Dear Blair - indeed Murdoch MacNeil settled next to Niel(sic) Patterson on Boularderie Island - perhaps as early as 1803 - my information suggests that Niel(or Neil) Patterson(or Paterson) was a son of John Paterson and Margaret MacPhail - John was a son of an earlier John Paterson and Margaret MacKinnon - they lived near where Tobermory would come to be as a village in late 1780s - there is a Donald McDonald who at age 60 in 1824 with five children applied for land next to Neil Patterson (the name is often with two t's here althought he name is found in Mull with only one t more often and sometimes in the Gaelic form McIlpharigor some varietion thereof). The Pattersons and MacDonalds and MacNeils all lived in the one County of Cape Breton during the early 1800s - in 1851, Victoria County came into being - its boundaries sliced down through Boularderie Island with part going to Cape Breton Co. and the more southerly and westerly parts going to Victoria. Boularderie was never part of Inverness County which came itno being ten years earlier than Victoria. Patterson property is divided between Victoria and Cape Breton but the house site is in Cape Breton County. There is a Patterson Rd near the Seal Island Bridge and Pattersons still live on the original grant. The map of a cartographer named Church from the 1880s shows the location of each householder site. It is available through Lands and Forests Provincial Dept in Halifax. But you would probably wish both Vict and C. B. county sections. If you go to the "Automatedgenealogy.com" site you will find both the 1901 and 1911 census. The Nova Scotia Highland Village in Iona Cape Breton(a museum and heritage and cutlrual location - on www- has a data base of nearly 900,000 entries including the 1871 census which is an every name census with ages of all people in a household and their religion and place of birth. They charge a small fee for accessing that information- call Pauline MacLean there at 902-725-2272 or check website for email. As you know Boularderie, named for an early French settler in 1719 is an island in the middle of Cape Breton between Big Bras d'Or and Little Bras d'Or entrances to the lakes. Hope these notes are of some help - I would be interested in your connection and any stories of Mull settlers - this is a very stormy day - snow and rain and wind - the kind of weather which prompted my ancestors who came here to Mull River, Inverness Co., in 1820 to write to their relatives on Mull and encourage them to go to some other places - they went to Australia. Jim St.Clair, Mull River, Nova Scotia