The History behind the Name of
Scotch Mountain Meats™
Despite the name Scotch Mountain Meats™ we
aren’t a processor of Scottish meat pies, or haggis. As our
loyal band of customers know, Scotch Mountain Meats™ is a purveyor
of our own Beef, Lamb and Pork grown on our farms in the Scotch Mountain
area of St. Vincent Township, now a part of the Municipality of Meaford. Our
name comes from the area that was settled by the first families that
farmed Scotch Mountain and to this day form Scotch Mountain Meats™.
It began in the spring of 1834 when the Penetanguishene steamboat brought
the original settlers to the area after it was surveyed by Charles
Rankin in 1833. Many of these original settlers who were provided
with grants for land came from the then bustling settlement areas
of Lanark and Price Edward Counties where many settlers had made their
first landing in the new world. Included in a group of settlers from
Lanark was a large Scottish contingent who were promised better farming
land farther west and north. What they were originally granted
in Lanark was of poor quality and so thin that nothing worth the labour
could be produced on the land. (St. Vincent Heritage Association 2004)
Rankin noted that these settlers were "...universally industrious,
temperate, moral and appear faithfully attached to the British Government". This
reality is something that spurred the government’s decision to
settle the St. Vincent area and provide 100 acres free of charge to the
settlers. Families such as the Mackie's, Storey's, Mitchell's,
and Robertson's among others came to St. Vincent in 1837 from Lanark. They
came to an area at the southern edge of the Big Head valley to settle
and clear land on a tract where the Niagara escarpment rises out of the
valley and is what we affectionately know today as Scotch Mountain.
The main settlement was that of James Robertson’s who had a grant
for 1400 acres, 400 for himself and his wife Clementina, and 200 acres
each for his children and extended family who included: Duncan, James,
Donald, Margaret who married James Storey, and Jennett, the wife of William
Batty. Their settlement on and surrounding Scotch Mountain became, “through
close family associations occupying adjacent farms and unified
by the hardships of settling a new land, a strong and prosperous
centre of farming for the community of St. Vincent.” (St.
Vincent Heritage Association 2004)
Indeed there has been a rich history of production on Scotch Mountain,
fraught with challenges from the initial settlement in Lanark, changing
times during the industrial revolution up to the modern proliferation
of factory farms. Through this all there has been a dedication to
producing superior livestock and working that little bit extra to supply
the community with a quality that heralds from days gone by.
Interestingly as an aside, around the same time Scotch Mountain
was settled a group of settlers from Price Edward County of Irish decent
were granted land across the Big Head Valley on and around another piece
of the Niagara escarpment that has become known as Irish Mountain.
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Source: St. Vincent A Beautiful Land, St. Vincent Heritage Association,
2004. Conestoga Press, RR1 Thornbury Ontario.
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The opinions expressed in the "A Word
From James" article are those of the James McIntosh
and do not necessarily represent those
of Scotch Mountain Meats Inc.
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