The Sailing of the Hector 1773-1973
Transcribed from Clan MacLeod Magazine, number 39, Spring 1974, pp. 14-16.

On 21st July 1973 at Norway Point, Pictou, the Premier of Nova Scotia, Gerald A. Regan, introduced H.R.H. Princess Alexandria [sic], and her husband, Hon. Angus Ogilvy, to the hundreds of Canadians and Americans of Scottish descent who had gathered round the sunlit bay. After a short speech the Princess and all the assembled company watched the re–enactment of the landing of the Highlanders from the ship Hector.

The scene on 15th September 1773 had been a good deal less hospitable. The dense forest grew down, uninterrupted, to the water’s edge as far as the eye could see. The unfamiliar customs and appearance of the Indians so terrified the Highlanders that they remained on board for two days, though they had been at sea since early July, and all wished to walk on dry land again.

Finally on 17th September, lead by their piper, a Fraser, the settlers put on the national dress, which though proscribed in Scotland for 27 years, many had kept and brought with them. They manned the boats and rowed into the wide sandy bay on a gloriously sunny day. The Highlanders jumped nimbly out of the boats into the water and waded ashore carrying their few belongings on their backs.

It had been in 1765 that the British Government approved a large grant of land in Pictou County to a group of men from Philadelphia. Three shares of this land were purchased by Dr. Witherspoon, and a Greenock merchant, Mr. Pagan, the owner of a rotting old hulk, Hector, which had been trading for a number of years. Hector had brought a group of emigrants to Boston in 1770. Pagan and Witherspoon engaged John Ross as supercargo for the ship, and sent him back to Scotland to collect as many colonists as he could in Hector.

The incentive to sail to America was a free passage, a farm in Pictou, and a year’s free provisions. Ross painted a glowing picture, and many families, knowing nothing of the difficulties awaiting them, and being tempted by the prospect of owning a farm of their own, forsook their mean crofts and flocked on board.

Ten colonists were collected at Greenock and 179 at Lochbroom, in Wester Ross. There were seventeen MacLeods from Assynt; Macdonalds from Dun Donell; Mackenzies; Rosses; Munros and Frasers making up 33 families and 25 single men.

Hector prepared to sail in early July, when the captain discovered a stowaway, a Fraser. The man was ordered ashore, but being a piper, he began to play the proscribed national instrument, and this so affected his fellow travellers, that they begged the captain to allow the piper to accompany them. They even offered to share out their food with him, if he would give them music.

The Highlanders kept up their spirits during the eleven week journey by singing, dancing and wrestling. The ship was so rotten that the passengers could pick out pieces of wood with their hands. The accommodation was appalling, and smallpox and dysentry broke out amongst the passengers. Eighteen of the children died and had to be committed to the deep, to the bitter sorrow of their parents. But one girl was born, Jean Fraser, an ancestor of Arthur MacLeod Rogers, Canadian National President.

Hector met a severe gale off Newfoundland which drove the ship back east, and it took a fortnight to recover the lost ground.

The Highlander’s stock of supplies became exhausted, and the water scarce and rancid. All that remained was a little salted meat, and this was inedible because of the lack of water. The oatcake carried by everyone became mouldy so that much of it was thrown away, before the Highlanders had any idea that they would be at sea for so long.

Fortunately one passenger, Hugh MacLeod, being more purdent than the rest, had been gathering up the despised scraps rejected by his fellow travellers. He collected these in a bag, and for the last few days the company survived on this refuse.

The Fraser piper leading the Highlanders ashore at Pictou on 17th September, 1773. On a gloriously sunny day, the men of Wester Ross, 17 MacLeods among them, donned the national dress which had been proscribed for 27 years. (From a painting by J. D. Kelly.)

On a bright sunny day the Highlanders eventually leapt ashore, but their joy did not last long. They were landed without their promised supplies, and were given no shelter. With the help of a few settlers already there, the men made rude shelters for their wives and children.

The disappointment was bitter for the Highlanders who had been promised free farms and supplies. Many sat down and wept, and wished themselves back in their small snug ‘black houses.’ The scanty supplies of the earlier settlers were soon exhausted, so that everyone, old and new, became destitute. It was too late to plant crops.

The colonists were moved inland, three miles from the shore, but being unskilled woodmen, felt that the task of clearing trees was hopeless. They were frightened of the Indians and the wild beasts.

Baby Jean Fraser was carried by her brother, while her parents gathered up their few belongings and walked by the Indian Trails to Truro, eighty miles away.

Those that remained refused to settle on the company’s inhospitable land, so that, when supplies did arrive, the agent refused to give the settlers any supplies.

A view of Pictou Bay with the town of Pictou on the right. Hector dropped anchor in 1773 at a point to the centre of the photograph, to the right of the birch left of the steamer. Photo: Fred O. MacLeod.

Those with little money, or spare clothing to barter, managed to buy some food, but the majority had nothing. Two men went down to the store but were refused. Whereupon they bound the storemen, telling them that the Highlanders must have food for their wives and children, and that they would pay for all that they had taken, when they could. Joined by their fellow settlers, they weighed and measured all the supplies carefully, and made an account of what each man had taken. Finally the two storemen were released.

A message was sent to Halifax that the Highlanders were in rebellion. Orders were passed on to Captain Archibald at Truro, to despatch a company of militia to suppress the rebels. Fortunately the Captain replied, “I know these Highlanders, and if they are fairly treated there will be no trouble with them.”

Finally orders were given that supplies should be made available to the settlers, and Mr. Patterson, one of the agents, later said that the Highlanders who arrived in poverty, and who had been so badly treated, repaid to him every farthing with which he had trusted them.

There were still hardships to come and many settlers virtually sold themselves into slavery on other settlements for mere subsistence.

Eventually through hard work and despair these Highlanders, and others who flocked after them in the next thirty years, built up the communities in Pictou County and Nova Scotia.

The Bicentennial Celebrations in Pictou County ran from 1st July to 16th September, 1973. A Church service was held under the Elm Tree at Bridgeville, where Dr. MacGregor had first preached in 1786. There were parades on Dominion Day, and Pictou’s famous Lobster Carnival — In its 40th year. There were Highland Games at Antigonish and the Hector Pageant at Pictou, attended by H.R.H. Princess Alexandria [sic]. The Princess also opened the Dr. MacCulloch House Museum and the Hector Cultural Display Centre.

At the end of July a replica of the first church built at Lochbroom was dedicated. August saw the East Pictou Annual Fair and the Pictou–North Colchester Exhibition. There was a kilted golf tournament at Abercrombie, and finally a Festival of Tartans at New Glasgow, with sporting events. Highland competitions, and the City of Edinburgh Police Pipe Band — who in March had been visitors at Dunvegan Castle in Skye.

On September 15th, the actual day the Hector sailed into Pictou Bay, there was a Ball, and then the following day the festivities were concluded with a church service.

Indomitable Folk
Transcribed from The Pictou Advocate, Pictou, N. S., Thursday, December 8, 1938, p. 4.

The monthly bulletin of the Maritime Telegraph & Telephone Company salutes Pictou, with pictures of the landing from the Hector and the monument commemorating the occasion on the front cover. The interesting magazine carries the following editorial in the same issue:

What the “Mayflower” is to New England, so is the “Hector” to Pictou County, Nova Scotia. Like New England, Pictou also was the home of the redskin before the advent of the white man. Both places were explored by early white adventurers, some of whom even settled in the new countries, but in each case local history begins with the arrival of a larger and more colorful group of settlers and preceding pioneering efforts have been pushed into near-oblivion.

The date on which Pictou’s history really begins is June 10th, 1767, when a group of six families arrived there from Philadelphia. This enterprise resulted from nearly all of the present Pictou County having been granted to the Philadelphia Company, who in return for the grant agreed to settle the land and develop it.

These settlers, who were well equipped and competent, quickly established themselves and during the next six years were joined by others, some from Philadelphia and a few from Truro, the nearest white settlement in Nova Scotia. Consequently, when the “Hector” people arrived in 1773, they came to an established community of contented people who had won for themselves a living from the seemingly impenetrable forests which covered that part of our province.

To carry out their obligations in connection with the land grant, the Philadelphia Company had an agent in Northern Scotland, whose duty it was to recruit settlers from among the none too happy people there. These people were offered a free passage, free land for a farm and a year’s provisions. First to grasp the proffered opportunity was a group of some 180 persons who in high hopes set sail on the ship “Hector.”

The voyage was one long misery, and the sight of the dense unbroken forest which the new settlers were told was their destination was a sad blow to even their stern courage. Nevertheless, donning their full Highland costume forbidden at home and led by a piper they disembarked on Pictou’s shores on September 15th, 1773.

But if their voyage had been trying and the forbidding appearance of their new country a shock to these Scottish forebears of ours, yet a worse disaster awaited them. Through misunderstanding or mismanagement the promised provisions were not forthcoming, and the newcomers found that the tiny settlement had scarcely enough food in store to supply its own needs during the winter so it is small wonder that only a few of the “Hector” group took up the farms offered them. The majority moved to more promising sections of the province, though some of them returned later.

Those who remained spent an indescribably horrible winter, but somehow their native ruggedness and persistence brought them through to the spring, when with axe and plough they set to work to cut their farms from the virgin forest.

Thus arrived in Nova Scotia the sturdy, indomitable folk whose descendants ever since have gone forth into every part of the world to become leaders in all branches of human endeavor.

	Email Me	Home Page
Saturday, 08-Sep-2018 11:41:55 MDT © Copyright 2003-2007 Stephen Daniel McLeod