File: mcpheedan-oh-origins_M.mp3
Speakers
DM – Dan McPhee
DM There was, I don't know how many shiploads of McPhees came from the Hebrides and settled here. They bought a Lot which was 20,000 acres, and that extended from this shore here to south shore just east of Souris. And there was fiddlers amongst them, a lot of them. They were directly from Scotland. And a lot of them left the Island around 1830 I believe it was, or 1840 and went over to Cape Breton. They were the first settlers in Judique, were McPhees that had lived here and gone over there. They had a little problem with the – The problem they had was, Prince Edward Island was a British colony, and the same rules applied here that applied in Scotland and after the Battle of Culloden when they, the Scottish people were conquered by the English, and they were forbidden to wear the kilts, they were forbidden to play the bagpipes, and they were also forbidden to speak the language. There wasn't rellly much they could do about the language, because it wasn't until around 1865 I think the first schools were opened up here. And the schools were in English, but the teachers were Irish, teachers from Ireland. So they gradually learned to speak English. But because of this very strict Draconian laws that the British put on them, a lot of them left and went to Cape Breton because Cape Breton wasn't – England had no control over Cape Breton Island. It belonged to the French, and then to the English and it was only Louisburg that they fought over, so they they didn't set up any rules over there. A lot of them left here. The MacDonald's, a lot of MacDonalds went over there and settled in different parts of Cape Breton Island. The Beatons, had settled in East Point [they] went over there. There was quite an immigration from here to Cape Breton Island and settled over there.