Talk:Glengarry County, Ontario

2012

I'm reposting my comment from another section: The following counties still exist: Stormont County, Dundas County, and Glengarry County. The merger occurred only on an administrative/political level. If you drive through this area you will see provincial markers indicating you have entered, for example, Stormont County. Legal documents will still say, for example, "In the County of Dundas". The City of Cornwall, for example, is in the County of Stormont. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.15.175.222 (talk) 20:33, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Glengarry Fencibles

Glengarry Fencibles were predominately Roman Catholic and from Clan MacDonnell of Glengarry. After the disbandment of the Glengarry Fencibles their former chaplain Alexander Macdonell (later Roman Catholic Bishop of Kingston, Upper Canada) persuaded Prime Minister, Henry Addington, procured for him an order with the sign-manual to the lieutenant-governor of Upper Canada, to grant two hundred acres of land to every one of the former soldiers who should arrive in the province.(Browne 1854 p. 380–381}}.

• Browne, James (1854), history of the Highlands and of the Highland clans: with an extensive selection from the hitherto inedited Stuart papers, vol. 4, A. Fullarton and Co., pp. 380–381

Did the members of the Glengarry Fencibles settle in Glengarry County, Ontario? If so then this information ought to be included in this article. -- PBS (talk) 12:18, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Also a mention of the Glengarry Light Infantry (if only only in the see also section) -- PBS (talk) 12:21, 11 September 2017 (UTC)

Unqualified mention of Highland Clearances is misleading

This article states "...known for its settlement of Highland Scots due to the Highland Clearances." Use of the unqualified term "Highland Clearances" makes this a misleading statement. Highlanders emigrated to this part of Canada because of the social and economic changes that were going on in the Highlands. However, the vast majority of those who arrived in Glengarry County from Scotland were not "cleared" (i.e. evicted). Their decision was based on a complex blend of: (a) the wish to own land rather than rent it (something that was almost impossible to do in the Highlands due to most of the land being in the hands of a small number of people) (b) the objection to continually increasing rents and (c) the possibility of their landlord introducing improvements that included resettling their tenants in crofts: this would result in the loss of status of the tenant from farmer to crofter.

So, whilst the decision for many to emigrate was related to the changes associated with the Clearances, the statement in the article implies that most were evicted and then travelled to this part of Canada. In reality, the majority were the better off Highlanders who had the financial resources to emigrate as entire families. They were implementing well-considered plans, utilising the cash they could raise from ownership of significant numbers of cattle. This would differentiate this group of immigrants from those who had "assisted passages" from the Highlands and Islands in the second phase of the clearances (when there was a desperate need to reduce population numbers in over-crowded crofting communities that had lost the economic basis to support their existence). These later emigrants left Scotland from c. 1820 onwards, by which time the Highland communities in Glengarry county were well established with those who had fled the USA after American independence and the "voluntary" (difficult to find a better word - I acknowledge the deficiency) emigrants who arrived in the last 2 decades of the 18th century and the first decade of the 19th.
ThoughtIdRetired (talk) 23:16, 23 October 2018 (UTC)