Hector Maclean: The Writings of a Loyalist-Era Military Settler in Nova Scotia

by Jo Currie (Editor), Keith Mercer (Editor), John G. Reid (Editor)

Hector Maclean (1751–1812) was a Lieutenant in the 2nd Battalion of the 84th Regiment during the War of the American Revolution. After the war, Maclean settled in the newly-created county of Hants, Nova Scotia, near present-day Kennetcook. This volume presents the annotated texts of two major historical the letters Maclean wrote between 1779 and 1787, primarily to Murdoch Maclaine, and the diary he kept between April 1786 and April 1787 using the empty pages of his orderly book from the South Carolina campaign of 1781. The combined force of these sources is considerable. The letters show Maclean as an actively serving officer, in contexts ranging from a recruiting expedition to Newfoundland in 1779 (which led to his shipwreck in Ireland in early 1780) to the Battle of Eutaw Springs, South Carolina, in September 1781. The entries in the orderly book provide further details of this strategically significant battle. The letters from 1783 onwards provide vivid insight into the settlement process by which Maclean established himself at Kennetcook, while the diary offers a detailed, day-by-day account of a year during this phase of his life–both a valuable record of the environmental and labour history of a military settler’s farm and an account of the social and cultural life of the Windsor-based elite with whom Maclean mingled. Carefully reproduced and supported by extensive annotation by editors Jo Currie, Keith Mercer and John G. Reid, Maclean’s letters and diary will appeal to readers and scholars interested in the military history of the Revolutionary War and the environmental, cultural, and social histories of postwar settlement in Nova Scotia.

266 pages, Paperback

Published October 23, 2015

Reviews

[Mac · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is for a very specialized audience. It contains a series of documents related to Hector Maclean, an early settler in Nova Scotia. First there is a long introduction by the editors setting Maclean in context as an officer in the British army and farmer in Nova Scotia. Then come a group of letters by Maclean (along with one or two written to him). Finally comes a couple years of his diary, which he recorded on blank pages of a military logbook. The regular logbook pages are also included.

For me this book was interesting for the light it sheds on the experience of pioneer farmers in Nova Scotia. My ancestor settled in a different part of the province around the same time as Maclean. For both Maclean and my ancestor, neither of whom was an experienced farmer coming in, the land presented many challenges. First trees had to be cleared, then crops planted. Frosts could still occur in June. It is clear that life would have been nearly impossible without the cooperation and help of friends and neighbors.

As I said, this book is for a very specialized audience. But the presentation is top notch. The paper is high quality, and there are numerous illustrations of the original handwritten text, plus maps, etc. I'm glad I read it, and now it will serve as a reference book to consult occasionally.