The Riddle of the Three John McNeils

This scene of an 1850 fishing trip gives an idea of the land the original settlers would have had to clear

My initial research had shown that the 82nd Regiment were given land grants in Pictou County, Nova Scotia, when they were disbanded after the American Revolution. The John McNeil I was researching was one of the grantees but there were three John McNeils who took up the land that was offered. Was he the officer who got 300 acres or one of the two privates who ended up with 100 acres?

This was not a time when there were many records but fortunately, Family Search has digitized the indexes to the deeds for Pictou County which I was able to access from home. It was a browsable film and after some time I was able to figure out how they dealt with the Mc/Mac names on this one, the McNeils were alphabetized under the Ns. Tricky but worth looking for because I found an entry for McNeil, John Brack granting his land in Merigomish by deed to Wm Fraser in 1800. Also in the index entry were the volume for the deed book as well as the page number for the deed. It wasn't the original land grant given to the former soldiers sometime around 1793 but fortunately it looked like my John McNeil had sold it off soon enough for me to be able to identify him. I was really glad that nicknames were included in the index.

The deed also indicated that one of the parties to the agreement was John Brack McNiel. (Yes, the "i" came before the "e" in the last name.) The other was William Frazer who paid 10 pounds Halifax for the 100-acre lot in Merigomish. Reading between the lines of the information given, this lot appears to have been in the First Division of the Eighty-Second Grant. The agreement was signed (John Brack McNiel made his mark) on March 29, 1798. 

As this was a hundred-acre lot, the John McNeil that I was researching was one of the privates. The index also contained an entry for a John McNeil Jr which allowed me to pinpoint which of the three Johns was the one that I was interested in. Now I needed to find out what had happened to John Brack McNeil once he gave up his land in Merigomish.

Sources:

Family Search film 007765139 image 201 Index to deeds, vol. 1-2, 1771-1860. Canada, Nova Scotia, Pictou – Land and property

Family Search film 008189474 image 402 Deeds, vol. 2, 1771-1860. Canada, Nova Scotia, Pictou – Land and property

 

Images:

By Henry George Hine (1811–1895) - https://books.google.com/books?id=L69SAAAAcAAJ, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=76290031