Appendix 1 Mackie
Extracts from Kilmuir Easter, the History of a Highland Parish - Helen Myers Meldrum (Robert Curruthers and Sons, Inverness 1935). Balintraid was one of the smallest estates within the Kilmuir Parish. In the 16th Century it was part of the estate of Delny (now a farm with one or two crofts i.e. 1935) which held vast tracts of land from Alness River to Tarbat Ness, and also held the patronage of Kilmuir Easter. Earls of Ross formerly resided at Delny Castle - demolished). Until 1838 four markets a year were held in New Tarbat, farm produce and other commodities from the area. Milntown was one of the most important centres of the linen trade in the Highlands. Drainage greatly improved the land when carried on in the 1850's, prior to this the land was unditched, unfenced with no roads other than rough tracks. Gaelic and English were equally spoken to the end of the 19th Century. The three most important estates were Balnagown, Cromartie and Kindeace. Kilmuir Church was first mentioned in 1296. It was rebuilt in 1798. Each parish then had a catechist, appointed by the minister, whose duty was to visit the people, teaching and examining children and adults in the Shorter Catechism. After 1833 the catechist for 40 years was Donald Mackay, following the Disruption, he acted as precenter in the Free Church, he died in 1872. In 1843 the system of patronage caused dissatisfaction and the Disruption took place, when the majority of the clergy and people left the church and formed the Free Church of Scotland. Charles Ross Matheson of Kilmuir Easter remained in the parish and in due course a new building was used on the site of the medieval Chapel of Delny. In 1646 an Act was passed enacting that every parish should provide a schoolhouse and stipend for the master. The parish school of Kilmuir Easter provided instruction in the higher branches of learning, the classics and other advanced subjects were taught there until secondary education was centralised at the end of of the 19th Century. Donald Munro was parish schoolmaster in 1838 (author of the New Statistical Account). His salary was £40 p.a., the salary of the schoolmaster of the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge School was £18 p.a.. Scholars at both schools numbered 160. Instruction was in Gaelic and English. John Forbes was schoolmaster until 1844 when he left to be schoolmaster in Edinburgh. After 1843 the Free Church Education Scheme commenced and in 1865 the three schools had 208 children on the roll, out of a total of 613 children between 3-15. Charles Matheson was minister of the Free Church at Delny until 1843, succeeded in 1843-1851 by Daniel MacBride, then by William Macpherson, who died in 1866, the same year as Matheson died. In circa 1715 the Society for Propagating Christian Knowledge became active. A school was established at Balintraid where there were 70 families, the teacher being peripatetic to other parts of the parish. Conditions for the teacher were very poor and they were often poorly qualified. Later a church was established at Kindeace. In the upper part of the parish, later in 1775 to Calrichie, there were 43 scholars in 1783. In 1793 the two churches in Kilmuir had 120 pupils. In Kilmuir in 1825, school fees were £14.1.6. Subjects were: Book-keeping 7/6 per quarter Latin 4/- per quarter Arithmetic 2/6 Writing 2/- English Grammar 3/- Reading 1/6 Teaching was in Gaelic and English. Donald Munro was schoolmaster and George Ross taught at Calrichie until 1822. There was also a school for daughters and employees on Balnagown Estate, carried on in an estate cottage, it closed shortly after the Education Act of 1872. The last teacher was Mrs Watson, a widow, who started a small school in Balintraid, she later went to a school at Caputh, Perthshire and married Alex. Wills, later clerk to Kilmuir Easter School Board and inspector of the poor for Invergordon. In 1844 the parish schoolmaster was John Mitchell, a graduate from Invergordon and he remained at the school for 25 years and in 1869, aged 50, retired to Edinburgh. In 1846 the pupil-teacher system started to provide assistance from the most intelligent pupils to over-worked schoolmasters, and to ensure a supply of students for the colleges for teacher training, which had started in 1841 in Edinburgh and Glasgow. Their salary was £10 p.a. for all three years of apprenticeship. Until the new school was built in 1876 the schoolmaster's house was the school (cottages still existing in Kilmuir Easter 1991). In 1869, Thos. Guthrie Meldrum was appointed schoolmaster and started an evening school during winter months which continued for many years, average attendance was 40 and there were no fees. Social Conditions Oxen were used for farm work in Kilmuir with harnesses home-made from straw or rush ropes. This continued well into the 19th Century. Only enough wheat was grown for the parish, small surplus of oats and oatmeal were sent to market and 2/3 of the barley was distilled. Potatoes were grown, but no regular crop rotation. Much of the parish was bog or marshland until slowly reclaimed. From the 18th Century people were cleared off small crofts to join them together into larger estates, tenants had to leave their lands and settle on waste ground. Rents were often raised astronomically as a way to clear people off small crofts. In Kilmuir Easter, land near the shore was most valuable, rented usually at 20/- per acre. By the early 19th Century land drainage was undertaken extensively, through loans from Government. Thomas Ogilvy of Carrymore was granted £802 (total cost £2000) to drain Wester Pollo and Balintraid. Trees were extensively planted. Farming methods of the South effected improvements. Horses began to substitute for oxen to draw ploughs etc., also crop rotation. In 1840 Alex Matheson of Lochalsh acquired property in E. Ross: he was very wealthy and drained the area of swampy land on the Estate of Delny in 1868. Outfall for the water was a large drain at Balintraid farmhouse: about 800 acres drained. In 1800 ploughmen and carters earned on average £2.10 to £6 p.a., labourers were paid 6d or 9d per day, no food provided. Out servants received £3 p.a., a piece of arable land rent free, six bolls of meal, free house and garden and peats worth £12 p.a.. In 1838 farm servants living on a farm had an income, including everything, of between £18 and £20 p.a., plus a home. Hours of labour were 6am to 6pm. Fishing augmented the plain diet sometimes, but the Herring had left the Cromarty Firth a long time ago, by 1838 fishing was almost abandoned at Portleich. Population came to depend on the fishers of Fearn and Nigg who came to Kilmuir by train to sell their catch. Other industries were lime making and the linen trade. In 1793 there were "30 tippling houses" and one "principal inn" in Kilmuir parish; by 1838 there were only "2 inns and 4 public houses". One inn was at Balintraid pier. At the beginning of the 19th Century the only proper road in the Highlands was the one that ran along the east coast to Wick, going by Beauly, Dingwall and Tain. It passed through Kilmuir along the shore of the Cromarty Firth, through the village of Milntown into the parish of Logie Easter and further north. It was probably constructed in 1766. The first carrier going beyond Dingwall to Tain was in 1808. In 1809 there was a Diligence running from Inverness to Tain, in 1819 a coach started from Inverness at 6am, arriving at Wick at 7.30 am the following day and Thurso four hours later. It passed through Kilmuir by the shore road and the parish post office was at Milntown. In 1839 a steamship began to trade in the Moray Firth, between Leith, Inverness and Invergordon later there were two sailing from Invergordon once a week. Balintraid pier was of considerable importance. It served not only Kilmuir Easter but also most of Easter Ross for the importation of coal, lime, timber and general merchandise. The chief exports were firewood for the pits and railways of the South, and grain. The pier was built at about the beginning of the 19th Century by Kenneth Macleay, proprietor of Pollo and Balintraid. It has now (1991) fallen into disrepair. In 1862 the Highland Railway reached Invergordon, in 1864 it was extended through Kilmuir parish to Tain, then to Bonar Bridge. Lairds and their Lands Prominent families are Rosses, Munros, Mackenzies and Robertsons. The castle of Delny (long since demolished) was a principal residence of the Earls of Ross. William, the 5th Earl was first laird of Balnagown and died at Delny in 1369, the title has been long extinct. In 1586 James VI granted to William Keith, his master of the wardrobe, lands in Kilmuir Easter parish, including Delny, Badebaa and Balintraid - for the latter "40/-, 9/- of bondage silver, one poultry and 40/- gressum, with the usual services". William Keith was noted for the part he played for James VI in the negotiations with Queen Elizabeth regarding his mother, Mary, Queen of Scots. Keith died in 1601 and in 1608 the Barony of Delny and associated patronages were acquired by Lord Balmerino. After a dispute over the barony in 1631 it was conveyed to Sir Robert Innes, who, in 1656 made them over to Sir George Mackenzie, the first Earl of Cromartie. Early in the 17th Century the lands of Delny, within the parish became the property of the Baynes of Tulloch (near Dingwall). In 1682 John Baynewas proprietor and in 1742 the family was still in possession. In 1786 the Trustees of Sir John Gordon of Invergordon obtained the lands. Later the Macleods of Cadboll became the owners and in 1841 James Balfour of Whittinghame held the lands as security for a loan of £8000 to Robert Macleod of Cadboll and Roderick Macleod, younger of Cadboll. They were purchased in 1861 from them by Alex Matheson of Ardross. Fifty years later Delny was sold to Thomas Urquhart. Then it went to his nephew, who died in 1933. Pre World War II the farm of Delny belonged to Charles Mundell. The bordering Estate of Kindeace was owned by Rosses and Robertsons. In 1590 Balintraid belonged to William Ross of Priesthill, a small estate adjacent to Kindeace. In 1765 Sir John Gordon owned priest hill, later it reverted to the Cromartie Estate. The small estate of Pollo and Balintraid in 1786 is registered by William Ross Munro of Newmore as heir to Mary Munro, "in the lands of Wester Pollo, Balintraid and mill in the parish of Kilmuir Easter". In 1804 David Munro succeeded William Ross Munro in the lands of Wester Ross and Balintraid. In the same year they passed to Charles Ross, advocate, then in 1807 to Kenneth Macleary of Newmore formerly of Barbadoes. In 1843 Francis MacKenzie Gillanders had the estate with consent of the heir of Kenneth MacLeay, son and heir. In 1853 Thomas Ogilvie, merchant of Liverpool purchased these lands from Gillanders for £4000, the debt not being discharged until 1856. Alex Matheson became proprietor in 1861, adding them to his other possessions in Easter Ross. Later the property of Balintraid was purchased from Matheson by Cran, of Invergordan Bone Mills, and later sold by him to John MacDonald Cameron at one time MP for the Northern Burghs. Pre World War II it belonged to his grandson, who lived in Australia, the tenant being Ian Forsyth whose father, John Forsyth, was factor for Balragown for many years. In contrast to the changes of ownership which these smaller properties underwent through the centuries, the lands of Balnagown and the Cromartie Estate have remained in the possession of one or two families for centuries. The Estate of Cromartie comprised Tarbat, Polnicol Farm, Kildary Farm and the village of Milntown in Kilmuir Easter as well as lands in Wester Ross. The castle of Milntown and estate later known as New Tarbat were held by Munros, later at the close of the 16th Century they were given the lands of Newmore. George VI of Milntown is credited with building the tower and belfry of Kilmuir Easter church, with its inscription: Beigit 1616. In 1621 he was MP for Inverness-shire, which then included Ross, Sutherland and Caithness. The property was sold to Sir George Mackenzie in 1656, Andrew Munro having been killed at the Battle of Kilsyth in 1645. The name was then changed from Milntown to New Tarbat from Sir George's judiciary title as Lord of Session, which was Lord Tarbat. The name Milntown applies only to the village on the estate known as Milton. Sir George's son, George, in 1654 succeeded to the title and estates, he was a distinguished scholar and one of the earliest members of the Royal Society. He and his father were both Royalists and at the Restoration in 1661 he became one of the Lords of Sessions and Lord Tarbat. In 1678 he became Lord Justice General of Scotland. He later became advisor to King William following 1688, and later as secretary to Queen Anne he was given the title of Earl of Cromartie. He died in 1714 and was succeeded by his son John who had the courtesy Title of Lord Macleod from his great grandmother who was heiress of Lewis. Due to debts, the estate was sequestered in 1724. His heir was born in 1702 and George, in 1745, joined Prince Charles Edward at Perth with about 400 men and remained an ardent supporter. He was captured at Dunrobin and taken from Inverness to London two days after the Battle of Culloden. He was sentenced to death and his estate forfeited, but his wife won support at Court and he was released in 1748 from imprisonment, with a pardon. He was reduced to extreme poverty and died in 1766. His son, Lord Macleod, had also suffered in the Stuart cause and was released in 1748 on condition that all estates and rights were forfeit to the Crown. He went to Sweden where he rose to high rank in the army. In 1777 he returned to England and petitioned for the restoration of his estates and offered to raise a Highland Regiment for the Government. This became known as 1st Battalion Highland Light Infantry. In 1780 he was elected MP for Ross-shire. In 1783 the family estates were restored, but not the title Earl of Cromartie. In 1787 he took up residence at New Tarbat which he rebuilt. He had the patronage of Kilmuir Easter church. He died in 1789 and was succeeded by his cousin Kenneth Mackenzie. Several heiresses in turn inherited the estate and in 1849 John Hay Mackenzie's daughter Anne succeeded and married the Marquis of Stafford, who became Duke of Sutherland in 1861. She was a close friend to Queen Victoria who revived the old titles in her favour in 1861. The estate of Balnagowan was the largest of the Ross-shire holdings, held by the Earls of Ross, the first Laird of Balnagowan was Hugh Ross in 1368. In the 14th Century the Rosses were the most powerful clan in Scotland and after the death of the last Earl of Ross, the Lairds of Balnagowan became chiefs of the clan. Balnagowan Castle dates back to the 15th Century. Rosses during the following century were a wild lot and in 1590 Katherine Ross, wife of Robert Munro, was tried and acquitted of witchcraft in Edinburgh. The estate was heavily encumbered by debt during the 17th Century. In 1651 David Ross fought for the Royalist cause at Worcester where he was taken prisoner and died in the Tower in 1653. Troops were quartered on the Balnagewan estate for default of tax paying. David the 13th Laird was born in 1644 and was 13 when he inherited. He had no legitimate children, supported the Loyalist cause and was appointed Governor of Inverness in 1689. He largely rebuilt Balnagowan Castle. On his death in 1711, General Charles Ross became Laird, he died childless in 1732, when his grandnephew, the Honourable Charles Ross, inherited. He was killed at the Battle of Fontenoy in 1745, his father, then his brother, in 1754, succeeded him. He died unmarried in 1760. The estate then eventually passed to his cousin Sir John Ross Lockhart. He studied the latest methods in agriculture and, in 1763, brought in an English farm manager to Balnagowan so that in 25 years Balnagowan became one of the best estates in the North of Scotland. He pioneered sheep farming in the North and there was tremendous opposition from the people of his estate who were driven off their holdings, also from farmers. (See "The Highland Clearances" by John Prebble). He was a naval commander and Vice Admiral, also MP for the County. His son Charles Ross succeeded him and died in 1814, his widow Lady Mary, who was very interested in education who set up the school for girls on the estate. Their descendant, Sir Charles, married an American and made his home in America. In 1935 the Castle was deserted. Appendix 2 Mackie In 1996 I engaged an Edinburgh genealogist to look at the Old Parish Registers for Auldearn and Nairn. With the detailed information and photocopy of an 1830 map of Nairn and the help of present day Ordnance Survey maps, I have just spent 3 days at Auldearn and then at Saltburn near Balintraid. This yielded a fascinating insight into places associated with the Mackies and Watsons. I was able to stay at Brightmony, now a Bed and Breakfast, which was where Janet Clarke lived, when a witness at James Mackie's baptism on 12.6.1785. It is situated 2 miles from Nairn, with fine views over rolling farmlands to the Moray Firth. It is a handsome pink granite Georgian farmhouse, owned by Brodie of Lethen: according to G. Bain's History of Nainshire "...Thomas Brodie in 1732 gave up Lethen to his eldest son Alexander and built a house at Brightmony where he and his wife Sophia Campbell spent their remaining years." From Brightmony there is a path through the barley fields which leads to Garblies, where Ann Clark lived. Was Janet Clark perhaps the grandmother of James, since his mother had the same name; Ann Clark may have been an aunt. In the churchyard at Auldearn I found a large headstone, the grave of James Clark of Blackhill - a farm which is walking distance from Brightmony and Garblies. He died 21.7.1865 aged 94 - he must surely have been a relative. His wife and children and 2 grandchildren share the same grave. St. Colum's Church Auldearn was rebuilt in 1757, but has a much older choir, now a ruin. The Minister Thomas Gordon, who rebuilt the church, was at Auldearn 46 years. He died in 1793, succeeded by John Paterson: thus covering both James Mackie's and Isabella Watson's baptisms and marriage. I was shown the interior of the church by the present minister's wife: it was very plain with a deep upstairs gallery. The graveyard is all around on the steep hill on which the church was built. Many of the stones are very small and unmarked, except sometimes with initials, that finding anything significant would be impossible. The only Mackie still living in Auldearn is the retired blacksmith and he came from Aberdeenshire. Hillend, the farm, where the Mackies were in 1785 no longer exists unfortunately. As James was not the eldest son and heir, this explains why he moved over to Easter Ross. Isabella was born at Inshoch and when I went there the Family Myth became clear! A small farmhouse and cottage and a ruined castle came into view on a raised mound up a track off the road. Inshoch means "island field". The following description of the old tower house comes from G. Bain's History of Nairnshire: "The Hay's had Inshoch now possessed by Brodie of Brodie .... The castle had its entrance on the ground floor, and a narrow staircase in one of the towers led to the hall on the first floor. On the landing of the stair adjoining the hall, a stone basin in a pretty little Gothic arch was provided for washing hands, with a drain for carrying off the water. The hall itself was a handsome well lighted apartment 30' x 17' with plastered walls, a large fireplace with moulded gambs, above which is a shield displaying the bearings of the Hays of Lochlay - the insignia that had floated on many a field of battle. The oldest part of the building shows a simple keep with round towers placed diagonally so as to command the four sides of the main building, and turrets in the angles ... The ground floor was vaulted throughout and contained a kitchen with a very large fireplace and numerous cellars. Except the kitchen window, the basement was lighted with narrow loops. A stone sink is fitted into the kitchen window, connected by a drain to the outside. In the larger turret to the South West there is a pretty little private room, commanding a charming view and provided with stone seats... The ruins are in a very dilapidated state, and a considerable portion fell in the great storm of 1879 ... The family rapidly declined in the mid 17th Century and the lands are now possessed by Brodie of Brodie". In 1996 the owner is J. Campbell of Penick who invited me to visit Penick where he lives, a large arable farm. He would love to restore the castle - but the cost quoted is £500,000! Penick does not seem to be an old house now, obviously rebuilt since John Mackie lived there in 1785. So Isabella lived at Inshoch with her brother and two sisters, her master mason father Daniel Watson and mother Mary Carmichael. The children must have played in the Castle ruin, which was finally deserted in the late 18th Century, so near to the house. I don't think the house which is now there, is old enough for them to have lived in, though the cottage would have been there. When Isabella married James in 1818 she was living at Cothill, which is near Brodie Castle and the Culbin Forest. I visited Cothill, now owned by Mr and Mrs James from Kent, who were very kind a gave me photographs of Cothill. It is a very pretty house in a beautiful garden: there used to be steadings, but it is not a farmhouse. I felt the house could have been there in 1819 and wonder whether Daniel Watson might even have built it. At Blair Castle I asked Brodie of Brodie where the deeds and rent accounts for Cothill are: he didn't know their whereabouts since the National Trust took over. However, I am researching this. In Auldearn there is a famous Doocot on a steep mound, where a 12th Century keep was built by an Earl of Earen. So, Isabella, who married beneath her and unhappily, must have told her children storied about this Earl of Earen and about the castle where she played in her childhood. The aristocratic families at Brodie Castle and the Dunbars at Boath would be visible evidence of an envied way of life. So I believe that is the explanation of the Family Myth! The name Auldearn is the corruption of Old Earen, the original name of the keep. On this same visit in 1996, I spent a night and a day on the Cromartie Firth. I stayed in a bed and breakfast at Saltburn, which is between Invergordon and Balintraid. This was where Isabella Watson died in 1879, at the house of her daughter, Mary Deas. Saltburn was much smaller then and apparently consisted of small cottages with crofts at the back, grass patches on the opposite side of the road for drying nets. The economy was a mixed one of fishing and small holdings. The old cottages have been mainly replaced, the crofts built on, the grass patches are gardens - though I took a photo of a net drying! I visited Balintraid again: the hippies have moved on and there are new tenants; a psychoanalyst, his wife and two small children living there now. The wife is Australian and she invited me in for a cup of tea and was fascinated by what I had to tell her about the old days. I was in the Victorian part of the handsome house, but I am researching the date of the building. A dilapidated house in the grounds was where shepherds lived and the row of cottages are probably more recent than 1852-1855 when the Mackies must have left Balintraid. I took photographs at the pier and the house there that was probably the inn when James was inn-keeper. I drove along to Arabella and out to Fearn, the old house at Fearn is old, there are old cottages too - probably where the Mackies lived when Mary was born in 1821. They are beside the interesting Abbey of Fearn, which dates back to the 5th Century and St. Ninian's Missions to the East Coast of Pictland in 400 - 432 AD. The land there is fertile, which would have attracted premonstratensian Canons in 1338, when it was rebuilt and completed in 1372. I visited Delny House, now a Bed and Breakfast, which was the farm for Delny Castle, but has disappeared. I wonder whether the Free Church Chapel had been there after the Disruption in 1843. There was a medieval chapel and burial ground (within what has been a walled garden) and I was shown part of a barn which had been the blacksmith's shop; this may have been the old chapel. Delny is in high ground above Balintraid. The outlines of landscape and coast must be as they were, but the whole economy of these places would be unrecognisable to the Mackies. In his wonderful book, the Highland Clearances, John Prebble describes those desperate times and mentions the food riots at Balintraid pier when starving families, cleared from the glens of Easter Ross, swelled the numbers of those trying to eke a living on the coast. Trying to picture the past in Nairnshire and Easter Ross is still possible in a way which it is not when I look in and around London for the Cotterills and Farinas, because of wartime bombing and replanning. So much there is changed irrevocably and on a massive scale.
The 71st was originally raised in 1777 as the 73rd Highland Regiment (Macleod's Highlanders) by John Mackenzie, commonly called John, Lord Macleod. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London for taking part in the Jacobite Rising of 1745, but was released on account of his youth and went to Sweden where he rose to the rank of General in the Swedish Army. On the outbreak of the American War of Independence he returned home and was granted permission by King George III to raise a regiment. The regiment wore a kilt of the military or 42nd pattern with buff and white lines and feathered bonnet with red and white hackle. In 1786 the title was changed to the 71st, in 1809 to the 71st Glasgow Highland Light Infantry and in 1881 to the 1st Battalion Highland Light Infantry. |
