In the year 1834 a large party of Highlanders from Blair-Athol arrived, and finally settled in the township of McNab. They were hardy, healthy, robust and industrious men. They consisted of the McLachlans, the Stewarts, the Fergusons, the Robertsons, and the Duffs. The majority of these families still remain in the township, although some of them, as late as 1849 and 1850, removed to the Huron tract, and remained there. This was a great acquisition to the numerical strength of McNab. Being all located on lands of their own selection, assisted in this choice by others of their countrymen whose long residence had given them experience and knowledge, their location tickets were similar to the last band of settlers, with the exception of a new feature which was introduced into their agreement by the Chief, that "all the pine timber was reserved for the use of the Arnprior mills." Their lands might be slashed, trees might be felled, roads cut through their lots, brush and rubbish and tree-tops accumulated, thus increasing the difficulties of clearing, and no compensation made for anything in the shape of a recompense or remuneration for the greater labor thus imposed, ever offered to them. They were, of course, serfs. They must submit without a murmur to their liege lord, and to those to whom he had partly assigned his rights, or his assumed rights. They did for a time acquiesce, believing that the whole property was McNab's, and that he had the right to dispose of it as he pleased. The question was afterwards tested in the law courts of the country, and there was then discovered by the people that the "Law of Trespass" existed in Canada as well as at home. Matters went on smoothly and tranquilly until the first Monday of January, 1835. Then an event occurred that sent an electric shock through the whole settlement, and the people looked on in consternation and apprehension. The township had by this time been regularly organized. They had come under the jurisdiction of the _quasi_ Municipal Law as then administered by the Quarter Sessions, composed of broken-down gentlemen and half-pay officers from Richmond, March, and Perth. Every half-pay officer was made a justice, and every justice was a Socrates, combining in his person a knowledge both of military and civil law; but in their judicial decisions (and they were sometimes very lucid, especially when good old Jamaica used its influence,) the martial prevailed over the civil. This court, besides taking cognizance of assaults, petty thefts, and misdemeanor, laid out the _statute labor_, expended the taxes, and administered all the internal and municipal concerns of the District. The executive municipal officers were elected by the people at their annual meeting held in January. The officers then chosen were Town-Clerks, Assessors, Collectors, and Pathmasters--all of them under the authority and jurisdiction of their Worships, the military and dilapidated Dogberrys in General Quarter Sessions