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| Location | Pictou, Nova Scotia, Canada. |
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| Type | Museum ship |
| Website | shiphector.ca |
Hector was a ship that was part of the first significant migration of Scottish settlers to Nova Scotia in 1773. A replica of the original ship is located at the Hector Heritage Quay, a heritage centre run by local volunteers, in Pictou, Nova Scotia. [lower-alpha 1]
A full-rigged Fluyt, Hector (built in the Netherlands before 1750) [2] was employed in local trade in waters off the British Isles as well as the immigrant trade to North America, having made at least one trip c. 1770 carrying Scottish emigrants to Boston, Massachusetts.
In 1762 the earliest of the Fuadaich nan Gàidheal (Scottish Highland Clearances) forced many Gaelic families off their ancestral lands. The first ship loaded with Hebridean colonists arrived on "St.-John's Island" (Prince Edward Island) in 1770, with later ships following in 1772, and 1774. [3] In 1773 a ship named The Hector landed in Pictou, Nova Scotia with 189 settlers, [4] mostly originating from Loch Broom. [5] In 1784 the last barrier to Scottish settlement – a law restricting land-ownership on Cape Breton Island – was repealed, and soon parts of both Prince Edward Island and Eastern Nova Scotia were predominantly Gaelic-speaking. [6] It is estimated more than 50,000 Gaelic settlers emigrated to Nova Scotia and Cape Breton Island between 1815 and 1870. [3]
Her famous voyage took place in 1773 with a departure date around the second week of July, carrying 189 Highlanders who were immigrating to Nova Scotia. The vessel's owner, Mr. John Pagan, [7] along with Dr. John Witherspoon, purchased three shares of land near Pictou, Nova Scotia. Pagan and Witherspoon hired John Ross as a recruiting agent for settlers willing to emigrate to Pictou with an offer of free passage, 1 year of free provisions, and a farm. The settlers (23 families, 25 single men) were recruited at Greenock Renfrewshire and at Loch Broom (Ross-shire) with the majority being from Loch Broom. The settlers that boarded Hector were poor, "obscure, illiterate crofters and artisans from Northern [Scotland], who spoke Gaelic." [8] The school teacher, William McKenzie was one of the few passengers on the Hector to speak both Gaelic and English. [9]
Hector was an old ship and in poor condition when she left Europe. [2] The arduous voyage to Pictou took 11 weeks, with a gale off Newfoundland causing a 14-day delay. Dysentery [10] and smallpox claimed 18 lives amongst the passengers. [11] The vessel arrived in Pictou Harbour on September 15, landing at Brown's Point, immediately west of the present-day town of Pictou.
The year's free provisions never materialized for the passengers of Hector. [12] They had to hurry to build shelter without those provisions before winter set in and starved them.
Another ship, also named Hector was built in 1789. [13] This ship brought over Scottish immigrants to the United States, making departures from Liverpool to New York City in the 1820s and 1830s. [14] [15]
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During the late 1980s and early 1990s, heritage officials in Nova Scotia sought to commemorate the Hector's contribution to Nova Scotia's Scottish history. In 1992, the Ship Hector Foundation was formed from a group of volunteers in Pictou County and elsewhere who began to raise funds for the construction, maintenance and operation of a replica of Hector.
The Hector Heritage Quay, along with the Ship Hector Company Store were opened on the Pictou waterfront in the ensuing years. The marine architect firm J.B. McGuire Marine Associates Ltd. was commissioned to research the particulars of the original Hector and to develop blueprints for an accurate replica. Scotia Trawlers of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia were commissioned to complete phase one and two of the construction at the Hector Heritage Quay, which allowed visitors to the Pictou waterfront to observe the ship's progress, making it an important local attraction. After several years of construction, the replica Hector was launched with great fanfare and media coverage on September 17, 2000. The date had been delayed due to poor weather on the 16th.
Year built: before 1750
Location: Pictou, NS
Deck length overall: 25.9 m (85 ft)
Beam: 6.7 m (22 ft)
Gross tonnage: 200
Number of masts: 3
Owner: Mr. John Pagan, a merchant in Greenock, Renfrewshire, Scotland
Loch is a word meaning "lake" or "sea inlet" in Scottish and Irish Gaelic, subsequently borrowed into English. In Irish contexts, it often appears in the anglicized form "lough".
The Firth of Clyde is the mouth of the River Clyde. It is located on the west coast of Scotland and constitutes the deepest coastal waters in the British Isles. The firth is sheltered from the Atlantic Ocean by the Kintyre peninsula, which encloses the outer firth in Argyll and Ayrshire. The Kilbrannan Sound is a large arm of the Firth of Clyde, separating the Kintyre Peninsula from the Isle of Arran. Within the Firth of Clyde is another major island – the Isle of Bute. Given its strategic location at the entrance to the middle and upper Clyde, Bute played a vital naval military role during World War II.
Pictou County is a county in the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. It was established in 1835, and was formerly a part of Halifax County from 1759 to 1835. It had a population of 43,657 people in 2021, a decline of 0.2 percent from 2016. Furthermore, its 2016 population is only 88.11% of the census population in 1991. It is the sixth most populous county in Nova Scotia.
New Glasgow is a town in Pictou County, in the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. It is situated on the banks of the East River of Pictou, which flows into Pictou Harbour, a sub-basin of the Northumberland Strait.
Pictou is a town in Pictou County, in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. Located on the north shore of Pictou Harbour, the town is approximately 10 km north of the larger town of New Glasgow.
The Gàidhealtachd usually refers to the Highlands and Islands of Scotland and especially the Scottish Gaelic-speaking culture of the area. The similar Irish language word Gaeltacht refers, however, solely to Irish-speaking areas.
A fluyt is a Dutch type of sailing vessel originally designed by the shipwrights of Hoorn as a dedicated cargo vessel. Originating in the Dutch Republic in the 16th century, the vessel was designed to facilitate transoceanic delivery with the maximum of space and crew efficiency. Unlike rivals, it was not built for conversion in wartime to a warship, so it was cheaper to build and carried twice the cargo, and could be handled by a smaller crew. Construction by specialized shipyards using new tools made it half the cost of rival ships. These factors combined to sharply lower the cost of transportation for Dutch merchants, giving them a major competitive advantage. The fluyt was a significant factor in the 17th-century rise of the Dutch seaborne empire. In 1670 the Dutch merchant marine totalled 568,000 tons of shipping—about half the European total.
Canadian Gaelic or Cape Breton Gaelic, often known in Canadian English simply as Gaelic, is a collective term for the dialects of Scottish Gaelic spoken in Atlantic Canada.
Scottish colonization of the Americas comprised a number of failed or abandoned Scottish settlements in North America; a colony at Darien on the Isthmus of Panama; and a number of wholly or largely Scottish settlements made after the Acts of Union 1707, and those made by the enforced resettlement after the Battle of Culloden and the Highland Clearances.
Scottish Canadians are people of Scottish descent or heritage living in Canada. As the third-largest ethnic group in Canada and amongst the first Europeans to settle in the country, Scottish people have made a large impact on Canadian culture since colonial times. According to the 2016 Census of Canada, the number of Canadians claiming full or partial Scottish descent is 4,799,010, or 13.93% of the nation's total population. Prince Edward Island has the highest population of Scottish descendants at 41%.
Charles Lewis Parker is a Canadian former educator and politician who represented the constituency of Pictou West in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly from 1998 to 1999, and from 2003 to 2013. He sat as a member of the Nova Scotia New Democratic Party.
British Canadians primarily refers to Canadians who were either born in or can trace their ancestry to the British Isles, which includes the nations of England, Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.
Durham is a community in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, located in Pictou County on Nova Scotia Route 376 alongside the West River of Pictou. The centre of the village is about 10 km up-stream from the town of Pictou. The Durham Presbyterian Church is located near the bridge on the west side of the river, and the Durham Community Hall is on the east side of the river, adjacent to the cemetery.
Loch Broom is a community in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, located in Pictou County. It is named after Loch Broom in Scotland.
Glensanda was a Viking settlement at the mouth of Glen Sanda on the Morvern peninsula within south west Lochaber, overlooking the island of Lismore and Loch Linnhe in the western Highlands of Scotland.
The Highland Village Museum / Baile nan Gàidheal / An Clachan Gàidhealaich is an outdoor living history museum dedicated to Nova Scotia’s Gaelic folk-life, culture, and language. Highland Village is located in Iona, Nova Scotia, Canada, on 43 acres of natural landscape overlooking the Bras d'Or Lake in Central Cape Breton.
Events from the year 1773 in Scotland.
Pictou Harbour is a natural harbour in Nova Scotia on the Northumberland Strait.
Media related to Hector (ship, 1770) at Wikimedia Commons
