There’d be about 12...or so on them boats. Some of them would have more years than others, see? I used to hear them saying that they’d go with their brother or an uncle or something. They’d go first as cabin boys. According to where they’d be going, they’d be away quite a while. They were mostly sailing to England and Barbados and different places.
I used to hear them saying my uncle Hector was only 12 when he went as a cabin boy. He was captain [later]. He traded around the different parts of the world. He died out in South America, died with fever out in South America. They took the yellow fever and the captain died, and a brother of “J ohnny-the—mate,” John James MacDonald of Pinette, he died. They were both buried out there. I forget the name of the place; it’s marked on the tombstone [in the Polly Cemetery].
[Hector’s] brother Angus was with him. Hector’s wife was aboard too. Sometimes the women went with them.
Angus then took the vessel back. He was a year before he got back to Prince Edward Island. Angus was only 21. He had to do the trading [then]; I suppose whatever was marked for the ship.
Courtesy John Alex Murchison
John Alex (left) in early family portrait with father Donald Neil Murchison, mother Alexandra Nicholson Murchison and younger sister, Barbara Grace.
148 BELFAST PEOPLE