MacMillan Site (Eigg Mountain Settlement History)

 

The house at this site was 20ft by 18ft oriented at 8º.  The cellar is along the south wall and extends 12 ft north.  Charlie thinks that these dimensions suggest a log house.  20 ft was about as long as one could expect a log to be of relatively even diameter.

 

Cellar looking northeast

 

The cellar had been filled with logs.

 

Charlie thinks that the house that once stood here may have been owned by Jennie and Ranald MacMillan [Ranald and Jennie were children of Alex, son of Donald. Charlie may mean Donald] who previously lived below Angus Malcolm Fraser’s.  They would have bought this place from Old John MacIsaac.

 

The Church Map (1879) indicates an “A. MacMillan” at roughly this site.  If this is Alex, it contradicts the Teasdale’s story that Alex remained in his father Donald’s house across Power’s Brook.  It might be Angus MacMillan, mentioned in a deed for the Powers property apparently locating him on the southwest side of the main road in 1878.  Angus MacMillan (b. 1821) is in roughly the right position in the 1891 census.  In “Boundaries of School Sections for Antigonish County” a Donald McMillan is indicated in 1873 as the within the boundary of the Eigg Mountain School on the Road to Antigonish.

 

 

Charlie Teasdale, Eigg Mountain, November 18, 2006