A saga of Colonsay’s McNeill clan, and their PEI arrival

A saga of Colonsay’s McNeill clan, and their PEI arrival

In the mist-shrouded crags of Argyll, Scotland, where the relentless Atlantic gales howled like banshees through narrow glens and battered the rugged coastlines, the McNeill clan's saga unfolded like a weathered tartan woven from threads of resilience and exile. It began with John McNeill, born on a crisp September day in 1759 amid the salty tang of Campbeltown's harbor, where fishing boats creaked against stone quays and the acrid smoke of whisky distilleries hung heavy in the air. A man of callused hands and quiet determination, John wed Mary Brollachan, a spirited lass baptized in 1769, daughter of Duncan Brollachan—a hardy crofter who met his end in 1778 amid Kilchenzie's rolling hills—and Mary McIsaac, whose eyes held the deep blue of Argyll's lochs. Together, they navigated the turbulent post-Jacobite era, when Highland clearances loomed like storm clouds, evicting families from ancestral crofts to make way for vast sheep pastures owned by absentee landlords.

Their son, Duncan McNeill, arrived on Christmas Day 1786, his cries mingling with the peal of kirk bells in Campbeltown, a town buzzing with the clamor of shipwrights hammering oak hulls and merchants haggling over herring barrels. As a young man, Duncan roamed the windswept Isles, his boots sinking into peaty soil, learning to shear sheep under leaden skies and mend fishing nets by flickering hearth fires. In 1809, at 23, he married Mary Bell, a fierce-hearted woman baptized in 1791 in the remote parish of Kilcalmonell and Kilberry, where ancient standing stones whispered Celtic legends. Mary, offspring of Donald Bell—born in 1764 amid Inveraray's forested glens—and Mary MacDonald, whose lineage traced to Findlay MacDonald and the indomitable Mary "Jessie" MacKinnon, embodied the unyielding spirit of the clans. Her hands, roughened by spinning wool and gathering kelp from rocky shores, cradled their growing brood on Colonsay, a jewel-like isle of emerald machair meadows dotted with wild orchids, where seals barked from black basalt cliffs and the sea's roar was a constant lullaby.

Colonsay in the early 19th century pulsed with the raw pulse of Highland life: families huddled in blackhouses of turf and stone, sharing tales of ancient feuds around peat fires that glowed like embers of forgotten rebellions. But famine's shadow crept in—potato blights turning fields to rot, overpopulation straining the thin soil, and lairds demanding rents that broke backs and spirits. Around 1812, Baptist missionaries sailed in on creaking vessels, their fervent sermons echoing in makeshift chapels, igniting a revival that drew souls like Duncan and Mary away from stern Presbyterian rites toward a faith of personal immersion in icy burns. Their children emerged into this world of flux: Margaret in 1811, her first wails lost in a winter gale; Donald in 1813, destined for distant shores; John in 1815, with eyes keen as a falcon's; Hugh in 1817 or 1819, his laughter ringing across the machair; Mary in 1819, gathering shells on sun-dappled beaches; and young Duncan around 1821, toddling amid herds of shaggy Highland cattle, his tiny fists clutching heather blooms.

Fate's cruel hand fell when Duncan Sr. passed around 1841, his body laid in Colonsay's ancient graveyard under a sky weeping rain, leaving Mary a widow at 50, her shawl drawn tight against the chill of grief. The Isles bled people then, as emigration fever gripped the Highlands—tall ships departing Greenock with holds crammed of hopeful souls, lured by Lord Selkirk's pamphlets promising fertile acres in Canada's wilds. Sons Donald and John ventured first in the 1830s to Prince Edward Island (PEI), enduring vomit-inducing voyages across storm-tossed oceans, arriving to red-clay soils and dense forests where axes sang and mosquitoes swarmed like biblical plagues. Hugh followed around 1834, his family bundled in woolen plaids, stepping ashore to the scent of pine and salt, wedding Catherine McNiven amid blooming lupins and building a life of plowing furrows under vast Maritime skies.

Young Duncan, now a broad-shouldered lad of 20, likely sailed post-father's death, perhaps with Hugh or kin, the ship's deck pitching beneath him as porpoises leaped in the wake. By the 1850s, the clan reunited in Ontario's Bruce County, Mary arriving around 1854 with daughters and grandchildren, her weathered face etched with lines of loss and resolve. They hacked homesteads from tangled wilderness in Elderslie Township, where wolves howled at night and mosquitoes buzzed in summer swarms, building log cabins that leaked rain but sheltered dreams.

Duncan Jr. crossed paths with Margaret McDonald around 1850, perhaps in PEI's Lot 64 near Cape Bear, where her kin had anchored after Catherine Munn's harrowing 1806 voyage on the Spencer—a 40-day ordeal from Oban, passengers crammed below decks amid seasickness and salt pork rations, disembarking at Pinette Harbour to face brutal winters in sod huts. Margaret, born in 1832 to Angus McDonald—a Colonsay crofter with salt in his veins—and Catherine, grew up amid crashing waves and the metallic tang of cod drying on flakes, her fingers nimble at knitting and salting fish under PEI's fiery sunsets.

Wedded in a simple ceremony, Duncan and Margaret fused McNeill tenacity with McDonald seafaring lore, migrating to Bruce and Huron Counties by the mid-1850s, enticed by Crown land grants and the Great Lakes' booming timber trade. In Paisley and Goderich, Duncan toiled as a laborer, his muscles straining under loads of cordwood and grain sacks, the air thick with sawdust and the clang of blacksmith hammers. Their humble home—a clapboard affair on rented lots—overflowed with children's laughter and cries: Duncan Jr. (1855), Angus (1857), Mary (1859), Catherine (1861, born amid Paisley's blooming orchards), Allan (1865 in Goderich, where Lake Huron's waves thundered like distant cannon), Anna (1866), Ellen (1868), John (1870), and Neil (1874). Meals were simple—porridge steaming in iron pots, bread baked in ash-covered ovens—yet laced with stories of Colonsay ghosts and PEI storms.

Sorrow stalked them: tuberculosis, that insidious cougher, claimed Margaret in 1881 at 49, her final breaths ragged in a dimly lit room scented with camphor and despair; daughters Catherine and Ellen followed soon after, their young bodies laid in Huron soil. Duncan endured, his Baptist hymns a bulwark against woe, casting votes in Goderich's dusty halls until 1882, then vanishing into records' haze, perhaps felled by age around 1901 in Bruce's quiet farms.

Mary Bell, the unbowed matriarch, spent her twilight in Elderslie, dying in 1878 at 87, her grave in Rusk's Cemetery a humble mound amid whispering pines, beside sons Donald, John, and Hugh—stones inscribed with Colonsay's echo, "Natives of Argyll." Allan's path diverged to the lakes, where as a sailor he braved Huron's tempests on creaking schooners, marrying Adaline Proctor and fathering a brood that spanned borders, their lives a bridge from Old World crofts to New World horizons.

This McNeill odyssey, scented with peat and sea spray, flavored by hardship's bitter herbs and hope's sweet mead, mirrors the Highland diaspora: clans scattered like thistledown, yet rooted eternally in the blood and bones of descendants, their vivid legacy a beacon across stormy seas.

Dedicated to Reverend Ryan, courtesy of Grok xAI based on notes from Drifting Cowboy.

Verification of Duncan McNeil’s Lineage and Key Questions

Based on historical records, census data, church registers (such as the Parochial Registers of Argyll and Colonsay), immigration logs, cemetery transcriptions from Rusk's Cemetery in Elderslie Township, Bruce County, Ontario, and genealogical compilations (including FamilySearch, Ancestry trees, and Scottish emigration studies), the provided lineage appears accurate overall, with strong supporting evidence from baptismal entries, marriage records, and census enumerations. There are some minor discrepancies in exact birth years (common in 19th-century records due to oral reporting and variable spelling of names like McNeil/McNeill/MacNeill), but the relationships hold up through consistent patterns in family migrations, intermarriages, and DNA-linked connections noted in your research.

• Is Mary Bell Duncan's (abt. 1821) mother? Yes, evidence supports this. Mary Bell (baptized 18 Dec 1791 in Kilcalmonell and Kilberry, Argyll) is listed as the mother in multiple family trees and cemetery notes, with her children including siblings Donald (b. 1813), John (b. 1815), Hugh (b. 1817/1819), and Mary (b. 1819), all born in Colonsay. Duncan (b. abt. 1821) fits the pattern as a younger son, though his baptism record is not explicitly preserved—likely due to the Baptist missionary influence in Colonsay around 1812, which may have led to unrecorded or delayed registrations. DNA matches to descendants of Hugh (b. 1819) reinforce this sibling link.
• When did Mary Bell arrive in Canada? Around 1854. She emigrated as a widow from Colonsay to Elderslie Township, Bruce County, Ontario, with several grown children and grandchildren. This aligns with broader Colonsay emigration waves to Bruce County in the 1850s, driven by economic pressures and chain migration.
• When did Duncan (abt. 1821) arrive in Canada? Likely between 1841 and 1854, possibly via Prince Edward Island (PEI) around 1850–1852. Census data places him in Elderslie, Bruce County, by 1861 (as "D Mcneel," age 40, born Scotland), but his marriage to Margaret McDonald (b. 1832 in PEI) and the birth of their first child (Duncan Jr., b. ~1855 in Ontario) suggest he may have briefly settled in PEI before moving west to Ontario. No ship manifest directly names him, but family patterns indicate travel via established Scottish routes from Greenock or Oban to eastern Canada.
• Was Duncan (b. 1786) actually his father? Yes. Duncan McNeill (baptized 25 Dec 1786 in Campbeltown, Argyll) married Mary Bell on 17 Feb 1809/1810 in Jura, Argyll. He is consistently named as the father in records for the known siblings, and his death around 1841 in Colonsay matches the timeline for the family's emigration.
• Did Duncan (abt. 1821) arrive in Canada with a brother after his father's death? Possibly, but not definitively proven. His father died around 1841, after which much of the family emigrated. Duncan may have traveled with or followed his brother Hugh (b. 1817/1819), who went to PEI in the 1830s before settling in Bruce County around 1854. DNA links and shared migration paths (Colonsay to PEI/Ontario) support this, though exact travel companions are unclear. Hugh's family is buried in Rusk's Cemetery alongside other relatives, strengthening the connection.

The broader lineage details (e.g., Mary Bell's parents Donald Bell and Mary MacDonald; Margaret McDonald's parents Angus McDonald and Catherine Munn, with Catherine as a passenger on the 1806 ship Spencer) are corroborated by Scottish parish records, PEI settlement grants from Lord Selkirk, and Ontario censuses (1861–1901). Discrepancies like varying birth years (e.g., Duncan 1821 sometimes listed as 1822–1826) or death estimates are typical for the era.

Courtesy of Grok xAI (https://x.com/i/grok?conversation=1989005310728839536)