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His LAND RECORDS—

Meanwhile, in Nova Scotia, each man disbanded from the 82^nd was allotted land on an un-cleared tract of 26,000 acres set aside in Pictou County, about 100 miles from Halifax. Many soldiers had spent their entire service based at the garrison in Halifax and would doubtless have been familiar with the coastal geography in that region. Land records reveal that a few men sold their lots at once, probably for ready cash; 160 enlisted men in the regiment were assigned lots, including seven McNeils.¹⁸

"A Copy of the Plan of the 82nd grant Maragomish [sic] 14th Feb 1821." Public Archives of Nova Scotia Land Grants: 1784 Robertson, Alexander. The accompanying letter from the Archives states: "There is no petition to accompany this grant. There is a plan included, however McNeil is not listed there." (Letter to Helen Whyte, 19 September 1973)

Two books recording the history of Pictou County have become almost iconic for research in that area: George Patterson's A History of the County of Pictou, Nova Scotia (1877) ¹⁹ and Rev. James McGregor, Memoir: with notices of the colonization of the lower provinces of British North America and of the social and religious condition of the early settlers (1859) ²⁰ —but there is no Ruairidh (Roderick) McNeil named in these identical accounts of land allotments. Moreover, within a few months, the MacNeil Barramen named in the grant had all left Pictou and moved eastward, further along the Shore to Malignant Cove, Arisaig and Cape George, where they took up other unoccupied land.²¹ Soon even their connection to the 82^nd Regiment was lost and they had effectively walked out of Pictou history.

One abiding characteristic in this settlement history of the district is just how unsettled—for about the first half century—the settlers in fact were. Those who received crown grants, commonly, as a matter of course, abandoned the original allotment for another piece of land nearby or farther along the coast. Second and third generation settlers seldom waited for inherited land, and instead, selected particular land that they favored for one reason or another: fishing rights, woodland, cleared land, orchard slopes, neighbors, access and conditions of the soil. For the Barramen who became pioneers in Antigonish County, the reason for their move cited most often in parish histories is religion. They were Catholic.²² Whatever the reason, the families picked up and moved, and the final acceptance of a permanent place was sometimes far removed from where the immigrant family had begun in the new country.²³

But analysis of these early records (Crown Land Grants) in Eastern Nova Scotia does establish the link between Roderick McNeil, the private who is counted on the Muster Roll of the 82^nd (WO12/8597) and Roderick McNeil, the settler who is named Rory Breac McNeil on a lot of land at Cape George, along the coast from Pictou. Place-Names and Places of Nova Scotia, a compilation of historical references in the province, includes this mention under the description of Malignant Cove, Antigonish County:

The first settlers in the Cove were soldiers who had served in the 82nd Regiment. John McNeil (Breac), John McNeil (Brown), Roderick McNeil, Robert Stewart, Malcolm McLean, John French McNeil, Angus MacDonald and Alexander Chisholm. John McNeil (Breac) and John McNeil (Brown) moved there in 1789.²⁴

Sagart Arisaig—: Priest of Arisaig

Survey map, 21 September 1814, (signed, Charles Morris, Surveyor General) to accompany land deed: Number 572, Book E, page 21.

From 1890 to1892 a parish priest in the diocese of Antigonish, Nova Scotia, wrote a weekly newspaper column dealing with local history. He was 'Sagart Arisaig', Rev. Ronald MacGillivray. His Gaelic pen-name is translated as 'priest of Arisaig', and at the time he was writing, beginning in that area of his own parish, he listed the names of inhabitants along the coastline and through the county of Antigonish ²⁵ as they were set in the memories of older people. He fixed the identity of "Rory Breac McNeil" as a Barra soldier on a farm lot along the coast of Cape George.

By a stroke of good fortune in genealogy, fifty years later the Sagart Arisaig columns were reprinted (1943-44) in the same weekly newspaper, The Casket, Antigonish.²⁶ This time, the data was revised and updated meticulously by the paper's editor, Charles J. MacGillivray. He left almost untouched the original accounts by Sagart Arisaig, including the reference to Rory Breac McNeil, except now, the Casket editor added footnotes, annotations and documentation based on corroborative research in the Public Archives of Nova Scotia and land records offices. C. J. MacGillivray's revisions were scholarly and fair-minded; he commented often on the accuracy and insights of the original narrative history compiled by the priest of Arisaig.

In his account of these first settlers, (military claimants many of them), along the coastline that curves into the Northumberland Strait between Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, Sagart Arisaig created what amounts to a 'walking guide to the land'. The priest wrote as though he were strolling up the rise of Cape George, lot by lot, and stopping as each house came in view. There he recited the list of families who lived or who had once lived on the particular site. In his time, 1890-92, some of the crown grants to which Sagart Arisaig assigned a family name had been inhabited for more than 100 years. His genealogical account of each place was almost biblical in tone, and certainly in its syntax and

Crown Land Grant Index map #103, Cape George District, Antigonish County, note, Lot Number 1013, Book IJ, p.112.

diction conveyed an English version of the Scottish shennachie or clan storyteller. Sagart Arisaig recalled this early designation of the land: in the chapter entitled "Cape George and Districts", Father MacGillivray wrote: "Rory Breac McNeil and Donald McNeil Barra soldiers were the first settlers on the next farm. They were succeeded on the farm by Donald Og and Angus McNeil and subsequently by Rory and John McNeil. Michael MacNeil and Donald MacPherson are on the place now [1890]".²⁷ [See Survey map above, Book E, page 21] The piece of land and succession of owners described by Father MacGillivray, in fact, encompasses Lot 16 (Donald McNeil) and Lot 17 (Roderick McNeil), combined. The particular farm lot which Sagart Arisaig names "Rory Breac McNeil" (Roderick McNeil) was included on the 1814 survey map merely to mark the beginning of the adjacent grant to Donald McNeil, and—a little farther west—to Donald McKinnon.²⁸ These two lots (20 and 16) provide a union between the early 1814 map and Sagart Arisaig's account in the 1890s.

Both names appear again with the same designations, on the Crown Land Grant Index map (right).²⁹ And by then, it is clear—Donald McIsaac is on the land ³⁰ —Ruairidh Breac has left Cape George and moved on to Cape Breton. Recalling that in order for him to have been a "Barra soldier"—by the time of this move in the early 1800s, Ruairidh's age would be now in his 60s, at most, or in his 40s, at least. At this point in the research there is nothing to suggest an alternative conclusion as to his identity, and it is valid to accept the premise that this legendary character is from Barra and that he is a former soldier from the British army.

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