HIGHLANDERS OF THE HECTOR     
In 1773 they came, 
Those Gaelic-speaking Highland men. 
Mere laddies, most, when the Bonnie Prince at Culloden
Lost his chance to mount the Scottish throne
All scorned the laws which then proscribed beloved pipes, 
Their plaids, their mountain tongue and sgian dubh; as well
The whiskey stills; so, to Cumberland, they all, in pride 
Refused to bow. They listened, though, when came the call:
 "To freedom!" and eagerly replied.

 New farms were promised, and a year’s provisions, in trade 
For lands which they were quitting. Tools of their trades 
Must they provide; and food for a very long crossing. 
MacKays, Monroes, MacKenzies, and Frasers- fifty-seven men,
With wives and infants; one hundred and forty-nine were squeezed 
Into the hold of a rotting Hector, where but forty should have been.
Tattered veteran of the smuggling trade, from Greenock, 
Then Loch Broom she sailed, on the first day of July.

      The skirling pipes of Will MacKay made brave  
Their sad and sinking hearts, when bodies of dead bairns 
Were tipped into the sea. Yet, storm and pestilence 
Most survived; and finally, with jubilance arrived. 
The men then donned full Highland dress to wade, and be
 Piped ashore in Pictou, on the fifteenth of September. 
Neither food nor shelter did they find; just endless 
Stretches of towering pine, and bitter disappointment.

Their Scottish brogue none understood; yet when the Migmac
Became friends, they taught the strange new stubborn men
To net a fish, call a moose, fell a tree, and build a shelter.     

Then stay alive. From tall pines straight spars were hewn 
For Britain's sailing ships; both kirk and school were built, 
And within one hundred years from that small community
There sprang this country's largest, learne’d band of youth;
Who spread their teachings across the land; and join these shores.