Frontiersmen and Settlers: The Bells in Scotland, Ireland and Canada by William C. Wonders
Publisher's Synopsis
The chronicle of the Bell family is one which will be familiar to thousands of other Canadians whose ancestors were part of a massive immigration from the British Isles to Ontario in the early 19th century. Originally the Bells were one of the troublesome "riding clans" of the Scottish borders. (Another Bell group originated as an offshoot form Clan MacMillan in western Argyllshire) Many moved or were moved to Ireland in the early 17th century "Plantation" of Ulster, where their descendants remain to the present, as Ulster Scots. By the early 19th century severe economic depression, land pressures, and increased friction with the native Irish were widespread. It lead to a major emigration of Ulster Scots to North America, and particularly to Upper Canada. Their imprint on the character of Ontario persists to the present. After describing the nature and character of the countryside and of the Bells generally in the Scottish Borders and in Ulster, the author follows his maternal ancestors as they experience the hardships of emigration in 1832 ("the cholera year") and deal with the demands of pioneering in a new country. Originally they settled just southwest of Peterborough, but subsequently were attracted northwards when the Haliburton Highlands were opened for settlement. There the Canadian Shield provided severely limited prospects for farming and the family relocated to north Simcoe County. When the Canadian Northwest was opened for settlement in the late 19th century, several family members moved to what became today's Prairie Provinces. Those that remained in Ontario abandoned farming in the early 20th Century in favour of city life in a rapidly growing Toronto.Today's descendants are widely dispersed across central and western Canada and in the western United States. The author draws on a wide spectrum of material - official records, contemporary newspapers and published accounts, family records, letters and interviews to provide a vivid backdrop for the lives of his Bell family over time. Material and information has been collected by him over twenty-five years, in Scotland, Ireland , Canada, and the Unites States.
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