Author: BY

John Cairns and Peggy Milloy had 13 children. As these children matured they found a paucity of affordable farmland in York County. Further west, in Bruce County, three treaties were signed between the crown and the indigenous tribes in the area (Chippewa and Saugene Indians) between 1834 and 1854. In 1855 the land was surveyed and in 1856 lots and farm lots were put up for sale.

This available farmland attracted many of the children, and their cousins to make the move to Bruce County.

Cairns in Port Elgin Cemetary-Sanctuary Park

https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/1998289/memorial-search?firstname=&middlename=&lastname=cairns&cemeteryName=Sanctuary+Park+Cemetery&birthyear=&birthyearfilter=&deathyear=&deathyearfilter=&memorialid=&mcid=&linkedToName=&datefilter=&orderby=r&plot=&page=1#sr-64557920

Margaret “Peggy” Malloy

When Margaret “Peggy” Malloy was born 08 FEB 1808 • Kilchenzie, Argyleshire, Scotland, United Kingdom, her father, Neil Milloy (also spelled Molloy), was 44 and her mother, Isabel Watson, was 43. She married John Cairns on 30 January 1827, in Thornhill, York, Ontario, Canada. They were the parents of at least 7 sons and 5 daughters. They farmed in King Township, York, Ontario, Canada and her husband, died in 1879. In the 1881 census, the farm was divided between her sons James and William, with Peggy living in the original house with William.

She moved to Port Elgin in Bruce County a few years later (by July 1885) , along with James and his brother Adam was already farming there in 1880 with his wife Esther Cherry who was from Conc 18 King Twp and whose parents were from Ireland. His brother Neil had moved to Bruce County in 1855.

She died on 22 February 1888, in Bruce, Ontario, Canada, at 81, and was buried in Schomberg, York, Ontario, Canada.

Margaret’s sister Isabella Malloy (1815) married John’s brother Donald Cairns (1804) and purchased John’s first farm on Conc 6 Vaughn Township. In 1878 there were at least six Malloy farms in the area south of Laskey..

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.

A church record documents Thomas Cairns from Campbelton building the A’Chleil church in 1789. It replaced the condemned Killean church that was two miles north. From about 1672 until 1696, John Cunison was a Covenanting minister.

Thomas was the source of the Cairns family in King Township Ontario. We do not know where he was born, nor do we know the name of his wife. He and his wife had four children: Thomas Jr(1775), Margaret (1778), William (1780), and Agnes(1783) all born in Campbelton.

Except for Margaret the three other children, their families, and their mother emigrated to York County Ontario around 1830-31 to work, purchase farmland and start a new life. Thomas jr married Anne McIntyre (who was previously married to Robert Campbell and had a daughter Janet Cambell) and worked as a shepherd on Kintyre. Thomas, Anne, his mother and sister Agnes lived with or near his son William in Vaugn Township, Ontario. We do no have a recorded of where their burial sites are.

James Cairns moved to Huntsville in 1900 to work at the Tannery. He had sold the original family farm in King Township to his brother and moved in with his wife Christina and their four children. Kelso met his future wife in Huntsville, Edith Mae Heath.

Albert Heath moved to Huntsville in 1876 to claim land and start a lumber company. Heath, Tait and Turnbull company was built beside the railway at the foot of Yonge Street in 1886. The company is located on land owned by George Elliott. In 1892 the company’s name was changed to the Huntsville Lumber Company. Mr. Heath’s name was gone by 1899.