A History of The top of the door casing, the lintel, also had to be made of wood. They must have thought they were in heaven when they came to the lush forests of Prince Edward Island, with no one to keep them from cutting the trees down. In Scotland they might be evicted more than once, but they usually tried to go somewhere else after the first eviction. To raise money to go to America or Australia they had to sell their few possessions. If they did not leave of their own accord the land owners would bind them, take them from their families, and carry them forcibly to a departing ship. Many of the ships had unkind and unscrupulous captains out to make money. They overloaded their ships and had poor and insufficient food and water aboard. Due to the filth and overcrowding disease broke out and many passengers, malnourished to start with, died on the way or soon after landing. The voyage would last at least six weeks so that even with a kind and considerate captain and a comfortable vessel it was still a gruelling experience. After they landed on our Island they still had to pay rent for their land but there was plenty of it, and once cleared, yielded excellent crops. They started with the scantiest of equipment, axes to clear the land and the shovel implement previously mentioned to work it up, but they persevered and our excellent farms are their legacy. The clearing out of the crofters by the landowners to make way for sheep was called "The Clearances" and a more vivid example of "man's inhumanity to man" can not be found anywhere in the history of mankind. The Scots, hard working and thrifty because they had to be to survive, were a God-fearing lot and thrived in the New World even though their hearts were breaking with loneliness and bitter memories of how they were