentioned in previous chapters, but here the emphasis will be on those who are known to have settled in what they came to regard as a new homeland.

 

Colonial America

It would be impossible to state without fear of contradiction which was the first MacQuarrie family (however spelt the name) to settle overseas. It will be more useful rather to tell the story of some of those who can fairly be claimed as pioneers from the evidence of records and other contemporary writings. Traditional accounts might be found to take the story back to earlier periods and the choice of 'samples' for mention must be an arbitrary one, determined by the nature of the source material and its accessibility.

A beginning can be made with the arrival of John McQuerry (also called in contemporary records Mackquerry, Mackquharry and McQuary) in Virginia and his settlement on lands where rivers flow down from the Blue Ridge across the plains to the 'tide­water' round Chesapeake Bay.1 The exact date of his arrival is not known - it has been put as early as the 1690s (likely too early) and as late as 1746 (certainly not early enough) 2 - nor is it known whether John came to Virginia directly from Scotland or why he left his clan's homeland. Many Jacobite prisoners were shipped to Virginia and other British col­onies in America in 1716, but MacQuarries as a clan didn't take part in the 1715 Rising, although some may have been 'out' with the Macleans, only a few members of that clan (and no MacQuarries) are found in the lists of those sentenced to transportation.3

It is chiefly from land grants that we know of the early settlers and where they were located. Many MacQuarries of different spellings in the United States believe their immigrant ancestor was a John who settled in what was then the British colony of Virginia (Lynchburg is usually mentioned) sometime in the first half of the 18th century. The official records of Hanover County in Virginia show that in February 1723 John Mcquerry of St. Martin's parish was granted 400 acres on the south side of the Anna River which flows into the Pamunkey River.4 This was a time when planters and traders were pushing into the back country or 'piedmont' between the mountains and the sea. John sold 100 of his acres in 1735 5 and the remaining 300 (with the plantation on which he was then living in the newly formed Louisa County) for £80 in 1744 - but he did not remain landless for long. In 1746 he paid 20 pounds to a fellow-planter for another 439 acres, carefully defined in the deed, on the branches of Owen's Creek in Louisa County. He parted with 339 acres six years later, and probably with what was left three years later again. Finally John's last transaction found in the record of Louisa County was the purchase in May 1755 of a modest 55 acres on Hudson Creek from Mary Carver. The picture is surely of a restless but probably enterprising planter moving on to new spheres within a limited area as changing opportunities arose. Apart from a property transaction by William McQuary and his wife Amey in 1761, this is the last appearance of the name in this particular part of Virginia;6 but several references occur to John McQuary (apparently the same person) in other Virginia records - about 100 miles SW in Bedford County (1772), which then included the area in and-around Lynchburg,7 and in Henry County bordering North Carolina, where he took the oath of allegiance to State and Nation in 1777.8 By 1779 he was in Wilkes County, N.C. as tenant of 100 acres of land on Mill Creek a tributary of the Reddies River.9 Members of this family have spread widely, moving to Indiana, Missouri, Kentucky and right across the continent, most of them cherishing a line of descent from the same 'pioneer' ancestor. 10

Single immigrants and perhaps their families and descendants can often be traced from official records. But the 'eagerness for emigration' (as Dr. Johnson put it) could produce mass movements where 'families, and almost communities, go away together.' 11

One of the most remarkable, and as it turned out controversial, attempts to plant a colony of Highland Scots in North America was made in 1738-40 by Lachlan Campbell, a small laird in the Isle of Islay. He negotiated for an extensive grant of 'the King's Lands' in what is now Washington County in the state of New York.12 Here between the Adirondacks and the Green Mountains, on the watershed between the Hudson River and the St. Lawrence River, the New York government hoped to settle groups of loyal Protestants as a barrier against a French and Indian invasion from Canada by way of Lake Champlain.13 Campbell induced nearly 500 people to join him in establishing a settlement and they went out in three successive waves in 1738, 1739 and 1740; they sailed from Islay and most of them probably came from that island or neighbouring Jura, although some may have come from other islands of the Hebrides or the mainland.14 The 193 passengers old and young who left Islay in June 1739 consisted of 42 families and 24 single individuals. Among them were John McQuary and Anna Quarry his wife, Patrick MacEachern and his wife Mary McQuarrie (probably related to John); Duncan McQuarrie, alias Brown, and his wife Effie McIlepheder and four children Donald, John, Gilbert and Christian; and Donald Lindsey with his wife Mary McQuarrie and children Richard, Duncan, Effie and Christian (probably with Duncan part of another family group). Through error, misunderstanding or both - the story is too long and complicated to discuss here - the lands intended for Campbell's settlers (in the Whitehall area) had been granted to others by the time they arrived. The Highland exiles had to fend for themselves on the lower Hudson or elsewhere for some 25 years until the survivors or their represen-tatives were officially granted lands near the centre of what is now Washington County, under the 'patent of Argyle' (sometimes called the Scots patent) of 12 March 1764.15

Both John and Duncan had survived with their wives and families, the former now having four children (one married), Duncan now with four married sons and one daughter; Donald Lindsey was still living with family, but Patrick MacEachern was dead. The township of Argyle was laid out in 141 numbered farms, divided by a'street' running east and west on which each family was to have a town lot; John was given lot 42 (400 acres south of the 'street' in an area now within the township of Greenwich) and Duncan had lot 181 (500 acres north of the 'street'). The old clan name seems to have given some difficulties to the clerks, as might be expected, and in one list John appears as 'Quary' and Duncan as 'McQuore' while the patent itself and a survey on which each lot owner was named called them both 'McGuire'; in addition two other settlers were named in the 1764 patent, John and Archibald McCore, who claimed their portions as having 'come over in 1739' and were allocated 300 acres each (lots 33 and 85).16 It cannot be assumed that all the grantees took possession of their lots and some of those who helped to clear the lands of Argyle later moved farther west;17 meantime the town of Argyle, comprising about 35,000 acres in Washington county, continues to flourish but there are no MacQuarries there now, although some descendants are living in other parts of the United States. 18

Conditions on both sides of the Atlantic affected the pattern of emigration and immigration in the 18th century. Political and economic forces played their part and it is worth knowing what was going on at the time.

Although the Jacobite Risings of 1715 and 1745 were events of importance in Scotland, the arrival of some 800 prisoners in North America and the West Indies in 1747-8 was hardly a matter of major significance in the story of Highland settlements there.19 The MacQuarries as a clan did not support Prince Charles Edward, as we have seen, although a few were 'out' as individuals including several from the Isle of Eigg. Eigg lies between the large islands of Mull and Skye in the Hebrides just north of the Ardnamurchan peninsula, in a group of smaller islands of which the others are Rum, Canna and Muck. Although collectively know as the Small Isles they belonged to different proprietors and were occupied by different clans, with some MacQuarrie families among them (just why and when they went there is not known). The people of Eigg were tenants of MacDonald of Clanranald, an enthusiastic Jacobite, whose son raised a regiment for the prince's army from the extensive family estates; they fought and suffered heavy casualties at Culloden. So it happened that the only MacQuarries taken in the Rising of 1745-6 were a group of eight, most if not all of them from Eigg, who served in Clanranald's regiment.20 They may have found their way back to Eigg before being captured; after being imprisoned at Inverness and at Tilbury Fort on the Thames, they were transported in 1747 - Alexander, 3 Donalds and 4 Johns. A romantic attachment to the Jacobite cause has grown with the distance of time and space and some MacQuarrie families in North America claim an emigrant ancestor shipped overseas for having been in this rebellion although details are uncertain.21 Just what became of the unfortunate eight may never be known, but after a period of indentured service they no doubt merged with the general population among whom they unwillingly found themselves.

The French and Indian Wars (or Seven Years War) and the war of the American Revolution led indirectly to the settlement of some Highland Scots. By royal proclamation of 7 October 1763 all the officers and men of Montgomerie's and Fraser's Highlanders, mentioned in chapter 3, who chose to settle in America were offered a grant of land on easy terms in proportion to their rank. Most of these men found homes in New York province and Prince Edward (then St. John's) Island, while some settled in Quebec and on lands on the lower St. Lawrence and married into French families. Evidence of those who took up this offer is hard to come by and none has been seen relating to MacQuarrie soldier settlers in this period, but at least one family has a tradition of an ancestor in the 42nd regiment (Black Watch) who took part in the battle of Quebec in 1759 and received a grant of land in Canada for his services.22

When 'patriot' and 'loyalist' came to loggerheads in 1775 some of these veterans joined the Royal Highland Emigrant Regiment (later 84th Foot) under Colonel Allan MacLean and Major John Small. Its two battalions were in turn reduced in 1783 and grants of land were again offered in the proportion of 5,000 acres to a field officer, 3,000 to a captain, 500 to a subaltern, 200 to a sergeant and 100 to each soldier. 'All those who had settled in America previously to the war remained and took possession of their lands' according to General David Stewart, 'but many of the others returned home.' Men of Maclean's battalion are said to have settled in Canada and of Small's in Nova Scotia; but if there were any MacQuarrie among them the fact seems to have been forgotten or their descendents became merged with later settlers.23

Some there were who sided with the 'provincials' like John mentioned earlier as taking the new oaths. A certificate in the North Carolina records shows that an Alexander Query (who in 1780 purchased 170 acres of land lying on both sides of Back Creek just west of Harrisburg) was paid for 'waggonhire' in 1781.24 Others, like the chief and the future Governor of N.S.W. and their families had a more transient connection with the conflict. The pleadings in a long lawsuit over inheritance tells how Lauchlan Macquarry, "sometime Shipmaster in Campbelton" in Kintyre, after engaging in trade to New York and other parts of America and the West Indies, got the command of a privateer belonging to New York about the beginning of the war, carried on a lucrative business before his death in 1782 or 83 and left his heirs to argue over his fortune.25

 

Canada

After an almost complete cessation during the Revolutionary War, emigration from Scotland to British North America for the purpose of settlement was actively resumed after 1783. Some slackening off came during the early years of the French Revolutionary wars, when Highland soldiers were again in great demand, but the 'epidemical fury' may be said to have reached 'fever heat' during the opening years of the following century. There was a certain amount of unrest and discontent in the Highlands, particularly on the west coast and in the islands; yet until home conditions changed with the final defeat of Napoleon in 1815, it was still mainly the people themselves who took the initiative in seeking a new life overseas. Generally speaking the landowners were opposed to the loss by emigration of tenants who could work the land, the kelp shores and the fishing to the benefit of their estate as a whole.26

After the United States became independent, Canada was the chief goal for those wishing to leave Scotland and the government at home were anxious to encourage settlement. Some pioneers, first in the Maritime provinces and then in Upper Canada, will be noticed here with reference where appropriate to why they left and what they found. As a prelude, 'it is worth noting that there is a bagpipe march entitled 'The Canadian McQuarries', and that the tree which Canada has chosen as its emblem has one variety called the 'Macquarie Maple' (Cryptocaryaoblato) - tributes surely to their countries of origin and adoption.27

Pictou in Nova Scotia had been receiving shiploads of emigrants from the Highlands and Hebrides since 1773 when the famous Hector disembarked her passengers. It has even been said that there were several MacQuarries on board her.28 We are on firmer ground in stating that at least one party of MacQuarrie pioneers, and perhaps more, arrived in the Pictou area in 1791, evidently as part of a mass exodus from the Small Isles, the island already mentioned between Mull and Skye. In 1788-90, according to the parish minister 183 souls left this parcel of islands for America and 55 for other parts of Scotland. Most of these were from Eigg (still part of Clanranald's lands) where early marriages and subdivision of holdings to accommodate married sons led to poverty and misery, and some of the smaller tenants had been replaced by a group of tacksmen. The larger and mountainous island of Rum (26,000 acres), belonging to Maclean of Coll, was reckoned useful land for sheep-rearing, but (the minister declared) 'the proprietor's attachment to the inhabitants has hitherto prevented its being stocked with them only' and only a few emigrants came from there. Several of these were MacQuarries whose names have been preserved by traditional genealogies, with the locations in Pictou County where they settled.29

Lachlan, already advanced in years, had with him five children: Angus (1749-1837) who settled on the east branch of the East River and had a 500 acre farm in the valley of Strathaven between Springville and Sunnybrae; Allan, four years younger, lived at Big Brook on the west branch; Neil, who lived for some time at Strathaven and then moved to Caledonia, just over the watershed into what is now Guysborough Co.; and two daughters, one of whom married Hector MacQuarrie in Cape Breton. The genealogy preserved in this family states quite clearly that Lachlan was a native of Rum and came to Nova Scotia with his family in 1791,30 but does not mention on what ship he sailed nor who were his companions. From other sources we know that at least two ships (one named the Dunkeld) brought a total of 650 passengers from the Western Isles to Pictou in 1791 31 and as most of their passengers were Roman Catholics it is more than likely that the contingent from the Small Isles and other Clanranald lands were among them (some were said to have moved to Cape Breton, 'where Protestants would not trouble them').32 Among other MacQuarries who came to Pictou at this time was 'Red Malcolm' whose wife is believed to have induced a number of her family to come to Nova Scotia where many descendants still lived (50 years ago); Hector McQuarry, Scotch Hill, born about 1740 and lived to the age of 88, is reported to have emigrated in 1791 and John McQuarry, also of Scotch Hill, was a year or two older when he died in the same year.33

A group of Catholic emigrants, mostly from Lochaber but some from the Western Isles, settled at Little Mabou in Cape Breton Island, where John MacQuarrie the son of Donald and his wife Sarah MacCormick from Eigg and their family had an extensive farm of 670 acres surveyed in 1802. According to the grant of land made in 1811 to their eldest son Neil, he and his parents left Scotland 18 years before (about 1793, when he was about 5), and lived in Nova Scotia before moving to Little Mabou; their annalist mentions that one of the pioneer's sons (Lauchlin) married a non-Catholic which was apparently unusual.34 Traditional genealogies in the old Highland manner seem to have been faithfully kept in Nova Scotia, where seven generations could be traced by any well­informed member of the community, sometimes with three generations born in Scotland; no written record survives in Scotland of baptisms or marriages by the Small Isles parish minister before State registration was introduced in 1855.35

Many descendants of these Highland settlers still live in the Pictou area, although others are scattered throughout Canada and the United States. In the cemetery at Scotch Hill, about seven miles west of Pictou and five miles inland from the Northumberland Strait, the graves of some members of the pioneer families who lived there can still be identified. One sunny and cold day in April 1979, John R. MacQuarrie (of Pugwash) and a friend also well versed in the history of local people found ten or more MacQuarrie stones, including Malcolm and Hector (both born in the 1770s), Hector (b 1780), Allan and John (b 1790s) and Simon (b 1803). There are other MacQ. tombstones in the old cemetery at Caledonia, Guysborough County just south of Pictou. The Pictou Co. census of 1818 records 14 MacQuarrie families naming as heads of households one each of Alexander, Angus, Donald, Lauchlin, Malcolm, Ranald; 2 John; 3 Hectors and 3 Allan or Allens - with a total of 90 individuals (27 men over 16, including 5 over 50, 13 women, 28 boys and 22 girls).36

In a Cape Breton census at the same time there were 2 each named Hector, Lachlan & Neil all on the western shore in what is now Inverness County, with three of them pioneers about 60 years old or over.37 Named Isle Royal under the French, Cape Breton was not officially reannexed to Nova Scotia until 1820,38 and it continued to attract MacQuarrie settlers. More that 1,000 people are known to have left Tobermory for Cape Breton Island in 1826-7, and several MacQuarries sailed in the 'full-rigged ship' Highland Lad. Sergeant John MacQuarrie (sadly we don't know his regiment) settled near Port Hastings,39 and another John (Ian Maclain 'Ic lain Bhan or John the son of John the son of fair John) with his wife and two sons, all from Rum, made their pioneer home in the woods at Barberton, west of Melville in Hastings district, where some descendants remain. Some were able to buy land like Neil the son of Hector from Rum, who bought 1100 acres north of Hastings. The renewed trickle of emigrants from the Isle of Rum became a flood in 1828, when the St. Lawrence sailed from Greenock for Cape Breton, calling at Tobermory, and landed her passengers at Ship's Harbour (Port Hawkesbury) in the Gut of Canso. The passenger list, printed in MacDougall's History of Inverness-County, Nova Scotia, includes 208 emigrants from Rum, out of a total of at least 300 who left the island at this time; they were not confined to the young and fit, for four passengers were aged between 80 and 89, and the senior MacQuarries on board were John (aged 65) and Neil (55) with their wives and John's grown-up family of two sons and 3 daughters. 40

We know the story behind this Rum emigration from the evidence given to the House of Commons Select Committee on Emigration by the Rev. Dr. Norman MacLeod of Glasgow (Caraid nan Gaidheal, 'the friend of the Highlanders').41 As has already been indicated, Maclean of Coll (who also owned Rum) had no wish to lose his tenantry, but finding by 1825 that his rents were 300 pounds in arrears, because overcrowding prevented them from making an adequate living, he went to Rum and told them that he would cancel their debts, give them all their own cattle and 600 pounds to be shared among them to enable them to go to North America. They cheerfully accepted this offer, according to Dr. MacLeod, the emigration was 'conducted under the very best superintendence' and he had frequently heard from them that they were most confortable in their new homes.42 Rum was let as a sheep farm to a single tenant, who lived on the island with his family and servants (a population of not more than 50);43 grass soon covered the foundations of the razed cottages, the signs of former cultivation gradually faded and it was a desolate scene that Hugh Miller found there in 1844 when the island's 'strange and melancholy cycle' was about to experience a new turn of fortune as Lord Salisbury's deer forest.44

One of the first to combine the inevitability of emigration from the Highland and Islands with a desire to develop the resources of Canada (or British North America as it used to be called) was a Lowland landowner Thomas Douglas, Earl of Selkirk. He had a passionate concern for the wellbeing of the Highland people and in 1803 obtained government sanction to establish settlements in Prince Edward Island and Upper Canada.45 At least one of his 800 early P.E.I. settlers was a MacQuarrie and the place fixed on for them was an old French village renamed Belfast on the south side of Orwell Bay. No complete list of the settlers seems to exist, but Hector McQuarry was among the 'penurious' pioneers who eight years later testified to their gratitude and respect for the Rev. Dr. Angus Macaulay, their pastor and physician since the settlement was established. Malcolm MacQueen has emphasised in his Hebridean Pioneers that these settlers were not evicted tenants, but left their homes of their own free will and almost on their own resources, "the chief compulsion being a desire to improve their lot in life". At first they lodged in temporary wigwams, made after the Indian fashion, and as each family had selected and was allotted land they began to build log cabins and to bring what was practically wilderness into cultivation.46

It was a life of toil and danger for all these early settlers, with wild beasts roaming the forest which had to be cleared before they could raise crops for the support of their families. To be outright possessors of their land, and not as in the past only tenants, was in itself an incentive; they might be seen by strangers as 'indifferent farmers', accustomed to poverty and hardship with no inclination to improve their way of life; but those who knew them better saw that as their circumstances improved, they showed a perseverance and industry which made them rise very rapidly. Professor Charles W. Dunn, whose book Highland Settler (1953) surveys the effect of emigration on the folk-culture of the Scottish Gael in Nova Scotia, sees their deeply-rooted belief in the rights and worth of the individual, which helped to form the character of their descendants, as a bequest - 'almost its only legacy' - of the dying clan system.47

Selkirk's effort, which later produced the Red River Colony where Winnipeg now stands, was fired by a personal vision, but the ordinary pattern of settlement in Prince Edward Island was less paternalistic. After the Seven Years War the former French Isle St. Jean was parcelled out into townships of 20,000 acres each; most of the new proprietors were absentees and many of them neglectful of their properties.48 A carefully drawn plan of part of the Earl and Countess of Westmorland's estate in Hillsborough parish, Queen's County, shows that John and Hector McQuarry had 100 acres each in lot or township no. 29 which became the farm of Hampton.49 This was probably the same John, traditionally from Mull, who may have arrived via Cape Breton or Pictou and settled at Hampton about 1804, when according to his tombstone at Cape Traverse cemetery he would have been about 24 years old. His wife was a Maclean and some of their descendants still live in the same neighbourhood, while others include a doctor of divinity, and professor of biology and a member of the Canadian Senate.50 Other MacQuarrie settlers followed over the next few years. When the brig Humphreys sailed from Tobermory for P.E.I in 1806, the passengers included Alexander McQueary (40), his wife Isabel and two sons & four daughters aged 13 years to one month. 51

Emigration was by now a well-established and controlled business, although no doubt attended by many hardships. When the Clarendon of Hull (421 tons, Jas. Hine master) left Oban for 'Charlottetown, St. Johns Island, North America' in 1808 with 188 passengers on board, the ship was carefuly examined by customs officials, crew and passengers were mustered and checked with the lists, accommodation, stores and water found good and sufficient, and 'all the requisites of law' duly complied with. The cause of emigration for every single passenger was described as 'want of employ' and among the 188 were two labourers from Mull, Hector (23) and Lachlan (21) McQuarrie, with an unmarried relative Margaret McQuarrie (60).52 Unfortunately none of these groups can be identified in the Kilninian and Kilmore parish register, and wherever they settled in P.E.I. they were not the last members of the clan to go there.

Canada was obviously seen as the land of opportunity, where those prepared to make a clean break with the old country could build a new life for themselves. It is often just as difficult to tell where in Canada some emigrants from Scotland settled as it is to say from what part of Scotland any particular families came. Take for example Donald McQuarrie, a cattle drover from Ulva, who by his industry and savings had an ambition to widen his operation at home, but eventually felt obliged to emigrate in the hope of bettering his prospects in the early years of the century. All we know of him is what his chief wrote sadly in 1804:- 'my poor Drover D. M'Q. will soon be a Canadian' but of where he may have gone no clue is given.53

As the nineteenth century advanced Canada was expanding westwards. From 1791-1842 the part centred on Quebec and Montreal was known for administrative purposes as Lower Canada, while to the west between the Ottawa River and the Great Lakes was Upper Canada ('Canada Uachdarach' as one Gaelic bard called it.). In this region, which in due time became the province of Ontario, Highlanders had long been prominent in the fur trade and they were again to the fore in the great influx of British settlers attracted to the new lands in the decade after Waterloo.54 As part of the Rideau Settlement established by the British Government to defend the canal which had been built to link Ottawa with Lake Ontario, the townships of Lanark, Dalhousie, Ramsay and Sherbrooke were settled in 1820-1. Each head of family was promised 100 acres free of expense, with seed-corn and agricultural implements provided.55 At Ramsay on the minor Mississippi River which flows north to join the Ottawa at Arnprior, Neil and John McQuarrie received land grants in 1821-2; both certainly came from Scotland (the former sailed on the George Canning) and John was accompanied by his wife and 3 daughters.56 Lanark flourished and gave its name to a modern county; but much of the land was swampy, densely wooded and remote from markets, and Ramsay was one of the places which did not develop - so after contending with unusually severe circumstances some of the early settlers probably moved elsewhere.57

There were other growth areas farther west with settlement and clearing of land going on in what became York County on the north shore of Lake Ontario. Just to the north of where Toronto now stands a group of MacQuarrie families was by 1825 located in and near Maple. In the cemetery here there is a tombstone erected by his widow Anne 'To the memory of Hector McQuarrie Esq. A native of Ulva, Argyle-shire, Scotland, Who departed this life Oct. 18, 1850: Aged 69 Y's, 5 mo.' The old baptismal registers in Scotland show that three of the clan were given the name of Hector in 1780 (none was recorded in 1781), their fathers being John, Lachlan and Alexander,58 but we do not know which one this was; his grandson, who became a judge in the Court of Appeal in British Columbia, believed that Hector emigrated to the United States when he was about 19 years old, but did not remain there long before moving to Canada.59 Others of the group also came to Maple by way of the United States, some from Delaware Co. in New York State;58 from one of them, Laughlin or Lachlan, who may have been a brother of Hector, many MacQuarries have traced their descent, among them the grandmother of Max Aitken, British newspaper magnate and politician who became a member of the House of Lords as the first Lord Beaverbrook and the family to which a founder of the Clan MacQuarrie Association(of Scotland) belongs.60 Settlement in Upper Canada con-tinued to spread and about 25 miles west of Maple, Hector MacQuarrie (who emigrated from Scotland about 1820) settled in Caledon township, Peel County, where he purchased land in 1839.61 Farther north, in what became the province of Ontario, in 1841 one of the settlers was James McQuarrie, from the Isle of Iona, which suffered with Mull and its other islands from the potato famine. James was off to Canada (where two married sisters preceded him) with his family and soon appeared with his wife Catherine MacInnes and half a dozen sons in the 1851 census. They settled on land north of Argyle (to the east of Lake Simcoe) where the family increased and left descendants still in the province.62

What is written here has been deliberately confined to individuals and groups who might be called 'pioneers' of Canadian settlement at various periods and various places. But of course it should be realised that anyone venturing overseas is really a pioneer in his or her own circle. Descendants of these MacQuarrie emigrants are to be found all over Canada and in the United States. A lawyer in Manitoba, a railway engineer in Saskatchewan, an engineer in Alberta, a judge and banker in British Columbia - all testify to the roving spirit of the MacQuarrie Clan; even the Yukon has known one of them, when a Tobermory boat-builder's son made his way to the gold-diggings in Alaska.63

            Some have come home and a few were never to return. Captain Donald Archibald McQuarrie, of an Ontario regiment with the Canadian Expeditionary Force in the First World War, was awarded the Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty on the allied western front in 1918; and when he was killed in action six months later, not long before the Armistice was signed, his decoration was sent to his next of kin in British Columbia.64

 

Australia

Although General Lachlan Macquarie was Governor of New South Wales from 1810-21, and his son Lachlan (born in Sydney in 1814) was probably the first Australian-born member of the clan, the family cannot be regarded as themselves settlers in the colony. The doubtful distinction of being such a'first' perhaps should go to an otherwise unknown Archibald Macquarrie, sentenced to 14 years transportation (which then meant Botany Bay) in November 1817. He had been found guilty by a jury in the High Court of Justiciary at Edinburgh on a criminal charge of having broken into a Musselburgh hatter's shop in the previous June and of resetting stolen goods; with him was a 14-year-old boy and in sentencing him Lord Justice-Clerk Boyle reproved the accused man of 'tutoring youth to the gallows'.65 Whether His Excellencey ever encountered his erring clansman, or heard of his arrival in the penal colony, is not known - in fact we know nothing of this particular convict's fate after his brush with the law. Transportation to New South Wales was abolished in 1840, but a few years later it started to the Swan River colony in Western Australia. Another member of the clan found himself an involuntary emigrant some years later when Allan McQuarrie (23), a literate shoemaker, convicted at Edinburgh in 1853 of robbery, was sentenced to 16 years transportation and arrived at Swan River on the ship Adelaide in July 1865. After going through the usual process of ticket of leave and conditional pardon, he received his full pardon in 1869 and is known to have found work far to the south in Albany at the mouth of the Kalgan River on King George Sound.66

Emigration to Australia was not, however, all a matter of convict settlement even while that lasted. Shortly before the 1841 census was taken in Scotland, about 60 individuals had emigrated to Australia from the newly-formed parish of Ulva alone.67 While Canada continued to prove an attraction, some of the broad flow of emigrants from the Highlands in the 1840s and 1850s was diverted to Australia, largely through the efforts of the Highland and Island Emigration Society. Between 1852 and 1857 a total of 4910 people were sent out, most of them to Victoria where the discovery of gold had so far denuded the sheep farms of workers as to give the society's emigrants a good chance of finding employment. A 'rolling fund' was designed to allow for outlays to be reimbursed by repayments, with proprietors asked to find one-third of the cost, and the emigrant agreeing to repay any advances made, by a promissory note.68 The first members of the clan to be assisted were John (36) and his wife Ann from the Duke of Argyll's Tiree estate, who sailed on the Marmion in August 1852 from Liverpool for Moreton Bay near Brisbane. It was not long before some of those evicted from Ulva figured in the society's books: the destitute family of Donald McFarlane from Tobermory, who had been a crofter 'dispossessed of his land about ten months ago by Mr. Clark of Ulva', left for Victoria on the British Queen in January 1853. On the Panama, which sailed from Liverpool the same day, there were six families (a total of 37 individuals), for whom Clark advanced over £208 (which compared well with sums contributed by neighbouring Mull landowners).69 The following particulars are given in the society's records:

 

McQuarrie,

Hector

45

Promissory Note £30 2s 1/2d. Rented croft of Mr. Caldwell until last year. Boat builder by trade, no work for 2 years. Supports family by gathering shell-fish. Neither boat nor net. Can earn 5s a week when there is sale for lobsters. Earned about 20s in the last month, a very poor family.

 

Mary

35

 

Christy

13

 

Hugh

10

 

Kate

8

 

Donald

3

 

 

 

 

McQuarrie,

Allan

49

Promissory Note £29 19s 1/2d.

 

Catherine

40

[No further details.]

 

Flora

9

 

 

Lachlan

7

 

 

Hugh

5

 

 

The other four families were Alexander McDonald (50), ('Has rented a croft on Ulva.

Evicted by Mr. Clarke some years ago. Supports his family by gathering shell-fish. Was long on Destitution Fund'), wife Flora and 7 children; Neil McKinnon (44), wife Christiana and 7 children; John McNeill (28), Lachlan (20) and Isabella (12); Nicol McIntyre (44), his wife Janet and 3 children. Promissory notes for these families were respectively: £53 4s 8d; £45 4s 1/2d; £22 18s 11d; £27 1s 10d.69

The Panama arrived in Tasmania on 27 April after a voyage of 15 1/2 weks. Both Hector and Allan McQuarrie were described in the immigration records as boat-builders, but they could not get work of that kind and they were obviously poor; among the possessions they took with them were a clock, a set of bagpipes and a copy of Henry Mackenzie's Man of Feeling, which were all handed down in Allan's family.70 Both Hector and Allan (who may have been any age from 39 to 58 according to which source one accepts, and whose paper added 'sawyer and country service' to his occupation) were hired as 'general farm servants', the one to I.W. Murdoch, Scotsdale (in NE Tasmania) and the other to T.G. Gregson, a politician (briefly Tasmania's second prime minister), newspaper proprietor, sportsman, grazier and artist, of Risdon near the site of modern Hobart. Hector died in 1856 and Allan in 1858, and the diligence of the family historian has shown what became of their children.71

The search for gold was to be the undoing, indirectly, of Hector's two sons. When gold was found in Queensland, in the 1870s, Hugh and his brother Donald (then in their 30s) gave up the shearing business and headed north in the hope of earning enough by 'packing' on the Palmer River to buy themselves farms in Tasmania. In the/Wild country inland from Cookstown the aboriginal inhabitants resented the white mens`intrusion and the law of the jungle prevailed. It is said that Donald's health did not stand up to the strain and Hugh was taking him back to the coast when they were set upon and killed by aborigines at a place called Hell's Gate. A grim footnote to the story adds that a party of diggers later found the signs of a 'cannibal feast' with a few words scratched on a tin pannikin by Hughie before he died - though all do not believe that the Cape York aborigines ate their victims.72 Of Allan's sons from Ulva, the elder, Lachlan, seems to have inherited some of his father's skill in carpentry. Known as 'Lark' Macquarie (the surname not unnaturally came to be spelled like Port Macquarie from the Governor) he became renowned as a builder of boats made of Huon pine favoured by Tasmanian whalers, and had a reputation as 'a wizard at turning out a neat well-lined craft'. He built many boats and won a bronze medal at the Sydney International Exhibition in 1879 and a silver medal at its Melbourne successor in 1880. A bit of a wanderer, he disappeared in 1907 while prospecting for gold on his own in SW Tasmania.73 The Victoria goldfields attracted another Macquarie, Murdoch from the Ross of Mull (his father Lachlan was an army officer whose tombstone can still be seen near Bunessan); he emigrated to Stawell, a gold-mining centre about 80 miles from Melbourne in the direction of Adelaide.74

It will not be out of place to mention here that one of the great ocean sights in the days of sail was the Macquarie (ex-Melbourne), an iron sailing ship of 1857 tons, nearly 270 ft. long and 40 ft. beam which for 20 years sailed between England and Australia. Launched at Blackwall yard in London in 1875, she was the last sailing ship built on the Thames. Her name was changed to Macquarie in 1888 when she changed owners and transferred from the Melbourne to the Sydney run: an average outward passage lasted 82 days and her first arrival in Port Jackson was 94 days out from London. After six years as a cadet ship under Captain Corner she was sold to the Norwegians in 1903, renamed Fortuna and ended her days as a coal hulk in Sydney harbour until finally sold for breaking up in 1953. She is still widely remembered from her great days as the Macquarie through Corner's magnificent photographs of her under sail.75

The reputation of governor Lachlan Macquarie, to which her name was a tribute, stands higher today than ever, having long lived down contemporary controversies. In the 1930s the Macquarie Head Press, with his head and shoulder portrait as an emblem, published books in Sydney, and the Macquarie Broadcasting Network began operations which still continue as the Macquarie Network.76 Obviously the old clan name is not forgotten 'down under', but the ultimate compliment was to come with the inauguration of the new Macquarie University in 1967, named after the son of Ulva who served the colony so well. Founded by an act of the New South Wales state parliament in 1964, it is located on a 300 acre site at Ryde in the northern suburbs of Sydney about 12 miles NW of the city centre. With over 10,000 students, nearly half of them full-time, it has taken its place among the established universities of the Commonwealth; yet it remembers past links by preserving some of the panelling and other fittings from the old Gruline House in Mull and by having a coat of arms granted for one of its colleges by the Lord Lyon King of Arms as the chief heraldic authority in Scotland.77

 

New Zealand

As ruler of New South Wales, Lachlan Macquarie also held sway over the 'islands adjacent in the Pacific Ocean', in which he took the liberty of including New Zealand. Information about settlers in New Zealand is scant and scattered until 1840 when by the Treaty of Waitangi the Maori people exchanged their sovereignty for certain guarantees, and New Zealand became a British colony in its own right.78 Settlers from Britain were officially encouraged and in August of that year one of the emigrants on board the ship Blenheim, as she lay off the Tail of the Bank in the Clyde, was Donald McQuarrie (54) from Borline at the head of Loch Eynort in Skye with his wife Margaret and a household of at least eight, three below ten years old. Described as a labourer, Donald was recommended by his landlord, Hugh MacAskill, who rented the sheep farm of Talisker from MacLeod and was ready to pay for the children in the family group. Donald seems to have remained near Wanganui where the Blenheim passengers settled (about 100 miles north of Wellington in the North Island), and to have lived another 40 years in his new home.79

Others of the clan settled in New Zealand over the years and many of their descendants are there today. One of 800 followers of the Rev. Norman MacLeod, who made an extraordinary second migration from Nova Scotia to New Zealand in 1852, was a MacQuarrie who sailed on the Highland Lass and finally settled as a mason at Waipu Bridge about 60 miles north of Auckland.80 John McQuarry, who arrived 16 years or so later with his wife Jane Petterson and a young family, was born in Ross-shire (son of another John and his wife Isabella Gordon), but when he married in 1859 he was living in Cromdale parish in Strathspey and working as a 'floater of wood' - one who helped to keep the rafts of logs moving down the great river from the Inverness-shire forests to the sea.81 More children were born to this couple in Invercargill, and Donald (who arrived as a three-year-old) set up as a coach and carriage builder in this southernmost city of the British Commonwealth.82

Even farther south, in the Stewart Island group, an island called Ulva (some 2 1/2 miles long, rather smaller than the original) is another reminder of the clan, not to mention Macquarie Island itself, almost half-way to the Antarctic. A ferry ran to Ulva from the main island (where the chief town is Oban, and another Iona lies offshore) in 1877-85 by a subsidised mail-carrier using the 20-ton Ulva cutter, and the store at Ulva wharf was often visited by passing whalers. On Kilbride, another island in the group, one half of the sheep run was held by William McQuarrie, who lived there with his wife and family during the First World War.83 Meanwhile far away in France and Flanders, a Wellington man, Lieut.-Colonel Robert Stirrat McQuarrie won the Distinguished Service Order and Military Cross for service with the N.Z. Field Artillery.84 In the Solomon Islands Hector MacQuarrie (the same Hector of note 72) enjoyed working among the Polynesians to whom he was known as 'Captain Makuari'. He reckoned that his clan background helped to make him feel at home among them. Hector became a prolific writer of books and like many other MacQuarries who lived far from the home of their ancestors, he used to seize the chance of a visit to Ulva when he was in the old country and wrote, 'It is a bonny island, is it not?'.85

 

Notes and references - Chapter 7, The Scattered Clan

 

1. D.W.Meinig, The Shaping of America (1986), i 147; I.C.C.Graham, Colonists from Scotland (1956), 116-21; John Buchan, Salute to Adventurers (1914).

2. Rodney MacQuary, The MacQuarrie Heritage, 50; Clarence McQueary, per The Red Tartan, vo17; 'The MacQueary Family' genealogy, various annotated copies. 'Archibald Macquerry of Lafine in Scotland' said to be on record in Charlestown (Carolina) in 1694, maybe named 'Macqueddie', New England Hist. & Genea. Reg, (1875), xxix 72, 291. 

3. Calendar of State Papers (America & West Indies 1716-7) ed. C.Headlam 1930, 309-13; Scot. Notes & Queries, 3rd series, iv 187-8, 209; Graham 102; D.Whyte, A Dictionary of Scot. Emig. to U.S.A. (1972) 317.

Comment: Source for statements covered by notes 4-9 is The John McQuerry Family Research (21 May 1984) compiled by Paul W.Gregory, Hays, N.C. for LaMar & Sheila McQuerry, Chicago, IL. Includes photocopies of original records as noted.

4. No existing record of this grant is known, but it's quoted in sources in notes 5 & 6 below. Anna River is now Anna Lake.

5. Hanover Co. Record 1733/35 by Blunt 56-7 (2 Jul 1735). These records have not survived & Gregory's information came from an Order Book Abstract in State Library, Richmond, VA Graham, 119-21.

6. Louisa Co. VA, Deed Book A, ppl43, 217-8,391,460. Deed Book B p79. Deed Book C p 150. Louisa part of Hanover until 1842. Photocopies.

7. Bedford Co. VA, Deed book 4, p284.

8. Virginia Magazine of History and Biography, vol 9 p140.

9. Gregory adds: '...no deed of conveyance has been found'.

10. From various correspondents including La Mar & Sheila McQuerry.

11. S. Johnson, Journey to the Western Islands (ed Chapman 1924) 120.

Comment: Notes 12-16 are based on documents VI-X in 'The Argyle Patent and Accompanying Documents', Jennie M.Patten History of the Somonauk United Presbyerian Church (Chicago 1928):

VI The Argyle Patent (13 Mar 1764).

VII Grantees named in the Argyle Patent with their Holdings.

VIII List of Persons brought from Scotland by Capt. Lauchlin Campbell to settle in King's Lands at Wood Creek from 1738-40.

IX      Another list as in VIII, likely prepared in 1763.

X       Account by Alex. McNaught(on) & Duncan Reid of those who did emigrate with Capt. Campbell in 1738-40, & who, their descendants or person impowered, have appeared & requested a proportion of the lands to be granted ... delivered 10 May 1763.

12. Patten pp 297-346; J.P.MacLean, A Hist. Acc. of the Settlements of Scotch-Highlanders in Amer. (1900) 176-87; Graham, 77-80; C.Campbell, 'Lt.Col. George Campbell, King's Amer. Regiment' in New England Hist. & Genea. Reg. (1983) 307-8 (per Alastair Campbell Jr. of Airds).

13. Mary M.MacMorris et al. Argyle: Then-Now-And Forever (1964) pp 1,2; Patten 349; James Gibson, articles in The Salem Review Press (1887).

14. No origin places are given in any publ. lists. A.McKerral has suggested some settlers may have come from Kintyre, if so others may have come from Mull & other islands. Alan Macquarrie, The Clan Macquarrie (1981) 7, shows MacQuarries in Islay before 1739.

15. Patten VI 311-24, VIII 327-8; Argyle: Then-Now-And Forever (1964) pl. 16. Patten VI 315-6, VII 324-5, IX 324, 331-2, X 336. In MacLean 184-7 'the street' is explained. Map in Patten pre 297 & Argyle pre 1. Donald Lindsey later renamed Duncan & said to have died age 104, Argyle 78.

17. MacLean 187; Argyle 57.

18. Argyle village lies 40 miles N of Albany & 10 miles SE of Glens Falls; letter Mrs. Gordon McEachron, Argyle Town Historian, to RWM 28 Jun 1985. A direct descendant of the Lindsay/MacQuarrie marriage in Colorado recalls her ancestors who left Islay in Lachlan Campbell's ship in 1739 (Mrs. Ronald Scherar, 8082 Lakeshore Dr., Parker CO 80134, letters to Alan Macquarrie and RWM, 21 May 1985).

19. Gordon Donaldson, The Scots Overseas (1966) 58.

20. Bruce Seton & J.G.Arnot, The Prisoners of the '45, i 42, 220; iii 178-81. Muster Roll of Prince Charles Ed. Stuart's Army, ed Livingstone, Aikmand & Hart (1984) 144; The Ulva (Newsltr.) Jun 1980. Capt. John Fergussone took 32 prisoners & 50 stand of arms on Eigg, 'the inhabitants being all rebels', May 1746 [James Fergusson, Argyll in the Forty-Five (London 1951) 207]. Two other men from Moidart, one a'surgeon in the rebel service' both imprisoned & then pardoned, were listed with the surname MacWarish or McAlquharish, which has sometimes (doubtfully) been identified as MacQuarrie.

21. Based on correspondence over 50 years; A Book about MacQuarries, 1989, ed B.McQuarrie, 84-5; replies to Clan MacQuarrie Association questionaire.

22. D. Stewart, Sketches of the Highlanders (1822) ii 17,22; Graham 47-8, 74; S.C.Johnson, A Hist. of Emig. from the UK to N. Amer. (1913) 3, 208, says Fraser's & Montgomerie's chose Murray as site of new homes; J.R.Harper, A Short Hist. of the old 78th Reg. or Fraser's Highlanders (1966) 73-7.

23. Stewart, ii 17, 22, 140, 144-5.

24. Hist. of the Query Family in N.Car., Hugh A.Query, Gastonia, NC.

25. Testament 20 May 1785 (Commisariot Record of Edinburgh, SRO Reg. of Testaments, Part III); Signet Library Session Papers, vol 197 fol 18; Court of Session Minute Book (1794) 5, 175; (1800) 67, 251; (1802) 441; (1803) 413, actions by sisters Catherine wife of Archibald Watson and Isobel wife of Charles Macalister, also by Isobel, relict of Charles McQuarry, carpenter in Cambeltown against John M'Allister of Balmakiel.

26. Graham, 22,35,185; Adam in SHR xvii73. Bumsted, The People's Clear., intro xv-xvi.

27. Composed by John M'Lean, pub by David Glen in The Edinburgh Coll. of Highland Bagpipe Music (c 1900), part xi 32. Reprinted in A Book about MacQuarries, 73. Encyclopedia Britannica (1963 ed), xiv 852.

28. Hector, Murdoch & Donald, 3 MacQuarrie brothers, are said to have been on the Hector (J.M.Gibbon, Scots in Canada, 142). There is no contemporary passenger list; later accepted, printed lists include no MacQuarries (Bumsted, 230-1).

29. Rev. Donald Maclean in OSA xvii 281-2 (1796); new series xx 239-40. He had been minister of the parish since 1787, lived in Eigg, but most of his Presby. flock would be in Rum. He was from Coll, related to the laird of Coll & Rum and the student who S.Johnson had commended & sent a copy of his dictionary (Journey ... 1985, 209 note 6.)

30. Copied or compiled by Rev. A.Maclean Sinclair c1886; transcript, with initials A.M.S. received from Mr. A.H.MacQuarrie, Edmonton, Alberta with letter RWM 31 Oct 1943.

31. Catherine Sinclair in 'The Highland Settlers' part ii in Cape Breton Post, 29 Jun 1985. Bumsted 74-6, 224, show that 4 emigrant ships sailed for British N. Amer. in 1791 with 1300 emigrants, 90 paying passengers. (Edin. Evg. Courant, 15, 23 Oct 1791 and Caledonian Mercury, 22 Dec 1791).

32. Rev. George Patterson, Memoir of Rev. James MacGregor (Edin. 1859) 256-7. Eigg was a Catholic island, but people of Rum (58 families in 1773) had become Protestants by influence of laird (Johnson p 115).

33. Colonial Patriot, 14 Mar 1828; Nova Scotian, 6 Mar 1828, quoted by J.R.MacQuarrie from the Hector Centre, 15 Oct 1979.

34. A.D.MacDonald, Mabou Pioneers (PP,ND), i 796-803 microfilm in NLS; J.L.MacDougall, Hist. of Inverness County, N.S. (1922) 285.

35. C.W.Dunn, Highland Settler (1953) 53. Detailed List of Old Parochial Reg. of Scot. 1872, 14, no 116; Rev. D.Maclean, NSA xiv 151 (1842).

36. J.R.MacQuarrie, Pugwash, letter & table to RWM 18 Jul 83.

37. D.Whyte, Dictionary of Scot. Emig. to Canada (1986), 319-20, nos 9168, 9179, 9181, 9189, 9195-6 all from Cape Breton Census 1818 (Holland's Description of Cape Breton, ed D.C.Harvey 1935).

38. T.C.Haliburton, Hist. & Stat. Account of N.Ss (2 vols 1829) i 301.

39. E.Richards, Hist. of the Highland Clearances, 365, from J.S.Martell Immig. to & Emig. from N.S., 1815-38 (PANS pubn. no. 6, 1942) 61ff.

40. J.L.MacDougall, 127-8, 159-62. C.W. Dunn 15, 21.

41.First report from the Select Comm. on Emig., Scotland, p71 (PP 1841 VI MSp 75); J.N.MacLeod, Memorials of the Rev. Norman MacLeod(sr.) (1898) 5, 14, 30, 180-2, 285.

42. Select Comm. Rep, loc.cit.; S.C.Johnson, 39-40. E.Richards, i 367, wrongly identifies proprietor of Rum (unnamed by MacLeod in his evidence) as MacNeil of Canna.

43. PP 1841 VI 17 (MS p21), evidence of John Bowie; PP 1826-7 V 288, evidence of factor. Quoted by E.Richards i 221-2.

44. H.Miller, Cruise of the Betsey (Edinburgh 1858), 133-6.

45. G.Donaldson, 69.

46. Malcolm A. McQueen, Hebridean Pioneers (Winnipeg 1957) 8, 10, 11, 63.

47. C.W.Dunn, 28; 109 quoting Capt. W.Moorsom, Letters from N.S, (London 1830) p344; 114 from N.MacLeod, Rems. of a Highland Parish (1887 ed) 138.

48. J.L.Lewellin, Emig., P.E.I. (Charlottetown 1832), in Journies to the Island of St. John (Toronto 1985) ed D.C.Harvey, 190.

49. SRO, RHP 2109, undated plan of twp. lot by Joseph Ball, Asst. Surveyor General, from Melville Castle Papers.

50. Rev. W.A.MacQuarrie (b1889) Georgetown PEI, 30 Jan 64; Kay (MacQuarrie) Wood, Victoria PEI, 5 Mar 83. both per J.R.MacQuarrie

51. Archives PEI, 2702, Bumsted 265-7, Dobson ii 147, Whyte 320 no 9197.

52. Bumsted, 200-1, 277.

53. Letter to Lochbuie, 23 Mar 1804, GD 174/1427/61 & 75. He was still in Mull attending the 'christening' of Jarvisfield 16 Jul 1804, Journal & Proceedings of Australian Hist. Soc., vol iv part ii (1917), 62.

54. Canada and its Provinces, vol 17, pp72-96.

55. Norman MacDonald, Canada, 1763-1841 (1939), 251; Song by Lachlan Currie, quoted W.J.Watson, Rosg Gaidhlig (1915) 105-7.

56. D.Dobson, Scot. Sett. in N.A., 1625-1825, v (1985) 213-4, from Ont. Pub. Archives; to locate Ramsay, J.D.Roger, A Hist. Geog. of the Brit. Colonies, vol v part iii, pp 168-9.

57. see note 55; G.Donaldson, 132-3.

58. A Book about MacQuarries, 86; photo of tombstone by Gordon & Mae McQuarrie per Rev. Daniel McQuarrie, 1985; OPRs, 544/1.

59. Hon. Justice W.G.McQuarrie, Vancouver, B.C. to RWM 12 Mar 1938.

60. Ltr. from Lord Beaverbrook to RWM, 27 Jul 48; Burke's Peerage; Donald R.MacQuarrie, Toronto to RWM, 24 Apr 48; Family tree and infn from Bruce McQuarrie. Hugh, Donald & Lachlan (or possibly Job) are names suggested for the father of ancestor Lachlan, but I have not seen or heard a name for Hector's father and do not know what evidence there may be that they were brothers. It has been suggested by descendants that Lachlan's family may have originated either in Islay or Mull - possibly both husband & wife from Islay or else one from each (infn from Lord Beaverbrook, personally & through his London secretary, 21 Nov 47, and at his request latter to RWM from Olivia (MacQuarrie) Bowman (Mrs. C.H.), Maple, Ont., 19 Nov 47.

61. D.Whyte, Dict. ... to Canada, 319, no 9169, based on correspondence.

62. Argyle (Ont.) cemetery ; 1841 & 1851 censuses of Iona, per Mairi MacArthur, 1989; letters from grandson Donald, 20 Apr & 1 Sep 1948, and his sister Effie, 3 Aug 1948; R.Fleming, Eldon Connections (1975), 169-73; See note 61, 319 no 9170.

63. R.L.McQuarrie, barrister & solicitor, Brandon, Man. (Canadian Almanack, 1936); Dan J.McQuarrie, engineer on Can. Nat. RR, Saskatchewan (J.L.MacDougall, p159); Alexander Hugh MacQuarrie, 1874-1966, 'first engineer for the Prov. of Alberta & surveyed the lst road to Peace River.' (MacTalla, Clan MacQ. of Atl. Can. vo14 no 1 p4); Wm. Garland McQuarrie, 1876-1943, Puisne Judge or Justice, Court of Appeal, B.C. (Who's Who in Can. 1922, ed Green, p268, incl. portrait; Who's Who, 1936 etc. 1946 obit.; Can. Who's Who, 1938-9); Archibald James Macquarrie, 1875-1945, Bank of Brit. North Amer., Vancouver 1898-1904 (Oban Times, 16 Feb 46); Scot. Gen., xxxvi/1, pl l); John MacQuarrie, d. Can. 1927 (Tobermory MI, infn. from nephew Dugald, 22 Aug 40).

64. Army List (1919), Orders of Knighthood etc, p427; letter to RWM from Dir., War Serv. Records, Dept of Vet. Affairs (Ottawa) 30 Aug 48.

65. Edin. Eve. Courant, 22 Nov 1817; Edin. Advert., 25 Nov 1817; The Scotsman, 29 Nov 1817; D.Hume, Comm. on the law of Scot. respecting Crimes (1844 ed), ii 342n.

66. G.Donaldson, 152; Erickson(comp) Dictionary of Western Australians 1829-1914, vol ii Bond 1850-68 (1979).

67. David Macfadyen, schoolmaster, Killimore, 1841 Census, 544/12.

68. Society's records are in Scot. Rec. Off., Edin, HD 4/1-6. Summary in G. Donaldson, 76-8, 160. Passages were provided by the Col. Land & Emig. Comm. for able-bodied persons of good character under a certain age & with a specified number of children, provided they paid a deposit of £1-2 per adult (more for older persons) & had adequate clothing. Those who applied for help had to pay what they could towards the deposit and clothing, & the society made up the balance, proprietors being expected to pay one-third of the cost advanced by the society (Allan Macquarie memo).

69.SRO HD 4/5 pp37, 88, 90; HD 4/6 p66: G.Donaldson 78 & reproduction facing p65; A.Macquarie Memo p52, McNeill note should be £22 18s l ld.

70. Mrs. Hugh Macquarie to RWM, 19 Mar 84/20 Feb 89; A.Macquarie memo, pp50-2.

71. Lachlan Macquarie memo, 45; Ouse cemetery MI, from J&B Emberg, Gravely Tasmanian ii 53 (Launceston 1979); Allan Macquarie memo pp48-9 quoting microfilm in Tas. Archives, p52 quoting Mercury (Hobart), 23 Nov 1983 on Gregson.

72. Hector Holthouse, River of Gold 69-70. Exact site of Hell's Gate between Cooktown & Palmer River goldfields has been discussed (Percy Trezise, Last Days of a Wilderness (1973)); Sunday Sun, 19Jun 1983. By coincidence another Clansman was in this area some years later, when Hector MacQuarrie's 'Baby Austin' was the 1st motorcar to pass over the Byerstown Range road during epic journey Cairns to Cape York, and later around the world. H. MacQuarrie, Little Wheels (London 1935) 143-4, orig. pub. in Australia as We & the Baby. See last page of this chapter.

73. A.Macquarie memo, pp 57-8, quoting E.H.Webster & L.Norman, A Hundred Years of Yachting Hobart 1936), 145; Will Lawson, Blue Gum Clippers (Adelaide 1949), 79; Harry O'May, Hobart River Craft, 44.

74. Brother Lachlan Macquarie's List of Mull Officers (1891); Kilpatrick MI, near Bunessan, Isle of Mull.

75. Basil Lubbock, The Blackwall Frigates (2nd ed 1924) 290-4; Sydney Morn. Herald, 11 Feb 1953; letter from The Maritime Services board of N.S.W., Sydney, 15 Nov 1962.

76. Leslie Haylen, The Game Darrells; F.E.Baume, Half-Caste; R.H.Milford, Australia's Backyards (1934). Sands & McDougall's Directory of Victoria (1939). Ian Keith Mackay was production manager 1951-61, & wrote Broadcasting in Australia (1957) & Macquarie: the Story of a Network (1960) (Who's Who, London, 1985).

77. Commonwealth University Yearbook (1989), 91. RCAHM, Argyll Inventory, iii 232; Lyon Register, 50/100 (16 Jun 1970), Dunmore Lang College, Macquarie University.

78. Ellis, Lachlan Macquarie, 180, 328; Marion Phillips, Colonial Autocracy, 47-8. New Zealand Official Yearbook 1988-89, p57.

79. Reg. of Emig. Labourers who ... free Passages to New Zealand (N.Z. archives), per Mrs. Heather Young, 1985; Lord Teignmouth, Sketches of the Coasts & Islands of Scot. (London 1836), i 129; Obit. in Australian & N.Z. Gazette, 2 Mar 61, per H.Young.

80. G.Macdonald, Highlanders of Waipu (Dunedin 1928), 178. 1st name not given, but came from Middle River, N.S. & maybe born in N.S. For visit to Waipu, see J.R.MacQuarrie in MacTalla vo13 no 1(Jun 1983).

81. John McQuarry, died Macquarie St. Invercargill, 19 Mar 1891, aged 55 (parents' names from death cert.); son John b. 2 Nov 1859 at Easter Lethendry (bapt. & father's occup. from OPR Cromdale, 17 Nov 1859, per H.Young); on Spey floaters, Elizabeth Grant, Memoirs of a Highland Lady (1898 ed), 202ff; Wm Forsyth, In the Shadow of Cairngorm (1900), 303-4. H.Young, dau. of Norman Stanley McQuarrie, b 7 Dec 1901, son of George Alexander McQuarrie (1872-1913), son of John (c1836-91).

82. Donald, b. Grantown-on-Spey 1863/4, emig. with parents to Port Chalmers by ship Chili, after learning trade in Invercargill visited NSW, returned 1891 to establish business of D.McQuarrie & Co, Tay St., Invercargill (The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, vol 4, Otago & Southland Provincial Districts (1905), 840; Wise's N.Z. P.O. Directory (1939), per H.Young). Donald d. Invercargill 3 Sep 1951).

83. Olga Sanson, The Stewart Islanders Wellington etc. (1970), 113, & picture caption facing page, 197, 199.

84. VC & DSO Army List (1919); N.Z. Biographies (1968) iv 116, per H.Young.

85. Author's & Writer's Who's Who 1963), 320; letter to RWM 15 May 41, met London 27 May 46; books passim Vouza & the Solomon Islands (London 1945), Friendly Queen (Salote of Tonga) (London 1955); Ulva Newsletter (1985) no 7.

 

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