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four years Mayor of Port Daniel, and
who had settled there in 1838. *
Several Scotch United Empire
Loyalists, in 1783, coming from the adjacent United States Provinces,
settled at the Baie des Chaleurs, as well as at New Carlisle, under the
predecessors of Lieut.-Governor Major Nicholas Cox; at Sorel—on the Bay of
Quinte,—at Douglastown on Gaspé Bay; at the latter place, the seignior of
Crane Island, in 1803, Daniel McPherson, Esq.,
t had
settled about 1790 with the Annetts, Coffins, Murisons, Kennedys, and
other U. E. Loyalists.
Many are the ethnological changes,
in Lower Canada, ushered in by British rule and with the experience of the
past, varied indeed will be in a hundred years hence the rich concrete,
composing our nationality, if the blind God of love should continue to
shoot his darts in defiance of race, language or creed.
If Sandy shewed a penchant
for the bright eyed Josettes of
New France, French families even
those with the bluest blood, were not averse to Scotch or English
alliances; in proof whereof, you will find at the end of this paper a list
of military marriages and some ethnological notes which may startle you.
* Born on the 14th
October, 1808, in Invernesshire, Scotland, not far from the field of
Culloden, and emigrated with his family to the Baie des Chaleurs in
1819. Was elected mayor of Port Daniel in 1843 and continued mayor until
1877.—34 years.
t Daniel McPherson, a noted U. E.
Loyalist, born at Inverness, Scotland in 1752, resided at Sorel first,
where he married a Miss Kelly: he left Sorel some time about 1790 for
Douglastown, Gaspé; engaged in the fisheries and in agricultural pursuits
with success, opened subsequently a large fishery stand at Point St.
Peter, Gaspé; he died at St. Thomas, Montmagny, in June, 1840, aged 88
years. The lecturer, whose youth was spent under his grandfather’s
hospitable roof from 1828 to 1838, by his mother Miss M. McPherson, is the
grand-son of this respected old U. E. Loyalist, after whom he was named
James (McPherson) LeMoine: his French ancestors hailed from Pistre, near
Rouen, in Normandy, and were closely connected with the other celebrated
Norman family, LeMoine de Longueuil. |
