MacDonald

WHERE WE CAME FROM

The Family of James (Jimmy Allan the Ridge) Macdonald and Jessie Beaton

The outcome of The Battle of Culloden (1746) had a profound effect on our family history and, therefore, on our present. English troops, with participation of Scottish collaborators, utterly defeated the Scottish highlanders in what was essentially a showdown between British rule out of London and Scottish nationalism.

James II, the last of the Stuart kings, had been deposed into French exile because of a suspicion that he was a closet catholic. (This would have been from fear of renewed religion-based warfare perhaps, more than religious intolerance). It wasn't done smoothly and was naturally resented by a significant percent. of the population in both England and Scotland. The subsequent movement for restoration brought to the activists the sobriquet "Jacobite," from "Jacques" -French for James

James' son Charles, Bonnie Prince Charlie, putting himself at the head of the resistence, landed in 1745 at Moidart, clanranald land on the west coast of Scotland. His standard was raised at Glenfinnan, a community adjacent to Moidart both of which are in the homeland of a major branch of the family, and neighboring the territory of our Keppoch ancestors. Our ancestor, Donald Mor (Big Donald) MacDonald "came out" for the prince and would surely have been accompanied by his son James who, forty-five years later, would emigrate to Prince Edward Island

In the old political structure of the scottish highlands, the clan chief had total command over clan members and the territory they occupied. His administration always included the function of regional governors, or chieftains as they are called, offices that were normally hereditary. This political structure also served as military hierarchy in times of war.

That is the way it was. That kind of power began to soften from the 1600's and the vestige was totally devastated at the Battle of Culloden. The post Culloden chief was principally a land owner although he retained his historical respect among the people, as did his chieftains. Land was allotted for use in accordance with his wishes, usually delegated through the chieftains who normally sold its use to "tacksmen." Tacksmen were head lessors who subleased to the ordinary field workers, the "crofters."

So, as elsewhere. the ownership and usage of land became the central political function and profits became foremost. Toward the end of the eighteenth century land rents increased to the point that individual crofters lost livelihood and hope. Moving on to another job or a new career was not an option in that time and place, and desperation led to talk of dreaded emmigration.

Meanwhile, the practise of religion other than in the "established church" had long been difficult for many in the British Isles. This was particlarly so in Ireland and in Scotland where non-established presbyterianism and catholicism remained strong despite official pressure. Emmigration to America for religious freedom was already of long standing, and the establishment of catholic freedom in North America by the Treaty of Paris (1763), provided further emmigration impetus in Scotland and Ireland in particular, often urged by the clergy.

In 1772, 210 emmigrants had sailed on the Alexander(1) from the vicinity of Moidart to set up a free catholic settlement (Glenaladale) in Prince Edward Island. These were generally crofters from the region of the Glenaladale (Scotland) chieftanship of John MacDonald. Their families, neighbors, friends, and lovers followed through the next decade,and on July 12, 1790, emmigration ships the Lucy, the Jane(2), and the British Queen, left Druimindarroch, in Morar, Scotland. Aboard the Jane wereAlexander MacDonald, with his wife, Janet, five children, and his 60-year old father, James(3), son of Donald Mor (mentioned above) bound for Prince Edward Island.

MacDonald (Seamus)
James, had been a tacksman, as had his father, Donald Mor, in all liklihood.

The continued arrivals of the Glenaladale (Scotland) emmigrants overwhelmed the Prince Edward Island settlement so that many of the later arrivals found it necessary to move to Nova Scotia. The family of Alexander, with James, moved on with others to form the community of Arisaig in what is now Antigonish County, Nova Scotia.

James died in 1796, the year two of his younger sons, Ranald and our ancestor, Donald, arrived as imigrants.

The immediate descendants of Alexander, Ranald, and Donald were referred to, in the culture, as Clann Seamus (pronounced: shaimus and haimus, gaelic for James. The families moved again, settling in the Judiqe area of Cape Breton Island.

Donald's daughter, Sarah, married Donald (the Ridge) and their family included Allan who married Mary, and this is the couple we refer to as "Allan the Ridge and Mary," my father's parents. (The sobriquet "Ridge" comes from "Mabou Ridge" the name of the old pioneer homestead at S.W. Mabou in Inverness County).

Beaton

From the lone shieling of the misty island Mountains divide us, and the waste of seas
Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland, And we in dreams behold the Hebrides!

Except for the fortifications at Louisbourg and the associated settlement, Cape Breton Island was reserved from settlement until about 1800, or a little earlier. Then Scottish settlers began to arrive (victims in part of the Highland Clearances) along with many of the returning remanants of the expelled Acadians. It was a tearful and utterly difficult time especially for the very young and the very old, those who did well enough to survive the long, long, terrifying, and difficult trip at sea. The Clearances gave no credit to age or health.

Given the circumstances of the Clanranald clearances in Lochaber it is reasonably certain that our Beaton ancestors were badly treated--boarding ships, reluctantly at best, and setting upon the dangerous sea hopefully arriving, but destitute, on a strange land not at all prepared to sustain them.

There is a cairne at Inverness, N.S. that declares a particular sand dune, on the water's edge, a protected burial ground. It was the available place for the earliest settlers of the area to bury their dead--the inscribed names includes that of Allan McIsaac, grandfather of my maternal grandmother, Paikey. Clearing land from forests for food production was slow and laborious and none could be spared

for other purposes.

My mother was Jessie Beaton whose family homesteaded at Mabou Mines, (Mabou Coal Mines), N.S. in 1809, having emmigrated from Scotland to East Point, Prince Edward Island in 1804. It was a large extended family group of Beatons who left the old home in that year of highland clearances, indicating a sudden and shattering dislocation.

Some of our (Beaton) immigants, including our ancestor Alexander (pioneer)(4) and his brothers, moved across the Northumberland Strait, in 1809, to Cape Breton in the areas of Judique and Mabou Mines. My mother was the daughter of another Alexander, son of Ronald. (Her male ancestors for many generations, except for her grandfather, Ronald, were named Alexander. So, my mother was the daughter of Alexander, son of Ronald, son of Alexander, son of Alexander (the 1804 immigrant pioneer)). The pioneer's father--also Alexander-- was at the Battle of Culloden (MABOU PIONEERS (MacDonald)). The pioneer was a very old immigrant traveller, so his father would have been in his late teens or early 20's at Culloden.
My grandmother Beaton, Margaret (Paikey) MacIsaac, was from a family that emmigrated from the Isle of Canna, Scotland, to Parrsboro, NS, and later settled in The Shean, now Inverness town on Cape Breton Island. She and my grandfather lived in Boston for a while and were married there, but eventally moved back to Cape Breton. My mother, in her turn, moved to Boston and from there to the new town of New Waterford, married my father and settled at the Ridge. She was born in 1892 and died in 1975.

Macdonald "Ridge"

The "Ridge" family pioneer, Alexander MacDonald, known in the gaelic culture as Alaisder Ruadh pronounced a was cha roo ahh (Red Alexander) and his wife Mary (Campbell) immigrated from Lochaber, Scotland, in 1816--the year following the end of the Napoleanic wars.

Some pertinent detail appears in an excerpt of an article contributed to the Clan Ranald (Donald Jack MacDonald site) by Jaque MacDonald. The article, published in 2000, was authored by Alex Rory MacDonald.

The Antigonish Casket
13 & 20 September 2000
[The 'Ridge' MacDonalds] were descended from a family that had served as the hereditary bards to the MacDonalds of Keppoch, the branch of the Clan Donald which occupied the Braes of Lochaber, especially the region drained by the Spean and Roy rivers. This was one of the most picturesque districts of The Highlands. For generations, Alexander MacDonald's people had occupied the 'Bohuntin' farm, a rich tract of land in the center of Glen Roy. They were big men, these MacDonalds, full of music, Gaelic poetry, and the lore of the Highlands. Their swords, great claymores that had to be held with two hands, had flashed at Inverlochy, Killiecrankie, Sheriffmuir, Prestonpans and Culloden, and their pipes had played laments every time a Keppoch chief died.
In 1816, 70 years after Culloden, with the Clan system a thing of the past, Alexander MacDonald had come across the ocean with his family, landing at Pictou, Nova Scotia. In October of 1816 he and his [family] attempted to sail over to Cape Breton, but a severe storm held back their sloop, and they wintered in Antigonish. They made it to Mabou, Cape Breton, in 1817.

Alexander was descended in the male line from John Dubh, the son of one of the more notable Scottish highland chiefs, Ronald Mor 7th of Keppoch (a Scottish nationalist leader and fighter who was executed for treason). John was the original chieftan of the House of Bohuntin and his successors, were known as the Sliochd an Taighe an Bohuntin (Descendants of the House of Bohuntin). Alexander's ancestral ascendancy to Ronald Mor is his father Angus Mor, Alexander Ban, Alexander, Angus, Angus Mor, Alexander, John Dubh, Ronald Mor. (HISTORY OF INVERNESS COUNTY (McDougal), and THE GENEOLOGY OF CLAN DONALD (MacDonald and MacDonald).

The gaelic word 'mor,' pronounced somewhat like 'vode' litterly means 'big' but also identifies the older of two people with the same name regardless of physical size (a lingered distinction between children, obviously). The word 'Ban' means 'white' (blond), 'ruadh' means 'red,' and 'dubh' means 'black' (dark).

While the clearances probably influenced this family's decision to emmigrate it would not likely have been a causative factor in itself. The immigrant Alexander was sufficiently affluent to have purchased a farm for his oldest son not long after arrival and, later, his two younger sons had the resources to purchase farms in Antigonish county. Moreover, there is no indication of wide spread disruption at the time in the lands they had left.

Alexander (Red) had three sons, Angus, Allan, and our ancestor Donald. Allan and Donald's descendants are associated in name with the Mabou Ridge homestead, and identified as a set by the sobriquet "Ridge."

Allan and Donald moved to Antigonish as young men and purchased farms there, but Donald eventually sold and returned to the Ridge. He married Sarah of Clan Seamus, as related previously, and had a large family including my paternal grandfather, Allan.
Allan was born in 1836 and died in 1916.

My grandmother Mary was the daughter of another Donald MacDonald, known as Donald 'the pioneer,' an immigrant from Scotland. He married Elizabeth Beaton who was born at sea in 1804. (A.D. MacDonald's MABOU PIONEERS puts her name as Catherine but my father knew her as Elizabeth from a fairly secure source--she was his grandmother).

Mary had an older brother Donald who moved to the developing forest industry on west coast of Canada and the United States. I would think that this was not much later than 1860, in the American "wild west" period. He was eventually followed to the west by all of Mary and Allan's sons, Alex, Dan, Archie (Dan Archie), and my father. Alex eventually settled in Saskatchewan, as did my father for a while, and Dan and Archie in Washington-Oregon My father, being the youngest, returned to Cape Breton from Saskatchewan to attend the farm for the aging parents. Archie was killed "in the lumber woods" in the vicinity of Portland, Oregon.

Allan and Mary had three daughters who grew to maturity: Mary Jessie (known to us as Auntie),who married Dan Rankin, a mining official, Katie Belle who married Angus Steele from Riverinhabitants, the area where her mother (Mary) grew up (parents of Jack Steele and Sister Mary), and Sarah who married Dan Beaton, my mother's brother (parents of Belle Cox and Marg Power). My grandmother was born in 1840 and died in 1933.

My father died on January 2, 1967. I had visited him a few months earlier when he prepared the following sketch for me (as he wrote it):

McDonald family came to Cape Breton in 1804, settled in Glencove, Inverness Co. Large family two sons Donald and Allan settled at Mabou Ridge. Donald married Sarah McDonald from Judique. Allan married Mcpherson from Rocky Ridge. They were known as Allan the Ridge and Donald the Ridge. None of their brothers and sisters were known as the Ridges.

After the family partly grown up they(2) moved to Antigonish and carried the name with them. Those of us at Mabou and Antigonish are dscendants of Allan and Donald the Ridge. Donald didn't stay at Antigonish.

My mother's father was Donald McDonald. He married Elizabeth Beaton born on the Atlantic coming across. Settled in Glencoe after they married. They sold the farm and and bought a farm at Riverside Riverinhabitants. Some of their offspring are there yet.
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(2) Allan and Donald

In fact, Allaister Ruadh (Red Alexander) the pioneer, my father's great grand father in the male line, immigrated with his family in 1816. The date 1804, is that in which his maternal grandmother (Elizabeth Beaton--"born on the Atlantic coming across") arrived. A detail. The Sarah McDonald referred to was his paternal grandmother, the daughter of Donald (Seamas) McDonald whose father James, with his older son, sailed from Scotland on the Jane. As related above, Donald the Ridge eventually sold his Antigonish farm and returned to the old homestead where he and Sarah lived and died. The property was passed to their son, my grandfather, Allan, who passed it to my father James (Jim). Jim sold it some years later, in 1929, and moved to New Waterford, where my mother's family and my father's Cape Breton family lived.

My parents had ten children, seven of whom (including me) were born at the Ridge. There was Dannie, Margaret, Mary, Allan, Alex, Ran (me), Kaye, Margaret, Phonse, and Margaret. The older Margaret died shortly after the move to New Waterford. The second was born shortly afterward and named for her, but she died at age eight months. Dannie married Florence MacIsaac of Inverness (parents of Jim in California). He died in 1954. Mary married Phil Clement, originally from Boston. Phil died in 1994. Allan married Theresa MacLeod from New Waterford. Theresa died one day after Phil left us. Alex married Jeanette MacDonald from New Waterford. Alex was killed in an industrial accident in 1976. I married Evlyn (Evie) Bates. Phonse died when still relatively young, and Marg lives in Cape Breton.

The years after their move to New Waterford was an incredibly difficult time for my parents. My father had bought property at New Waterford and established a small dairy and some real estate business. He built a house for the family home and had a couple of others (including a triplex) for rent revenue.

The timing of this enterprise was about as bad as it could get. While grieving the loss of two children, my parents had barely, if at all, completed the necessary installations when the great depression hit with tremendous impact. To deal with it my father hired himself and equipment out for haulage, highway construction and some farm work. Long days! The business was phased out in the mid to late 30's and my father went into the coal mines.

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The Clan Seamas branch of the family is covered very well in Fair is the Place (undated--printed about1980 I would think) by Mildred and John Colin MacDonald. Other branches are covered in Mabou Pioneers (first edition printed in the 1940s but later printings) by A.D. Maconald, and History of Inverness County by J. L. MacDougall (Printed in 1922 and out of print. Copies can be found in some libraries--particularly universities) Go to page 569 (Alpine Ridge) and 264 (geneology for McDonald, and 201 for Beaton

A general history of Clan Donald: :Full Text of Clan Donald

Library: :Scottish monarchy lines

Article on: Scottish Immigration to Nova Scotia

Article on early C.B. developement: Cape Breton Post column

Article on coal mining history in Cape Breton: Coal miners
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