The article "Tracing Strays from Maritime Canada,1860-1920," by Robert C. Fisher in Family Chronicle, March/April 2003, Volume 7, Number 4 provides, what I think, is an excellent explanation for the out-migration. A short quote: "Historians blame the emigration on economic failure in the 1860s and 70s which ended Maritime Canada's "golden age of wood, wind and sail". Timber and shipbuilding had made the region one of the world's leading centers of shipping and trade by 1860. But exports to the US fell sharply when demand dried up with the end of the Civil War and the cancellation in 1865 of the Reciprocity Agreement (which allowed free trade between the US and British North America). The collapse of the Maritime economy contrasted with rapid growth in the US, and central and western Canada. The article is not available on-line and you will have to purchase a copy of the magazine or find a copy in a library. While this explanation is general, I think you can find other areas besidesQuincy/Weymouth where clusters of Maritime emmigrants congregated. PS I'm one of many Tracadie-Weymouth descendants.