20 July 1973 Canada issued a single stamp for the 200 Anniversary of the landing of the first Scottish Highlander settlers at Pictou in the Bay of Fundy in 1773.
The ship depict on the stamp is hardly visible, but she is the ship HECTOR on which the first settlers arrived, since there not any drawing or painting of the original ship exist, is she a image of some ship I believe of that time.
Between 1763 and 1775 about 20.000 Scottish people left there Scottish homeland to look for a better future in one of the British colonies.
Dr. John Witherspoon a Presbyterian minister with John Pagan bought about 200.000 acres of Pictou land from the Philadelphia Land Grand Company.
To get settlers they hired John Ross in Scotland as their recruiting agent, the offer to the settlers was free passage, free provision of a year and a farm.
In advertisement placed in a Scottish newspaper to recruit settlers, it was praised that it was very fertile soil suitable for agriculture and horticulture, along a coast abounding with fish.
First settlers would get there land for 15 pennies a hectare, the next buyers had to pay 30 pennies, and the last 45 pennies a hectare.
Pagan was the owner of an old ship the HECTOR around 1723 built somewhere in Holland, she was a boatship of which many hundreds were built, the type is already know in the 15th century and was used as merchant ship and whaler in the Netherlands.
She was a three mast vessel with lower and topsails, from the 18th century the boatship also carried topgallant sails on the two foremasts and a mizzen topsail on the mizzen mast.
Her tonnage is given as around 200 tons burthen, with dimensions of 26.60 x 6.70m.
To carry the settlers the hold of 14.20 x 5.80 x 2.40 was fitted out with bunks with a space of 60 cm between it.
During the voyage the settlers stayed there in night-time and during bad weather, the hold was without any porthole or ventilation shaft, that a stay below deck must have been terrible, anyhow after sailing when most were seasick.
She was at least used for one other voyage across the North Atlantic in 1770 with Scottish settlers to Boston before she made the voyage to Pictou.
July 1773 she set sail from Lochbroom, Rosshire under command of John Spier with on board 23 families and 25 single men, altogether around 200 people were on board
At that time the HECTOR was already in a bad shape and rotten, the voyage took 11 weeks and during a gale off Newfoundland she was driven back and it took almost two weeks to recover their former position.
An outbreak of smallpox killed eighteen people on board mostly children.
They were running out of food and water, even mouldy scraps of food that had been early discarded were eaten on the last days of the voyage.
15 September 1773 she landed at Brown’s Point immediately west of the present-day town of Pictou.
Due to the long voyage the settlers arrived just before the winter, and the promised houses were a few old barns and sheds and the bought land was far from the coast and covered with thick bush.
After a very harsh winter only 78 people were at the new settlement.
The fate of the HECTOR is not known, but most probably shortly thereafter condemned or broken up.
Canada 1973 8c sg?, scott619. see also: http://www.shipstamps.co.uk/forum/viewt ... =2&t=14568
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hector_(ship) Some Dutch sources about the bootschip (boatship)