Thomas and Ann Cairns, and their children left Campbeltown, Scotland, in 1831 to purchase farmland in York County, Ontario. This was a time of the Highland Clearances. Many farmers and even shepherds were losing their land leases to more powerful people. and the only way to survive was to emigrate.
Campbeltown is the principal centre of the Peninsula of Kintyre, which is 40 miles (65 km) long and protrudes into the Atlantic.
Campbeltown, known initially as Dalruadhain, was the seat of the kings of Dalriada. St. Ciaran (Kieran), one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland, landed there in the 6th century, after which the site was renamed Kilkerran, afterward Kinlochkerran. Later, James, the Fifth transferred the territory from the MacDonalds to the Campbells of Argyll, who gave it their family name. No memorial of its antiquity has survived, but a finely sculptured granite Celtic cross (c. 1500) stands in the marketplace, and there are ruins of an old chapel.
