The Blogging from A to Z Challenge is to post everyday (except Sunday) in the month of April 2018 starting with the letter A and going all the way to Z. The theme I chose is...
My Family Tree Places.
KINTORE, NB
Francis Mavor (my 2x great grandfather's brother) and his wife Catherine (Thompson) had 9 children in Scotland, the last born in Kemnay just 3
months before the family set sail from Aberdeen on the Anchor Line ship
Castalia, under Captain Butler, and arrived in Saint John, New Brunswick on May
10, 1873. Their names were published with all the passengers in the Daily News
of Saint John upon their arrival.
Those who arrived and "absolutely needed assistance" were given work making roads. This paysheet is from 26 December 1874 to 13 January 1875 when workers were hired to work on the road in Lower Kintore. Among them were Francis and his eldest son John, age 16. Francis worked 8½ days for which he was paid $8.50 and John worked 11½ days for which he was paid $11.50.
The 1875 list of land grants listed in the 1876 Sessional Papers for New Brunswick
They settled in the Scottish settlement of Kintore where Francis worked as a farm labourer for 12 years on the 200 acres (Lot #6) that was reserved for him. The couple had 2 more children. On October 14, 1885 Francis was granted 176 acres of land in Lower Kintore. They named their home at Lot #6 "Loggie". Francis and some of his sons were members of the Masons.
Sons George and Leslie got paid by the government for roadwork contracts in Victoria County in 1930
The Mavor family persevered and blossomed in their new country. There is only transcriptions of newspaper articles online, but the marriages of some of the girls say...
"m. Loggie, at residence of bride's father".
I guess $1 per hour was pretty good, but building roads could not have been easy. I love how immigrants took what they could get and pulled themselves up. They got a sizable land grant, it seems. Yay ~
ReplyDeleteI got $1 an hour at my first job. Francis and John got $1 a day!
DeleteTo populate Canada there were often schemes to bring hard working immigrants over with the promise of free land. Especially farmers and miners. These Scottish immigrants to NB had rough houses waiting for them. An old friend’s ancestor was a miner brought to BC from England and they also had houses built for them, and were given food and supplies to last til their first pay. My husband’s mother’s family came from Galicia with promise of free land in Manitoba or Saskatchewan in early 1900s. Some immigrants found the winters too hard or the land not good, and quit to return home. It was not an easy life!