Alexander Hutcheon (1853 – 1913)

From Robert Osgood's The Hutcheons in Canada:

Alexander Hutcheon, b about 1853 in Fordoun Kincardine, Scotland. He came to New Brunswick, Canada in 1889 to be near the “Scotch Colony” where his brother James and sister Betsy were living.

---

Alexander the 9th born arrived in 1853 in Fordoun, Kincardine, Scotland when his mother was 43 years old. She was to bear one more child and live to be 83. In his young life there was peace in Britain but there was unrest in North America. The American civil War broke out in 1861 and continued until 1865. Britain was concerned that America’s large victorious army might move north to Canada. Consequently, discussions started that led to confederation of Canada on July 1st 1867.

Alexander was married twice. The first union produced David who did not marry and had no children. The first wife is unknown and she died of unknown causes.

Helen Garvie was born Dec 17 1857 in Glenbervie, Kincardine, Scotland. Helen and Alexander married in Fordorm Station Scotland on April 12, 1879. They were 26 and 21 years old. She was the daughter of John Garvie and Jane Swainwright. This information is on the “extract of an entry in a register of marriages.” They had nine children, some born in Scotland and others in Canada.

Alexander landed his family in Canada from Arbroth Scotland on May 24, 1889. Ship and port are not known. He took them to the area where his brother James was established. There is no record that they actually lived in the Colony. We only know that their home was in Bairdsville where his wife died July 30, 1896. Bairdsville was across the Saint John River from Kilburn’s Landing which was the beginning of the road that leads into the Colony. It seems that soon after the death of his wife Alexander left the area for the United States, specifically Aroostook County Maine just over the nearby border. At this time he also put his youngest child, 2 year old Elizabeth, in the care of the Malcolm family. Alexander became a naturalized American and died in Maine on the Sept 24, 1913.

---

The plan for New Kincardineshire, a Scottish farming settlement in North America, was conceived by Captain William Brown of Stonehaven Scotland. He had long served as a sea going Captain for the Anchor Shipping Line and in 1872 he was a business promoter seeking shipping for the company wherever it could be found. During his world wide travels he observed the tracts of rich land in North America that were undeveloped while “in the Old Country thousands are struggling just to redeem even a single stony barren acre“.

The Government of New Brunswick of the day was interested in new farmers settling in the province because there was insufficient food grown in the province and some food had to be imported from Ontario and the United States. Consequently, when Captain Brown approached the New Brunswick Government with a plan to move farmers from Scotland to New Brunswick he was warmly received.

The terms offered by New Brunswick were as follows:

1. A free grant of 200 acres to each married man with two or more children. Four of these acres cleared and a good substantial log house built thereon at a cost of 18 pounds.
2. A free grant of 100 acres to each married man with less than 2 children. Two of these acres cleared and a good substantial log house built thereon at a cost of 12 pounds
3. A free grant of 100 acres to each single man over 18 years of age. Two of these acres will be cleared and he will build his own log house and be paid 12 pounds for doing so.
4. Assistance in passage will be paid at 3 pounds per person with two children under 12 years of age counting as one.
5. Any person wishing to build their own log home will when the house is built be paid the 12 or 18 pounds as the case may be.
6. Each free grant will be on a road built at Government expense
7. The Government will pay the cost of transporting baggage from ship side to their new home.
8. Members requiring assistance after arrival will be given work on the roads at $1.00 per day.

These were tough times for the farmers of North East Scotland. The land was poor and the future held little hope. Consequently, it was not difficult to get farmers and trades people to sign on with Captain Brown’s organization for a promising future in the New World. In advertising for settlers, the prospectus stated “the colony will be filled up exclusively from Kincardineshire, except in cases where members may recommend eligible friends from neighboring shires, but in no case will any, except those of known and established respectability and industriousness be accepted as members.”

This New Brunswick proposal was accepted by Captain Brown’s organization on August 16, 1872. This, then, was the beginning of what came to be known as the “Scotch Colony”, a new settlement of Scots in the upper Saint John River Valley of New Brunswick, Canada.

Events moved quickly so that the settlers left their home on the east coast of Scotland and boarded the train in Aberdeen for Glasgow on April 25, 1873 and departed 11 AM April 26 on the S.S. Castalia for Canada arriving Saturday May 10, 1873 in the port of Saint John with 530 immigrants intended for the new settlement. The vanguard of this group set sail again on the river boat “Ida Whitter” and arrived at Kilburn’s Landing on Tuesday May 13, 1873 at 11:30 A.M. The river boat “City of Fredericton” arrived with more immigrants the next day. Some women and children stayed in Saint John or Fredericton for a time as the men prepared the log homes for habitation and the land for the first planting. The immigrants had with them 198 children when they set sail from the Clyde. One more was added in mid Atlantic. The number increased again to 200 when a child was born on a river boat on their way to the settlement. On June 14, 1873 Charles Moffatt was born, the first birth in the settlement making it 201 children.

The essence of Captain Brown’s plan was that the hardships of new land development would be limited because of the work of his organization and its agreement with the Province. Each family would get a habitable house and 2 to 4 acres of land already cleared upon his arrival. They found instead, “a rough crudely built shack, untidily located in a tangled maze of trees felled crisscross throughout a small opening in the forest. Most huts were without doors and windows and the log huts were very poorly built and would not provide adequate shelter for the winter.” The problem was the meaning of “cleared” land. In New Brunswick it meant the trees were cut and ready to burn. In Scotland it meant ready to plant a crop. These differences were worked out and in general the settlers were well pleased with the quality of the land compared to back home and comfortable with their treatment from the New Brunswick Government.

The next group of settlers, numbering 210, arrived at Saint John on the S.S. Sidonian May 14 1874. After that there were no new large numbers of settlers. Some families left and some arrived from Scotland taking up the lots of those who had departed. These were in large part, friends and relatives of those already there. Those that quit the colony, left for other parts of New Brunswick, crossed the border for Aroostook County Maine and to other points in western Canada and U.S.A.

From the beginning of the planning for the Colony, it was agreed that a minister of the Presbyterian Church of Scotland should be a participating colonist. This was not to be as the Minister called cancelled out just before sailing time. Consequentially, the colonists were searching for a minister before they were off the ship. Shortly thereafter Rev. James Gray of Sussex N.B. arrived and spent the summer of 1873 in the colony. There was a Minister in the Colony from that time onward until 1952. Their ministerial responsibilities were for all Presbyterians in the area not just in the colony. This included communities on the Tobique River and Bairdsville across the Saint John River. On January 1, 1878 the first church building was built on the Stonehaven road and a second building in Upper Kintore was completed in 1893.

The new community was first known as the Colony of New Kincardineshire after the area is Scotland from which many of the colonists had been drawn. It had two main roads the Stonehaven road and the Kintore road. The lower part of Stonehaven became Kincardin and the upper part became Bon Accord. Kintore retained its original name. However, the part settled in 1873 became Lower Kintore and the part settled in 1874 became Upper Kintore. Today New Kincardineshire and Stonehaven are unknown and the more general name “Scotch Colony” is used.