MacLeod's Scottish ancestors emigrated to Cumberland County, Nova Scotia from the Isle of Eigg in the 1790s. They settled at Cape d'Or on the Bay of Fundy where it appears they leased farmland. In 1808, the parents with their seven daughters and two sons walked from Cape d'Or to Inverness County, Cape Breton, a distance of 362 kilometres, after hearing they could become landowners there. An account of the journey, written by MacLeod himself, says the family took their possessions with them, six cows and a horse. He adds there were few roads at the time, so his great-great-great-grandparents followed the shoreline.