Moneydie

Emigration from Logiealmond

The comment by the writer on Moneydie parish in the New Statistical Account that over 100 people had emigrated to Canada from Logiealmond is quoted in the parish description . The statement is enlarged upon in David Forrester, Logiealmond: The Place and The People, (Oliver & Boyd, Edinburgh, 1944) when he reports a description by a Mr Wylie who had been a farmer at Shannach in the 1870s and 1880s.

‘I had been told that members of thirty families – my father had eight relations among them – left in a sailing ship from Dundee, round the North of Scotland to Montréal. I have been told they all met in Kendrum Kirk for the last time on the Sabbath previous – first Sabbath of June. The Rev Alexander Young had by that time been their minister for thirty years. The singing of the Second Paraphrase ‘O God of Bethel’ must have been very moving ....’

‘It was said of the Rev Alexander Young, minister of Kendrum Seceder Kirk, that he in sadness declared he would need to cease praying for the emigrants since it seemed only to encourage others to follow in their wake.’