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On September 15, 1773, the ship Hector sailed into Pictou Harbour
on the north-eastern shore of Nova Scotia. On board were some 200 passengers.
These thirty-three families, twenty-five single men, their agent and a
piper arrived to begin the first effective settlement of the Pictou area.
But that is not the primary reason for their unique place in Canada's history.
This is reserved for their role in their perseverance and struggle to achieve
the freedom of ultimately owning their own piece of land. Against
great odds they became permanent settlers and in many cases on their say,
thousands of Scottish settlers followed the Hector people to this new land
of New Scotland.
The events leading to the journey of the Hector began in 1765
when thousands of acres of land, now Pictou County, were granted to individuals
or companies in the old colonies (United States). In particular, the Philadelphia
Company, which included Benjamin Franklin as one of its shareholders, seemed
serious about settlement of the terms of their grant of 200,000 acres of
Pictou land. Initial settlement efforts met with little success, a single
small vessel arriving in 1767 with only six families, four of which later
moved away. Some of the shares were transferred to a Dr. Witherspoon, while
others were acquired by one John Pagan who had already transported Scottish
immigrants to Boston in 1770 on his ship, Hector. They promptly recruited
an agent named John Ross to attract other Scottish immigrants to settle
on the holding in Pictou County. The offer from Ross was an attractive
one indeed to the tenant Scottish farmers and included free passage, a
farm lot and year's provisions. Adding to this the promise of a rich and varied land, he secured a shipload
of passengers in short order.
Under the command of John Spiers as Master, the Hector left
Loch Broom, Rosshire, in July of 1773. They experienced a difficult voyage,
including a fierce gale off Newfoundland which blew the ship so far off
course that it took fully two weeks to recover their former position. Accommodations
and provisions were of poor quality, and the outbreak of smallpox and dysentery
resulted in the death of the eighteen children on board. Water had to be
rationed during the later stage of the voyage and the food shortage was
so severe that the moldy scraps of food that had earlier been discarded
were eaten on the last two days of the journey. Fortunately these scraps
had been collected by Hugh McLeod, who probably hadn't realised just howimportant
they would become later in the voyage.
Finally on September 15, 1773, the Hector dropped anchor in
the harbour opposite what is now the town of Pictou. The hardy settlers who had endured so much, now faced the challenge of
making a success in their new home. Succeed they did, and with that success came the call to relatives and friends to join
them in this new land of opportunity.
Despite the disruption to immigration caused during the American
War of Independence, settlement resumed in 1784 and by 1803 Pictou boasted a population of some five thousand people.
And through the port of Pictou came thousands more, settling further afield in Antigonish, Cape Breton, Guysboro and Colchester
counties, other parts of Nova Scotia and on to Prince Edward Island and the upper provinces. By one count, between
1802 and 1807, twenty-five thousand people wet to Cape Breton alone. This wave of immigration from Scotland, which
has contributed so much to the heritage of a large part of Nova Scotia and other parts of Atlantic Canada, began with these
intrepid souls that sailed on the Hector.