| Notes |
- David Stewart was born in Ardcheanochdan, Lower Strathgartney, Callander, Perthshire, Scotland, and later moved to London, England where he and his brother Robert were employed as land surveyors. David may also have been a lawyer. David was an active land speculator and purchased (possibly with his brother Robert) an enormous quantity of land (either 67,000 or over 70,000 acres depending on which account one follows) on Prince Edward Island, Canada, in contravention of Canada's strict land-ownership laws. These laws were introduced to encourage immigration and discourage absentee landlord ownership. The laws required that any land owner must occupy and begin to develop their lands within one year of purchase or forfeit their lands to the Crown. Duncan never lived in PEI and only visited there once in 1831; he lived in London, England the entire time he was purchasing land in PEI. David was the classic absentee landlord that these laws were enacted to prevent. However the aristocratic legislators in Prince Edward Island were lax in enforcing these laws, so David was allowed to indulge his greed. It was not until a generation later in 1875 that disgruntled and impoverished tenants on PEI rose up in protest and civil disobedience that the provincial legislaters were moved to pass the Land Purchase Act which enabled them to reclaim these large lands from their greedy landlords and redistribute them to resident landlords, and David's son, Robert Bruce Stewart, was forced to sell to the government all but 500 acres of his family's property.
David Stewart is described in Stewarts of the South as: "David Stewart, his [Duncan's] brother [is] a land-surveyor and factor in England. [He] has one son, a character, who is proof against all disappointments and adversities."
David is listed in Mitchell's Monumental Inscriptions for Kilmahog Cemetery: "48a (next to 47) Robert STEWART, farmer (at) Wester Ardcheanacrochdan., wife Janet BLACK, son David born here 1 JUN 1769 went to England at an early age in partnership with his brother as land surveyor and land agent for many years in Great Russel Street Bloomsbury, London, died 26 MAY 1852, age 82, at (the) home of his nephew at Aucharacle near Strontian, Argyll. (Mitchell notes: see Allan, Emigrants to Canada (The Scottish Genealogist xvii 3 (1970) p. 89-90 ? the brothers, Robert and David, were active in the colonization of Prince Edward Island, Canada, and their letter dated 1834 to William Buchanan, Trossachs, is quoted [in the article.])
David is described in the following article, believed to have come from Stewart Clan Magazine, however the original reference has since been lost: "David practised as a lawyer in London.
From a hand?written note seen in a file of tourist material in a local library.[on Prince Edward Island, Canada]??: Anyone interested in the local history of P.E.I. would enjoy reading a book titled After Strathgartney. It throws some light on the 'Land Question' by describing conditions under the Landlords.... David Stewart, born at Ardcheanochrochan, Perthshire, Scotland, was the owner of 70,000 acres, comprising Lots 30, 7, 10, 12, and parts of 47 and 27, which he visited from June to August, 1831. He never returned to the Island. His son Robert Bruce Stewart came in 1846, and took possession of the vast property, he built a large house on Lot 30 which he name Strathgartney. Among many privileges he enjoyed as proprietor of a great estate was a private mail bag. In 1875 the Land Purchase Act required him to sell all but 500 acres. His great?grandson, Alan Stewart, has his diary.
(dated 1967, unsigned)."
David and his descendants are described in the following article from http://www.archives.pe.ca/peiain/fondsdetail.asp?fonds=Acc2316
"The Stewart family of London, England, and Prince Edward Island was one of the largest land-owning families in the history of land proprietorship on PEI. The patriarch, David Stewart, was born in 1769 in Loch Katrine, Scotland. He was trained as a land surveyor and became a successful land agent. He married Martha Mann Hill and had one child, Robert Bruce Stewart, born in London in 1813. As early as 1808, David Stewart began purchasing land in Prince Edward Island and by the 1830's, the Stewarts had purchased Lots 7, 10, 12, and 30 as well as parts of Lots 27, 46, and 47. The Stewart family shared their Great Russell Street home in London with Robert Stewart, David's brother and partner. Robert died in January 1846.
"David's son Robert Bruce received much of his education in the Arts and Sciences independently but was trained as a land agent and surveyor by his father. In London on 27 June 1838, Robert Bruce married Helen Birnie, daughter of the Prince Edward Island merchant, George Birnie. Robert Bruce, along with his wife and their five children left Britain on 29 August 1846 to settle in Charlottetown, PEI. In 1863, Robert Bruce moved his family, now including nine children, to a country estate called Strathgartney on the Stewart property in Lot 30.
"Upon his father's death in 1852, Robert Bruce Stewart became the largest resident proprietor on PEI, owning more than 67,000 acres . He was one of the key players in the Land Question on PEI, fighting long and hard against the Land Purchase Act by which the government would purchase all large land holdings from the proprietors which were to be sold to tenants. In February 1876, Robert Bruce was forced to sell all but 500 acres of his vast estate to the PEI government. Thereafter, Robert Bruce left his Strathgartney home and retired to Charlottetown where he lived with his second wife, Harriet Amelia Mayne, whom he married 7 December 1876. Robert Bruce Stewart died in Charlottetown 9 May 1884."
In 1841 David was residing with his brother, Robert, in St. George Bloomsbury parish in the Holborn Division of the Ossulstone Hundred in the registration district of St. Giles in the Fields, in Greater London, Middlesex, England and both were employed as surveyors. David's wife was not with him and is presumed to have died before 1841.
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1769 - 1852 (82 years)
