Welcome
Feature Article
One can view the acquisition of land in two ways. First, it could serve as a commodity that one could be improve and sell in hopes of a high return. Second, land could be a patrimony that could provide identity in the community and sustenance to descendants.22 It seems clear that most of the Highland immigrants in Scotch Settlement subscribed to this latter, more traditional, view. American or Yankee farmers, who tended to see land in the former sense, frequently sold their land to their heirs before death and then retired on the proceeds.23 This clearly did not happen in Scotch Settlement as all men, even at advanced age, still owned their farms although they may have retired from farming.24 The granting of land, in most cases, to one heir indicates that the farm was sacrosanct and was meant to provide sustenance and identity to its owners. Gagan, in his review of Canadian wills that used partible/non-partible inheritance, implies that land left to two heirs indicated the division of a farm.25 Conversely, in a Highland context this may not have been the case. Joint tenancy was common in the Highlands and tenants often favored it because they could then split the rent. The use of a pseudo-entail also suggests the extreme importance of the land and the desire of some Highlander men to pass on a patrimony to their descendents.
Partible inheritance of real and personal estate was common in the Scottish Lowlands .26 Although the evidence is slight, it is possible that people in the Highlands used it as well. Alexander Dallas, who immigrated in 1812, signed a note acknowledging the £100 he had received from the estate of his father William Dallas.27 Alexander's eldest brother Duncan inherited the tack to the farm of Inchyettle in Cawdor parish. It is likely that William Dallas compensated his other children in some way as well. However, few average farmers in the Lowlands or the Highlands would have been able to will property to their children as they did not own it, but rented it from a superior.
In the few known cases where sons were able to follow their fathers in a farm in Strathnairn or Strathdearn, they were all the eldest sons, so they were the principal heir at least for the land. However, in Scotch Settlement the family farm did not automatically go to the eldest son. If the eldest son or sons were established before the death of their father (presumably with the father's assistance), they were not granted land in their father's will, instead it went to a younger brother or brothers. This fact suggests that, generally, the Highlanders were not interested in establishing a stem-household pattern, where most of the real property is bequeathed to a single heir. They appear to have maintained a lineal household pattern that emphasized collateral descent. One distinctive feature of clan organization in Scotland was that all branches of the family were equally important, not just that of the eldest son. Significantly, communities that emphasized lineal households over stem households were generally more successful in resisting outside influences.28
