SAINT DUNSTAN'S COLLEGE

CuAnLonflowu PRINCE EDWARD lsumn

MISSION o_r_ 52. Bomvm'rmn

TRACADIE

Upon a sun shining June morning in the year of grace 1172, an ocean vessel made her way up the curving line of blue now known asthe Hillsborough River. Very slowly

and carefully she glided over these, (to her) unknown waters, avoiding shoals and mussel beds innumerable. After passing an old fort once occupied by the French

who had been the former settlers in this district, the good ship skirted a low lying shore, where the young marsh hay scented the summer air and gave promise of easily gained crops in future years. Finding no landing, she sailed on, coming

to anchor at a spot where the shore, slightly curving, offers a firm footing at

the base of a low bank of deep red clay. This ship was "Alesander " from Lock Boisdale in South Uist, and her passengers were emigrants come to seek their fortune in St. John's Island under the guidance and protection of Captain John MacDonald

of Glenaladale, called by his clansmen Eggggrglilinne. Of these emigrants one hundred were from Uist and one hundred and ten from hbrar and other parts of Invernesshire. They were accompanied by one thher James Lthonald from the diocese of the Isles, who had left his parish of Drummond to conduct his fellow clansmen

to their new home, and to supply them with the consolations of that religion which was costing some of them so dear. do may well imagine that two hundred and the persons "Strangers in a strange land" and hampered with a tremendous amount of luggage that to modern eyes would appear curious and cumbersome, would take some little time to scatter and settle upon the spots destined to become their homes. Captain John macDonald's family and tenants were taken over the narrow strip of land to where the seigneury of Tracadie stretches across the northern beach, but others remained where

they had landed.

The year before the arrival of the "Alexander" with her human cargo, Captain John