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Angus Macleod Interview in
Cape Breton-Based Celtic Newspaper Am Braighe

Musician Pays Tribute to Ontario Gaels

The Silent Ones tells the story of Ontario's Lewis Settlement in Bruce County. The Lewis Settlers were evicted from their crofts in 1851. The CD traces this history, starting in the dark days of the great highland famine, continuing with their evictions and subsequent migration overseas. The middle sections chronicles the hardships and triumphs of pioneer life in the 19th century Canadian backwoods. The final section of the CD deals with the first three decades of this century and the gradual erosion of Gaelic culture in Western Ontario.

Bruce County is situated on the eastern shore of Lake Huron, in what is generally thought of as Western Ontario.

My main focus has been the music industry, but I took time out in the mid-eighties to study folklore at Memorial University. In the late eighties I owned and operated my own recording studio, and for the past 10 years I have worked as an arts administrator and folk festival artistic director. Last year I turned 40 and decided to quit my day job and put together Torquil Productions, a CD company and recording studio dedicated to the preservation of Gaelic culture, with the Silent Ones CD being the flagship production. I packed up my things, including my life savings, borrowed as much money as possible and moved back to my great grandfather's farm in Huron Township.

Between 1851 and 1855, 2337 Lewis residents booked passage as part of landowner James Matheson's eviction/emigration scheme designed to alleviate Lewis' economic problems brought on by a population increase and the potato famine. A large number of those arriving in 1851 went to the Eastern Townships of Quebec, where Lewis immigrants of the 1840's had settled. A sizable contingent headed for Ontario. A number found work constructing the Great Western Railway in Hamilton. The Ontario group were under the impression that properties would be provided to them and demanded land when they arrived in Ontario. Eventually crown land became available in Huron Township. In 1852, 109 families gathered in the lakeport town of Goderich where they boarded small boats that took them up the coast to their new home in the woods. They were deeply religious people with the church being the focal point of their community. Like most Gaels, however, they had a pagan or mystical side to them and were quite superstitious. Aeneas McCharles, a Cape Bretoner, who was the settlement's first schoolmaster chronicled his experiences among the Lewis Settlers in his book Bemocked of Destiny. In the book he describes a couple of strange ritualistic ceremonies conducted by a woman known as the Lewis Witch. She also pops up in a number of local history books and within the folklore of individual families in Huron Township. She appears to have been a practitioner of herbal medicine who also performed some fairly bizarre fertility rituals.

They were farmers who seemed content to work their relatively small land holdings (small by Canadian standards : huge by Lewis standards). They were generous in an almost unpredictable way. My great grandfather, for instance, gave the 50 acres I currently reside on to another settler on only one condition, the settler finish clearing the land. The grandfather of a good friend of mine received a fairly large acreage from a Lewis settler in return for a pair of boots. The land, incidently, is still in the family.

I also think they were deeply committed to the Gaelic concept of kinship and tradition. When one thinks of pioneering in the last century, visions of solitary figures taming the land come to mind. The Lewis Settlement totally contradicts this. Here were a large group of people living together, depending on each other and maintaining their culture and traditions. I think their commitment to kinship is what got them through those first couple of devastating winters in the bush.

My grandfather knew a lot of Gaelic songs and my father knows some. Although he is 84 now and his memory is fading a bit. I am familiar with a couple of families who still speak Gaelic in the home. Both families live about 30 miles north of here and are of Lewis ancestry. By the time my father's generation got to high school they felt embarrassed to speak their language in public. They felt pressure to conform, so they did. I think when the churches stopped offering regular Gaelic services (the last one was in the 1930's) this had to be a factor also. I only know a handful of descendants who still speak the language and this is sad, really, but these individuals are very much alive and overjoyed to communicate with other Gaels.

Yes I wrote, engineered and produced the recording. There are 12 songs ( 8 vocal and 4 instrumental) that tell the story of the Lewis Settlers. I also have a Gaelic/English narrator, a native Lewisman who is a great resource. I have done a lot of research on this project and have really tried to recreate the event accurately in my head. I have also tried to experience it on an emotional level.

First of all, this is a great story and contains all of the ingredients that make up any good yarn - drama, sadness, and triumph over adversity. My obvious personal connection was also a factor in motivating me. Lastly, I think this story has to be retold. I think there is a lot of misinformation out there about this particular clearance and James Matheson, who is often portrayed in history books as a kind and benevolent landowner. Some historians seem to even deny that this particular clearance occurred. T.C. Smout in his recent book A Century of Scottish People says of Lewis: "there were no removals, except in the case of crofters who themselves petitioned to be shifted from townships of bad land to better." This is simply not true. The evicted crofters of Lewis were given no real choice but to leave. They were served with formal notices of removal from their crofts, refused work on the estate, prohibited from cutting peat, threatened with confiscation of their cattle and told they could expect to assistance in seed or food if they stayed on the island. The fact that Matheson was given a knighthood for his efforts in famine relief only rubs salt into the wound as far as I am concerned. I think Matheson had little understanding of his tenants, their culture and their work ethic.

In local history books the Lewis Settlers are described as quiet, thoughtful people. When I first moved back here I was given one of these books, an unbound handwritten manuscript, which described them as silent ones. The title stuck. I thought it aptly described the Lewis Folk's demeanor and it also suggests that there is something going unspoken. For me that something is the settlers' untimely departure from Lewis. There is a tendency among Lewis descendants here to ignore the fact that our ancestors were evicted, forced out of their homes. My own father, for instance, has only just recently acknowledged this fact.

I don't think so. For the most part, the settlement has gone unnoticed in academic circles. Bill Lawson of Co Leis Thu has done some remarkable family tree research here and has most certainly strengthened ties between Lewis descendants and their ancestral home.

I find the lack of awareness extremely frustrating. To give you an example, the Lewis Cemetery, which was used by settlers between 1852 and 1905, is almost impossible to get to. It is now literally located in the bush. What's even worse is that in 1975 a large portion of it went into the river as a result of an eroded riverbank (over half the tombstones and remains were washed away including my great great grandparents Murdoch and Annie Macleod). The remaining stones have since been moved but the cemetery is once again falling into disrepair.

I am hoping the CD will stir up some awareness of the Lewis Settlement among the general public. I was an arts publicist for five years so I am counting on my media contacts to help spread the word. We are marketing the Silent Ones to a broader audience than just Scottish and Celtic.

We will be shooting a video for one of the songs Leodhas, next week. Torquil Productions is also planning to host a Gaelic Cultural festival next summer. We are hoping to hold it on land where the settlers' first church was located. The nearby town of Goderich has quite a successful Celtic Festival and I was the Artistic Director/Administrator of the Hillside Festival in Guelph for six years, so I think we have a good shot at making it work. My mother and I also have a dream of starting a Gaelic Cultural Centre in Ripley, Huron Township's capital. At this point its just a dream but my mother is a very determined woman.

Yes, I have been to Lewis several times. The last time was in 1996. I went with my parents. My father was 82 and not very well at the time, so it was a very emotional visit. I think he wanted to see where his family came from before he passed on.

... I remember looking out at the ocean from the site of my great great grandfather's croft and thinking it was fortunate that they were situated beside a large body of water like Lake Huron in Ontario. It must have been some comfort to them. As for my father he is still alive and kicking and I have plans to take him back to Lewis in 1999 to practice his Gaelic.