Catharine McNaughtan
1774 - 1848 (74 years)
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Name Catharine McNaughtan [1, 2, 3, 4] Born 16 Jul 1774 Morell, Comrie, Perthshire, Scotland 
[4] Gender Female Baptism 29 Jul 1774 Comrie, Perthshire, Scotland Died Sep 1848 Puslinch, Wellington, Ontario, Canada [4] Buried Crown Cemetery, Puslinch Township, Wellington County, Ontario, Canada [4] Person ID I10642 Brown Genealogy Last Modified 19 Sep 2024
Father Duncan McNaughtan, b. Abt 12 Jun 1747, Morell, Comrie, Perthshire, Scotland , d. 1799, Scotland (Age ~ 51 years) Relationship natural Mother Elizabeth McNab, b. 13 May 1749, Easter Glentarken, Comrie, Perthshire, Scotland , d. UNKNOWN Relationship natural Married 5 Aug 1771 Comrie, Perthshire, Scotland [5, 6] Family ID F2864 Group Sheet | Family Chart
Family Robert Stewart, in Morell, b. Abt 8 May 1762, Easter Glentarken, Comrie, Perthshire, Scotland , d. Abt 1830, Comrie, Perthshire, Scotland (Age ~ 67 years) Married 4 Dec 1795 Comrie, Perthshire, Scotland Children 1. Margaret Stewart, b. Abt 10 Jun 1798, Morell, Comrie, Perthshire, Scotland , d. 21 May 1891, Hamilton, Wentworth, Ontario, Canada (Age ~ 92 years) [natural]2. Elisabeth Stewart, b. Abt 27 Oct 1799, Morell, Comrie, Perthshire, Scotland , d. UNKNOWN, Probably Canada [natural]3. Mary Stewart, b. Abt 2 May 1802, Morell, Comrie, Perthshire, Scotland , d. UNKNOWN, Probably Canada [natural]4. Jean Stewart, b. Abt 7 Jun 1804, Morell, Comrie Parish, Perthshire, Scotland , d. UNKNOWN [natural]5. Ann Stewart, b. Abt 1 Jun 1806, Morell, Comrie, Perthshire, Scotland , d. UNKNOWN, Probably Canada [natural]6. John Stewart, b. Abt 1 Sep 1808, Morell, Comrie, Perthshire, Scotland , d. UNKNOWN [natural]7. Duncan Stewart, b. Abt 2 Jan 1811, Morell, Comrie, Perthshire, Scotland , d. 1895, Bayham Township, Elgin County, Ontario, Canada (Age ~ 83 years) [natural]8. Robert Stewart, Jr., b. Abt 13 Jun 1813, Morell, Comrie, Perthshire, Scotland , d. Jan 1849, Puslinch, Wellington, Ontario, Canada (Age ~ 35 years) [natural]9. Catharine Stewart, b. Abt 24 Mar 1816, Morell, Comrie, Perthshire, Scotland , d. 22 Mar 1904, Puslinch, Wellington, Ontario, Canada (Age ~ 88 years) [natural]10. Peter Stewart, b. Abt 24 Jul 1820, Morell, Comrie, Perthshire, Scotland , d. 3 Dec 1901, Puslinch, Wellington, Ontario, Canada (Age ~ 81 years) [natural]11. William Stewart, b. Abt 22 Nov 1824, Morell, Comrie, Perthshire, Scotland , d. 15 Feb 1892, Hamilton, Wentworth, Ontario, Canada (Age ~ 67 years) [natural]Last Modified 19 Sep 2024 Family ID F4639 Group Sheet | Family Chart
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Notes - Catherine McNaughtan was born in a small farming croft known as Morell in Easter Glentarken, just west of the village of St. Fillans in Comrie Parish, Perthshire, Scotland.
On 4 Dec 1795, Catharine McNaughtan married her second-cousin, Robert Stewart. His paternal great-grandfather, Alexander Stewart in Ardveich was her maternal great-grandather. They raised their family in Morell.
Catharine McNaughtan's husband, Robert Stewart, died sometime around 1830, and the farm passed to their children. Sometime in 1833 or early 1834 the family made the decision to leave Scotland, where their ancestors had lived for hundreds of years, and move across the sea to Canada.
The only members of this family who left a written record of their life in Scotland and their journey to Canada were two of their younger sons, Duncan and Peter.
Leaving Scotland
Duncan's descendants recalled that they left because taxes were raised too high. However, they would have been tenant cottars, not landowners, so it would more likely be rent that was raised too high. We also know that sometime around 1815, all the tenants in Glen Tarken were evicted by their landlord, James Drummond, Earl of Perth, and relocated to the nearby village of St. Fillans (previously known as Little Port.) It's possible that it was this eviction that Duncan was recalling. It could also be that their rent in St. Fillans was raised beyond tolerance. Catharine’s husband, Robert, died sometime after 1824. His exact date of death is unknown. According to Stewarts of the South, the Earl of Perth targeted widows for eviction. As Catharine Stewart was a widow, she may have been squeezed out of her home.
Sometime in 1833-1834, Catharine Stewart (McNaughtan) along with her eleven children (some adult and already married with children of their own) left Scotland by boat. A typical journey from Scotland to Canada often took more than three weeks, usually in the hold of a cargo ship crammed with peasants with no facilities and no supplies.
Arriving in Canada - Losing Everything
When Catherine and her family docked in Montreal, Canada was not yet a country. It was still a British colony. It would be another 30 years before Canada would become a country of its own and Upper Canada would become known as Ontario.
On the journey across the Atlantic, one of Catharine's sons-in-law contracted cholera and died in Montreal. (Duncan's descendants recalled that it was the husband of the eldest daughter, however that is incorrect.)
According to Peter's journal, the family travelled from Montreal to Toronto, Upper Canada (Ontario) by French Canadian oxen-pulled river boats. At one point their boat wrecked on a rock. All their possessions sank to the bottom. and the family had to cling to the rock all night until morning before being rescued. They lost everything.
Arriving in Hamilton - Quarantined
They stayed three weeks in Toronto (presumably seeking a settlement location), then on to Hamilton where they were quarantined "until the next fall" (presumably for several months) because of the one case of cholera back in Montreal. The city of Hamilton had just suffered a major cholera outbreak, specifically from immigrant ships, and the city was in the midst of a cholera panic. Anyone who was even suspected of having been in contact with a cholera case was locked up and quarantined until it could be determined for certain that they were safe. Of course, they were locked up with known cholera cases and many who did NOT have cholera before they were quarantined contracted it because of the quarantine. It is believed that the Stewarts were released from quarantine in the fall of 1834.
(The family’s exact year of immigration is uncertain as sources conflict. The Historical Atlas of Wellington County, 1904, entry for Peter Stewart indicates the family arrived in Hamilton in 1832 and moved to Puslinch in 1833, whereas the 1901 census gives their date of immigration as 1834. Catharine had a granddaughter, Margaret McCallum (daughter of Margaret Stewart) who was born in Hamilton in November 1834, so we know the family was in Hamilton by that time.)
A New Start in the New World with help from Sir Allan Napier MacNab
Following the family's release from quarantine, they appealed to their fellow Scot, Sir Allan Napier MacNab, latterly of Dundurn Castle, future premier of the Canadian provinces. Sir Allan MacNab named his Hamilton residence, Dundurn, after his family’s ancestral home of Dundurn near St. Fillans. Thus, Sir Allan’s uncle, Robert MacNab of Dundurn would have been a neighbour to our Stewarts. Catharine’s mother was Elizabeth MacNab, so it’s likely that Sir Allan was a distant cousin of Catharine. Sir Allan gave the family a house to live in on York Street in Hamilton, across from Dundurn Castle. According to Duncan Stewart’s descendants, he also gave Duncan a job. It’s likely he would also have helped the other brothers find employment.
Several of the older adult children (Margaret, Jean, John, and Duncan) remained in Hamilton, while Catharine and the younger children (Robert, Catharine, Peter and William) moved north to Puslinch, near the town of Guelph. The road from Hamilton to Guelph did not exist yet, so they would have spent several days riding along a cart path through uncleared forest and seeking shelter where they could in order to get to their new home.
Pioneer Settlers in Puslinch - Tragedy
They were among the earliest settlers in Puslinch. They occupied concession 3, lot 19-rear, while their in-laws, the Gillespies, initially occupied the front of the same lot. According to son Peter's journal they initially lived in a shanty "without any door but an old country blanket hung over."
Between February 1848 and January 1849 Catharine, her son Robert, and his wife Mary Gillespie, all died presumably from smallpox (as there was a local smallpox outbreak at the time), leaving their four children orphaned. The Stewart farm passed to Catharine’s next son, Peter, who, together with his sister, Catherine, raised Robert and Mary’s orphans.
Catharine’s youngest son, William, lived on the farm in Puslinch until sometime in the 1860s when he married and moved to Hamilton.
Catharine and her family were among the founding members of Duff's Presbyterian Church in Puslinch. As Duff's church initially held worship services only in Gaelic, it is likely that Catharine and her family spoke Gaelic as their first language, as was the case with most of the early Highland settlers.
Catharine is buried in Crown cemetery, Puslinch, along with her son Robert and his wife, Mary Gillespie, with the following inscription: "Catharine, relict of the late Robert Stewart, died Sept. 18, 1848, age 70 years." Peter and Catherine's graves are nearby.
- Catherine McNaughtan was born in a small farming croft known as Morell in Easter Glentarken, just west of the village of St. Fillans in Comrie Parish, Perthshire, Scotland.
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Sources - [S277] Ontario, Canada, County Marriage Registers, 1858-1869.
Record for Peter Stewart
https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=8510&h=137840&indiv=try - [S276] Scotland, Select Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950, Ancestry.com, (Name: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.; Location: Provo, UT, USA; Date: 2014;).
Record for Peter Stewart
https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=60143&h=12910572&indiv=try - [S276] Scotland, Select Births and Baptisms, 1564-1950, Ancestry.com, (Name: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.; Location: Provo, UT, USA; Date: 2014;).
Record for Duncan Stewart
https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse.dll?db=60143&h=7209161&indiv=try - [S2386] Canada, Find a Grave® Index, 1600s-Current, Ancestry.com, (Name: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.; Location: Lehi, UT, USA; Date: 2012;).
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/164492242/catherine-stewart - [S367] Scotland, Select Marriages, 1561-1910, Ancestry.com, (Name: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.; Location: Lehi, UT, USA; Date: 2014;).
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XY39-KX7 - [S367] Scotland, Select Marriages, 1561-1910, Ancestry.com, (Name: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc.; Location: Lehi, UT, USA; Date: 2014;).
- [S277] Ontario, Canada, County Marriage Registers, 1858-1869.