"In the township of Elderslie, Bruce County, Ontario, there was a settlement of Kintyre emigrants. The name still remains, painted on the gable end of an immense barn, spelt, rather interestingly, Cantyre Farm. The school, no longer in use, was Kintyre School, and there is a Kintyre Graveyard, changed some time ago to St. Andrew's Graveyard, but still better known and remembered as Kintyre Graveyard.

Upper Canada was the name of the area in which the Kintyre settlement was located, between Lake Ontario and Lake Huron. Prior to 1763, this was a part of the French Colonial Empire, but the French had not made any agricultural settlements. The area was tranferred to British rule, and the British were anxious to have this part of the country colonised. The first settlers were "Empire Loyalists", who tended to stay near the trading posts of Kingston and York. The earliest emigrants were restricted in their choice of location, as the land had not been entirely surveyed. Free land was offered at first. A famous Governor, John Simcoe, suggested that groups, headed by a settlement leader, should colonise Upper Canada. Each settler was to erect a dwelling place, and clear five acres in every hundred of virgin bush. An attempt was made to have the settlers register their land at York, but, as travel was difficult, there are no records that this was enforced.

The ground was temendously fertile, untold years of falling leaves having enriched it, but there was back breaking work to be done before crops could be grown. The trees, many of them enormous in girth, had to be uprooted and, even with the help of a horse and chains, it was hard labour. The intense cold of a Canadian winter was, also, a test of endurance. During the severest winters, the nails inside the cabins would shine with frost, and there would be a film of ice on the bedclothes. A huge stock of wood logs had to be made ready for winter.

Many Scottish emigrants left from Greenock. Often the ship had to beat about the Clyde awaiting a favourable wind to take them around the Mull of Kintyre. In 1770, the brigantine "Annabella", under the command of Cptn Robert Stewart, left Campbeltown with emigrants. Although they survived that particular voyage, it was not always the case. There is a recorded incident of a ship on which one hundred people died on the long voyage across the Atlantic. The "Annabella"'s last voyage, unfortunately, ended with her being wrecked on the north coast of Prince Edward Island, and the list of names of those rescued still exists. It includes the names of Smith, Sinclair, McGougan,Ramsay, Woodside, Taylor and Montgomery, and others from Kintyre. The name Montgomery occurs frequently in the Kintyre Graveyard. It is said that the Indians were very good to the ship-wrecked passengers, who later continued on their way to Ontario.

The names in the Graveyard were all familiar. Many had thistles carved on the stones. Frequently there was carved the legend, "a native of Argyleshire", and I took a note of those names which had the actual birthplace of Kintyre:

Christena Taylor, a native of Kilcalmonell, died 1871, wife of Peter Reid, Saddell; Mary Taylor, a native of Clachan, wife of Dugald Gillies, died 1882, ( The name Gillies is perpetuated by "Gillies Hill", a place name in Bruce County.), Hugh, Donald, Helen, John Gillies; Dugald Blue and his wife, died 1859; Mirren McKinnon, native of Killean, Kintyre, Argyleshire; Neil Stewart, native of Kintyre; Peter Thomson a native of Skipness died 1864; Margaret Walker, wife of Alex Taylor Killean, natives of Kilcalmonell, Kintyre; and many more. ".

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