Hector Maclean : the writings of a loyalist-era military settler in Nova Scotia

Author / Creator

Maclean, Hector, 1751-1812 author

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Summary

"Hector Maclean (1751 1812) served as a Lieutenant in the 2nd Battalion of the 84th Regiment (Royal Highland Emigrants) during the War of the American Revolution. After the war, he joined a substan...

"Hector Maclean (1751 1812) served as a Lieutenant in the 2nd Battalion of the 84th Regiment (Royal Highland Emigrants) during the War of the American Revolution. After the war, he joined a substantial number of other veterans of the 2nd Battalion in settling in the newly-created County of Hants, Nova Scotia--specifically, in the Kennetcook area. The book includes annotated texts of the two major historical sources regarding the life and times of Hector Maclean: the letters he wrote between 1779 and 1787, primarily to Murdoch Maclaine; and the diary he kept from 1 April 1786 to 5 April 1787, using the empty pages of his orderly book left over from the participation of the 84th in the South Carolina campaign of 1781. The letters show Maclean as an actively serving officer, in contexts ranging from a recruiting expedition to Newfoundland in 1779, which led to his shipwreck in Ireland in early 1780, to the strategically significant Battle of Eutaw Springs, South Carolina, in September 1781. The entries in the orderly book, although occupying a much lesser proportion of the book than the diary, provide further insights into the conduct of the battle. The letters from 1783 onwards provide a vivid insight into the settlement process by which Maclean established himself at Kennetcook, while the diary offers a detailed, day-by-day account of a year during this phase of his life--it contains not only valuable evidence regarding the environmental and labour history of a military settler's farm but also an account of Maclean's social life and the cultural history of the members of the small Windsor-based elite with whom he mingled. Thus, the letters and diary have direct relevance to the military history of the Revolutionary War and to the environmental, cultural, and social histories of postwar settlement in Nova Scotia."--

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