The McCabe List: Early Irish Settlers in the Ottawa Valley

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Notes

"The McCabe List (named after the Belfast genealogist John McCabe, who discovered the document in the Public Record Office in Kew, England in the 1980s) was a petition signed by 673 men, the vast majority of them Irish,3 and many of them canal labourers working on the construction of the Rideau Canal. The petition was dated 5 February 1829, and was submitted to Lieutenant-Colonel John By, Superintending Engineer for the Rideau Canal, in the hope that, “as a Personage of distinction in this Country [Canada],” he might “intercede with Government” to secure assistance for “[our] Relatives residing in that Country [Ireland] in impoverished circumstances, who would have long since emigrated to British America, had they been possessed of the means so to do.” The petitioners were asking for government assistance, in other words, to help their impoverished relations in Ireland to emigrate to Canada. Although nothing ever came of this request for emigration assistance, the petition survived as part of the British government’s Colonial Office series (CO 384: War and Colonial Department and Colonial Office: Emigration Original Correspondence)." Source: Ottawa Valley Irish blogsite - see http://www.ottawavalleyirish.com/2013/10/the-mccabe-list.html .