Published: Tuesday, 13th May, 2008 16:30
Historic vessel carried settlers
By The Viator
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REPLICA: The Hector.
MANY Lower Clyde residents have family in Canada and it would be interesting to know if any of their descendents emigrated on the sailing vessel Hector.
The 200-tonne, three-mast Hector is a very special ship. She took the first Scottish settlers to what would become Canada — and sailed from Greenock.
I am indebted to expat Greenockian Harry Traynor, of Halifax, Nova Scotia, for sending information about the ship and pictures of her replica.
The Dutch vessel left Greenock in June 1773 with eight passengers and another 179 boarded at Loch Broom, Wester Ross, the following month. They had all been offered assisted package, a plot of land and provisions for the first 12 months in the wilderness of Nova Scotia.
Harry said: “The 50-year-old Hector was ill-equipped to transport 197 passengers, 71 of them younger than nine years of age, across 2,700 miles of storm-ravaged ocean.
“From bow to stern she stretched a mere 85 feet, and the maximum width did not exceed 22 feet. Creature comforts were non-existent. The staple diet consisted of oatcakes and brackish water.
“The Hector sailed from Loch Broom on 10 July, 1773. On the seventh day the first young victim of smallpox was committed to the deep. The death toll from smallpox and dysentery climbed to 18 — all children.
“The weather worsened off the coast of Newfoundland, and the ship lost two weeks regaining her course.
“On 15 September — the 67th day — the seemingly interminable voyage ended as a solitary piper stepped ashore at the head of a bedraggled procession of Scots who would multiply and carve their names in the annals of their adopted country.”
The emigrants came ashore at Pictou Harbour, Nova Scotia, where a replica of the Hector can be found afloat.
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