John McCrea : Short Biography

John McCrea was born about 1775 in Donegal, Ireland.  He married (Miss) Brock and they had two children, William (about 1791) and Mary (about 1793).  John’s wife died sometime between 1793 and 1800 and he remarried.  With his second wife, Ann Boyd, he had five children Hugh (1801), Thomas (1802), Flora (1806), Ann (1811), Diana (?).

In 1821, William and his wife Jane (Elliott)and their daughter, Susannah (1819) left Donegal and came to New Brunswick.  They sailed from Londonderry to Saint John.

In 1823, John, his wife and five children followed.

In 1829, Mary, William’s sister, her husband, John McCready, and their children, Jane (1820), John (1822) and Ann (1823) followed, crossing the ocean on the ‘Jessie and Flora’.  John McCready’s two bothers, Thomas and Andrew also came to New Brunswick from Donegal.

A Robert Boyd family, from Donegal, arrived in New Brunswick in 1829.  There were a number of marriages between this family and the McCrea family.  Thomas Boyd, a brother to Robert, and his family immigrated from Donegal to New Brunswick about 1837.  Thomas was a school teacher both in Donegal and New Brunswick.  The occupation of the others mentioned was given as farming.

Before William left Donegal in 1821 he got a paper signed by James Nesbitt, Deputy Governor of Donegal and John Crawford, Research Minister.  This attested to William’s good character and stated that he was born and raised in ‘our neighbourhood, Ardara and Killybeggs’.

Although there is information on these families once they arrived in New Brunswick, no records have been found as yet to connect them to Donegal.