in 1835. Individual freeholders already owned and farmed nearly 4,000 acres, approximately one quarter of the Island, predominantly, but not restricted to, the First Concession. Mount Cashell's interest in Amherst Island was both profit-oriented and initially humanitarian. He aspired to establish a feudal estate, and reap large returns on his investment by the settlement of the Island with industrious tenants who would continue to clear and cultivate the land, thereby improving its value and providing his heirs with a perpetual rental income. But his vision initially, extended beyond pecuniary ends. Inspired by the evangelical belief in human improvement, he thought that by encouraging emigration from Ireland to Canada he could help solve the overpopulation of his homeland, create a prosperous, loyal farming population in the new world, and strengthen the Empire through a transatlantic grain trade. Mount Cashell became a leading spokesman of these views in North America. Most of the Irish settlers had been small farmers, labourers, sailors, artisans, and the better-off class of labourers from Ards Peninsula Ards, County Down (importantly property not owned by Mount Cashell). Since their homeland was particularly exposed to coastal winds and the absence of water-power, their built environment had been dotted with windmills. Mount Cashell issued the settlers seven-year leases at a nominal rent and requiring them to make certain improvements each year. He erected two piers, to secure and make serviceable two excellent natural harbours; he introduced a clergyman for St James' Anglican Church, for whom he provided a glebe house; he sent out a surgeon, for whom also he built a house; he built a house for an active agent; he built and furnished an excellent general store and a forge. Families from the Ards had begun arriving by the 1820s. Throughout the 1830s and 1840s their numbers swelled as friends and relatives continued to arrive – chain migration. But by the 1860s the movement had subsided. Settlers who arrived in the early years moved straight into leases while those arriving after 1850 often laboured for friends before renting existing leases. By 1841, the community had three schools and a population of over 1,000 people. The majority of families were Presbyterian, followed by Roman Catholics, Church of England, and recent Methodist converts. These Irish immigrants lived in either shanties or one-storey log houses on their leased land, and never achieved purchasing farms from departing, pre-Mount Cashell freeholders. It is impossible