The Glengarry Cairn and Highland loyalism in the British Atlantic world

ABSTRACT

In the early 1840s, a monumental cairn was built on an island in the St Lawrence River by the Glengarry Highlanders Militia who were stationed in eastern Upper Canada and western Lower Canada during the Rebellions of 1837–1838. The cairn was officially raised to commemorate the Glengarry Highlanders’ supreme commanding officer, Sir John Colborne and to acknowledge the role the Glengarry Highlanders played in supressing the Rebellion. However, as a product of early Victorian Highlandism and its association with three generations of a transatlantic Highland regiment, the cairn was also a physical representation of the historic Highland Scottish military contributions to the British imperial project in the Atlantic world.

KEYWORDS:

• Loyalism
• military history
• Scottish emigration
• pre-confederation Canadian history

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Peter Cook for his kind support and helpful comments and insights on an earlier draft. I would also like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions. Much of the research for this article was undertaken while I was a Shadbolt Fellow in the Humanities at Simon Fraser University (2015–2020).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The island is in Lake St. Francis, a lake in the St. Lawrence River that is located between Cornwall to the west, Salaberry-De-Valleyfield to the east, and New York State and the Mohawk community of Akwesasne to the south. The island is called Cairn Island or Monument Island by the local settler community.

2 The Rebellions were the violent culmination in Canada of the ideological conflict between republicanism and constitutionalism that was playing out in the context of the global Atlantic revolutions. Ducharme, Idea of Liberty, 5–19.

3 Extract from a letter from Lieutenant-Colonel Carmichael to Lieutenant-General Sir James Macdonell, K.C.B., K.C.H., commanding Brigade of Guards and second in command of Her Majesty’s Force in Canada, dated December, 1840, in J.A. Macdonell, Sketches of Glengarry, frontispiece. Carmichael’s permanent rank in the British military was lieutenant-colonel. He was on particular service in British North America where he first held the rank of major when he arrived to command the Glengarry Highlanders in Canada. Carmichael was promoted to colonel in October or November 1838. Macdonell, Sketches of Glengarry, 295–297.

4 See: Errington, Emigrant Worlds.

5 Smith, “Making the Patriot Order,” 408–409.

6 Mancke et al., “Introduction,” 4–5. See also, Ducharme, Idea of Liberty, chapter 6.

7 Dziennik, “Liberty, Property,” 58.

8 Dziennik, “Whig Tartan,” 119–120; Dziennik, The Fatal Land, 183. The two main acts associated with these repressive measures are the Act of Proscription (19 Geo. II c. 39) and the Heritable Jurisdictions (Scotland) Act, both passed in 1746. The acts were repealed in 1782 and 1784, respectively.

9 Clyde, From Rebel to Hero; Coltman, Art and Identity in Scotland, 3; Cookson, “Napoleonic Wars,” 60–75; MacKillop, More Fruitful than the Soil, passim; MacKillop, “Continuity, Coercion and Myth,” 30–55; Spiers, “Highland Soldier,” 76–77; Watt, “Highland Society of London,” 356.

10 Bannister and Riordan, “Loyalism and the British Atlantic,” 7. For loyalists who settled elsewhere see especially: Jasanoff, “Other Side of Revolution,” 205–232. In British North America, the honorific “United Empire Loyalists” was given to these migrants in 1789 by Lord Dorchester, Governor-in-Chief of British North America.

11 For an excellent overview of the establishment of the Highland Scottish settlements in what is now eastern Ontario by economic migrants see: McLean, People of Glengarry. Many of the later migrants who came directly from Scotland were fleeing the intense economic and social changes associated with the Highland Clearances. See: Richards, Highland Clearances.

12 St. Regis was largely a Roman Catholic Iroquois community that grew as it received waves of migrants largely from Kahnàwa:ke (the Mohawk community south of Montréal) and the Mohawk River Valley who had joined the community after the mid-eighteenth century. As some Akwesasro:non had participated in the Revolutionary War on the side of the British and the fact that Sir William Johnson (Sir John’s father) had promised them this land, the Mohawk community felt there was a particularly strong case to settle land claims with the British. After an intense and protracted negotiation, in 1784 the People of Akwesasne were granted a strip of land two and a half miles wide on the north shore of Lake St Francis between the townships of Charlottenburg and Kenyon (Glengarry Country) and Cornwall and Roxburg (Stormont County). This reserve became known as the “Indian Lands.” “Copy of Memorial Presented to His Excellency the Governor General by a Deputation of the Nipissings and Algonquin Tribes 9th March 1840,” LAC, RG10, Secretary of Indian Affairs in Lower Canada, Vol. 99, C-11471, 41098; Surtees, Indian Land Surrenders, 26–32.

13 The regiment was also known as the 1^st North British Fencibles.

14 In his “Account of the Catholics from Scotland and of the 1^st Glengarry Fencible Regiment,” Macdonell weaves the loyal reputation of the Glengarry Highlanders into an argument for certain privileges for Catholics, who had for various reasons been cut off from access to certain lands and political power in Upper Canada in ways that non-conforming protestant denominations had not. In particular, was access to public lands that had been set aside for the maintenance of “a Protestant clergy” (which at the time meant only the Church of England) when Upper Canada was created known as the Clergy Reserves. Alexander Macdonell. “Account of the Catholics from Scotland and of the 1^st Glengarry Fencible Regiment,” 9 November 1837. Archives of Ontario, Toronto (hereafter AO), Macdonell Fonds, F971. Macdonell’s rhetoric regarding the Glengarry fencible regiments emerges in the writings of one of his biographers, J.A. Macdonell. Macdonell, A Sketch of the Life, 8–18, 24–32.

15 Alexander Macdonell. “Account of the Catholics from Scotland and of the 1^st Glengarry Fencible Regiment,” 9 November 1837. AO, Macdonell Fonds, F971.

16 Alexander Macdonell. “Account of the Catholics from Scotland and of the 1^st Glengarry Fencible Regiment,” 9 November 1837. AO, Macdonell Fonds, F971; Donovan, “Military Origins,” 79–85. Fencible corps were first raised in 1759 by William Pitt the Elder and were raised to defend the British Isles and various British colonies from invasion in the 18th and 19th centuries. The word “fencible” is derived from the word defensible.

17 “Embodiment of the 1st Glengarry Fencible Regiment,” 14 August 1794. Kew, The National Archives, Kew (hereafter TNA), WO, 4/154.

18 Gourlay, “Subject to Authority,” 158.

19 Alexander Macdonell, “Account of the Catholics from Scotland and of the 1st Glengarry Fencible Regiment.” 9 November 1837. AO, F971, Macdonell Fonds. The Glasgow Mission had been illicitly established in 1792 by the Scottish Catholic Mission, which was the name for the Scottish Catholic Church after the last member of the old church hierarchy (outlawed in 1560), James Beaton, died in 1603. A list of the officers when the regiment was stationed in Kilkenny in 1798 has been reproduced in Macdonell, Sketches of Glengarry,141–142. The list shows that the majority of the officers had the name Macdonell or Macdonald, suggesting they were from the Glengarry estate where these names are very common.

20 Scobie, An Old Highland Fencible Corps, Appendix II, 354–361.

21 Alexander Macdonell. “Account of the Catholics from Scotland and of the 1st Glengarry Fencible Regiment,” 9 November 1837. AO, Macdonell Fonds, F971. Many Highland landowners who relied on seasonal labour for industries such as kelp lobbied for an end to Highland emigration which culminated in the passing of the Passenger Vessels Act (1803). Passed under the guise of protecting emigrants from exploitative transportation companies who did not provide proper sanitation on board ships to North America, the Act raised the cost of a ticket to be beyond the ability of most emigrants reducing the numbers significantly until its repeal in making this period of emigration to North America open to only those with some means or those who got assisted passage such as the demobilised Glengarry Highlanders. Hunter, The Making of a Crofting Community, 61.

22 Chambers, The Canadian Militia, 33; J.G. Simcoe to Henry Dundas, 4 Nov. 1792, reproduced in Cruikshank, ed, Correspondence of Lieut. Governor John Graves Simcoe, 247; Stanley, “Canadian Militia During the Colonial Period,” 33; Taylor, Civil War of 1812, 52–55.

23 Colonel Brock to the Right Hon. W. Windham, 12 February 1807 reproduced in Tupper, ed., Life and Correspondence, 46–47.

24 Ibid., 132–133 (Colonel Baynes to Major-General Brock, Quebec, 12 December 1811).

25 Ibid., 123 (Colonel Baynes to Major-General Brock, Quebec, 21 November 1811).

26 Johnston, Glengarry Light Infantry, 396–398.

27 Major-General Brock to Colonel Baynes, York, 26 January 1812, reproduced in Tupper, ed. Life and Correspondence, 143.

28 Ibid.

29 Ibid.

30 Johnston, Glengarry Light Infantry, 17.

31 Ibid., 321–364.

32 Ibid., 69–71. Photograph of King’s Colour of the Glengarry Fencible Regiment (1801–1802), National Museums of Scotland, “Wild and Majestic: Romantic Visions of Scotland” Exhibition, 26 June to 10 November 2019, Edinburgh, Scotland, private collection of the author. Glengarry Light Infantry cross belt plate (1783–1864). Canadian War Museum, Ottawa, artifact number 19800463-001.

33 Alexander Macdonell. “The Address of Bishop Macdonell to Inhabitants of the County of Glengarry,” 1 November 1838. AO, F971 Macdonell Fonds.

34 Donald MacDonell, M.P.P. and John (Dalcrombie) McGillivray, J.P. et al. “Form of Address” [n.d. October 1837?]. LAC, MG24-I3, John McGillivray Family Collection, vol. 2: Public Business: Petitions and Addresses, 945–947.

35 Montréal Gazette, 28 November 1837. Reproduced in the St James Chronicle, 28 December 1837.

36 This was officially a re-organization of the Glengarry Militia as a local militia was formed after the disbandment of the Glengarry Fencibles following the end of the War of 1812. Macdonell, Sketches of Glengarry, 282–284. The regiment’s full name was the Glengarry Highlanders of Lancaster, Lochiel and Williamstown, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Glengarry Militia.

37 The [London] Morning Post, 12 October 1837.

38 From the Montréal Gazette, 23 November 1837 reproduced in the St James Chronicle, 28 December 1837. The same letter was reproduced in the Montréal Gazette, 30 November 1837.

39 See especially papers in AO, Macdonell Fonds, F971, which contains numerous correspondence between the two men.

40 Senior, “Glengarry Highlanders,” 146–151.

41 Macdonell, Sketches of Glengarry, 295–297.

42 Alexander Macdonell. “The Address of Bishop Macdonell to Inhabitants of the County of Glengarry,” 1 November 1838. AO, F971, Macdonell Fonds.

43 Ibid.

44 Senior, “Glengarry Highlanders,” 143–149; 154–157. Both quotations from p. 143.

45 “Extract of a Despatch from Lieutenant-Governor Sir George Arthur, k.c.h., to Lord Glenelg,” dated Government House, Toronto, 15 November 1839, in Colonial Office, Great Britain, Copies or Extracts of Correspondence Relative to the Affairs of British North America. Ordered, by the House of Commons, to be Printed, 11 February 1839. Np., n.d., 357.

46 Major-Gen. Sir George Arthur to Lewis Carmichael, Toronto, 19 November 1838, reproduced in Macdonell, Sketches of Glengarry, 298.

47 Colonel Lewis Carmichael, P.S. to Colonel Alexander Fraser and officers of the 1st Regiment of Glengarry Militia, 24 May 1839, reproduced in Macdonell, Sketches of Glengarry, 314–315.

48 Cornwall Observer, 7 October 1839.

49 Ibid., 31 October 1839.

50 Ibid.

51 Ibid.

52 Ibid., 2 July 1840.

53 Montréal Gazette, 30 July 1840.

54 Ibid.

55 Montréal Gazette, 30 July 1840.

56 Ibid.

57 “Precis of the subjects discussed at the Council holden at St Regis on the 24th May 1839.” LAC, RG10, Indian Affairs, Secretary of Indian Affairs in Lower Canada Correspondence, Vol. 97, July–Dec 1838, 40189; Napier to Colborne. 18 July 1839. LAC, RG10, Indian Affairs, Secretary of Indian Affairs in Lower Canada Correspondence, Vol. 98, July–Dec. 1839, 40366.

58 It is doubtful that as a voluntary corps in the chronically-underfunded colonial militia the Glengarry Highlanders had formal Highland regimental uniforms. “The Cairn,” BM.

59 Lossing, Pictorial Fieldbook, 209. According to local lore, the cannon placed at the top of the cairn saw service in the War of 1812. “The Glengarry Cairn,” reprinted from the Alexandria Glengarrian, 5 August 1904, 1.

60 Cowan, “The Myth of Scotch Canada,” 49–50.

61 The Gaelic word càirn, or sometimes càrn, “meaning both a ‘rocky hill or mountain’ and a ‘heap of stones’,” refers both to natural formations as well as cultural sites placed or built into the landscape. Cairns are not unique to Scotland and can be found throughout the globe in many cultures. Basu, “Cairns in the Landscape,” 118.

62 Rodger, Hero Building, 39–40); Basu, “Cairns in the Landscape,” 116–117.

63 Most work on historical monuments and public memory has covered urban Canada in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. See for example: Gordon, Making Public Pasts.

64 Stewart, Lectures on the Mountains, 267.

65 LAC, MG24 I 3, John McGillivray Papers, Highland Society of Canada Minutes and Proceedings 1842–1857, vol. 6, 142. The Highland Society of London (est. 1778) rewarded a number of Highland officers with medals for their service in the Napoleonic Wars. Watt, “Highland Society of London,” 19–20, near footnote 138–143.

66 Montréal Gazette, 9 May 1843.

67 Inverness Courier, 21 August 1844.

68 The local Indian Agent for the St Regis Indians, Solomon Y. Chesley, was known to take his family to the island to picnic. 15 August 1848. AO, MS 2640, Solomon Chesley Fonds, 451-1-0-1.

69 Memorandum to J.B. Harkin from the Historic Sites and Monuments Board (hereafter HSMBC), Ottawa. 25 August 1921. LAC, Parks Canada, RG84, a-2-a, Volume 1309. The plaque remains on the cairn to the present.

70 J.B. Harkin to J.A. Macdonell, Ottawa, 15 February 1921. LAC, Parks Canada, RG84, a-2-a, Vol. 1309; Mr Fraser, Department of Agriculture, Ottawa to Mr Lothian, Ottawa, 22 February 1921. LAC, Parks Canada, RG84, a-2-a, Vol. 1309; Memorandum to J.B. Harkin from the HSMBC, Ottawa. 25 August 1921. LAC, Parks Canada, RG84, a-2-a, Volume 1309.

 

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Katie Louise McCullough

Dr. Katie Louise McCullough is a researcher for the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs. She is the former Director for the Centre for Scottish Studies (2015–2020) and Shadbolt Fellow in the Humanities (2015–2020) at Simon Fraser University. Her forthcoming co-authored monograph, Mohawks and Scots in Early Canada, will be published by Edinburgh University Press.