LETTER FROM CANADA

The following transcript of a letter was given to Angus MacFarlane, Sorasdal, by a neighbour of his when he was living with his family in Canada. At the top a small note read `Cousin of Lachlan, grandfather of Angus Johnston, G. V. It is believed that G. V. refers to Great Village, Nova Scotia.

This letter tells the sad tale of Murdoch Johnston who emigrated to Canada with his family in 1847. It is said that one of the reasons why Murdoch decided to leave Coll was becasue he was so upset by all the religious fervour that was sweeping through the island. It was the time of the Disruption and the people were being driven out of their minds by soap-box preachers.

The Church of the period was at Clabbach, but after the Disruption that was barred on occasions as the Laird had taken exception to fiery statements made by a Rev Peter Maclean in Tobermory.

Murdoch finally settled in Mara Township in Canada and was a tireless worker and preacher in the Free Church there. Murdoch stayed in Arnabosd when in Coll. Arnabosd was then a district running from one side of the island to the other, right up to Arinagour. Cnoc a Bhadain is on Arnabosd ground and it is thought that Murdoch would have been about hallway between there and Achamor.

Letter of Murdoch Johnston to his brother Captain William Johnston of the 2nd Madras Infantry, translated from the Gaelic.

Mara Township
Orillia
Lake Simcoe
Western Canada

My Very Beloved William,

It is with pen of grief and ink of tears that I fabricate a letter of sympathetic feelings and renew my melancholy wounds which are marked so deep in my heart that it will not be healed or made up on this side of the Jordan for I was chastened severely. But thanks be to the Most High, he gives me many comforts and mixed my gall with honey from the rock and with the finest wheat according to His promise. I think that you have heard of all the trials I encountered during my adventure to these foreign parts. Blessed be the Lord who declared in His word: "When thee passeth through the Waters I will be with thee and through the rivers they shall not overflow thee.

I left Coll in the year 1847. You know that the Lord blessed me with children. He gave me seven boys and two girls so that I could not stay any longer in Coll with my poor family when the Lord cut the staff of bread from our mouths and I was constrained to make my escape as the Lord ordered it.

I left Liverpool on the 7th of July 1847 with a number of Irishmen who had the fever among them. There was also the pox, even the smallpox and you know how I was myself and my wife was in the same state with the children without taking the smallpox. After ten days at sea the disease broke out with mortal power to all of us. My wife, myself and all the children were seized with the smallpox and after four days my most lovely Alexander was interred in the watery grave of the Atlantic Ocean. With my others, thanks to the Lord, we came after a voyage of seven weeks and five days to a place called Quarantine Island after getting over the smallpox. But we were severely struck with the fever. Hospitals and doctors were there to inspect the immigrants and when we landed we were taken away, the men to one hospital, the women to another and the children to another. I was kept in the hospital with the black fever for two months. When I recovered a little I searched for the children and my dear wife. I found my wife and one of the children in one of the hospitals. They did not know what had become of the other children but they expected that they had all died. I was told to search in Quebec and Montreal for them as maybe they were some of them alive and been sent away with the well people in the steamboats. I was sent away from Quarantine Island and left my dear wife behind with the fever as they would not allow me to await her which proved to be the last sight of my dear espoused wife. There, brother, if you could think of my situation alone, deprived of all my family, like unto David when he sayeth "I am like a pelican in the wilderness or like an owl in the desert, like the pelican pouring his blood out of his wound and like the owl wooping and howling when all were asleep." I went to Quebec, but found none there. They sent us from Quebec, even the immigrants to Montreal. I searched there in the surgery office and found their names. I was told that Donald died the day he got to Montreal.

I went through the hospitals to find any of the rest. I went into one ward and as I stepped in the nurse was lifting a corpse out of a bed. I fixed my eyes on the body and found it to be my Isabella. I looked around through the ward again and saw little William but scarcely could I make him out until I spoke to him in Gaelic and he cried "Oh father, father, Isabella is dead. She was in one bed with me and died."

O William you cannot learn the state of my feelings when Willie cried "Oh father, I shall never part from you." I went out after some time and found James and Lachlan nearly dead. I could not get any information about James and Sarah.

I stopped a fortnight in Montreal to see what the Lord might do with me and Blessed be His Holy Name He looked to my distress and heard the cry of my need and bestowed on me and my children a little strength. So I went away without clothes even a stitch and without any money except 1/6d. I came to Finglan and from there to Toronto where we were all struck again with the fever. The hospitals were filled up so that we were divided one in every hospital and after five or six days Neil died. Then we, the rest of us, were six months in Toronto sick and came afterwards to Mara where} some of your countrymen were and found John and Sarah there alive after recovering from the fever. Neil MacKinnon you can recollect him, took care of them. He was in the wheery of the Laird of Coll. My luggage was all stolen except a little cloth. The chests were broken and that was the remains for us.

I had written you a letter last year but I think that it did not come into your hands as I depended upon your writing to me. There is plenty of land here but a man without money cannot have it. We are here and very well in some ways but I am on another's property. Duncan came here last harvest safe and healthy and brought the money you sent him and I bought a little piece of land with same, but you can consider how far behind I am by sickness and that great tribulation which made me unable to purchase land. There is no money here. You can get everything but only by trade or barter.

Dear William, we are getting aged and our journey will be at an end when we will be as when we were not in existence. I hope you will, if it seems good in your consideration, send me what would buy 100 acres for me and the children before I leave this wilderness of trouble and weariness, tears and sorrow.

Consider what a miserable thing it is to be working so hard in lopping the wild woods of America for others. A man can earn the bit he feeds upon. You may know that I am strong in body and, Glorify the Most High, I enjoy good health. If I had a place of my own through the mercies of the providential strength I would make my endeavours.

My children are something to me and helping in the fear of the Lord eschewing evil. If you will take my case to consideration. You will write me at all events and let me know how you are situated, how you feel in the wilderness and how the Lord has dealth with you. Death approaches in every draw of breath the nearer. Oh that work may be done not as the ten virgins working without grace, but as the wise with grace in their hearts.

Dear brother adieu. May we be pilgrims onwards with our faces toward it walking and weeping along, in our walking rejoicing with our mourning, looking to him who was a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief. My beloved, my affectionate regards to your wife and all the children. My children lovely and affectionate with me remember to you and your children.

Your sincere and affectionate brother till death,

(signed) M. Johnston.

P.S. I can get 100 acres of land here for less than £10. You will write me immediately and if you can you will send the same the surest way you know yourself. Duncan and family are well. I did not hear from Coll since Duncan came but I expect a letter soon. Dear William farewell. May grace and peace be with you now and forever. Amen.