A Swarm of Bees - Lanark Society Settlers 1800-1900, A Journey from Scotland to Upper Canada and Utah

By Ron W. Shaw

A Swarm of Bees recounts a journey begun in 1820 that, over the course of 50 years, took eighteen ‘Lanark Society Settler’ families from the slums of Glasgow to Upper Canada and on to settle in the Great Salt Lake Valley.

These pioneer families first settled in what is now Lanark County, Ontario. They were among the earliest converts to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Their story unfolds in the context of the founding and earliest days of the Church, as they follow their new faith through the Ohio and Missouri settlements, to Nauvoo Illinois, the refugee camps of Council Bluffs Iowa, and finally along the Mormon Trail to Utah.

Contents include:

• Acknowledgements
• Foreword
• Chapter 1 - Radical War
• Chapter 2 - Bocking of Poor Souls
• Chapter 3 - This Is Lanark
• Chapter 4 - The Thistle Drove Us Out
• Chapter 5 - A Light Around My Head
• Chapter 6 - Beg Like A Dog For Peace
• Chapter 7 - Kingdom on the Mississippi
• Chapter 8 - A Swarm of Bees
• Chapter 9 - A Broken Horn
• Chapter 10 - Lamb in the Thicket
• Chapter 11 - Winter Quarters
• Chapter 12 - From the Elkhorn
• Chapter 13 - Deseret
• Chapter 14 - Wakara, Old Elk & Antongua
• Chapter 15 - Gathered to Zion
• Chapter 16 - A Peculiar People
• Chapter 17 - Epilogue
• Selected Sources
• Illustration Guide and Credits
• Family Charts
  • Borrowman
  • Brooks
  • Bryce
  • Bulloch
  • Caldwell
  • Climie
  • Donald
  • Duncan
  • Findley
  • Forsyth
  • Gardner
  • Hamilton
  • Hill
  • Hood
  • Leckie
  • McIntosh
  • Park
  • Swapp
• Index ( Browse the Index )
  

To the greatest extent possible the author allows those who knew them, and those who traveled with them, to speak in their own voices across the intervening years. Shaw has sought out a multitude of voices, both of the living and of the long gone, and reported on what he found among them.

Review:

For the genealogist there are nearly 50 pages of family charts and a 32 page name index.... In addition to the personal collections of those with a family link, 'A Swarm of Bees: Lanark Society Settlers 1800-1900, A Journey from Scotland to Upper Canada and Utah' should be in every library with a historical collection along the route travelled, from the Ottawa Valley to Utah, and in the Mormon diaspora to places like southern Alberta.  Reviewed by John D. Reid, Canada's Anglo-Celtic Connections, 

Details:

• 433 Pages
  
• 8.5 x 11"
  
• Index
  
• Premium hardcover
  
• Published by Global Heritage Press, Carleton Place, 2018 ISBN 978-1-77240-118-9 (bound)