Thought to be  Allan the cooper McDonald (1828-abt 1875), barrel maker of Glengarry and Stormont Counties and son of Hector McDonald

cfdun@telusplanet.net
12 July 1999                                                                                                                                           copyright

       Hector McDonald arrived at York Factory in 1812 with his wife Margaret McPhee¹ and son Alexander, as part of Owen Keveny’s party of seventy-one Selkirk settlers and servants.²  He was an indentured servant of Alexander McLean of the Isle of Mull, Argyllshire, Scotland.  This is in accordance with a family tradition that an ancestor had come through the Hudson Bay with the Selkirk settlers.³ They had been "engaged in Ross, Brolas, Grubun, and in the Island of Mull for the service of the Honorable Hudson’s Bay Company and the Right Honorable Earl of Selkirk." ⁴ The Ross of Mull, Brolass and Gribun in the southwestern part of the island were the places referred to.  They assembled at Tobermory, Mull and took a chartered sloop to Sligo, Ireland, where they joined other recruits.⁵  Ice floes in the Hudson Strait slowed the voyage during July and a severe late August storm in the Hudson Bay made the trip hazardous.⁶ It was just the beginning of many trials endured by the McDonald family during several years spent at Red River, before they eventually settled in Glengarry and Stormont Counties of present day Ontario, Canada.

     Hector McDonald was indentured to a chief settler, the former tacksman Alexander McLean of Kingerar (likely Kengharair located between Kilninian and Kilmore in northern Mull).  McLean held "social pretention" ⁷ and had been offered a township of ten thousand acres at Red River, twelve costly Merino sheep, and maintenance for one year for his family and servants by the Earl in order to persuade him to come to Red River. ⁸  Charles McLean had also recruited other inhabitants of western Scotland, mainly of Argyllshire, for the venture.

     After gathering at Tobermory, Mull, the group sailed from Sligo Bay late on 24 June 1812.  They travelled on board the Robert Taylor accompanied by company servants, livestock, and implements on the slower sailing King George and the Eddystone.⁹   Thomas Douglas, the fifth Earl of Selkirk, saw them off.  As the voyage progressed, ice-anchors and boat-hooks were made ready when ice was first sighted, well into the Davis Strait. For several days, it was impossible to see where their ship was at because of dense fog. On entering the Hudson Strait, they encountered a huge iceberg in their path. The ship headed straight toward it after missing the stays.¹⁰ The ship’s doctor, Thomas M’Keevor, gave an eyewitness account of the events of 17 July:

In a short time, however, we were all upon deck; and here the appearance of our situation was awful in the extreme; the shouting of the men, the rumbling of the cordage, the tremendous mountain of ice, on which we every moment expected to be dashed to pieces, contributed to render the scene the most terrific that could well be imagined. The captain did all he could to get the ship about, but without effect, owing to her having missed stays. We were not ten yards from it, when fortunately a light breeze springing up, the sails filled, and in a short time we were completely clear of this frightful mass. ¹¹

     Repeated collisions with the icefloes caused copper to be ripped away from the bottom of the ship and it began to leak. Pumps had to be used to remove water from the vessel. Two days later, the King George and the Eddystone caught up to the Robert Taylor and were anchored to the same icefloe. A group crossed to the King George where tea and refreshments were served followed by a dance on deck with about eight couples participating. A rawboned, athletic piper provided the music, while he strutted up and down the deck haughtily. Following the dance, he played a well-known battle song after providing some introductory screams and flourishes, much to their delight. After a midnight supper, the party ended in silvery moonlight at two a.m.¹² The ships continued to be delayed by ice, making progress only when some open water appeared, or when the ice was sparser. While anchored to the floes waiting for better sailing conditions, their boredom was relieved by visits from Eskimos and by polar bear hunts. At Cape Digges, some of the group climbed a promontory while the ships were anchored to an island. They arrived at Mansel Island, inside the entrance of the Hudson Bay, on 12 August. Here the ships went their separate ways, with the King George heading to Churchill to bring boats for the inland voyage. ¹³  On 24 August, the Robert Taylor encountered a dangerous storm with accompanying raging water and wind. Terror reigned on deck when it was discovered that they had entered shallow water and were in danger of being dashed to pieces against the shore. After finding deeper water, two anchors were cast, desperately hoping that this would save the ship and their lives.¹⁴ Mrs. Hugh¹⁵ McLean went into labour during this confusion and delivered a baby girl the next morning. Finally, on 26 August they reached York Factory where the governor, William Auld, welcomed them.

     There were only two white women recorded as arriving in the West prior to those who came in 1812 as part of Owen Keveny’s group. The first was from the Orkney Islands. In 1806, she had arrived on a Hudson’s Bay Company ship by disguising herself as a man in order to follow her lover who had deserted her. After giving birth to a son on 29 December 1807 at Alexander Henry’s trading post on the Pembina River, she returned to Scotland the next summer. The second white woman was Marie Anne Lagimonière, the grandmother of Louis Riel. She had arrived in the summer of 1807 with her husband, Jean Baptiste Lagimonière. Owen Keveny recorded that with him were eighteen women over age fifteen, one girl, and eleven children under eight. These brave travellers faced great hardship and loneliness in the inhospitable world they had entered.¹⁶

     They were the second group to disembark, coming after one hundred and five young men from Scotland and Ireland who had sailed from Stornoway into York Factory in September 1811, on the Edward & Anne. The mission of this work party was to prepare the way for the first settlers. Miles Macdonell, with nineteen of these men and a few others, had set out on 12 July 1812 for the Forks. They arrived there on 30 August and some of them continued south to Ft. Daer. Hector McDonald and the other settlers who followed Macdonell’s men left York Factory on 6 September, and after an arduous seven hundred mile journey down the Hayes River, arrived at the Forks at the junction of the Red and Assiniboine Rivers in eleven boats and three canoes. After walking most of the next sixty miles with Bois Brûlés and Saulteaux as guides, they rounded the last bend of the Red River with a flag flying and a Highlander piping in the lead boat, as they reached Fort Daer at Red River on 27 October. A severe winter caused the buffalo, upon which they depended for meat, to remain farther away than usual. During efforts to drag the animals shot for them by the Indians and Metis to the fort, many settlers suffered painful frostbite, being unaccustomed to the cold.¹⁷

     In depositions given by Hector McDonald at Fort Daer on 24 March 1813 and on 17 April 1813, he indicated to Governor Miles MacDonell that he had been visiting Alexander MacDonell, a partner of the North West Company at nearby Fort Pembina during the winter of 1812-13 to give him lessons on the Highland bagpipe.¹⁸ On these occasions, Alexander MacDonell tried to convince him that he would be far better off elsewhere than he was at Red River. This was evidently part of the North West Company’s plan to stir up discontent among the settlers and to be rid of them, since they felt the colony threatened to disrupt the fur trade. (See Appendix A)

     The preface of St. John’s Baptisms (1813-1828) shows that a daughter of Hector and Margaret McDonald was baptized 3 May 1813 at Fort Daer by Miles MacDonell. ¹⁹ Her name was not recorded.

     In the spring of 1813 the group attempted to farm the land they called Colony Gardens, near Fort Douglas at the Forks. Since results with livestock and crops were poor, they faced drought and hunger and most of them had to spend the winter at Fort Daer to the south, in order to survive. In May of 1814, they returned to Colony Gardens. Settlers from Sutherlandshire joined them in June and August.

     When Miles MacDonell proclaimed the boundaries of the Selkirk grant and issued a reminder of the Earl’s right to the land in January 1814, relations with the North West Company grew stormy.  MacDonell ordered that no meat, grain, or vegetables be removed from the area unless he authorized it, to ensure the survival of the settlers. The North West Company reacted angrily because their brigades depended on pemmican taken from Lord Selkirk’s Assiniboia and the Hudson’s Bay Company’s Rupert’s Land. Over the winter of 1814-15, the troubles with the North West Company increased. Its senior partners had instructed that the colonists were to be removed either by persuasion or by force. To gain influence with the settlers, Duncan Cameron, another North West Company partner, often socialized with them and invited the families to his house for good meals. He pretended to be a commissioned officer of the king and signed himself as "Captain; Voyageur Corps, Commanding Officer, Red River." In fact, this corps had been disbanded but the settlers, not knowing this, saw him as a government authority and trusted him fully. He regularly warned them of reports he had received that distant Indians would attack in the spring. He said their only hope of survival was to take the protection offered by the North West Company and leave with him for Canada. Each settler was promised free transportation to Canada, a year of free provisions, two hundred acres of land, and other bribes.²⁰ By spring, he had almost enticed three quarters of the settlers to accept land offered near Owen Sound in Upper Canada. On 3 April 1815, he broke into Fort Douglas. Alexander MacDonell returned from the interior, accompanied by Cree Indians from the River Qui Appelle in the middle of May. No doubt the settlers were terrified, since they believed Cameron’s prediction of disaster was about to come true. It was suggested²¹ that this episode may have been the source of an oral tradition that the McDonalds left Red River because of Indian raids. ²² After being held at the Forks for a short time and kept generally intoxicated by the Nor’ Westers, the Crees made it clear to Miles MacDonell that they had decided to return to their territory without harming the settlers, even though they had been brought there to destroy them. They sent a peace pipe to the colony as a sign of friendship. ²³ Most of the Irish, whose three year contracts with Selkirk had expired, joined the North West Company on 5 June.

     The harassment continued and on 10 June the settlers were fired on. Their own gun exploded and two men were wounded. The next day, at Point Douglas, a few stalwart men barricaded themselves in the blacksmith shop. One of them, James Warren, was killed. After that, their leader John McLeod the blacksmith, Archibald Currie, James McIntosh (all company clerks) and Hugh McLean, the only remaining settler, were left undisturbed temporarily. Miles MacDonell left for a few days to allow the settlers to decide what they wanted to do. He surrendered to the Nor’ Westers to prevent further bloodshed on 16 June. Then on 22 June, Duncan Cameron and other Nor’ Westers left with those who had agreed to go to Upper Canada, taking Miles MacDonell as a prisoner. The few families who remained were ordered to leave. They set off toward Norway House and promised never to return, continuing to Jack River at the north end of Lake Winnipeg.

     The colony was destroyed by the Nor’ Westers and Metis.²⁴ Miles MacDonell's list of families and servants carried from Red River by the North West Company in 1815 included Hector McDonald, age 30, from Mull, Peggy, his wife, 26, Alexr., his son, 4, and two daughters, age 2 and 1.²⁵ Outside, everything lay in ruins. Amazingly, the four men from the barricaded blacksmith shop salvaged 400 bushels of wheat, 200 bushels of barley, 500 bushels of potatoes, and some peas and oats from the damaged crops. They stacked hay, built fences, repaired buildings, and erected new ones. A two-storey house was built for the Governor. It was called Fort Douglas.²⁶

     At the end of July, Duncan Cameron took the settlers to Fort William to present them to the annual meeting of the North West Company’s partners and agents as proof of their triumph over the colony. He was highly praised. A North West Company account book details the names of some of the settlers and others with the amounts they were paid for services and for goods stolen from the colony that were subsequently purchased by the Nor’ Westers. ²⁷ At Sault Ste. Marie, the settlers realized they had been tricked by the Nor’ Westers and were very angry. Many of those who were able to work found employment between York and Newmarket, with the elderly situated, at least initially, at Newmarket. Other settlers removed themselves to Montreal. ²⁸ A Selkirk Settlement account book stated that Hector McDonald deserted in the spring of 1815 and that he was now in jail in Montreal. ²⁹ It has been suggested that this confinement resulted from Lord Selkirk’s legal troubles involving the colony.³⁰

     During the next few months, Selkirk’s agents began to re-establish the settlement. The party at Jack River was persuaded to return to Colony Gardens by Colin Robertson, who had come to them from Montreal. They reached the settlement in August 1815. By 4 November another group, mainly Sutherlanders, arrived at the Forks from York Factory, commanded by Governor Robert Semple. In the winter of 1815-16, Lord Selkirk was in Montreal trying to get government protection for the colony, but he was unaware of the severity of the trouble at Red River. Robert Semple and twenty-one others, including Alexander McLean, were killed at the massacre of Seven Oaks on 19 June 1816 by Metis buffalo hunters under Cuthbert Grant after they had been stirred up by the Nor’ Westers. The remaining settlers departed to Jack River and the colony was destroyed again. Lord Selkirk enlisted mercenaries from the disbanded De Meurons at Lachine, and the De Wattevilles and the Glengarry Fencibles regiments at Kingston to aid the colonists in 1816. After learning of the tragedy at Red River while en route, Selkirk arrested all the Nor’ Westers at their stronghold, Fort William, and released their prisoners. On the night of 10 January 1817, Miles MacDonell easily overtook the occupiers of Fort Douglas. The settlers from Jack River returned, and Lord Selkirk himself arrived at the Forks on 21 June 1817. He signed a treaty with the Assiniboine and Cree natives on 18 July to ensure their recognition of the colony’s ownership of the land in the Red River area.

     Despite crop failures and other problems over the next few years, the colony survived. Lord Selkirk, however, died of tuberculosis in southern France on 8 April 1820, age 48. On 26 March 1821, the Hudson’s Bay Company and the North West Company united as the Hudson’s Bay Company. As the forts closed, their inhabitants, including French Canadians, Indians, and Metis, came to the Forks. In 1821 the last group of settlers, one hundred and seventy Swiss, joined the others. Change inevitably occurred at Red River as time passed. Those in charge of Lord Selkirk’s affairs sold the colony to the Hudson’s Bay Company in 1836. Today it is known as the city of Winnipeg.

     By 1829 Hector and Margaret McDonald had put their Red River experiences behind them and resided in Lochiel Township, Glengarry County, Upper Canada.  Roxborough Township, Stormont County was their home in 1852 where Hector worked as a cooper.³¹ They probably lived in the vicinity of Concession 9 Lots 3 to 6.  (See Appendix B)³²

     Besides Alexander, the McDonalds had at least five other children. One of their daughters born at Red River seems to have been Ann or Nancy who married Gillis McGillis of Williamstown, Glengarry County, son of Donald Ban Og McGillis and Isabella McDonell.³³ She died 25 Mar 1910 in Roxborough Township. ³⁴ (See Appendix C)³⁵  Several more children were born in Upper Canada: Donald born abt 1823, married Annie McRae, daughter of Donald and Ann McRae;³⁶ Flora born abt 1827;  Allan the cooper born about Oct 1828, baptized 20 Jan 1829 at St. Raphael's Parish, Glengarry County,³⁷ married Catherine McIntosh, daughter of John McIntosh and Ann McDonald of Lochiel Township.  When Allan died of tuberculosis in about 1875, his bagpipes were buried or burned to avoid contaminating anyone else.  Allan is said to have been the real life "Alan the cooper," a character in Glengarry School Days written by Reverend Charles Gordon, who used the pseudonym, Ralph Connor. ³⁸

     Allan and Catherine's children³⁹ were Flora born 19 Mar 1858 at 20th Conc. Indian Lands, bapt 21 Jun 1858 at Lochiel Church of Scotland, ⁴⁰ married John Lamouche, died abt   1908; ⁴¹ Donald born abt 1861, married Martha, died 17 Nov 1949 at Regina, Sask.; Annie Bella born abt 12 Jul 1864 at Moose Creek, Stormont Co. or in Glengarry Co., married Richard Thomas Cox (1856-1939) at Montreal on 7 May 1885,⁴² died 28 Jan 1958 at Regina;⁴³ Alexander Archie born abt 1863-64 or 7 May 1868 at Dunvegan, Ont., ⁴⁴ married Fanny Willows (born 1870)⁴⁵ on 6 Dec 1893; Margaret born abt 1867, married William Hurd on 14 Nov 1895; ⁴⁶ Mary Flora born abt 1870, died abt 1890 of tuberculosis.
 

Allan the cooper McDonald  & wife Catherine McIntosh with child thought to be Mary Flora

     There are two references made to Allan the cooper in the autobiography of Charles R. Sinclair of early Glengarry (1845-1931):

  The young people were brought together by husking bees, squitching (sic) bees, spinning bees, sheep shearing, reaping bees.  Sometimes we collected after night and cut a field of grain in full moon for some unfortunate neighbor who had a loss of some kind.  In this way cheered the down-cast.  The fiddle by Tom Bell was always on hand.  Then Alan the Cooper, with his pipes would strike up a tune; Gellic crupach awn sah, Glaun pellie naun na Caruich ulla. Then The Cock of the North .

     One of the first  marriages I was at was when  Catherine McGregor was married to Duncan McGregor, always known as Black  Duncan.  Reverend Daniel Gordon performed the ceremony.   Oh what a feast, table after table providing good things for all.  My uncle Duncan from the city was there with his bagpipes.    Alan the Cooper, McDonald and J.R. McNaughton,  who took their turn with the pipes, and the parson who could play well took a hand.  The bride and groom took the first reel. ⁴⁷

     Today the descendants of Hector McDonald and Margaret McPhee are widely dispersed from the original point of entry at York Factory into many regions of Canada, and possibly even beyond the borders of this country.  At least two of their progeny were given the name 'Hector' and at least five were named 'Margaret.'  The first generations evidently remembered something about the arrival of the Hector McDonald family in Canada.  Unfortunately, almost no knowledge of the personal hardships they had faced during their journeys through the Bay to Red River and east into present day Ontario was retained by subsequent family members.

     In 1812, Hector McDonald arrived at York Factory with his wife Margaret McPhee and son Alexander, in a group of Selkirk settlers.  After a harrowing voyage, they faced an inhospitable climate in the wilderness of the Red River area of the Hudson Bay Company's Rupert's Land where two daughters were born.  Their tribulations were compounded by hostility from members of the North West Company, who felt threatened economically by the new settlement.  The McDonald family and most of the other settlers were taken to Fort William by the North West Company in 1815, after enduring much hardship, although many of them soon felt deceived.  Hector and Margaret McDonald settled in Glengarry and Stormont Counties of Upper Canada, where they raised their family.  Their descendants were scattered far and wide when they sought opportunities in many distant places.

APPENDIX A
Depositions of Hector MacDonald
Selkirk Papers, Vol. II, 585-587, 592
Hudson’s Bay Company Archives /

223

585

No. 3
Deposition of Hector MacDonald, ____ Mr. Alexr. McLean

Hector MacDonald an Emigrant from the Highlands of Scotland and an Indentured servant of Mr. Alexander McLean informs that he was in the habit of visiting Mr. Alexander McDonell of the N.W.C. at their Fort, Pembina, during this last winter to give him lessons on the Highland Bagpipe. That said McDonell frequently spoke to Deponent about the Canadas being far better countries for labourers this country, and offering to bring him there- was always inquisitive about what was going on at Fort Daer, to know the discontents of the people and if they always had plenty of provisions- that sometimes when Provisions were not so plenty, he used to ask Deponent how the people put up with short allowance, often remarking that men had no occasion to remain with their Employers longer than they were fed- that if they should be a day or two without provisions it was sufficient to break all engagements, and the men had a right to go where they pleased. That the gentlemen at the head of the Colony imagined they could make laws as they pleased for the government of their people but if their men were near to a place where regular laws were established that such an undertaking as the Colony could never succeed- it was not likely those gentlemen would remain long in the place
 

224

586

their men would desert them and they must themselves follow. That on an evening the Deponent was complained of to the commandant by an overseer, he thought himself hard dealt with and spoke of it to Mr. McDonell, who told him he would soon find means for him to get away, that Mr. Dugal Cameron was soon to arrive, who would finally settle with him in the meantime desired Deponent to hold himself in readiness and to be giving out that he intended going away with Indians, by which means no person at Fort Daer should know what had become of him- that his wife and child should be taken away also in a sled- his clothes he should lodge at present at the house of one of their people and they would be brought to him in a canoe at the breaking up of the ice- that Mr. McDonell enjoined secrecy on Deponent with regard to the different conversations they had together and told him he must not even acquaint his wife with any part of it. Deponent further states that Mr. McDonell spoke to Mrs. McLean’s maid, Ann McDonald offering to take her to Canada to his sister Mrs. McMillan observing that this country was not suitable for the likes of her. Deponent further saith that he went early in the morning of the 4th March to see Mr. Dugal Cameron who was yet in bed that
 

225

587

Donald McMillan, one of the colonial servants, came into the room and went out again immediately, when Mr. Cameron asked Deponent as to the characters of Donald McMillan and Donald McLean, whom he said were offering to serve the N.W.C. he (Mr. Cameron) could not do anything then for them in taking them away, as he had not provisions but that if Twenty of the colonists would join together in summer, they might take away a boat by force from Captain McDonell who could not stop them, that he (Mr. Cameron) would make the road clear for them once they should reach the mouth of Winipic River, that the aforesaid two men were not to blame for leaving the Colonial Service, as Captain McDonell had it not in his power to furnish them with any thing they required, being under the necessity of sending his own snow shoes to their Fort to have strings put in them. Mr. Dugal Cameron further told Deponent that next year would be a great deal worse for the Colonists than this- that Five hundred people were coming out and they could not be subsisted.

Territory of Assiniboia                                             His
sworn at Fort Daer                                                 Hector MacDonald
(Pembina) the 24th day of                                       mark
March 1813 before Miles Macdonell, JP

---

230

592

Hector MacDonald an Emigrant from the Highlands of Scotland and an Indentured servant of Mr. McLean informs that on or about the 15th of March last he went from Fort Daer to the plains for meat- that John McVicar came to the Tent where Deponent lodged ask if he had settled with the gentlemen of the N.W.C. about paying his debt to Mr. McLean, at the same time remarked to Deponent that he was a great fool to pay any debt before his departure- that it would keep him a long time involved and further told Deponent that he (McVicar) had been speaking to a freeman named McKay, who offered to conduct any number of the settlers to the N.W.C. Factory at Fort William, and strongly urged Deponent to join him (McVicar) and others whom he expected would go along with them, that as to himself (McVicar) he was determined to go off.

Hector X MacDonald

Sworn at Fort Daer
(Assiniboia) the 17th
April 1813 before
Miles Macdonell, JP

* The Reverend Daniel Gordon is said to have baptized Annie Bella McDonald.  It is also said that the McDonalds usually attended a different church than the Gordon Church.

** The Reverend Dr. Charles  William Gordon (1860 - 1937), a prominent Presbyterian clergyman,  wrote the book, Glengarry School Days, which described life in his boyhood near the village of Athol in Roxborough Township, Stormont County in the 1860's. He used the pseudonym, Ralph Connor.   Allan McDonald's Cox grandchildren said that he was "Alan the cooper"  mentioned in the book.

"Here they are!  That's Alan the cooper's pipes,"  was the cry, and before long sure enough there appeared Alphonse le Roque driving his French-Canadian team, the joy and pride of his heart, for Alphonse was a born horse trainer, and had taught his French Canadians many extraordinary tricks.

APPENDIX C

DEATH NOTICE FOR MRS. MCGILLIS
SOURCE: UNKNOWN NEWSPAPER
Preserved in birthday book of Annie Bella Cox, child of Allan McDonald

DEATH OF OLD RESIDENT

Williamstown, Ont., Mar. 28 - The funeral of Mrs. McGillis, an esteemed resident of Roxborough township, Stormont county, took place here this morning.  The late Mrs. McGillis, whose maiden name was McDonald had attained the advanced age of ninety-three years.  She was born in old Fort Garry (now Winnipeg) and shortly after her marriage came east and lived in Williamstown for many years, afterwards moving to the country and with her family residing on a farm on the third* concession of Roxborough, where she passed away on Saturday last.  She leaves two daughters, the Misses Maggie and Flora, on the homestead.  Her husband predeceased her many years ago.

*This should be the second concession.

Note: Ontario Death Index shows this death occurred in 1910.

1. MacDonald, Duncan, The Parish Registers of Baptisms, Burials, Converts and Marriages of the Roman Catholic Parish of St. Raphael's, Glengarry, Upper Canada, 155.  Researcher: D. Granger.
2. The Selkirk Settlers of Red River and Their Descendants 1812-1992 (Winnipeg, Manitoba: The Lord Selkirk Association of Rupert’s Land, 1992) A-1 Appendix A. Hudson’s Bay Company Archives. Researcher: Anne Morton, Head Research and Reference, HBCA.
3. Annie Bella (McDonald) Cox & Huldah J. Cox, oral tradition regarding Annie Bella’s grandfather.
4. The Selkirk Settlers of Red River and Their Descendants 1812-1992, A-1 Appendix A. Researcher: A. Morton.
5. John Perry Pritchett, The Red River Valley 1811-1849 (Toronto: Ryerson Press 1942) 94.
6. J.W. Chalmers, Red River Adventure (Toronto: MacMillan 1966) 43-45.
7. Pritchett, 95.
8. John Morgan Gray, Lord Selkirk of Red River (Toronto: MacMillan 1963) 78.
9. Gray, 81.
10. Arthur S. Morton, A History of the Canadian West to 1870-71 (Toronto: Toronto University Press 1973) 549.
11. Dr. Thomas M’Keevor, Voyage to Hudson Bay During the Summer of 1812 (Toronto: Canadiana House 1968) 6.
12. M’Keevor, 7-9.
13. Morton, 550.
14. M'Keevor, 48-49.
15. Chalmers, 45.
16. William Joseph Healy, Women of Red River (Winnipeg: Russel, Lang & Co. Ltd, 1923) 1,2.
17. Chalmers, 47-48.
18. Selkirk Papers, Vol. II, 585-587, 592, HBCA, Winnipeg, Manitoba. Researcher: A. Morton. In agreement with Huldah J. Cox that one of the grandfathers of Annie Bella Cox was a piper and the other a soldier.
19. St. John’s Baptisms 1813-1828, preface. Anglican Parish Registers Data, Public Archives of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Man. Researcher: A. Morton.
20. John Halkett, Statement respecting the Earl of Selkirk’s settlement upon the Red River in North America (London: John Murray, 1817) 12-16.
21. June Manion
22. Edith (McDonald) Reany (granddaughter of Allan McDonald), oral tradition concerning the departure of the McDonald family from Red River.
23. Halkett, 22, 23.
24. Chalmers, 77-80.
25. Miles Macdonell, List of families and servants carried from Red R. by the NWC 1815,E8/6, fo.151, HBCA, PAM. Researcher: A. Morton.
26. Chalmers, 82, 83.
27. Halkett, 37, 38.
28. George Bryce, The Romantic Settlement of Lord Selkirk’s Colonists (Winnipeg: Clark Brothers, 1909) 325 Appendix D.
29. Selkirk Settlement account book, E.7/6, fo.5d., HBCA, PAM, Winnipeg, Man. Researcher: A. Morton.
30. A. Morton
31. Census of Ontario: 1851 Roxborough Tp., Stormont Co.  Researcher: D. Granger.
32. Roxborough Township Stormont County Assessment Roll 1856 (Upper Canada Village 1995).  Researcher: C. Dunbar.
33. Clarence A. Kipling, The McGillis Family, Charles Denney Genealogical Collection , Glenbow Museum, Calgary, Alta.    Researcher: D. Granger.
34. Ontario Death Index, LDS Film # 1854632, Cert. # 035765,  139.  Researcher: D. Granger.
35. Unknown Newspaper, Obituary of Mrs. McGillis preserved in a birthday book of Annie Bella Cox- possessed by A. Fines, wife of Murray Fines.  Researcher: J. Manion.
36. County Marriage Register 1858-1869 Stormont, Dundas, Glengarry , 92.  Researcher D. Granger.
37. MacDonald, Duncan, The Parish Registers of Baptisms, Burials, Converts and Marriages of the Roman Catholic Parish of St. Raphael's, Glengarry, Upper Canada , 155.  Researcher: D. Granger.
38. Cox grandchildren of Allan McDonald, oral tradition.
39. Census of Ontario: 1861 Kenyon Tp, Glengarry Co.  Researcher: C. Dunbar.                 1871 Roxborough Tp., Stormont Co. & 1881 West Hawkesbury Tp., Prescott Co.  Researcher: Anita Coderre.
40.  D. W. MacDonald, Lochiel Parish Register 1820-1884,  106.  Researcher: R. Giokas.
41.  Mildred (Cox) Lewis
42.  Marriage Certificate of Richard Thomas Cox & Annie Bella McDonald.
43. The Leader-Post, 18 Nov 1949, Regina, Sask.  Researcher: D. Granger.
44.  Edith (McDonald) Reany, daughter  (place of birth).
45.  Birthday Book of Annie Bella Cox.  Researcher: G. Giokas.
46.  Marriage Certificate of William Hurd & Margaret McDonald.  Researcher: C. Dunbar.
47. Charles R. Sinclair, Stories from the memory of Charles R. Sinclair of Glengarry , 4, 5.  (Recorded by Clark Barrett of Scottsdale, Arizona, formerly of Glengarry, Ontario, 1970?)  Researcher: Gordon Winter, Maxville, Ont.