We spent a leisurely time there at the Fort Ellis Cemetery and easily found the gravesites of our Ross Ancestors right in front along the roadside!  We took our time and copied info and data from the headstones. 

Next we were off to our 2^nd Bed & Breakfast at the trip at The Nelson House in Stewiake.  Here we had a most restful sleep after eating supper at a local restaurant where they were having a spaghetti dinner special.

The next morning, Tuesday, we were off for Cape Breton, Nova Scotia and the Moeller’s Lake Cottage on a peninsula across from Whycocomagh.  We stayed here at the Cottage for a week, using it as our base of operations for our genealogical quest in the Cape Breton area.  Roland & Claudia Moeller were most gracious hosts.  Roland tried to keep us in touch with the bald eagles nesting nearby his home just around the corner from our cottage!  We were given fresh eggs one day and Roland kept us supplied with wood for the wood stove.  We were never able to get up close and personal with the eagles; it was as if they knew we wanted to see them and tried their very best to keep that from happening!  We unpacked and settled-in for our stay at the cottage.  The cottage is located right near the water and Roland told us about the pilot whales that come swimming up the from the bay right in front of the cabin.

We informed Roland that we had met a young man at a Antiques & Book Store on our way in and that the young man had told us of a Tracy MacLean and that we were definitely related to him.  In fact, he told us that Tracy now lives on the old home sites of our two Neil MacLeans. Roland told us he knew Tracy quite well and told us where to locate Tracy’s garage.  Tracy is an auto mechanic and his garage is in Orangedale.  He, himself, lives in Valley Mills.  More about our visit with Tracy to follow later in this story.

On Wednesday we set off for our rendezvous with Frank and Catherine in Orangedale.  We passed the big white church where we were to meet and turned around at the Orangedale Railway Museum.  On our arrival to the church we passed Frank in his

‘white gig’, as he called it.  This time when we pulled up in front of the church Catherine and her niece were sitting in their blue car waiting for us!  It was quite a pleasing meeting of distant cousins to say the least.  After hugs and introductions Frank took out a pair of walkie-talkies his son had highly suggested we use during our tour of the cemeteries and around the countryside.  The walkie-talkies proved to be a valuable asset.  Frank drove his own ‘gig’, while Catherine and her niece Chris,

joined us in Fred’s car; and off we went with Frank as our tour guide!

I may have bits of the tour out of place here and there, but here goes:

We left Orangedale and headed past Tracy’s Garage.  We arrived at the site of the church that had been bought for $1.00 and moved to Iona at a cost of approximately $400,000!  We took photos of the site and the church still standing close to the site.  From here we drove to Neil and Maggies (now painted blue) house and lands, about a mile or two beyond the Monroe Bridge.  At the Monroe Bridge we noticed a set of railroad tracks and a railroad trestle across the water. We were forever trying to get a proper picture in our minds of the drawing in Great Uncle Angus’ book.  It would take us a couple more days to wrap our minds around this map and figure it out – but we finally did just that!

The next bridge we crossed is Crowdis Bridge.  It is a double bridge area.  After crossing one there is a bit of road and then another bridge area.  We were later told (by one Wayne Davis of Valley Mills) that the water to our left was salt water (sea water), while the water to our right was fresh water!  We had trouble wrapping our minds around the fact that the two did not mingle!  We were now on dirt road.  At the end of this road, shortly after crossing Crowdis Bridge, we turned right and went past a small schoolhouse (now owned by Wayne Davis) where we are told some of our ancestors attended in later years.  Driving up this dirt road Frank stopped at what he thought was the road (pathway) into the original land our J. Neil MacLean had owned and settled.  He was mistaken and drove up a bit further to a second road (pathway) and told us this was the correct one.  He said he had once walked out into the area and located a cellar hole or foundation.

We all turned around and left this Valley Mills area and drove past the old MacAuley place, mentioned by Great Uncle Angus in his book (the lady with the fancy buggy and horses and Dan Martin).

Upon leaving the Valley Mills area we passed by a good sized white house trimmed in red just down the road from where Frank had shown us the pathway in to the old J. Neil MacLean homesite.  We asked Frank if he knew who loved there and he responded that he did not. (We were later to find out that this was Tracy MacLean’s home! And more!!!)

Somewhere along our trip we stopped at the Fulton Cemetery and located several headstones of our ancestors.  It rests on a small hill and was across the road to our left.

Our next stop was the Malagawatch Cemetery where we located many headstones of our ancestors!  Chris told us that someone had visited Scotland and brought back some heather and planted it in and around the cemetery; but the groundskeepers did not like it as they said it made mowing difficult.  So, needless to say, they pulled out as much of the heather as they could.  Fortunately, there is heather making a comeback here and there throughout the cemetery grounds!  The Malagawatch Cemetery was on a road to our left and is bordered on the outer side by the waters of the Bras de Ors Lakes, as is much of the surrounding lands.  Dale MacRae-Berry will be pleased to read we took photos of her ancestors headstones found here!

The next cemetery we visited was the Stewartsdale Cemetery.  We turned off the main road to our left down a steep hill and crossed the riverbed via a small temporary military-type bridge which was never replaced with a more permanent bridge.  We drove up a steep hill directly after exiting the temporary bridge structure and near the top of the hill to our right was the Stewartsdale Cemetery where we located even more headstones of our ancestors!

Across the road, from the current Stewartsdale Cemetery, there is a sign indicating ‘The Pioneer Cemetery’.  The story goes that someone discovered that this was an old cemetery so the trees and much of the brush were cleared out.  When I walked up into this area I could not locate any grave markers or headstones.  I did locate one small (approx. 10 inches long) wooden stake painted white driven into the ground.

One is left to imagine how many of our ancestors gravesites have been lost to the overgrowth of nature here.

Our next stop was back at the white church in Orangedale.  Catherine had prepared a delicious lunch for us, sodas included.  She is a gracious lady with a most beautiful smile!  We enjoyed our sandwiches, sodas and cookies while we talked about the events of the day and got to know each other a bit better.

At some point in time, Frank left us and headed back to his home in Sydney.  He will be sorely missed as well as his wit and humor and his knowledge of our Neil and Maggie MacLean!  Here, Catherine invited us to her house for dinner on Friday!  We gladly accepted this most welcomed invitation!

Thursday found us on our own, retracing the previous days travels and still trying to wrap our minds around Great Uncle Angus’s map!  When we drove the road up to and past Neil and Maggie’s (now blue) home site, I knew we must walk the railroad tracks and prove to ourselves that they past by the back of Neil and Maggie’s home.  It was hunting season and Carol was concerned for our safety, so we tabled that plan for the time being!  We did however, return to the Monroe Bridge and the railway bridge trestle alongside it.  Up the road a short distance from the Monroe Bridge we found a road pathway into the railroad tracks.  We walked in a short distance to the tracks and walked the tracks towards Neil and Maggie’s home site for a short distance before turning back and returning to the car.  I kept pressing that we needed to walk the tracks from the railroad crossing about a half mile past Neil and Maggie’s home site.

At some point in time I tried calling Tracy via telephone.  Finally I was able to speak with his mother, Jessie MacLean.  She could not tell me much and said she did not do any genealogy.  I kept calling now and then until I finally got to speak with Tracy.  He told us that he lived on the original lands that were once owned by both our Neil MacLean’s.

Roland even spoke with Tracy and tried to set up a meeting with Tracy for that Friday or Saturday.  But we told him we were committed to dinner at Catherine’s in West Bay on Friday and we were planning to drive the Cabot Trail on Saturday weather permitting.  Thus our meeting with Tracy was going to prove a hit or miss meeting.

Friday found us driving to West Bay to visit with Catherine and her niece Chris.  Catherine prepared a feast fit for a king!  Everything was home grown but for the beef.  A delicious meal!  Chris told Carol about a MacLean Mitten pattern and how one of the brothers had found it in a boat on return from a fishing trip to the Grand Banks.  Chris had a friend that was putting together Nova Scotian Patterns to be published later.  She submitted the mittens and waited for a response.  About six months passed and Chris called to check on her mittens.  Chris was told that the committee was not certain the mittens were not from Newfoundland or Labrador and that they were not going to use them.  Her friend had worked out the pattern and finally returned the mittens to Chris.  Chris replied that the mitten pattern had been in the MacLean family for over one hundred years!  How much longer did they need them to be in the family?!  Finally her pattern was accepted and it was published in the book.  Catherine went to her kitchen pantry and pulled out her old pair of the MacLean mittens!  I took photos of the mittens and Chris gave Carol a photo copy of the knitting instructions from the book.  Carol also was fortunate to find an old bedspread knitting pattern which Aunt Kitty (Fred’s Aunt) had been working on.  Carol copied that also!  What a find!  Catherine played the organ for us later and showed us photos of her husband.  She had a photo of herself at the age of seventeen; what a fine young lady!

We toured her farm and she showed us the small red house where she and her husband lived when they were first married.  It sits just behind and a bit to the left of their second home; the house Catherine is currently living in.  We met a couple of her steers, chickens and guinea hens.  Time permitting we would have gladly played a game of scrabble with her!  Catherine is a darts champion and enjoys playing scrabble.

Saturday found us heading up the Cabot Trail, counterclockwise.  We left the Lake Cottage shortly after right in the morning.  It was a leisurely trip; one in which we stopped wherever we wanted; at gift shops and for photo op all along the way!  I must tell you that when we stopped at a general grocery store-type place in Wreck Cove, we mentioned our MacLean Genealogical Quest and our cousin that was ninety years young and new computers and digital cameras!  Well, there were five or six men sitting at a table sipping coffee.  A couple of minutes later one of these men asked:  “That wouldn’t be Catherine Urguart of West Bay now would it?”  We replied a gleeful yes and then a second man at the table told us: “I was just up to Catherine’s home about a week ago for dinner.  Do you know that everything she puts on the table is grown right there on the farm?”  It turns out that these two men are brothers and we quickly realized we were on an Island where most everyone knows everyone!  The second man chatted a while with us outside and told us he had known Catherine’s husband for many a year.

We found the Tartan Shop on the Cabot Trail and had fun looking at all the Tartans found there.  We also bought a few items.  When the woman assisting us with our selections placed our wool tartan blankets on the glass counter top, she had just turned the lights on in the display cases under the glass countertop.  It took just a few minutes for the cold blankets to mix with the heat from the lights before the glass suddenly cracked with a loud snap!  I bought two blankets both MacLean, a MacRae Tam and Scarf and a green Hunting Ross.  Carol bought me a Red Ross, Modern scarf.  I even got a Ross mouse pad and a couple of stickers for the rear window of my SUV!

We traveled North and then West over the top of the Cabot Trail.  We made several photo op stops and enjoyed the trip even though we were about a week ot two late for the showy foliage of fall.  The views were fantastic even though they lacked the colorful beauty of the full fall foliage.  We highly recommend the Cabot Trail!  Traveling counter clockwise is preferred as we found out, as the sun is not directly effecting the driver as it would be on the clockwise drive.

There was one point where I decided to walk down on the rocks and get a photo of these two big boulders on the waters edge.  On one of the top steps leading downward I noticed fresh animal scat on the second or third step.  Fred told us that he thought is was at least one day old scat and that it seemed to be Moose scat.  I found what appeared to be the bones of the lower leg of a moose, gleaming white with some tendons on one end holding them together.  It was then that I heard something running off under the growth of brush just a couple of feet in front of me.  I turned and looked for a quick way out. The only quick way out for me was to scamper up a pile of rocks with over growth on them.  Just as I started to step up and over these rocks I noticed that there were open places in this pile of rocks where wildlife could hide or live!  But I was now committed and I stepped up my pace, hopping up and over the rocks and scampering to the top as quickly as I could.  Once on top, I regained my senses and slowed my pace, allowing me to get a grip on where I needed to go to get up and out of there as quickly as possible.

This was a most beautiful sight. I wished I had not run out of there so quickly; but I am glad that I did, as I do not know what type of animal it was that had run from me in the opposite direction!

We had used much of our daylight hours for photo ops and thus found we had little to no time for the scenic nature walk near Cheticamp Roland highly recommended we do.  Sorry Roland, perhaps another day – hope, hope, hope!

Sunday found us attempting to locate Tracy again and driving up to what we thought to be his house in Valley Mills.  We drove into and up the driveway and found who we thought was Tracy behind the house with a truck and a trailer attached to it.  I asked “Did we catch you at home?”  The man replied a gleeful “No”.  I then asked “Are you Tracy?” and the reply was another gleeful “No”.  As we walked to meet each other the man said, “You asked me two questions and I said No to both.  This is not my home and I am not Tracy.”  He sported a broad smile upon his face.  This man turned out to be Wayne Davis.  Wayne now owns the old school house down around the corner from Tracy’s home and just across the road from the exit from Crowdis Bridge.

Wayne took us back to his property and the old school.  I called it the old tyvek schoolhouse, as it was covered in tyvek, awaiting the finishing touches.  Wayne took us inside and we took photos of the old hand craved beams in the basement.  Later he brought out a couple of the beams some the students had written their names on in pencil..  It was difficult to read the names as the pencil writing was fading! 

Wayne showed me where there is three wells set in the ground by a bubbly brook not far behind and in from the old schoolhouse.  I was able to get a few photos of these wells, the middle well being the original well used by the children attending the school so many years ago!

While we were there at Wayne’s, Tracy blew by speeding home.  We waved and Wayne shouted at him to stop, but Tracy did not even slow down. We drove up to Tracy’s home and when he opened the door he explained that he had been in a rush to get to the house at the end of a long drive.  Tracy was a hospitable host.  He immediately took us up the hill behind the house and into the woods just a short distance showing us the old cellar hole he says is the original site of the first J. Niel’s log cabin!  Over to the left of where we were standing he showed us the little brook making its way down from the mountain top.  He showed us what he believes to be an old dump site for the family not far further in from the brook.  Tracy stated that his water supply comes from the same brook stream.  I leaned on a small tree and when I did I put my hand directly on some tree pitch.  I asked if it was spruce pitch and Tracy replied that it was indeed.  I pulled some off and started to chew it remembering the spruce gum story Great Uncle Angus had written about!  I must say it was quite tasty.  I offered some to Carol but she declined.

Tracy also told us he had a tape recording of Collie Neil.  Tracy tried to locate the tape but was unable to find it that evening.  He showed us an old wooden peg taken out of the old schoolhouse that Wayne now owns.  Tracy also showed us an old wooden chair with tiny little wooden pegs in it.  Tracy told us it came from the old log cabin site up on the hill and that it once belonged to one of our grandfathers!  Carol tells that the little chair called to her to sit in it but that she thought better of it and simply pretended to sit on it for just a second or two!  Tracy insists that he is related to us and that Collie Neil says so on his tape.  The tape is a story all its own!  Tracy says he has been interested in genealogy from a very young age and that in the 11^th grade, he and four girls had the assignment of interviewing several of the local ‘old timers’.  All but one of the five to be interviewed fervently declined being tape recorded.  They were old fashioned and did not take kindly to having their voices recorded.  Tracy tells what a waste this was as one was a boat maker and the stories he told were invaluable.  All that they have left of the old interviews is the tape of Collie Neil.   Needless to say, I wish I could return and spend a week or so there at Tracy’s copying information and photos!  Oh well, that is for another day and time!  Tracy’s parents are Neillie and Jessie MacLean of Maple Street, Oranedale, Cape Breton.  I believe I am correct in say8ing that Jessie used to run the Orangedale Railway Museum.  Tracy allowed me take his vanilla folder back to Lake Cottage with me to caopy its contents.  I promised we would return it the next day, Monday.

Time was running short and our visit to Cape Breton would be ending quickly come Tuesday morning.  Monday found us packing and making preparations to leave the Island of our Ancestors.  In the early afternoon, we found Tracy at his garage in Orangedale and I returned his paper work to him.  He stopped working on the muffler system he had been working on when we arrived at his garage and then told us, “I found the tape.  I couldn’t let it go.”  He rushed into the garage and starting playing the tape for us.  As we listened to this wonderful voice with accent and all, I become melancholy at the thought that this may not be our ancestor.  During the interview with Collie Neil Tracy had run the tape recorder while his mother carried out the interview.  Tracy tells that Collie Neil thought the recording was a great idea and he was more then pleased to carry out the interview.  Tracy states that the tape is one and a half hours long!  During the part of the tape we were listening to, Tracy’s mother, Jessie, asks Collie Neil about his parents – his father.  Collie Neil replied that his father was Neil the Widow and went on to say Black Neil.  That is when I became tearful and tapped Carol on the arm saying “That’s Uncle Colin, Grandmother MacKay’s brother!”  What a find!  Tracy promised us he would get a copy of the tape made and send it to me.  Tracy also gave me permission to put the tape recording into print and publish it to our website!  Tracy does have a computer and internet, but Roland tells us that Tracy does not use his email much.  Roland told us that if we wish to communicate with Tracy we should simply email him, Roland, and he will get it to Tracy in person!  I also have Tracy’s telephone number as well as that of his parents.

I must add here that there was no television at the Lake Cottage.  The World Series was on and we listened to the Red Sox games via a radio in the cottage.  Each evening we ended the day by playing a game or two of Up Words.  Carol won most of the games.  Fred and I won our share but she remains the Up Words Champion of our Nova Scotia Trip 2007.

Tuesday morning we bade Cape Breton a good bye with mixed emotions and started our trip back to the USA.

We had with us a collection of rocks and railroad spikes.  The spikes came from the railroad tracks out behind Neil and Maggie’s Seal Cove home!  They were all over the tracks, some here and others there!  Catherine told us she thinks the train runs about once or twice each week.  The tracks tell us that a train does come through now and then.  I did pick up some small chunks of coal I found alongside those same tracks!  When my daughter Gayle looked at them, she said “Well, I guess I know I’m getting a sock full of coal for Christmas!” 

I am so glad we did walk those tracks around behind Neil and Maggie’s old home.  We figure that we walk in a bit further than 3/5’s of a mile before we found ourselves behind the house!  There is a railroad trestle there leading out to the waters of the lake from a small pond-like area down the bottom of the steep bank from the old house.  Fred wanted to go down in there and take a photo from the house side.  Carol told him an emphatic “No!”  But as we all know, Fred was not to be held back.  As Carol and I walked the tracks back towards the road, she asked where Fred was.  I told her, “He went down there”, motioned with my hands, down under!  She replied, “No. I told him not to do that!”  I yelled back at Fred and could hear his reply far in the distance.  I asked if he was all right and he replied he would be right there.  He did get a beautiful photo of the railway bridge!  Thank you Fred!

 We were at long last, able to wrap our minds around Grat Uncle Angus's map of Seal Cove!  We could not have done this without the walk

along the railraod tracks!

Take a walk with us as we walk the railroad tracks from about 1/2 mile up the road from Neil & Maggie's Home.  We will take you around the back of the house for some great photos of the house, the water, the railroad trestle and more.....This walk follows below.....Enjoy!

(Later walk with us as we visit with Tracy MacLean and visited with him at his home in Valley Mills, and enjoy our visit with Wayne Davis as he shared his little schoolhouse treasures with us.  These follow our Walk Behind Neil & Maggie's Home.)