Hi Len
Thank you for taking the time to do the research I had not heard of the
Ulster Biography link and will use it in future. I hope you found the
research interesting? The Ulster perspective on Alexander is a great
contrast to a Canadian biography. Alexander McNutt is an interesting
character in Canada sometimes Lionized and sometimes disdained depending
on the history one looks at. He had ties to people like Benjamin
Franklin and "Mad Anthony" General Anthony Wayne. His run in with the
British bureaucracy were legendary. Still he did manage to bring many
settlers from Tyrone to Canada and insured they were treated as land
owners not serfs. The records on line from Nova Scotia are spotty and I
am told that a visit to the archives there is the best option. There are
a number of McCoy settlers listed in the 1770 census and beyond but no
record of where they came from in the census. Scot/Irish settlers came
from Scotland and from the USA to settle in Nova Scotia at that time
period. As always Len your help is much appreciated stay well.
Cheers
Ron McCoy
On 2020-05-15 11:36 p.m., Len Swindley wrote:
Hello Ron,
Have done some research regarding Alexander McNutt and emigration to
Nova Scotia: the following item is taken from the Dictionary of Ulster
Biography https://www.newulsterbiography.co.uk/ Advertisements for
this scheme could not have been advertised in the Londonderry papers
as the first edition of the Londonderry Journal (as it was then known
– did not become the Derry Journal until 1880) was issued in June 3,
1772. In addition to advertisements placed in the Belfast Newsletter,
the scheme would have been widely promoted by emigration agents who
followed the circuit of Fair Days and Market Days throughout Ulster.
For any possible data surviving in Ireland, I suggest you enquire at
PRONI, Belfast, and the Mellon Centre for Migration Studies, Ulster
American Folk Park, Castletown, Omagh, Co. Tyrone
https://mellonmigrationcentre.com/ (temporarily closed). My thoughts
are that if any records have survived, they would be located in Nova
Scotia, in the form of applications for land and grants.
Regards,
Len Swindley, Melbourne, Australia
ALEXANDER McNUTT (1725 - 1811):
ARMY OFFICER AND COLONIAL DEVELOPER
Alexander McNutt was one of the most prominent individuals involved in
promoting emigration from Ulster to North America in the
mid-nineteenth century. He was principally active in Nova Scotia, and
had highly ambitious schemes to settle thousands of emigrants from
Ulster there, plans which were initially successful but were
frustrated by British government scepticism and their own ambitious
nature.
McNutt was born in Londonderry (though some sources say Donegal), and
settled in Staunton, Virginia, in about 1750. During the wars against
France in the 1750s, he raised and commanded as colonel a 30-strong
militia. In 1760, in the wake of the British defeat of French forces,
he was offered a large grant (£5,000) on condition that he settle
large numbers of Protestants (deemed to be loyal to Britain) from the
north of Ireland (the part of Ireland where mostly they lived). In May
1761, he placed an advertisement in the /Belfast Newsletter/ outlining
the terms and practicalities involved, promising fertile land,
perpetual deeds for the heads of families of 200 acres, with a further
50 for each child, favourable financial terms, low rents (none for the
first ten years) and no tithes. Rather naughtily he omitted to mention
that much of the land was still in its natural, uncultivated state,
nor did he mention that much of the "choicest lands" referred to were
already reserved.
Nonetheless McNutt, who was a man possessed of considerable optimism
as well as energy, crossed to Ulster to select agents, principally in
Derry city (Arthur Vance), but also across Ulster, though distinctly
more in the west; locations included Castledoe, Ramelton, Raphoe,
Faun, Convoy and Letterkenny in County Donegal; Strabane and Omagh in
Tyrone, Maghera in County Londonderry; he also had a representative in
Castleblayney, County Monaghan. The geographical profile is of lowland
and heavily Protestant areas of western Ulster, which already by this
date had a tradition of out-migration. In 1761, he sent some 300
emigrants across the Atlantic to Nova Scotia and a further 70 in 1762
(though sources note that these were very rough figures); he later
claimed to have settled over 1,000 families, exceeding the
government's planned settling of 600. Land in Nova Scotia was not
expensive, and New England was reckoned to be filling up. But his
plans were experiencing some difficulties.
His initial successes set off alarm bells in London, where it was
feared that large depopulation of Protestants from Ulster "may yet be
...attended with dangerous consequences" to Britain, and decided to
restrict settlement to those who had already been resident in British
colonies for a minimum of five years. When he travelled to Ulster
again in June 1762, armed with glowing testimonials from the 1761
batch of emigrants (a common technique), he was aware very well of
government reluctance, and issued a hastily-written advertisement
which gave prospective emigrants only a matter of days to present
themselves at the port of Derry. Still, he managed to recruit several
hundred willing emigrants, though on arrival McNutt demanded more
money for them, failing which he would send them to Philadelphia -
which in any case had closed ties, maritime, mercantile and personal,
with Derry, and many emigrants preferred to settle where they had
fellow countrymen or relatives.
After 1762, McNutt withdrew somewhat from such emigration schemes,
though by no means completely, chartering ships in 1763 and 1765 to
sail from Derry to Nova Scotia, though he did not advertise this as
forcefully as he had in 1761. Some historians have written that
McNutt's achievement was surprisingly low in numbers, given that there
many civic disturbances in western Ulster at the time. However, one
facto which has been pointed to was rather a prevalence of indentured
servants, who were far more likely to attain employments in the
"middle colonies" than in the still sparsely-populated Nova Scotia.
"Colonel Alexander McNutt was an energetic and ambitious man. His
energies accomplished much but his accomplishments have been dwarfed
in history by the magnitude of his ambitions...all that remained were
the disappointed dreams of a bitter man," wrote RJ Dickson. McNutt
finally settled in Virginia, where he died.
Born:
1725
Died:
1811
Richard Froggatt
Acknowledgements:
Wesley McCann
Bibliography:
RJ Dickson: /Ulster Emigration to Colonial America 1718-1775/ (Ulster
Historical Foundation); CJ Houston & WJ Smith: /Irish Emigration and
Canadian Settlement Patterns, Links and Letters/ (Ulster Historical
Foundation)
Sent from Mail <https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=550986> for
Windows 10
*From: *Ron McCoy via CoTyroneList
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Sent: *Monday, 4 May 2020 11:48 AM
*To: *[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
*Cc: *Ron McCoy <mailto:[email protected]>
*Subject: *[CoTyroneMailingList] McNutt /McCoy
Hi All
I am looking specifically for a McCoy family leaving Londenderry about
1760 going to Nova Scotia probably with Alexander McNutt group. He
placed ads in the Londenderry papers looking for settlers to move to
Nova Scotia. Between 1759 and 1761 he took charge of approximately 400
settler,. 350 in 1760 and about 50 more in 1761. Information on the
group might help me find information on my McCoy family leaving Ireland.
Intelligence about this group or others going to Nova Scotia in this
time period would be greatly appreciated.
cheers
Ron McCoy
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