THE McNABS

Feeling it a great pity that what little we know of family history should disappear, I am endeavouring to set down what I can glean from the family papers in my possession and what I have been told by my father and other relatives. The papers are but scant, consisting of a few letters from Scotland and some deeds of land and other legal papers from the early days in Canada.

The first member of the family to emigrate from Scotland to Canada was Alexander McNab, the grandfather of the writer.

But first a few words about the Highland clan to which he belonged. Adam, in his Clans, Septs and Regiments of the Scottish Highlands, tells us that "The MacNabs are a branch of the ancient Clan Alpine, and drive their origin from the lay abbot of Glendochart, who lived in the reigh of King David I." Hence the name of the clan, "Clan-an-Aba" --- descendants of the Abbot, and of the individual Mac-an-Aba, son of the Abbot. He tells us also that the early possessions of the Clan Macnab "lay on the shores (principally the western) of Loch Tay and in Strathfillan and Glen Dochart" and that the residence of the chiefs was Kinnell House on the banks of the Dochart. In addition to Adam's and many other brief sketches there is also a more detailed, although not very interesting history of the clan, called "The Clan Macnab", written by John Macnab of Callender (Scotland), Historian of the Clan McNab Association. This was published by the Association at 13 South Charlotte Str., Edinburgh, in 1907. I understand the Association still exists.

Although the clan lands and Kinnell House have long ago passed into other hands there is one spot still sacred to the Clan Macnab --- the ancient clan burying ground, occupying Inch Bhuie, a small island in the Dochart river at Killin. The ownership of this island cemetery the Scottish courts have vested in the Clan Macnab Association and it is now kept as a historic monument.

Just a note on the spelling of the name. Adam always writes it Macnab and explains that in common with some other writers he has adopted the very logical rule that when the second part of such a name is the name of a person, that is a proper noun, he writes it with a capital, e.g. MacDonald, MacGregor; but if a common noun he does not, e.g. Macnab, Macpherson (pherson --- parson). But of course whether one uses Mac or its shortened forms Mc or M' and whether one spells the last part with a capital or a small letter is merely a matter of family or individual taste. The last Chief of the clan used the form McNab.

As to the origin of our ancestral line Aunt Annabella (the late Mrs. Archibald McLaren of Kincardine, Ontario) told me we were a younger branch of the Chief's family, but just when this offshoot originated she did not know. However if names count for anything --- and no race has retained the same names more religiously than the Highland Scots --- it was probably about the middle of the eighteenth century when an Alexander, an Archibald and an Allan McNab each led a section of their kinsmen to fight for Bonnie Prince Charlie and the Stewarts, and that although the Chief of that day and his immediate family supported the government.

The first member of our family to come to Canada, Alexander McNab, had been born on a farm in Perthshire I believe. The name of this farm is not mentioned but it must have been in the neighbourhood of Dunblane and Stirling as both are mentioned in the old letters as towns where they did banking and legal business. Nor do I know the father's Christian name without which and the name of his farm my attempted researches in Register House, Edinburgh, yielded me nothing. The family at this time consisted of three brothers, Alexander, Peter, and John and one sister Christian. Another sister mentioned in several letters had married a minister, the Rev. Dr. Muir, and had died leaving a family. There had been also another sister and in addition I think a child who died young. Who the mother was I don't know. One letter speaks of her living to a "helpless and infirm old age". That is all.

Alexander tells us in a letter to his nephew, Alan Macnab --- of which he kept a copy --- that he worked on his father's farm till he was thirty years of age and then his brothers, first Peter and then John, who had been out earning for themselves, came home to take his place. Peter evidently was not satisfied with the farm and soon leased another named Barkhill in Rew (now spelled Rhu I'm told), Parish of Kilmadock, which proved much better. He also became a road contractor and was quite prosperous. John meanwhile took his place at home. But when the father's tack, i.e. lease, expired he gave up his farm and went with Christian to live at the Barkhill with Peter. Here they lived until the father's death at over ninety years of age. And here Peter died as the result of an accident in 1848. Christian too lived out her life here, looked after by Peter's son, Allan, a teacher in the Glasgow High School.

Athough Allan speaks in a letter of his grandfather's farm as poor, it was, one would think, quite successful; a letter mentions Peter's using his father's "servants, implements and horses" in his road work, and when the "tack" was given up the "gear" on the farm was sold for 800 pounds. Surely 800 pounds in the Scotland of more than a hundred years ago would denote considerable prosperity. Indeed when I mentioned the above fact to the very kind and helpful clerk in Register House, Edinburgh, he exclaimed, "Well! He have been a bonnet-laird." But as to just what a bonnet-laird was he had no definite explanation.

Upon leaving home Alexander leased a farm of his own farther south and married Catherine Macdougall (such is the spelling used in a letter from her brother). A letter to Catherine from her sister Annabella (Mrs. Neil McLean of Glasgow) written many years later reads: "You would not know your old place, Bishopbrigs, (not sure of last part) the Edinburgh railway passing through it and lots of coal and limestone (?) pits about it." Here they lived for several years and here three children were born to them.

The end of the Napoleonic wars brought wide spread unemployment in Britain and in addition the replacement of hand industry by machines caused great suffering, especially in parts of Scotland and Ireland. To better conditions the British government sponsored the first scheme of assisted emigration from Scotland to Canada. They appointed an agent in Scotland who advertised the plan and was empowered to make arrangements for any who were willing to go as settlers, particularly to Upper Canada, at the expense of the government.

Although Alexander McNab did not belong to the class of people whom the British government was especially anxious to help, he was attracted by the idea of emigrating, and was undoubtedly the sort of settler the government of Upper Canada was anxious to get.

John Campbell, "Writer of His Majesty's Signet" --- that is a barrister --- of Edinburgh was empowered to make all arrangements for the intending settlers. He published all the information he could glean about Canada, so there would be no disappointment. And many men of intelligence and standing decided to accept the government's offer, among them Alex McNab. Indeed, it was a very carefully selected and supervised emigration. An applicant had to present a certificate of good character and give minute information regarding himself, his family, his former occupation, etc., etc.,; and also he must make a deposit of 16 pounds for himself and any son over sixteen and 2 guineas for his wife, such money to be refunded later. This, alas, was a drawback to many.

The first settlers were to sail from the Clyde in April of 1815 and they congregated in Glasgow to be in readiness. But the government was very slow in supplying the necessary ships. April passed and May was nearly gone and they were still in Glasgow, disappointed and worried because their money and supplies were fast disappearing. A group among them drew up a memorial to the Chancellor of the Exchequer complaining of the delay. And when this brought no result "they assembled in Glasgow and represented by one of their number, Alexander McNab, claimed living expenses since the end of April" as Andrew Haydon quotes in his Pioneer Sketches in the District of Bathurst. As I can find but one Alexander McNab in the lists of these emigrants and as our ancestor was among those waiting in Glasgow at the time, no doubt he was the Alexander McNab referred to above. The government ships finally arrived but not until June and even at that they were not ready to sail until July.

It is typical of the Scottish people and their love of learning that during their wait in Edinburgh the emigrants applied to the agent for the appointment of a schoolmaster and recommended one of their number, John Holliday, whose "certificate for character and ability as an ordinary school-teacher" Campbell reported to be satisfactory. So Alexander McNab and John Holliday --- or Halliday as his descendants now spell it --- sailed to Canada on the same boat. They settled some distance apart, but descendants, the Hallidays of Springtown and the Murphys of Antrim have in this generation been valued friends of the grandchildren of Alexander McNab, his youngest son Alexander D. McNab's family.

Finally four emigrant ships left the port of Glasgow that summer of 1815 and Alexander McNab with his wife and three children sailed on the Atlas on July 14^th. How fallible are our unwritten records! The writer was told by her father, born nineteen years after the family's arrival in Canada, that the party was on the ocean when the battle of Waterloo was fought, June 15^th, but the records show they were still wearily waiting in Glasgow.

Let me here break the narrative to speak of grandmother's family. I find nothing on record regarding her parents. The four letters among the old papers were written in 1841, '47, '50 and '51; the two latter to her "nephew", doubtless Archibald or Alexander Dougald, at the time of their mother's death. The writer of all four is Annabella McLean, mentioned before, whose husband was Neil McLean, a bricklayer or "brickbuilder", of Glasgow. The Macdougall familiy, however, was Highland and Annabella speaks of her sister, Agnes, coming "out of the Highlands". The parents are evidently gone but the 1841 letter speaks of "old uncle Duncan" who "is getting very frail" but who still, although his family are all grown up, "goes through the country selling prints and handkerchiefs here and there". A "packman" evidently. A recognized and very useful line of business at the time and especially in the Highlands of Scotland. This Uncle Duncan was still alive in 1847.

The Macdougall family consisted at the time of four sisters, Annabella, Agnes, Elizabeth and Janet, besides Catherine in Canada; another sister, Mary, had died and there were two brothers, Alexander and Dougald, all with families except Dougald who was unmarried. Naturally the letters consist mostly of family news. And to us of modern times the number of children lost compared with the number alive is really shocking. And so many dyig not in infancy but in childhood or youth. However, all are reported to be "doing well" whether still in the Highlands like Alexander --- He too came to Glasgow latelr --- or in the neighbourhood of Glasgow. But evidently Annabella, the writer, considers Catherine's family much more affluent in their new and distant home.

ALEXANDER McNAB

Alexander and Catherine McNab sailed from the port of Glasgow on July 14^th, 1815, on the ship Atlas. They had three little children so it must have been a weary voyage as their boat did not reach Quebec till the middle of September. From Quebec the immigrants were sent on to Upper Canada. But as the season was so far advanced the government decided not to locate them till the following spring and arranged that they should spend the winter, some at Cornwall, some at Brockville and a few at smaller places, the unmarried men being sent on to Kingston. There is no record of where the McNab family spent the winter --- likely it would be at the village of Raisin or in Cornwall on the St. Lawrence; unlesss perchance they had a friend among the Highland settlers in Glengarry who extended to them the proverbial Highland hospitality, for they had chosen to locate in the county of Glengarry.

Wherever they spent their first Canadian winter it was probably none too comfortable an introduction to their new homeland. The intending settlers were housed in barracks and make-shift buildings and to the long, cold season of snow and ice they were not accustomed. However, spring brought better prospects and the newcomers set out to found homes of their own. It is evident that Alexander McNab did not accept free land offered by the government. Probably there was no good land so available in the county of Glengarry where settlement had begun some thirty years before. And the government of Upper Canada were notoriously lavish in their bestowing of land first on the U. E. Loyalists and their families and then on military men, retired after the war of 1812. For whatever reason the first record of land belonging to Alexander McNab is 200 acres, being Lot 16 in Concession 18 of the township of Lochiel, which he bought from John McIntosh of Charlottenburg for 95 pounds, the deed being registered October 2^nd 1818. This he transferred in 1848 to his third son Archibald. So it was on what his grandchildren knew as Uncle Archie's place that the first McNab home in Canada was established.

In 1827 Grandfather bought more land. According to the Registry office he obtained by patent ownership the north half of Lot 15 Concession 8. This eventually became the home place to which he added the south half of the same lot in1851. The whole lot was bequeathed finally to his youngest son, Alexander Dougald, father of the writer. In three more years, 1830, he secured a further 150 acres, being Lot 7 of the 7^th concession of Hawkesbury. This he bought from Margery McDonnell, widow, of Cornwall, for the sum of 150 pounds. And later transferred it to his eldest son John. And finally, in 1831, he bought from Donald McDonald, Sheriff, another 200 acres being all of Lot 17 Concession 9 of Lochiel. This he transferred to his second son Malcolm in1847.

Six hundred and fifty acres of land in fifteen years surely shows both industry and ability. And it is perhaps small wonder that letters from home always speak, sometimes in a slightly envious tone, of his great prosperity. It would seem too that it was all paid for by his own exertions, for he speaks in a letter written to his nephew, Allan McNab, of asking for a loan from home to purchase one or other of the parcels of land mentioned and offering "the best of security" but being refused. I have heard, but from whom I cannot remember, that he was usually dubbed Squire McNab, a not unusual title for a leading man in any district in pioneering days.

And what of his family meanwhile? Of the children born in Scotland only John survived. Just when the others died we don't know but tradition says the first graves in the Breadalbane cemetery were those of two children of Alexander McNab's. But others had come to take their places; Malcolm was born in 1819 and Margery in 1820. Then in succession came Annabella, Archibald, and Mary and finally many years later, in 1834, Alexander Dougald was born. The life was that of any pioneer family no doubt, possibly with less hardship than was the lot of many others. The same little account book which was used in Glasgow served also in Canada. It has jottings about the hired help, both male and female. The names are not always legible. But Baptiste -- spelled phonetically Baties --- Lacrue seems to have been with them a number of years. But other names appear at the same time, especially after 1826. "This doth certify that I have hired Alexander Fraser to work in my employ for fourteen months and he begins on the 30^th day of August 1831." There are also accounts on monies and orders to Thomas Grimes, to Frank Rodgers dated 1841 and so on. Which of these men was the hero of a story Uncle Archie delighted to tell I don't know. But in his early days one had been a sailor. As one might expect he was not a very competent farmhand and having been sent out one day with a team of oxen and a mare to do some clearing he came rushing back in a short time shouting, "Master, master, the starboard ox is on the larboard side and the larboard ox is on the starboard side and the gray mare's fell foul of the riggin' and they're all gone to the devil together."

An outstanding event in family life, and probably also in the community, was no doubt the arrival of the threshing mill from Paisley, Scotland, in 1835. Among the old papers is a document in copperplate handwriting giving a minute description of the machine with detailed instructions for setting it up, oiling it, etc. And it tells us too that in Scotland such a machine could "thrash from 20 to 30 bushels of wheat in an hour."

And what chance of education for the growing family? Very little for formal education no doubt, although the authorities of Upper Canada were willing to assist settlers in maintaining a teacher, as well as a minister, by giving grants of land and though the schoolhouse was often built by the people themselves at a bee, it was not easy either to procure or to maintain a teacher in the scattered settlements of these early days. But where there is intelligence and a desire for knowledge as in most Scottish families there will be self education. So there was in the McNab family. And following in their father's footsteps they became leaders in their communities. Archibald was at one time president of the Agricultural Society of Upper Canada and also represented the country of Glengarry in the Dominion Parliament.

The girls too got what education was possible, even having at one time as governess a Mrs. Macdougall, who under the nom de plume of "Norah" wrote later The Days of a Life, in interesting story of the time of the land troubles in Ireland. At least it still lingers in my memory although read in childhood, so must have had considerable appeal.

Even before the school came the church, the Presbyterian church. The McNabs, unlike the majority of Breadalbane settlers, had not been touched by the wave of Baptist evangelism which swept over parts of Scotland a short time before. So they attended the Presbyterian church at Kirk Hill, sometimes as many as three services a day.

Before long the family were growing up, marrying, and going to farms of their own. John had married Christian McMartin and a letter from Annabella McLean in 1841 sends sympathy over the loss of their first two children, both boys. Margery was married in 1840 to Malcolm McGillivray of Kirk Hill and in the same letter her aunt is "glad to hear that Mrs. McGillivray was so clever in getting a daughter. I wish her happiness and many of them." The latter wish was amply fulfilled in the large McGillivray family of six girls and four boys, one of whom died in childhood. Malcolm married Margaret Cameron, who died leaving two children, and later he married Kate McCrimmon. Annabella married Archibald McLaren --- known as Black Archie --- and later moved to a farm near Tiverton in Bruce county. Mary and Archibald also married and settled nearby. Mary's husband was John Campbell called John D. because a son of Dougald Campbell. An improvement on the usual Scottish habit of adding the father's whole name to the son's and even to the daughter's as a distinguishing mark. Archibald married Margaret McArthur, who died when her family were still in the adolescent stage and he did not remarry.

So the family life went on in increasing prosperity and comfort --- witness daughter Margery's fine trousseau bought in Montreal --- although under what we should consider much hardship. Any legal business required a trip to Cornwall and their produce would be marketed in Montreal, some sixty miles away, over roads of the most primitive kind. Communication, though perhaps rather infrequent, was kept up with relatives in Scotland. In fact, they had several visitors from overseas.

First came a cousin, Angus McNab, with his family. His son, John Angus, taught school in Lochiel. They spent some time in Breadalbane and then went west along the Ottawa to settle in McNab township, in the county of Renfrew. This township the government of Upper Canada had given over for settlement to Archibald, the last recognized chief of the clan McNab. Among the settlers were several families of McNabs but none, other than the above were, as far as I know, related to our family. Not unlikely this was the occasion when grandfather visited the Laird's settlement as family tradition says he did. He would wish naturally to pay his respects to the Chief and to meet old acquaintances. For many of these first settlers had come from the same district in Scotland.

Then in 1841, Allan McNab (or Macnab as he spells it) a son of Alex's brother, Peter, had some idea of emigrating to Canada. He was a graduate of Glasgow University and at the time a teacher in Glasgow. And in a long letter, with writing as fine as copperplate, asks for information. However he decided to remain in Scotland and a later letter, 1848 shows him to be teaching in the Glasgow High School.

However I note that the last paragraph in the 1841 letter reads, "I have scarcely room to add that I have sent you a clock for your son, John. I hope that it will prove a good one. The maker is reputed a good one and I trust it will prove useful to your son for a long time to come." A wish surely well fulfilled in the hundred years it has served not only John but his children and grandchildren. A grandfather's clock, it now decorates the sitting room of John's granddaughter, Maud Campbell Mowat of Vankleek Hill.

Allan didn't come to Canada and we should have known nothing further of his family had the present writer not happened to discover that the Rev. Robert Bruce Taylor, then Principal of Queen's University, Kingston, Canada, was his grandson. When I met him he remarked that his grandfather was a McNab, Allan McNab of Glasgow. Naturally I pricked up my ears and asked, "Was he a teacher in the Glasgow High School?" He was.

Through Dr. Taylor I learned that Allan McNab' had but one son who died in his youth. As schoolboys he and the Hon. James Bryce, who finally became British Ambassador to the United States, were intimate friends. He had also seven daughters, all of whom married well. Jane, the second sister, married a Baptist minister, the Rev. Joshua Denevon, who later came to Canada and became pastor of one of the Toronto churches. On arrival they visited the McNabs in Breadalbane. My father's impressions seem to have been mainly of the oddities of the reverend gentleman and of the charm of his wife. They had a large family and no doubt there must be many of their descendants still in and around Toronto, or at least in Canada. Upon his death Allan McNab left the revenue of his estate to his daughters and the capital to his grandchildren, Dr. Taylor's share of this being sufficient to set him up when, as a young minister, he married.

But although Allan never carried out his idea of coming to Canada, two other members of the family, grandfather's brother, John, and John's son, Alexander, generally called Sandy, did come. Whether they came together or, as is more likely, Sandy came first and his father followed I don't know. At any rate the records of the Registry Office show that on the 19^th of March 1849, John McNab obtained "by crown patent all of Lot 17, Con. 8". And there father and son set up their home. But Sandy died and Uncle John, broken-hearted, sold the farm and returned to Scotland in the early '50's. Some of the quaint old dishes which belonged to him are now the property of Mara McGillivray. The farm was transferred "by Bargain and Sale on the 20^th of April, 1853, to Robert Campbell for 287 pounds, 10 shillings." This is the farm on which lived John D. Campbell, Robert's brother, who had married Alex McNab's youngest daughter, Mary --- the favourite and much loved "Aunt Mary" of a host of nephew and nieces, as Marcela McGillivray (Mrs. W. R. McKenzie of Eganville) has told me.

During the summer of 1848, when old Uncle John was still in Breadalbane, word came of the death of their brother, Peter, in Scotland, as the result of an accident. He left no will and the disposition of his property was the subject of a rather acrimonious exchange of letters between Canada and Scotland. Alex and John thought that, as no division had been made of their father's property, which had all gone to Peter and had been largely the means of enabling him to become quite prosperous, they should share in the estate with the son Allan. Eventually it was settled as they desired.

In connection with this business are several letters to Alex McNab from the Rev. Malcolm McGillivray. Mr. McGillivray had been their minister at Kirk Hill but had returned to take a church in Glasgow. He held a power of attorney from Alex McNab to act in the business transaction mentioned above and his letters show him to have been a warm friend of the McNab family. His latest letter, dated May 1849, is one of thanks. When leaving Canada he had held a sale of his household goods. As in all pioneer settlements money was very scarce and the purchases were made on time. Payments came so slowly he asked Alex McNab to try to collect the money due him. At once grandfather sent him the money and assumed the debt himself.

In the autumn of 1850 the family suffered a sad loss in the death of the mother --- not unexpectedly but after an illness of nine months. She was evidently of the best type of pioneering womanhood, known and appreciated not only by her own but by all who came to the settlement. A letter from the Rev. Wm. Lawson of Kincardine, formerly Baptist pastor in Breadalbane, speaks of her goodness to all and quotes a letter from Sandfield McDonald of Cornwall speaking of how she would be missed.

A letter from Annabella McLean of Glasgow tells of her carrying the news of her sister's death to the Rev. Malcolm and Mrs. McGillivray and quotes their words of sorrow and the tribute they paid to her sister. Grandmother must have been a fine looking woman too for I've been told that Archibald's eldest daughter, Christina (Mrs. R. A. Campbell), resembles her and she was an unusually fine looking woman and carried herself superbly.

For some years Alex McNab, with his youngest son Alex D., lived on the homestead. Then an unfortunate accident connected with a horse and cart caused him an injury from which he died shortly afterward at about eighty years of age.

A few years later in 1867 his youngest son, Alexander Dougald, who had inherited the farm, married Jennie Campbell, elder daughter of Robert Campbell also of Breadalbane.

At the time this little family history is being written, there is but one descendant bearing the name McNab, Archibald's youngest son, Duncan, still living in the vicinity of the original McNab holdings. And all the land once belonging to the family has long ago passed into other hands.

Written by:
Elizabeth M. McNab
1874 - 1948

MARGARET McNAB (12 Dec. 1857 - 31 Mar. 1947)