Truly it required a flight of Celtic imagination to see a "Castle-tirrim" on the quiet headwaters of the Hillsborough on little Prince Edward Island.

The mansion-house of Glenaladale, a branch of the Clanranald clan, rises on a level strath on the western shore of Loch Sheil. In it are preserved the bagpipes played by the family piper at Culloden, and many other relics of the "Forty-five", its owner carries also the title of Glenfinnan for here is the narrow pass of this name, spanned by a graceful viaduct, and the river and island where St. Finnan lit the torch of Christianity among the ancient Celts of these glens. (Glenfinnan on Prince Edward Island has its little Island also—the "Isle aux Chevres" of Franquet’s plan in 1751). Alexander Macdonald of Glenaladale and his kinsman, young Clanranald, were among the first to greet the young Chevalier when he arrived in Scotland, accompanied by "the seven men of Moidart". From among their followers they furnished a bodyguard for his protection, and on the night of August 18th he slept at Glenaladale House, crossing the Loch to Glenfinnan the next morning. Here, on the spot where the monument now stands, the Royal Standard of red silk with white spot in centre was unfurled by the aged Marquis of Tullibardine, on 19th August, 1745— "Bleadhna Tharlaich" (Charlie’s Year). When disaster overtook the ill-fated Prince and condemned him to long months of wandering in caves and corries, Glenaladale was able, in spite of wounds received at Falkirk and Culloden, to lead him to places of safety which all the vigilance of the Hanoverian soldiers could not discover. At one time the prize was supposed to be in the pursuer’s grasp. Information had been received that the Prince was hiding in the Clanranald country, and at once the net was drawn tightly round him. Men-of-war patrolled the western waters from Ardnamurchan Point to Loch Hourn, and from there a cordon of soldiers reached to Glenfinnan, while the Argyll militia broke all the boats on Loch Sheil, and bands of soldiers searched every house and cave. But, led by Glenaladale, the Prince passed between two sentinels and escaped.

Catherine, of the house of Glenaladale, lived beside the "Stone of Manners" in Gaultergill, Skye. her husband was the famous Donald MacLeod, "The Prince’s Pilot", who for sixty days, through constant peril, held the life and fortunes of the royal fugitive within his keeping; and for his loyalty spent eight months with the elder Clanranald and others, in the fever-stricken hold of a rotting hulk off Tilbury, on a daily ration of one-half pound of raw oatmeal which they mixed with water in a bottle. Most of them died there, but Donald in spite of his threescore-and-ten lived to see once more the hills of Skye.

The great bard of the ‘45, "Alasdair Mac-Mhaigster Alasdair," whose songs drew many Highlanders to the standard, was the son of an Episcopalian minister of Isle Finnan. He was an officer in the Prince’s army, and, after Culloden, was plundered of everything even to the cat, while he and his wife fled to the mountain caves, where a daughter was born to them. Alasdair is in the front rank of Celtic poets, and his poem "Clanranald’s Galley" is considered one of the finest sea-songs in any language. He has many descendants on P. E. Island, and one of them, "Father Dan", sang delightfully his Gaelic lyrics.

Culloden sounded the knell not only of the Stuart dynasty, but of the clan system as well; for that was the last time the clans went to battle under the command of their own chiefs, with their distinctive tartans, and practising their old methods of warfare. The English Government had become alarmed over the threat of the rising, and drastic laws were enacted, which blotted out the military side of clan life. "Oasting, hunting, and convening" were made illegal, weapons were forbidden, and even the wearing of Highland garb. But no Act of Parliament could destroy the attachment of the people to their hereditary chiefs, and many of the clansmen paid double rents- •- once to the new owners of forfeited estates, and again to their own chief in exile. The severity of these laws was finally relaxed, and some of the confiscated estates were returned. Clanranald recovered his lands in 1770.

In this year a great change took place in the Highlands. Before this time a kind of patriarchal system had prevailed on the farms, by which tacksmen paid their servants no wages, but looked on them as members of the family, and supported them whether there was work for them or not. But in 1770 a rapid increase in rents took place, and although this was accompanied by a corresponding increase in the price of farm prxlucts, so that the new rents would be no more burdensome than the old, yet the tacksmen refused to pay the higher sum, and began to emigrate. This exodus continued for fifty years, until few of the old tenants were left, and as the new w occupants were bound by no ties of blood or sentiment, farming became entirely commercialized. The tacks-men on Lord Macdonald’s estate in Skye formed a company, purchased 100,000 acres in North Carolina, and emigrated in a body, taking others with them. It was to this colony that their illustrious kinswoman, Flora Macdonald sailed with her husband and sons in 1774.

But the motive of the Glenaladale settlement of Prince Edward Island was not so much an economic, as a religious one. Colin Macdonald, laird of Boisdale in South Uist, was an ultra-zealous Protestant, who in the year 1770 undertook the conversion of his tenants en masse, and to this end he stationed himself at the fork of the road, and tried to drive them all to the Presbyterian church which he himself attended. We even know the colour of the club he used, for this peculiar style of evangelism was ever afterwards referred to as "Credimh a bhata bhui",—The Religion of the Yellow Staff. Not succeeding in this effort, he turned his attention to the children, and established schools for them, but the parents, finding that the little ones were likely to be turned from the faith of their fathers, would not permit them to attend. Angry at being thus thwarted, the domineering landlord summoned all the tenants to a meeting, where he placed before them a Gaelic document containing a renunciation of their faith, and a promise to have no further dealings with their priests; which they were asked to sign, with the alternative of being driven from their homes. With one voice the people, of course, refused to sign. The aged Bishop Hay, Vicar Apostolic of the Western Highlands. sent an account of the situation to Dr. Challoner, Prelate of London, who sent it to Cardinal Castelli, and on the advice of Dr. Grant, the Scottish agent in Rome, the tenants were advised to emigrate at once to some American colony. But through all the years on their little crofts in this rocky isle they had been able to make only a bare living, and the expense of the long journey seemed to them an insuperable obstacle. At this juncture a deliverer arose who took them to Prince Edward Island—"Fear a-Ghlinne", The Laird of the Glen.

He was John Macdonald, son and heir of the above-mentioned Alexander of Glenaladale, who, though only a little lad in "Charlie’s Year carried a memory of the shrilling of the pipes as the bands of kilted men gathered to the raising of the Standard, on a day of rain, with the creamy brown torrents rushing down the wooded slopes of Glenfinnan. At twelve years of age he was sent to Gatisbon in Germany to receive his education, and it is asserted that he could read, write, and speak seven languages. He lived on his estate and also acted as factor for Clanranald until the age of 30. His attention was drawn to P. E. Island from letters received from its earliest Scottish settlers, a party of disbanded Fraser Highlanders who had settled here after the fall of Quebec, and in these letters to the homeland they strongly urged their compatriots to follow. He therefore threw in his lot with the Uist people and became their leader. Bishop Hay writes at this time; "Worthy Glenaladale, the chief promoter, affirms that he will sell all that he has to that end, and will himself go along with them. His conduct upon this occasion is extremely edifying." And in a letter dated November 27th, 1770, the same prelate writes to Dr. Grant:—

Macdonald of Glenaladale is here in order to treat of a large tract of land in the Island of St. John in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. most excellent soil and fine climate, and who though a man so much of the government is most willing to give them all encouragement & their being Roman Catholics is far from being an objection with him. There are, he says, about fifty families of the old French inhabitants upon the Island; of whom his Lordship has rec’d a most favorable account; & he is glad to think that this proposal mey be the means of getting a Catholic clergyman for their benefit. Indeed, a friend of mine, a Presbyterian minister who went out there last summer as teacher and factor & who is himself very well disposed towards us, wrote me this harvest a most affecting letter about the poor French Catholics there, representing their case in the most moving terms and begging that I would see to get a clergyman sent among them.

Glenaladale purchased in 1771 a large tract of land in the Tracadie district of the Island (Micmac "Tracadie" The Camping Place), mortgaging his estate for this purpose to his cousin John of Borrodale who had amassed a fortune in the West Indies, and as it was never redeemed the title finally passed to the Borrodale branch. Writing from Greenock, March 8th, 1772, he mentioned that he had chartered the "Alexander", and in the month of May this staunch vessel sailed north to Arisaig and Loch Boisdale, and then out to the Atlantic with 210 emigrants, 100 from Uist and 110 from the mainland. In the meantime Glenaladale had gone to Edinburgh to take over £500 of a "Memorial Fund" collected by Bishop Challoner of London to help in defraying expense, for the passage-money amounted to £1,500 and this, together with the cost of a year’s provisions, bore heavily upon the resources of their leader. (A recent aiticle in the Edinburgh Scotsman stated that the "Alexander" was the first emigrant ship to come to the province, but the "Annabella" had landed a party of Kintyre settlers at Malpeque two years earlier).

Most of the passengers on the "Alexander" were Macdonalds, but there were also MacEacherns, MacKenzies, MacPhees, Campbells, Beatons, Gillises, MacRaes, Macintoshes, and MacKinnons. Among them was the first medical doctor of the Island— Roderick Macdonald, a native of Morar, and a graduate of Edinburgh University. There was also the first British-born priest, Rev. James Macdonald, cousin of Glenaladale, a graduate of the Scots College at Rome, who had served in the ministry at Drummond for seven years, and was at this time thirty-six years of age. The emigrants were favoured with a smooth passage, and the voyage was uneventful, a contrast to that of the famous Flora two years later, when their ship was attacked by a French frigat In and the heroine, refusing to go below, had her arm broken in the struggle.

In the latter part of June, Captain Alasdair brought the "Alexander" into Hillsborough Bay,—rounding Point Prim(e), where the large clearances of the exiled French were plainly visible; past Governor’s Island (Micmac "place where goods are landed"), and St. Peter’s Island (haunt of the sea-cow); past the Acadian capital of Port la Joie, burned by New Englanders a quarter of a century before; and dropped anchor at the new capital, Charlottetown, then a little village, laid out carefully two years before with wide streets and squares. But the stay was brief, for the settlers were anxious to reach their journey’s end, and the captain protestingly threaded his way up the narrow, crooked channel of the East River to the Glenaladale land in Lot 36. The name of "Scotchfort", given by the settlers to the spot where they landed, was suggested by the ruins of "Frenchfort" passed on the way up the river. Workmen had been sent out the previous year by their leader under the charge of his brother Donald, so that a number of rude log cabins were awaiting them, and in one of these the first English Mass on the Island was celebrated by Father James. When all their goods were landed on the bank, they wondered how they had been stowed in the vessel. But in spite of the beauty spread all about them in this leafy month of June, it is recorded that their mood on landing was one of profound discouragement. Somewhat different it was from that of another band of Moidart people who came a little later. A descendant tells of them:

It is possible that the "Alexander" people, though favoured with the presence of a priest and a doctor, yet lacked the necessary piper.

During the first winter, Father James spent much of his time ministering to the Acadians, fifty in number, who were congregated at Malpeque; and in visiting Quebec the following summer he was warmly welcomed by Father Dosqué, exiled from Malpeque fifteen years before, and now anxious to hear of his former parishioners. Father James took a stove from Quebec which helped to make his second winter more endurable. From Malpeque he wrote to Bishop Hay a favorable account of the Acadians, and also carried on a correspondence with the wife of Chief Justice Stewart whom he had known while doing missionary work in Scotland. She was Sarah Hamilton, who as a child was with her mother on the continent when her father, Captain Hamilton, was killed at Fontenoy, and she was placed in the care of nuns there to be educated. When her husband received the appointment of Chief Justice to the Island, she wrote from Scotland to Father James, asking his advice, and he strongly urged them not to come and face the hardships of St. John’s Island. Nevertheless they did come; but when Stewart looked about him at the dense forest and the few settlers, his first remark was that he did not know whom he was expected to judge, unless it were the trees.

While Father James was in Malpeque, the Scotchfort people, following his instructions, had built a log church 30 x 20, with a roof thatched with straw, after the Highland fashion. This was very near the site of the church of St. Louis, built by the Acadians in 1751, at Franquet’s suggestion, on the slope above the lovely spring they called Bel air, whose sparkling waters still flow, cold and pure, from the yellow sand. The Scotchfort log church, dedicated to St. John the Evangelist, was used for over thirty years. In Benjamin Chappell’s Diary, written at Elizabethtown in 1774, there is an entry, "This day seven of our men went by boat to hear Mass at Trakida."

Glenaladale himself did not come to the Island until the year after the emigration, and it was not until he called at Boston on the way out that he discovered that a shipload of supplies sent by him to the colonists the preceding autumn had never arrived, but had been either lost at sea or taken by privateers. Hurriedly he chartered, and loaded with provisions and farm implements at Boston, another vessel which reached Charlottetown shortly before his own arrival. In the meantime his brother had gone to Quebec in another ship after supplies, and thus did relief come not only to his own party but to some distressed Acadians and other British settlers. But the conditions he found on his arrival were not to his liking. A number were planning to leave, for not only had provisions been scanty, but the crops of the previous year had failed, and, most serious of all, there was great dissatisfaction among the settlers over the matter of rent and land tenure. They had looked forward to the possession of free lands in America, and to be quit for ever of the landlord system which recalled so many memories of galling tyranny, and when their leader offered nine hundred and ninety-nine year leases on what he considered generous terms, some of them flatly refused. As for those willing to remain and work under his direction, he promised to support them until they could raise enough for themselves, and also to import for them cattle, horses, sheep and swine. "But if they refuse to work he would supply them until spring, and then land them in a settled country to shift for themselves."

Of the malcontents, a number left for Cape Breton, where they hoped to deal directly with the Government, while others moved further east along the north shore of the Island. MacEacherns went to Savage Harbor; MacKenzie, McRae and Gillis families to St. Peter’s and Lot 37; MacIntoshes to Naufrage; MacKinnons to Pisquid River; Tearlach McRaild to Orwell.

Macdonald retained for himself 500 acres at the head of Tracadie Bay where he built a large house, and it is recorded of him that he was one of the few proprietors who really tried to fulfil the terms on which the original grants were given. He displayed foresight in not allowing the spruces to be felled along the north shore of his land nor the grass cut on the sandhills, rightly considering these as natural barriers against the encroaching sand. He was appointed Fort Major of Charlottetown, his commission bearing the signature of George III. On the outbreak of the Revolutionary War he began recruiting a force among his compatriots of the Island, which, in conjunction with a similar body of Nova Scotia High-landers raised by Captain John Small, formerly of the Black Watch and then of the 21st, became the 2nd Battalion of the Royal Highland Emigrant Regiment. Small was appointed major-commandant, and Macdonald captain, the latter being known thereafter as "Captain John." The first battalion was commanded by Colonel Alan Maclean of Torloisk who had distinguished himself with the Scotch Brigade in Holland. Each battalion consisted of 750 men. The Commissions were dated June 14th, 1775. In the meantime Flora Macdonald. had been recruiting for the same regiment in North Carolina, and addressed the troops at Cross Creek, after reviewing them, mounted on a white charger. Flora’s husband, Allan Macdonald, and her brother-in-law, Alexander Macdonald of Cuidreach were Majors, and five of her sons were in the army. On their way to Canada they met the enemy at Moore’s bridge which was covered by cannon, and the Highlanders were routed with a loss of seventy and 850 prisoners. Flora’s husband and brother-in-law were kept in prison for several years, and after the confiscation of their estate Flora set sail for Skye in the British ship "Baliol" from Charleston. The first battalion under Maclean successfully withstood the assault of Montgomery and Arnold, and also the siege of Quebec in 1776. Of ten companies which composed the 2nd battalion, five remained in Nova Scotia and surrounding districts during the war, and the other five joined the armies of Cornwallis and Clinton. At Eutaw Springs they "drove all before them" as stated in despatches of Col. Alex. Stewart.

An American warship came to the Nova Scotia coast near a port where Captain John and a party of his men were posted. A part of the crew landed for the purpose of plundering the people, but Macdonald with a handful of men boarded the ship, overcame the crew, and sailed her in triumph into Halifax harbour. He then returned with a reinforcement and took the remainder of the crew, Americans and French, all prisoners. In 1778 the name of the Highland Emigrant Regt. was changed to the "84th" with Sir Henry Clinton as Colonel-in-Chief, and the number in a battalion was increased to a thousand. The uniform was full Highland garb with purse of Racoon’s skin. The officers wore broadsword and dirk, and the privates a half-basket sword. At the peace, grants of land were given, varying from 5,000 acres to a field-officer down to 100 acres to a private. Many of the 2nd Battalion settled in Nova Scotia at "Douglastown", but most of the men from St. John’s Island returned to their homes.

Commandant Small reported to the British Government:— "The activity and zeal of Captain John Macdonald of Glenaladale in bringing an excellent company into the field is his least recommendation; being acknowledged by all who knew him to be one of the most accomplished men and best officers of his rank in His Majesty’s service." He was offered the Governorship of the Island, but refused, from conscientious scruples as to the nature of the oath required before taking office.

After having been eight years absent from the Island on military duty, he returned only to find that his property had been sold in 1781 by the provincial Government for quit rents. In a document in which the circumstances are set out with great clarity, he memorialized the king for the remission of the quit rents, and he ultimately recovered the lands. His brother Donald a few years later got a Commission in the English service and fell in a naval battle with the French. Of his brother Hugh, "Maighstir Uisdean" the Scotochronicon says "Rev. Hugh Macdonald entered Scots College, Rome, 1757, aged 13 years. Became priest of Moidart 1769. Was of great piety and zeal. Went to Prince Edward Island and died soon after." His death was caused by the unskilful blood-letting of the time, and poisoning set in. He was a highly cultured man, taking great delight in his violin, and when the children at their catechism would answer well, he used to reward them by playing lively tunes, and liked to see them dancing on the green. The much-loved Father James lived to be only fifty-nine, worn out by many labours at home and on the mainland, and lies in an unknown grave at Scotchfort. Doctor Roderick was drowned while crossing the ice of Tracadie Bay in the spring, on one of his errands of mercy. His family removed to Vernon River, and his descendants are still spoken of as the "Doctor’s People". A favorite family name among these Macdonalds was "Clemmie", after Clementina Sobieski.

Before leaving Scotland, Captain John had been married to Isabella Gordon, daughter of Gordon of Wardhouse, in Aberdeenshire, but she lived only a short time. After his return from the war, he married Catherine, daughter of Ranald Macdonald of Gerinish, another place-name brought from the Highlands. This woman was called the "Queen of Tracadie". Their oldest son was the Hon. Donald Macdonald, educated at Stonyhurst, England, who took a very prominent part in the public affairs of the colony. He married a granddaughter of Colonel Robertson, a P. E. Island loyalist, and they were the parents of Sir William Macdonald of Montreal, who did more than any other man for the cause of education in Canada. The second son, William, was drowned on the coast of Ireland on his way to be educated in England. The third son, John, was educated in Paris for the Church and was priest in Glasgow for five years. Then he organized party of Irish Catholic emigrants, whom he settled at a place he called Fort Augustus, on the family lands on the south side of the Hillsborough. Through the earlier years of this new settlement he lived with his mother at Tracadie, but on his removal to St. Margarets in Kings County, he became involved in the quarrel between the people and the proprietors. At one stage this developed into a riot, and when a number of redcoats were sent to arrest the tenants, Father John harboured the soldiers for some days. As a result the tenants refused to attend his church, and after his removal by the bishop he returned to England. The remaining son, Roderick, was educated in Paris. lie published a pamphlet, now very rare, entitled "Sketches of Highlanders, with an account of their early arrival in North America, etc., by R. C. McDonald, Lieut.-Col. of the Castle Tioram Regt. of Highlanders, Prince Edward Island, Chief of the Highland Society of Nova Scotia, and Paymaster of the 30th Regt., St. John. Printed by Henry Chubb and Co. Market Square, 1843."

He was chiefly interested in the Highlanders of the Lower Provinces and in the education of their children. He found from ten to twelve thousand children on P. E. Island, chiefly of Scottish parents, with no means of learning to read or write, and more than double that number in the other provinces. While in London in 1838, he visited the Colonial Office, accompanied by lIon. Samuel Cunard, for the purpose of recommending a uniform system of education for the North American colonies, and Cunard stated his readiness to subscribe liberally to the building of schoolhouses and to make a free gift of 100 acres to each school established in any part of his estates. Macdonald appealed to the Roman Catholic bishops of Edinburgh and Glasgow to send out teachers, but at that time the necessary funds were not available. He also presented the case to the heads of the Presbyterian Church in Scotland—Rev. Principal McFarlane and Rev. Dr. McLeod of Glasgow— and they got a piomise from the Educational Society to send twelve qualified teachers to the Lower Provinces, furnishing their passage-money, enough clothing for three years, and books and stationery to establish ten schools of fifty students each, their salary to be guaranteed by szne public body like the Highland Society.

Macdonald himself had organized five Highland Societies in the provinces, i including the Caledonian Society of the Island, and at his personal request the Duke of Gordon, "Cock o’ the North", became their patron. He had also been commissioned to select a tartan for their use, and the choice of it was left to Miss Macdonald, granddaughter of Flora, who decided upon a plaid of the mingled colours of Gordon and Macdonald clans. This was also the regimental plaid of the Castle Tirrim regiment of the Island.