on merit and achievement, and unhampered by the fetters of worn-out
fetishes and conventions. And so it happened that on the 8th of March,
1811, exactly two months after James McGill had made his will, this
young Scotchman set out for the new world. The ship in which he was to
take passage--a square-rigged, clipper sailing vessel in those steamless
days--was to clear from Greenock, one hundred and eighty miles from
Keith, his Banffshire home. He had no money to spare to pay for a
conveyance. He must cover the distance on foot. He sent his heavy
luggage by carrier, and with a pack of necessary clothes and provisions
on his back, he set out with three adventurous but hopeful comrades on
his journey. He walked through the Grampians, by Kildrummy Castle, on
through the town of Perth, along the base of Cairngorm in the Highlands,
through the long valley of Glenavon, and thence to the sea-port town of
Greenock from which the packet ships went weekly out into the mists,
heading for the land of promise somewhere beyond the sky-line. He slept
with his companions on heather beds in front of peat fires in the homes
of the Highlanders through whose villages they passed, and the Gaelic
tongue of one of their number was always a charm sufficient to secure
them food. He reached Greenock on the 20th of March, but because of
unforeseen delay it was not until April 11th that he embarked for
Canada. After a voyage of five tempestuous weeks he landed in Pictou,
Nova Scotia, on May 19th, 1811, and there he determined to make his
home. The young Scotchman was James Dawson, whose son was destined in
1855 to become Principal of McGill.

[Illustration: Redpath Museum Photo Rice Studios
_Sir William Dawson, C. M. G., M.A., L.L.D., F.R.S., Principal of McGill
University_ 1855-1893]

In his new home James Dawson soon prospered as a merchant and
ship-owner, and later as a publisher, and in a few years he was head
of one of the most successful business firms in Eastern Nova Scotia. In
1818 he married Mary Rankine, a Scotch girl from Lonerig, in the parish
of Salamannan, who had emigrated to Nova Scotia after her parents' death
with her brother William, the only other member of her family. Like the
other pioneers of that time, they, too, were resolved to make a new home
and to restore their shattered fortunes in the new world. To James
Dawson and Mary Rankine two children were born, William and James, the
latter of whom died while still a boy.

Wi