In spite of the British American Land Company's lack of assistance during the 1840s, a large-scale migration of Scots began from the famine stricken Hebrides to the company's remaining townships in the St. Francis Tract. Late in the decade a number of these families deserted their clearings to take advantage of the government's offer of free twenty-hectare lots alongside the St. Francis and Megantic colonization roads in Winslow Township (once a part of the St. Francis Tract). The Scots settlers at first faced severe hardships in this very hilly township but conditions improved during the 1850s. Expansion of their holdings enabled them to increase their agricultural output, but consolidation of farms in fewer hands led many settlers to leave the township. The Scottish population declined from 868 in 1860 to 782 in 1870. Some moved a short distance further east to pioneer in the Lake Megantic area and many others sought employment in the United States. Eventually the farms themselves were sold. Today the only non-French-Canadian presence in the village of Stornoway (known as Saint-Alphonse de Winslow) is the cemetery where most of the graves date at or near the turn of the century. The two markers shown here are valuable historical documents in themselves. They illustrate the Gaelic background of the Scots, their longevity and even the migration from Lewis to Compton.
