In the cemetary beside the United Church at Little Britain, Ontario stands an impressive 8' tall stone placed by the descendants of John Campbell to his memory and the memory of his wife and family. John Campbell was an Ulster-Scot whose grandfather William Campbell immigrated with his wife Jennie Ferguson and several children to Upper Canada from Belturbet, County Cavan, Ireland in 1848.

Little Britain, Ontario is a long way from the original home of the Campbells near Inverary, Scotland. How this Campbell family came to be there is a story which mirrors the story of countless other Scots who now live in Canada but before arriving here lived in some cases for several hundred years in the north of Ireland. Hence they are called the Ulster-Scots or by some the Scotch-Irish.

It is about a 2 hour drive by car from Toronto northeast to the small community of Little Britain nestled in a rural farming area with several small nearby lakes. The area was largely settled by Irish and Scots in the middle of the nineteenth century when the land was made available by the Crown before the coming into being of a Canada. (2)

According to John Campbell who in his 81st year in 1950 spoke to his grand-daughter Irma Wilson of how they came to be in Canada "our family was chased out of Scotland (by the English) and then chased out of Ireland (by the Irish)." In fact during the 1600's England transplanted several hundred thousand lowland Scots and English in the north of Ireland on lands previously held by rebellious Irish. The Campbell family settled between Belturbet and Cootehill in County Cavan, one of the nine northern counties which made up the old province of Ulster.

Today County Cavan is in the Republic of Ireland, as it has been since the partition in 1922 of Ireland into Northern Ireland, which consists of the northern six counties of Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry, and Tyrone and the Republic. Cavan, Donegal, and Monaghan, the other three counties which were part of the old province of Ulster, were made part of the Republic.

The distance across the sea from the northeast coast of County Antrim to Scotland is about 13 miles at its narrowest points and Scots have been travelling back and forth for time immemorial. The Campbells were following in the path of many others. Most of these Scots were observers of the Presbyterian faith, being the Church of Scotland, and to this day Presbyterians make up one of the largest groups of Protestants in Northern Ireland.

William Campbell and his wife Jennie Ferguson departed from Belfast for Upper Canada (now the province of Ontario) along with two of their seven children, James and John. The trip took about 6 weeks. Other family followed and within a few years all of the Campbell family, but for one son, Joshua, and an uncle, Lancelot Campbell, had arrived in Canada. (3)

The 1840's were a difficult time throughout Ireland. Not only was their the awful castrophe of the Potato Famine which effected much of Ireland including County Cavan but also religious conflict between Protestants and Catholics. In County Cavan the Protestants were in the minority and made up at most 15% of the population. The insecurity of this situation encouraged the growth of Orange lodges. The Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland was founded as a result of the struggle by Protestants to survive in Ireland where the majority of the population was Catholic and worship freely and to support the constitutional monarchy of the British Isles.

In past years many immigrants to Canada and their descendants were Orangemen and Orangewomen as reflected in the number of people arriving from the British Isles. Three of Canada's Prime Ministers were Orangemen, including Sir John A. MacDonald, Sir Mackenzie Bowell, and John Diefenbaker. Premier Joey Smallwood of Newfoundland who brought his province into Canada in 1949 was also an Orangeman. (4) After arriving in Upper Canada the Campbells built large log homes out of the virgin forest. Their efforts and those of other settlers are recalled in the words of the Dominion Hymn.

DOMINION HYMN

Our Sires when times were sorest,
Asked none bu aid Divine.
They cleared the tangled forest,
And wrought the buried mine.
They tracked the floods and fountains,
And won, with master hand,
Far more than gold in mountains -
The glorious fruitful land.

William Campbell died in 1898 at the age of 85 and his wife Jennie passed away in 1918 at the age of 84. The ancestors of their children are now spread throughout Canada and the United States. However, there are none of their family left in Ireland, nor in Scotland. The lands that originally supported them were also the places that they had to depart in order to make a better life for their families. But, these lands influenced who they became in the new world and never were forgotten. That is why till this day their ancestors can think of themselves as ULSTER-SCOTS or SCOTCH-IRISH.

(1) Brian McConnell is the great great grandson of William Campbell

(2) As discussed in "Centennial Church History of Little Britain United Church, 1839-1939"

(3) Details found in "Campbell Family Tree" prepared on occasion of Canada's Centennial by H. Louisa Campbell, grand-daughter of William Campbell.

(4) See "The Sash Canada Wore: A Historical Geography of the Orange Order in Canada" by Cecil J. Houston and William J. Smyth, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1980.