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Electric Scotland News
Crawford Family Convention
Take note that a Crawford Family Convention is scheduled to be held on Saturday May 7th 2016 at the George Hotel, 19-21 George Street, Edinburgh EH2 2PB for the purpose of electing a person to be appointed by the Lord Lyon as Clan Commander of the Crawford Family, as the first step towards the appointment of a Clan Chief.
The Convention will be held under the supervision of Mrs. Yvonne Holton, Dingwall Pursuivant, representative of Lord Lyon.
Membership of the Convention will be restricted to members of the Crawford family or those with a significant connection to the family. Invitations to the Convention have been sent out to a number of members of the Crawford family.
In the absence of an invitation, applications for membership of the Convention should be made to the Vice-President of the Clan Crawford Association, Dr. Joanne Crawford (jcrawfordphd@sbcglobal.net) by March 7th 2016. Late applications may be accepted at the discretion of the Vice-President.
Joanne Crawford
C. Joanne Crawford, Ph.D.
Vice-President
Clan Crawford Association
7 Commodore Drive A357
Emeryville, CA 94608
Phone: (510) 295-8377
jcrawfordphd@sbcglobal.net
Update from the Scottish Studies Foundation of Toronto
Friday September 4
The 2015-2016 season of the Scottish Studies "Oor Club" gets underway at noon on Friday, September 4 when Scottish Studies Foundation Director David Hunter will give a talk entitled The Secret Songs of Lady Nairne. David will provide background information which he hopes will provide an insight into how the songs written by a woman whose name is all but forgotten came about. These include “Charlie is my Darling”, “The Rowan Tree”, “Will ye no come back again?" and many more. The get-together begins at 11.30am and usually ends by 2pm.
Cost of admission is $5.00. Why don't you come along and enjoy a pub lunch and mix and mingle with friendly Scottish people. You do not have to be Scottish to attend as everyone is welcome. For more information please contact Pearl Grieve-Nixon, 416-926-7233 or Mary Vigrow, 416-485-4853 (email: mvigrow@rogers.com).
Sunday September 6
Toronto's Harbourfront is looking truly magnificent after several years of PanAm games construction work so it's a great time for you and your family and friends to join us on our 24th Annual Tall Ship Cruise on Sunday, September 6 aboard Canada's largest sailing ship, the Empire Sandy. We have arranged to give you a taste of the Scots experience with Peter Campbell on the pipes and are also delighted to have Kent Tocher entertain us on board the ship. Kent can best be described as a "one man band" who sings, plays the keyboard, guitar, saxophone, clarinet and harmonica, and is sure to have everyone up singing and dancing. So you don't have be Scottish to enjoy the event, as it is sure to appeal to all and will be a day to remember.
There will be two cruises: the morning cruise boards at 11:00 a.m., the afternoon cruise boards at 2:00 p.m. Join in the fun and help keep the Scottish pioneering spirit alive! Details here:http://www.scottishstudies.com/940empiresandy2015.htm
Thursday, September 24
You are invited to attend the launch of the University of Guelph's Rural Diary Archive website on Thursday, September 24 in the U of G's McLaughlin Library from 2:30pm to 5:30pm. The Rural Diary Archive will showcase over 130 diarists from across Ontario and will be available online after the launch. It will broadcast the availability of diaries in archives across the province and makes these hand-written and fading sources accessible to all. The full text of the diaries of nineteen men and women will be available to read, search and transcribe and more will be added as new collections are located. Details here:
https://ruraldiaries.lib.uoguelph.ca/
Saturday, September 26
The Scottish Studies Annual Fall Colloquium will take place from 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, September 26, 2015 in the Robert Whitelaw Room, University of Guelph Library (registration at 9:30 a.m.). Details here:
http://www.scottishstudies.com/520fa...oquium2015.htm
Electric Canadian
Reminiscences of a Canadian Pioneer for the last Fifty Years
Continuing to add more chapters to this book.
We are now up to Chapter LVII.
In Chapter LVI we read...
The summer of 1870 will be long remembered as the year of the Ottawa fires, which severely tried the strength of the Beaver Company. On the 17th August in that year, a storm of wind from the south-west fanned into flames the expiring embers of bush-fires and burning log-heaps, throughout the Counties of Lanark, Renfrew, Carleton and Ottawa, bordering on the Ottawa River between Upper and Lower Canada. No rain had fallen there for months previously, and the fields were parched to such a degree as seemingly to fill the air with inflammable gaseous exhalations, and to render buildings, fences, trees and pastures so dry, that the slightest spark would set them in a blaze. Such was the condition of the Townships of Fitzroy, Huntley, Goulburn, March, Nepean, Gloucester, and Hull, when the storm swept over them, and in the brief space of four hours left them a blackened desert, with here and there a dwelling-house or barn saved, but everything else--dwellings, out-buildings, fences, bridges, crops, meadows--nay, even horses, horned cattle, sheep, pigs, poultry, all kinds of domestic and wild animals, and most deplorable of all, twelve human beings--involved in one common destruction. Those farmers who escaped with their lives did so with extreme difficulty, in many cases only by driving their waggons laden with their wives and children into the middle of the Ottawa or some smaller stream, where the poor creatures had to remain all night, their flesh blistered with the heat, and their clothing consumed on their bodies.
You can read the new chapters at http://www.electriccanadian.com/pion...pson/index.htm
Enigma Machine
The whole collection can be found at: http://www.electriccanadian.com/lifestyle/enigma. We've now completed the final puzzle 114 in this series so hope you enjoyed them.
And I spoke too soon... Hugh has added puzzle 115 and tells me that John Lang is going to add a few of his puzzles after this one. And this being the case any of you out there can add your own puzzles if you are interested.
A Maple Leaf and Other Sketches
By Rev. C. T. Phillips, D. D.
Here is the Introduction written by Prof. W. C. Kierstead, M.A., Ph.D.
This little volume is a compilation of articles which, in the form of letters or sermonettes, appeared in the "Religious Intelligencer" or in the daily press of the city of St. John. They were written at odd moments and often very hastily, as a diversion and partial recreation from a busy ministry, and they lack the continuity and, at times, the finish one would expect in material prepared with the intention of publication in permanent form. But they will be welcomed and treasured very highly by those whose rare privilege it was to share his friendship and fellowship, and by the large number of people throughout this province who have been benefited and blessed through his ministry. And there is a charm about them that will appeal to a wider circle of readers. They manifest an insight into life, they betray a fineness of feeling, they breathe a wholesome spirit of helpfulness, and appeal to the higher sentiments of brotherly love and duty, of religious hope and trust. There is a quaintness of expression that attracts us, and an artistic blending of the finer feelings with the lighter veins of wit and humor which gives a pleasing emotional variety and amuses and entertams as it inspires and instructs.
The intimate friends of Dr. Phillips will detect in these selections a dominant note of his ministry, and elements which were essential m his own temperament and character. He was a man of deep, broad sympathies, and his entire life was a ministry of unselfish helpfulness. He was genuinely and intensely human, findmg humanity within himself, able to sound the whole gamut of human emotions and needs, sharing the aspirations and ideals of the heroic and prophetic, and yet feeling with keenness the impulses, temptations, conflicts, ambitions, weaknesses and sins of men. It was this fine insight of real sympathy and its interpretation of life that gave his ministry its moving, persuasive power. He would often describe and interpret the inner conflicts of his hearers with such vividness and accuracy that many would go away confident that some one had disclosed to him the history of their private lives.
But this sympathetic unity with men, so essential to true success in the Christian ministry, is, at the same time, very enervating and exhausting. He was a true disciple of the Master, and, like Him, he knew what it was to have the energies of life flow out of him to give vitality to others. His relation to his people was not a mere professional one, but the ties that united them were intimate and vital, and developed into exalted and sacred friendships. And his interests and sympathies were too human and too fundamental to be bounded by his congregation or limited by his denomination. His parish was the community, and his ministry was to human need. He fed and clothed the poor, he visited the sick, comforted the sorrowing and mourning, gave courage and hope to the dying, brought penitence to the sinful, and revealed the Christ to all. He won men by his message and found them by his ministry because he linked his life with their lives and divided their burdens with them.
It is no wonder that with this constant drain upon his sympathies and energies he suffered at times physical weariness and mental and emotional exhaustion. There was, however, another prominent element in his temperament that gave partial relief from this strain, and that was the saving grace of wit and humor. He was able to see the humorous side of every situation. He saw the sombre side of life and it made a mighty appeal to him, but he felt, as well, the sunshine of its humor. He felt the comedy as well as the tragedy of life; and what he saw for himself he was able to communicate to others. It was just such a blending of sympathy and humor that enabled Abraham Lincoln to bear the terrible burden which the nation rolled upon him. Such a man was Dr. Phillips; he ranged through the fields of literature and history and appreciated the heroic, the beautiful, the ideal. He had the appreciations and tastes of the man of culture. But he appreciated also the men and women among whom he lived and with whom he toiled and labored. He saw the divine in the human, the sacred in the commonplace, and the heroic and beautiful in everyday life and conduct. He was incapable of envy or jealousy, of littleness and pettiness. He rejoiced with those who did rejoice as truly as he wept with the weeping. But along with this divine quality of sympathy went a keen sense of humor, the rare faculty to enjoy the comedy of things. He laughed at the absurdity, the pretention, the ridiculous role of sin even when it seemed triumphant. And in the service of his wit went a keen satire and fine irony. He did not denounce o. drive; there was no harshness in his message; it was tender, suggestive, sympathetic, wooing,—inspiring and winning men; and it was humorous, touched with satire, pricking with irony at times. He would laugh us out of our littleness, he would point the shaft of ridicule at our meanness until we became ashamed of it, and would inspire us with ideals of nobility and truth.
These selections carry to a degree the charm of his personality and the attractiveness of his ministry. We catch the fragrance of his sympathy and spirit of helpfulness; we feel the prick of his irony, the keen edge of his satire against our folly and weakness; but he appeals to the highest within us, or he ludicrously caricatures our meanness, because he loves us and means to help us. This little volume may win new friends for its author, but it will be cherished by many more because of their affection for him; and his abiding memorial is in the hearts and lives of many who have been ennobled by his friendship and sanctified by his ministry.
You can download this book at: http://www.electriccanadian.com/life...apleleaf01.pdf
Electric Scotland
Beth's Newfangled Family Tree
Got in Section 1 of the September 2015 issue which you can read in pdf format at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/bnft...TSept2015a.pdf
I particularly liked one of the stories this week and here it is for you to read here...
A true story, by Malcolm Forbes
A lady in a faded gingham dress and her husband, dressed in a homespun threadbare suit, stepped of the train in Boston and walked timidly without an appointment into the Harvard University President's outer office.
The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods, country hicks had no business at Harvard, & probably didn't even deserve to be in Cambridge.
'We'd like to see the president,' the man said softly.
'He'll be busy all day,' the secretary snapped.
'We'll wait,' the lady replied.
For hours the secretary ignored them, hoping that the couple would finally become discouraged and go away.
They didn't, and the secretary grew frustrated and finally decided to disturb the president, even though it was a chore she always regretted.
'Maybe if you see them for a few minutes, they'll leave,' she said to him!
He sighed in exasperation and nodded. Someone of his importance obviously didn't have the time to spend with them, and he detested gingham dresses and homespun suits cluttering up his outer office. The president, stern faced and with dignity, strutted toward the couple.
The lady told him, 'We had a son who attended Harvard for one year. He loved Harvard. He was happy here. But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. My husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him, somewhere on campus.'
The president wasn't touched. He was shocked. 'Madam,' he said, gruffly, 'we can't put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery.'
'Oh, no,' the lady explained quickly. 'We don't want to erect a statue. We thought we would like to give a building to Harvard.'
The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham dress and homespun suit, then exclaimed, 'A building! Do you have any earthly idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical buildings here at Harvard.'
For a moment the lady was silent. The president was pleased. Maybe he could get rid of them now. The lady turned to her husband and said quietly, 'Is that all it cost to start a university? Why don't we just start our own?'
Her husband nodded. The president's face wilted in confusion and bewilderment.
Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford got up and walked away, traveling to Palo Alto, California where they established the university that bears their name, Stanford University, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.
You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who they think can do nothing for them.
Sent to me by dear old friend, Admiral Piper.
Robert Burns Lives!
Edited by Frank Shaw
Our chapter this week is John Anderson My Jo, John by Frank Shaw.
This is another look at one of my favorite songs of Robert Burns. It is named John Anderson My Jo and was originally a honky-tonk song, sung in bar rooms or houses of ill-repute, many times by the coarse voice of a bar maid, to the enthusiastic crowd imbibing the whisky of the establishment, and thus it became a favorite drinking man’s song. The song was reworked or reworded by Burns who changed it from a drinking man’s song to that of a couple married early in life and now facing the last years of their lives.
You can read this article at: http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...s_lives221.htm
Geographical Collections Relating to Scotland
Made by Walter MacFarlane in 3 volumes.
The parts of the Macfarlane Collection of Manuscripts relating to Scotland that I now edit are usually called topographical, but Macfarlane himself called them geographical, and their character may be regarded as justifying Macfarlane’^ designation. The Accounts of the parishes and districts of Scotland, as given in this volume of the Manuscript, are to an unusual extent of such a nature as to yield material for the compilation of maps, and they differ in this respect from ordinary topographical accounts, which are more concerned with descriptions of special places or objects than with the relation of these to each other in respect of distance or direction by the compass. Indeed, it is rare to find Accounts of localities which are made so much as these are from a geographer’s point of view. They sometimes consist almost entirely of statements of the distances of places from each other to the north, south, east, or west. The bendings of a stream are often given with the length of the bend in this or that direction, and with the distance of the change in its course from towns, villages, churches, residences or hills.
Though this may be regarded as a distinguishing feature of the Accounts in this Collection, especially, perhaps, of those in the first volume, they also contain much ordinary topographical description. For example, when a residence is mentioned we may learn who owned it and whether it was in a state of ruin or the reverse, and when a village or town is mentioned we may be told of the names and times of markets held there, whether it did or did not contain a tolbooth, and whether its church was slated or thatched.
It may be an advantage to repeat here the short biographical notices of Macfarlane that Mr. Clark gave in the Genealogical Collections. The first notice of him is taken from The Chiefs of Colquhoun and their Country, vol. ii. pp. 99-100, by Sir William Fraser, K.C.B., and is as follows: —
Walter Macfarlane, one of the most laborious and accurate antiquaries of his age, was the son and successor of this John by his wife Helen, daughter of Robert, second Viscount of Arbuthnot. He transcribed with his own hand many old cartularies and muniments deposited in private charter-chests. He was very liberal in allowing access to his valuable collections and transcripts, which are still consulted and often quoted by authors, being regarded as of high authority. To his industry we owe the existence of the Levenax Cartulary, the original of which is now lost. He married Lady Elizabeth Erskine, daughter of Alexander, sixth Earl of Kellie. Little is known of his history, which appears to have been chiefly that of a student, without any remarkable incidents to record. In Anderson's Diplomata Scotice, published at Edinburgh in the year 1739, the learned editors, Mr. Anderson and Mr. Thomas Ruddiman, in an acknowledgment of their obligations to those who contributed the original charters engraved in that great work, notice in favourable terms the assistance given them by the Laird of Macfarlane: “In this list of most noble and most eminent men deserves in particular to be inscribed by us a most accomplished young man, Walter Macfarlane of that ilk, Chief of the Macfarlanes, one of the most ancient of the clans, who, as he is conspicuous for the utmost urbanity, and for his acquaintance with all the more elegant, and especially the antiquarian departments of literature, most readily devoted much labour and industry in explaining to us the names of men and places.” The eulogium pronounced upon him by Smollett is elsewhere quoted. He died, without issue, at his town house in the Canongate of Edinburgh, on 5th June 1767. After his death his valuable collections were purchased by the Faculty of Advocates, Edinburgh. His portrait, an excellent original painting, which exhibits a remarkably intelligent, manly, and open countenance, occupies a place on the walls of the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, to whom it was gifted in 1786 by his nephew, Walter Macfarlane. This portrait was engraved for the late Mr. W. B. D. D. Turnbull, for the purpose of being introduced into his “Monasticon of Scotland,” a work which was never completed.’
The next notice is from the Cash Book of the late William Macfarlane of Portsburgh, W.S., who died 13th July, 1831, and it runs as follows, under date 1785:—
Walter Macfarlane of Macfarlane, (20th) of Arrochar, was the second but eldest surviving son of John Macfarlane (19th) of Arrochar and Lady Helen, daughter of the 2nd Viscount Arbuthnot. He succeeded his father 13th May 1705. He married, 21st April 1760, Lady Elizabeth Erskine, daughter of Alexander, Earl of Kelly, by whom he had no issue. He died in his house in the Canongate, Edinburgh, on the 5th, and was buried in the Grayfriars, Edinburgh, betwixt the two west pillars of the New Kirk, on the 8th of June 1767. He was succeeded by his brother, Dr. William Macfarlane, as 21st of Arrochar, who sold the estate in March 1784 after having been five hundred and fifty-nine years in the family.
The Collection of Manuscripts formed by Macfarlane was purchased by the Faculty of Advocates in 1785 from his niece, Miss Janet Macfarlane, for the sum of J?21. It consists of:—
1. The Genealogical Collections. 2 vols. These have been printed by the Scottish History Society — Mr. J. T. Clark being the editor.
2. The Geographical Collections. 3 volumes, of which this is the first.
3. Collections Relative to Several Scottish Families. 2 vols.
4. Index to the Register of the Great Seal to 176%. 5 vols.
5. Diplomatum regiorum quae in publicis archivis extant Abbreviationes. 10 vols.
6. Several volumes of transcripts of charters, including the charters of Melrose, Balmerinoch, and other religious houses.
You can download these three volumes at http://www.electricscotland.com/book...ographical.htm
Crofting Agriculture
I've added several new videos to this page at http://www.electricscotland.com/history/crofting/
Grampian War Memorials
Added entries for four more of these War Memorials thanks to Stan Bruce. You can see these at the foot of the page at http://www.electricscotland.com/historic/grampian.html
As it happens I noted the names on one of them which said they were with the Canadian Highlanders so I thought I'd see if we could get more information on them and sent an email to them.
Eriskay - A Poem of Remote Lives
I found an old film of Eriskay and placed a link to it at the foot of our page about Eriskay. You can view this at:http://www.electricscotland.com/hist.../chapter09.htm
Old Scottish Ditties
By G. A. Macfarren.
This is a book which provides some old Scottish Songs with the sheet music which I've added to the foot of our Scots Minstrelsie page at:http://www.electricscotland.com/musi...lsie/index.htm
Mr Punch
Found two of his books on "Scottish Humour" and "Mr Punch in the Highlands" which I've added to our Humour page. There are over 100 illustrations in each book and I enjoyed reading through them. I have added links to these book to our Humour page at:http://www.electricscotland.com/humour/index.htm
A History of The Scottish People
By The Rev. Thomas Thomson with Introduction by Charles Annandale, M.A., LL.D. (1895) in 6 volumes.
While we have other major historical publications on the history of Scotland each in several volumes what interested me in this publication is the time line. It not only provides more information on the very early days of Scotland but it also covers the later period of our history in the Nineteenth century which was an incredibly important period in our history.
Here is the summary of what the publication covers...
The main features may be stated as follows:
It is a full and detailed History of Scotland from the Earliest Times to the Latest.
It is a History of the Scottish People, their manners, customs, and modes of living at the various successive periods.
It is a History of Religion and Ecclesiastical Affairs in Scotland.
It is a History of Scotland’s progress in Commerce, Industry, Arts, Science, and Literature.
It is illustrated by a series of original designs reproduced in facsimile from drawings by eminent artists.
Scotland's History more interesting than a Romance.
The history of Scotland from first to last—from the period of rudeness and semi-barbarity at the coming of the Romans to the culture and enlightenment of the present day—forms a more varied and stirring tale than any to be found in the pages of romance. No work of fiction, indeed, can rival in abiding interest the story of the rise and consolidation of the monarchy, the wars with England, the deeds of Wallace and Bruce, the tragic fortunes of Mary, the struggles of the Covenanters, the romantic episode of the ’45— to adduce only a few of the striking topics falling to be treated in this work in its course downward from the dawn of history.
A History of the Scottish People.
It is a complete history of the people and of the country, and, while presenting a picture of Scotland in the very earliest period, brings the narrative down to the present time, and thus gives an account of numerous events for which other histories of Scotland will be consulted in vain.
New Light on Early Scotland.
Special attention is given in this history to early Scotland, and to the various interesting questions regarding its inhabitants—those warlike natives, who so manfully withstood the Roman invaders. The history of these ancestors of ours, back to the remotest times—so far as it can be traced—is the subject of the introductory chapter. Treating of the country as it was long before its written history began, this chapter throws light upon a period that up till very recent times was enveloped in profound darkness. Such a chapter, indeed, could only have been written at the present day, since it exhibits the recent results obtained by geologists, archaeologists, and other scientific inquirers.
A History of the Daily Life of the People, as well as of Wars, Battles, and Affairs of State.
Wars and battles, and the doings of kings and nobles, of parliaments, and governments, have their due importance given to them in this work. But the daily life of the people, as it varied from period to period, is so intensely interesting that one chief aim of the present Work is to describe this life, to tell how and what our forefathers ate and drank, what was the character of their dress, ornaments, and abodes, how they married, what were their amusements, and the manner of their behaviour generally.
A History of Religion and of Great Ecclesiastical Struggles.
In this section the aim has been, while giving a full and detailed narrative, to be fair and just to all parties. The great topics dealt with are the introduction and spread of Christianity, the Culdees and the early Scottish church, the full establishment of the Roman Catholic system and its final overthrow, the triumph of Presbyterianism over Episcopacy after the sufferings of the persecuted Covenanters, and the later developments giving rise to the churches of the present day.
A History of Scottish Literature, and of Progress in Arts, Science, and Industry.
Scotland has been conspicuous in Literature as well as in the discoveries and improvements made in every Art and Science, and the number of illustrious men she has produced is out of all proportion to the scantiness of her population. Such names as Burns, Scott, Hogg, Campbell, Carlyle, Chalmers, Livingstone, Watt, Brewster, Wilkie—to mention only a very few—would be an honour to any country. Notices of such men and of their achievements and personal history form part of this Work, while the improvements in agriculture, the introduction of manufactures, the development of trades, the extension of commerce are also fully described.
Written by Competent Authors.
The larger portion of The History of the Scottish People was written by the Rev. Thomas Thomson, whose name is well known in connection with various important publications, more especially The Comprehensive History of England, and the Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen. Mr. Thomson’s decease having prevented his labours on this history being brought to their full conclusion, the work has been continued and the narrative brought down to the present time by Dr. Charles Annandale, editor of the world-renowned Imperial Dictionary of the English Language, of The Popular Encyclopedia, and other works; the instructive and far-reaching Introductory Chapter being also from his pen.
Pictorial Illustrations by eminent Artists.
The Work will be illustrated by a series of forty original designs by the eminent artists W. H. Margetson, Alfred Pearse, Walter Paget, Gordon Browne, &c., which will greatly enhance its attractiveness and usefulness. For in these drawings the characteristics of the men, the costumes of the periods in which the incidents represented took place, and the various needful accessories, have been carefully depicted. There will also be three maps, printed in colours, showing how the country was divided at various epochs.
You can download these volumes at: http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...tishpeople.htm
Buchanan
The Sacred Bard of the Scottish Highlands. I found a new book about him which does a better job of translating his Gaelic poetry and provides a good biography as well.
Here is what the Preface has to say about this book...
The public has had to wait long for a complete edition in English of the works of Buchanan, the sacred bard of the Scottish Highlands.
Of his Spiritual Songs, certain passages and even entire poems have appeared, and a few years ago a complete translation into English prose was published by the Rev. A. Sinclair. In 1885 the present writer rendered the whole of these beautiful works into English verse, but that book has been long out of print. It is therefore felt that a new issue of the poems in English verse is now overdue. Accordingly the translations have been revised and in some cases recast for this volume. Each poem has been supplied with a brief introduction and supplemented by notes on certain words in the original text, and the collection is prefaced by a chapter on the metrical forms that Buchanan employed.
Buchanan’s Diary, so-called, here entitled his Confessions, was among the papers he left at his death in 1768. It was published in 1836, and in 1853 it was reproduced in a work on “Man’s Twofold State.” But for many years it has been inaccessible to ordinary English readers, although a Gaelic translation has been available, at least since 1844. The original edition has been carefully edited for this book, and some passages have been omitted in order to increase the effectiveness of the story. At the same time, the periods covered by the different sections of the narrative have been more distinctly indicated.
Along with the Poems and the Confessions, two important letters by Buchanan are given in an appendix. One of these is here printed for the first time.
In the books enumerated in the Bibliography several interesting details regarding Buchanan are given, but it has been thought well to provide now a more definite account of his life as a whole, to accompany this complete edition of his remarkable works.
October, 1919.
I've added this to his page at: http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...nan_dugald.htm
THE STORY
Thanks to L M McIntyre for sending this in
Story of 'dead' piper's trip to Canada holds audience spellbound
RYAN TAYLOR (Oct 20, 2003)
People like to say, ''You could have heard a pin drop.'' They mean an audience was so entranced they didn't shuffle, gurgle or snort. They just listened.
I have been in crowds like that, but less often than you might think. There was a concert when Benjamin Luxon sang Bring the News to Mother. There was the Shaw Festival's immortal Cyrano de Bergerac when the only sound in the final scene was the audience weeping.
It doesn't happen often at genealogical conferences, I can tell you. But it did this year, when the Ontario Genealogical Society met in Cornwall. Taking advantage of the eastern Ontario venue, the society asked Marianne McLean, historian of Glengarry, to give the keynote lecture.
McLean's The People of Glengarry: Highlanders in Transition, 1745-1820 (McGill-Queen's, 1991) traces the journey of Scots displaced by changing circumstances in their homeland who created a new society in British North America. I would like to say it was the first English-speaking settlement in what would become Ontario, except that the Scots spoke Gaelic. Many of the highlanders who left Glengarry in Scotland to erect a new one north of the St. Lawrence River were being forced out by their landlords, who wanted their land for more profitable agricultural ventures.
She told the story of a piper who joined the British army and was sent to the far-flung empire. News came back to Scotland that he had died in India. His family were among the earliest emigrants to Canada.
Twenty-six years after his departure, he returned to Scotland, not dead and searching for his relations. He was told where they had gone, so he followed.
Once he landed here, he asked after his family and was told they lived 10 miles north in the bush. He set out on foot. His family were sitting at dinner when a sound came through the trees. It was the bagpipes, not an expected thing to hear in the Canadian wilderness. They rushed outside and were greeted by their long-lost son and brother, piping himself home.
Having so firmly grasped the hearts of her audience, McLean went on to discuss the adventures of her own research, which took her to Scotland. She visited the villages whose names were carried to the new Glengarry: Glenshiel, Lochalsch, Locheanan, Strath.
She found herself telling the Scots who stayed behind about the emigrants. The Scottish BBC has a Gaelic component, for the dwindling number of highlanders who still speak the old language. McLean showed them a Gaelic poem she found in a 19th century Ontario newspaper, a lament in which one of the 18th century migrants says farewell to his native loch.
The BBC found it so interesting they set the poem to music, and filmed an elderly man singing the dirge while sailing in the Highlands.
McLean ended her lecture by playing a video of the song. It made no difference that the language was beyond us, or that we had no Scottish heritage. The effect was the same -- you could have heard a pin drop. For genealogists who find long-dead ancestors as lively (and alive) as the people they work alongside every day, it was a moment of heightened reality. We were all saying a farewell to a land we loved.
It was my job to thank the speaker, and I had a hard time getting my thick throat in gear to do so. McLean had given us an unforgettable moment.
McLean's People of Glengarry is available for those who want to know more about the Scottish migrations. Also recommended is Adventurers & Exiles: the Great Scottish Exodus, by Marjory Harper (Profile Books, 2003).
Family historian Ryan Taylor's column on tracing your roots appears on the first and third Mondays of the month.
It was after the suppression of the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 that the Highlanders of old Glengarry in Scotland first emigrated to America, settling, at the invitation of Sir William Johnson (the friend of Brant and his Indians), in the Mohawk Valley. It was a beautiful and fruitful land, but not for long did the Highlanders give themselves to the quiet cultivation of their farms and orchards. The Revolutionary storm was brewing when they arrived, and when it broke many of the Gaelic clansmen took up arms to strike for the King. Soon the war was raging with peculiar fury along the banks of the Mohawk. Fire and sword turned the fruitful farms into blackened deserts; cruelty and rapine were repaid in kind and with interest, hundreds of wives became widows and thousands of children orphans. Men languished for years in prison, infants were snatched away by the Indians to grow up white savages, families starved while their bread-winners were with the army, and war, shorn of all glamour save that which through every horror clings to deathless courage, appeared as the grim, heart-breaking, evil thing it is.
From time to time, parties of the non-combatants, left behind in the Mohawk Valley, made their way to Canada. Once a large number of women and children were brought off by an armed band of their husbands and brothers, but others came, a few at a time, suffering many a hardship and adventure in their weary journey through the woods. One woman, it is told, undertook to carry two small children on her hack. On one occasion it occurred to her that her burden had become strangely lighter, and she discovered that she had actually dropped one little fellow by the way. Hurrying back along the track, she found the child, sleeping peacefully beside a decayed log over which she had had to climb. His hands were begrimed with earth, and to old age he was known by the nickname “Spogan Dubh,” or "Black Paws,” as his mother had exclaimed on finding him.
The war ended, many of the Highlanders settled in what are now the three counties of Glengarry, Stormont, and Dundas. As a rule, the heads of families made their way to New Johnstown (now Cornwall), where the Government land agent allotted lands to them by letting them draw from numbered slips of paper shaken together in a hat. Amongst the new-comers were a number of Highland gentlemen who had held commissions in the “Royal Highland Emigrants” and other regiments; and the half pay received by these ex-officers was for some years the chief source of the very limited supply of cash which circulated in the settlements.
Sir John Johnson (son of Sir William, previously mentioned), who had lost an enormous amount of property, received some lands in Glengarry. He built a mill at Williamstown, named after his father, and later presented to the people twelve acres for “fair grounds" still in use under the name of the “Glengarry Agricultural Grounds.” Lord Dorchester recommended his appointment as the first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, but the authorities at home thought it better not to choose a resident of the colony.
But in the history of the county, where the good old Scottish names of the early settlers still, abound, Macdonell is a greater name than Johnson. In the first Parliament of Upper Canada, two Macdonells, brothers, sat for Glengarry, and one of them was elected Speaker. The famous Glengarry Regiment of Light Infantry, which so distinguished itself throughout the War of 1812, was raised chiefly through the exertions of two other men of the name; and a Macdonell shared the fate and the glory of Brock in the battle of Queenston Heights. Yet another Macdonell, a priest, Alexander, came from Inverness in 1786 with almost his whole parish of about five hundred souls, to found in the new Glengarry St. Raphael’s, the pioneer parish of his communion in Upper Canada. Here he built the first Roman Catholic church, known as the "Blue Chapel,’’ upon the site of which another priest of the same name, who became the first Roman Catholic Bishop in Upper Canada, erected a large and handsome church.
This last-mentioned Alexander Macdonell is a most interesting figure. Physically, almost a giant, he held, it is said, that every man of his race should either be a priest or a soldier, and, though his cloth forbade him to fight, it did not prevent his working with might and main to raise Highland regiments, first in Scotland and afterwards in Canada. It must be said, however, that his object, in the first instance, was to relieve the distress of his parishioners, who had been thrown out of employment by the war between England and France; and when the regiment was disbanded he was instrumental in bringing a large number of them to settle amongst their kinsmen in Upper Canada Later, when war with the United States was threatening, the future Bishop, actuated by patriotic motives, was "most active in rousing and recruiting the Glengarries.” “The fiery cross” had passed through the land and every clansman “obeyed the summons," the more readily, no doubt, for the exhortation and example of the valiant chaplain. But by no means were all his energies devoted to military affairs. As a missionary, the sphere of his labours extended over a great part, of Upper Canada, and, as a pastor, he laboured for the temporal as well as the spiritual benefit of his flock. For instance, immediately after his arrival in Canada he made it his business to obtain legal patents for the lands held by the Highlanders—a matter of which few of them understood the importance.
Another Scot who had also been an army chaplain, the Rev. John Bethune, was for long the only minister in Upper Canada of the Kirk of Scotland. He settled at Williamstown, but ministered also to congregations at Martinlown, Lancaster, and Cornwall. One of his six sons, Alexander Neil Bethune, succeeded Dr. Strachan, whose pupil he had been, as Bishop of Toronto. It is a somewhat curious circumstance that these two earliest Bishops of the diocese should have begun life as Presbyterians and have passed some of their youthful years amongst the people of Glengarry.
The “Man from Glengarry,” however, has always had the reputation of being strong and forceful, and it has been said that the history of the county “is a proud record of most valuable services rendered to the country in early times, when the men of that county made its name famous in war and peace.”
You can read a complete book about Glengarry at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...arry/index.htm
There is a book entitle "The Man from Glengarry" by Ralph Connor which can be read at:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3287/3287-h/3287-h.htm
There is an audio version of this book in 2 parts on YouTube.
And that's it for this week and hope you all enjoy your weekend.
Alastair
http://www.electricscotland.com/
Electric Scotland News
Crawford Family Convention
Take note that a Crawford Family Convention is scheduled to be held on Saturday May 7th 2016 at the George Hotel, 19-21 George Street, Edinburgh EH2 2PB for the purpose of electing a person to be appointed by the Lord Lyon as Clan Commander of the Crawford Family, as the first step towards the appointment of a Clan Chief.
The Convention will be held under the supervision of Mrs. Yvonne Holton, Dingwall Pursuivant, representative of Lord Lyon.
Membership of the Convention will be restricted to members of the Crawford family or those with a significant connection to the family. Invitations to the Convention have been sent out to a number of members of the Crawford family.
In the absence of an invitation, applications for membership of the Convention should be made to the Vice-President of the Clan Crawford Association, Dr. Joanne Crawford (jcrawfordphd@sbcglobal.net) by March 7th 2016. Late applications may be accepted at the discretion of the Vice-President.
Joanne Crawford
C. Joanne Crawford, Ph.D.
Vice-President
Clan Crawford Association
7 Commodore Drive A357
Emeryville, CA 94608
Phone: (510) 295-8377
jcrawfordphd@sbcglobal.net
Update from the Scottish Studies Foundation of Toronto
Friday September 4
The 2015-2016 season of the Scottish Studies "Oor Club" gets underway at noon on Friday, September 4 when Scottish Studies Foundation Director David Hunter will give a talk entitled The Secret Songs of Lady Nairne. David will provide background information which he hopes will provide an insight into how the songs written by a woman whose name is all but forgotten came about. These include “Charlie is my Darling”, “The Rowan Tree”, “Will ye no come back again?" and many more. The get-together begins at 11.30am and usually ends by 2pm.
Cost of admission is $5.00. Why don't you come along and enjoy a pub lunch and mix and mingle with friendly Scottish people. You do not have to be Scottish to attend as everyone is welcome. For more information please contact Pearl Grieve-Nixon, 416-926-7233 or Mary Vigrow, 416-485-4853 (email: mvigrow@rogers.com).
Sunday September 6
Toronto's Harbourfront is looking truly magnificent after several years of PanAm games construction work so it's a great time for you and your family and friends to join us on our 24th Annual Tall Ship Cruise on Sunday, September 6 aboard Canada's largest sailing ship, the Empire Sandy. We have arranged to give you a taste of the Scots experience with Peter Campbell on the pipes and are also delighted to have Kent Tocher entertain us on board the ship. Kent can best be described as a "one man band" who sings, plays the keyboard, guitar, saxophone, clarinet and harmonica, and is sure to have everyone up singing and dancing. So you don't have be Scottish to enjoy the event, as it is sure to appeal to all and will be a day to remember.
There will be two cruises: the morning cruise boards at 11:00 a.m., the afternoon cruise boards at 2:00 p.m. Join in the fun and help keep the Scottish pioneering spirit alive! Details here:http://www.scottishstudies.com/940empiresandy2015.htm
Thursday, September 24
You are invited to attend the launch of the University of Guelph's Rural Diary Archive website on Thursday, September 24 in the U of G's McLaughlin Library from 2:30pm to 5:30pm. The Rural Diary Archive will showcase over 130 diarists from across Ontario and will be available online after the launch. It will broadcast the availability of diaries in archives across the province and makes these hand-written and fading sources accessible to all. The full text of the diaries of nineteen men and women will be available to read, search and transcribe and more will be added as new collections are located. Details here:
https://ruraldiaries.lib.uoguelph.ca/
Saturday, September 26
The Scottish Studies Annual Fall Colloquium will take place from 10:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, September 26, 2015 in the Robert Whitelaw Room, University of Guelph Library (registration at 9:30 a.m.). Details here:
http://www.scottishstudies.com/520fa...oquium2015.htm
Electric Canadian
Reminiscences of a Canadian Pioneer for the last Fifty Years
Continuing to add more chapters to this book.
We are now up to Chapter LVII.
In Chapter LVI we read...
The summer of 1870 will be long remembered as the year of the Ottawa fires, which severely tried the strength of the Beaver Company. On the 17th August in that year, a storm of wind from the south-west fanned into flames the expiring embers of bush-fires and burning log-heaps, throughout the Counties of Lanark, Renfrew, Carleton and Ottawa, bordering on the Ottawa River between Upper and Lower Canada. No rain had fallen there for months previously, and the fields were parched to such a degree as seemingly to fill the air with inflammable gaseous exhalations, and to render buildings, fences, trees and pastures so dry, that the slightest spark would set them in a blaze. Such was the condition of the Townships of Fitzroy, Huntley, Goulburn, March, Nepean, Gloucester, and Hull, when the storm swept over them, and in the brief space of four hours left them a blackened desert, with here and there a dwelling-house or barn saved, but everything else--dwellings, out-buildings, fences, bridges, crops, meadows--nay, even horses, horned cattle, sheep, pigs, poultry, all kinds of domestic and wild animals, and most deplorable of all, twelve human beings--involved in one common destruction. Those farmers who escaped with their lives did so with extreme difficulty, in many cases only by driving their waggons laden with their wives and children into the middle of the Ottawa or some smaller stream, where the poor creatures had to remain all night, their flesh blistered with the heat, and their clothing consumed on their bodies.
You can read the new chapters at http://www.electriccanadian.com/pion...pson/index.htm
Enigma Machine
The whole collection can be found at: http://www.electriccanadian.com/lifestyle/enigma. We've now completed the final puzzle 114 in this series so hope you enjoyed them.
And I spoke too soon... Hugh has added puzzle 115 and tells me that John Lang is going to add a few of his puzzles after this one. And this being the case any of you out there can add your own puzzles if you are interested.
A Maple Leaf and Other Sketches
By Rev. C. T. Phillips, D. D.
Here is the Introduction written by Prof. W. C. Kierstead, M.A., Ph.D.
This little volume is a compilation of articles which, in the form of letters or sermonettes, appeared in the "Religious Intelligencer" or in the daily press of the city of St. John. They were written at odd moments and often very hastily, as a diversion and partial recreation from a busy ministry, and they lack the continuity and, at times, the finish one would expect in material prepared with the intention of publication in permanent form. But they will be welcomed and treasured very highly by those whose rare privilege it was to share his friendship and fellowship, and by the large number of people throughout this province who have been benefited and blessed through his ministry. And there is a charm about them that will appeal to a wider circle of readers. They manifest an insight into life, they betray a fineness of feeling, they breathe a wholesome spirit of helpfulness, and appeal to the higher sentiments of brotherly love and duty, of religious hope and trust. There is a quaintness of expression that attracts us, and an artistic blending of the finer feelings with the lighter veins of wit and humor which gives a pleasing emotional variety and amuses and entertams as it inspires and instructs.
The intimate friends of Dr. Phillips will detect in these selections a dominant note of his ministry, and elements which were essential m his own temperament and character. He was a man of deep, broad sympathies, and his entire life was a ministry of unselfish helpfulness. He was genuinely and intensely human, findmg humanity within himself, able to sound the whole gamut of human emotions and needs, sharing the aspirations and ideals of the heroic and prophetic, and yet feeling with keenness the impulses, temptations, conflicts, ambitions, weaknesses and sins of men. It was this fine insight of real sympathy and its interpretation of life that gave his ministry its moving, persuasive power. He would often describe and interpret the inner conflicts of his hearers with such vividness and accuracy that many would go away confident that some one had disclosed to him the history of their private lives.
But this sympathetic unity with men, so essential to true success in the Christian ministry, is, at the same time, very enervating and exhausting. He was a true disciple of the Master, and, like Him, he knew what it was to have the energies of life flow out of him to give vitality to others. His relation to his people was not a mere professional one, but the ties that united them were intimate and vital, and developed into exalted and sacred friendships. And his interests and sympathies were too human and too fundamental to be bounded by his congregation or limited by his denomination. His parish was the community, and his ministry was to human need. He fed and clothed the poor, he visited the sick, comforted the sorrowing and mourning, gave courage and hope to the dying, brought penitence to the sinful, and revealed the Christ to all. He won men by his message and found them by his ministry because he linked his life with their lives and divided their burdens with them.
It is no wonder that with this constant drain upon his sympathies and energies he suffered at times physical weariness and mental and emotional exhaustion. There was, however, another prominent element in his temperament that gave partial relief from this strain, and that was the saving grace of wit and humor. He was able to see the humorous side of every situation. He saw the sombre side of life and it made a mighty appeal to him, but he felt, as well, the sunshine of its humor. He felt the comedy as well as the tragedy of life; and what he saw for himself he was able to communicate to others. It was just such a blending of sympathy and humor that enabled Abraham Lincoln to bear the terrible burden which the nation rolled upon him. Such a man was Dr. Phillips; he ranged through the fields of literature and history and appreciated the heroic, the beautiful, the ideal. He had the appreciations and tastes of the man of culture. But he appreciated also the men and women among whom he lived and with whom he toiled and labored. He saw the divine in the human, the sacred in the commonplace, and the heroic and beautiful in everyday life and conduct. He was incapable of envy or jealousy, of littleness and pettiness. He rejoiced with those who did rejoice as truly as he wept with the weeping. But along with this divine quality of sympathy went a keen sense of humor, the rare faculty to enjoy the comedy of things. He laughed at the absurdity, the pretention, the ridiculous role of sin even when it seemed triumphant. And in the service of his wit went a keen satire and fine irony. He did not denounce o. drive; there was no harshness in his message; it was tender, suggestive, sympathetic, wooing,—inspiring and winning men; and it was humorous, touched with satire, pricking with irony at times. He would laugh us out of our littleness, he would point the shaft of ridicule at our meanness until we became ashamed of it, and would inspire us with ideals of nobility and truth.
These selections carry to a degree the charm of his personality and the attractiveness of his ministry. We catch the fragrance of his sympathy and spirit of helpfulness; we feel the prick of his irony, the keen edge of his satire against our folly and weakness; but he appeals to the highest within us, or he ludicrously caricatures our meanness, because he loves us and means to help us. This little volume may win new friends for its author, but it will be cherished by many more because of their affection for him; and his abiding memorial is in the hearts and lives of many who have been ennobled by his friendship and sanctified by his ministry.
You can download this book at: http://www.electriccanadian.com/life...apleleaf01.pdf
Electric Scotland
Beth's Newfangled Family Tree
Got in Section 1 of the September 2015 issue which you can read in pdf format at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/bnft...TSept2015a.pdf
I particularly liked one of the stories this week and here it is for you to read here...
A true story, by Malcolm Forbes
A lady in a faded gingham dress and her husband, dressed in a homespun threadbare suit, stepped of the train in Boston and walked timidly without an appointment into the Harvard University President's outer office.
The secretary could tell in a moment that such backwoods, country hicks had no business at Harvard, & probably didn't even deserve to be in Cambridge.
'We'd like to see the president,' the man said softly.
'He'll be busy all day,' the secretary snapped.
'We'll wait,' the lady replied.
For hours the secretary ignored them, hoping that the couple would finally become discouraged and go away.
They didn't, and the secretary grew frustrated and finally decided to disturb the president, even though it was a chore she always regretted.
'Maybe if you see them for a few minutes, they'll leave,' she said to him!
He sighed in exasperation and nodded. Someone of his importance obviously didn't have the time to spend with them, and he detested gingham dresses and homespun suits cluttering up his outer office. The president, stern faced and with dignity, strutted toward the couple.
The lady told him, 'We had a son who attended Harvard for one year. He loved Harvard. He was happy here. But about a year ago, he was accidentally killed. My husband and I would like to erect a memorial to him, somewhere on campus.'
The president wasn't touched. He was shocked. 'Madam,' he said, gruffly, 'we can't put up a statue for every person who attended Harvard and died. If we did, this place would look like a cemetery.'
'Oh, no,' the lady explained quickly. 'We don't want to erect a statue. We thought we would like to give a building to Harvard.'
The president rolled his eyes. He glanced at the gingham dress and homespun suit, then exclaimed, 'A building! Do you have any earthly idea how much a building costs? We have over seven and a half million dollars in the physical buildings here at Harvard.'
For a moment the lady was silent. The president was pleased. Maybe he could get rid of them now. The lady turned to her husband and said quietly, 'Is that all it cost to start a university? Why don't we just start our own?'
Her husband nodded. The president's face wilted in confusion and bewilderment.
Mr. and Mrs. Leland Stanford got up and walked away, traveling to Palo Alto, California where they established the university that bears their name, Stanford University, a memorial to a son that Harvard no longer cared about.
You can easily judge the character of others by how they treat those who they think can do nothing for them.
Sent to me by dear old friend, Admiral Piper.
Robert Burns Lives!
Edited by Frank Shaw
Our chapter this week is John Anderson My Jo, John by Frank Shaw.
This is another look at one of my favorite songs of Robert Burns. It is named John Anderson My Jo and was originally a honky-tonk song, sung in bar rooms or houses of ill-repute, many times by the coarse voice of a bar maid, to the enthusiastic crowd imbibing the whisky of the establishment, and thus it became a favorite drinking man’s song. The song was reworked or reworded by Burns who changed it from a drinking man’s song to that of a couple married early in life and now facing the last years of their lives.
You can read this article at: http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...s_lives221.htm
Geographical Collections Relating to Scotland
Made by Walter MacFarlane in 3 volumes.
The parts of the Macfarlane Collection of Manuscripts relating to Scotland that I now edit are usually called topographical, but Macfarlane himself called them geographical, and their character may be regarded as justifying Macfarlane’^ designation. The Accounts of the parishes and districts of Scotland, as given in this volume of the Manuscript, are to an unusual extent of such a nature as to yield material for the compilation of maps, and they differ in this respect from ordinary topographical accounts, which are more concerned with descriptions of special places or objects than with the relation of these to each other in respect of distance or direction by the compass. Indeed, it is rare to find Accounts of localities which are made so much as these are from a geographer’s point of view. They sometimes consist almost entirely of statements of the distances of places from each other to the north, south, east, or west. The bendings of a stream are often given with the length of the bend in this or that direction, and with the distance of the change in its course from towns, villages, churches, residences or hills.
Though this may be regarded as a distinguishing feature of the Accounts in this Collection, especially, perhaps, of those in the first volume, they also contain much ordinary topographical description. For example, when a residence is mentioned we may learn who owned it and whether it was in a state of ruin or the reverse, and when a village or town is mentioned we may be told of the names and times of markets held there, whether it did or did not contain a tolbooth, and whether its church was slated or thatched.
It may be an advantage to repeat here the short biographical notices of Macfarlane that Mr. Clark gave in the Genealogical Collections. The first notice of him is taken from The Chiefs of Colquhoun and their Country, vol. ii. pp. 99-100, by Sir William Fraser, K.C.B., and is as follows: —
Walter Macfarlane, one of the most laborious and accurate antiquaries of his age, was the son and successor of this John by his wife Helen, daughter of Robert, second Viscount of Arbuthnot. He transcribed with his own hand many old cartularies and muniments deposited in private charter-chests. He was very liberal in allowing access to his valuable collections and transcripts, which are still consulted and often quoted by authors, being regarded as of high authority. To his industry we owe the existence of the Levenax Cartulary, the original of which is now lost. He married Lady Elizabeth Erskine, daughter of Alexander, sixth Earl of Kellie. Little is known of his history, which appears to have been chiefly that of a student, without any remarkable incidents to record. In Anderson's Diplomata Scotice, published at Edinburgh in the year 1739, the learned editors, Mr. Anderson and Mr. Thomas Ruddiman, in an acknowledgment of their obligations to those who contributed the original charters engraved in that great work, notice in favourable terms the assistance given them by the Laird of Macfarlane: “In this list of most noble and most eminent men deserves in particular to be inscribed by us a most accomplished young man, Walter Macfarlane of that ilk, Chief of the Macfarlanes, one of the most ancient of the clans, who, as he is conspicuous for the utmost urbanity, and for his acquaintance with all the more elegant, and especially the antiquarian departments of literature, most readily devoted much labour and industry in explaining to us the names of men and places.” The eulogium pronounced upon him by Smollett is elsewhere quoted. He died, without issue, at his town house in the Canongate of Edinburgh, on 5th June 1767. After his death his valuable collections were purchased by the Faculty of Advocates, Edinburgh. His portrait, an excellent original painting, which exhibits a remarkably intelligent, manly, and open countenance, occupies a place on the walls of the Museum of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, to whom it was gifted in 1786 by his nephew, Walter Macfarlane. This portrait was engraved for the late Mr. W. B. D. D. Turnbull, for the purpose of being introduced into his “Monasticon of Scotland,” a work which was never completed.’
The next notice is from the Cash Book of the late William Macfarlane of Portsburgh, W.S., who died 13th July, 1831, and it runs as follows, under date 1785:—
Walter Macfarlane of Macfarlane, (20th) of Arrochar, was the second but eldest surviving son of John Macfarlane (19th) of Arrochar and Lady Helen, daughter of the 2nd Viscount Arbuthnot. He succeeded his father 13th May 1705. He married, 21st April 1760, Lady Elizabeth Erskine, daughter of Alexander, Earl of Kelly, by whom he had no issue. He died in his house in the Canongate, Edinburgh, on the 5th, and was buried in the Grayfriars, Edinburgh, betwixt the two west pillars of the New Kirk, on the 8th of June 1767. He was succeeded by his brother, Dr. William Macfarlane, as 21st of Arrochar, who sold the estate in March 1784 after having been five hundred and fifty-nine years in the family.
The Collection of Manuscripts formed by Macfarlane was purchased by the Faculty of Advocates in 1785 from his niece, Miss Janet Macfarlane, for the sum of J?21. It consists of:—
1. The Genealogical Collections. 2 vols. These have been printed by the Scottish History Society — Mr. J. T. Clark being the editor.
2. The Geographical Collections. 3 volumes, of which this is the first.
3. Collections Relative to Several Scottish Families. 2 vols.
4. Index to the Register of the Great Seal to 176%. 5 vols.
5. Diplomatum regiorum quae in publicis archivis extant Abbreviationes. 10 vols.
6. Several volumes of transcripts of charters, including the charters of Melrose, Balmerinoch, and other religious houses.
You can download these three volumes at http://www.electricscotland.com/book...ographical.htm
Crofting Agriculture
I've added several new videos to this page at http://www.electricscotland.com/history/crofting/
Grampian War Memorials
Added entries for four more of these War Memorials thanks to Stan Bruce. You can see these at the foot of the page at http://www.electricscotland.com/historic/grampian.html
As it happens I noted the names on one of them which said they were with the Canadian Highlanders so I thought I'd see if we could get more information on them and sent an email to them.
Eriskay - A Poem of Remote Lives
I found an old film of Eriskay and placed a link to it at the foot of our page about Eriskay. You can view this at:http://www.electricscotland.com/hist.../chapter09.htm
Old Scottish Ditties
By G. A. Macfarren.
This is a book which provides some old Scottish Songs with the sheet music which I've added to the foot of our Scots Minstrelsie page at:http://www.electricscotland.com/musi...lsie/index.htm
Mr Punch
Found two of his books on "Scottish Humour" and "Mr Punch in the Highlands" which I've added to our Humour page. There are over 100 illustrations in each book and I enjoyed reading through them. I have added links to these book to our Humour page at:http://www.electricscotland.com/humour/index.htm
A History of The Scottish People
By The Rev. Thomas Thomson with Introduction by Charles Annandale, M.A., LL.D. (1895) in 6 volumes.
While we have other major historical publications on the history of Scotland each in several volumes what interested me in this publication is the time line. It not only provides more information on the very early days of Scotland but it also covers the later period of our history in the Nineteenth century which was an incredibly important period in our history.
Here is the summary of what the publication covers...
The main features may be stated as follows:
It is a full and detailed History of Scotland from the Earliest Times to the Latest.
It is a History of the Scottish People, their manners, customs, and modes of living at the various successive periods.
It is a History of Religion and Ecclesiastical Affairs in Scotland.
It is a History of Scotland’s progress in Commerce, Industry, Arts, Science, and Literature.
It is illustrated by a series of original designs reproduced in facsimile from drawings by eminent artists.
Scotland's History more interesting than a Romance.
The history of Scotland from first to last—from the period of rudeness and semi-barbarity at the coming of the Romans to the culture and enlightenment of the present day—forms a more varied and stirring tale than any to be found in the pages of romance. No work of fiction, indeed, can rival in abiding interest the story of the rise and consolidation of the monarchy, the wars with England, the deeds of Wallace and Bruce, the tragic fortunes of Mary, the struggles of the Covenanters, the romantic episode of the ’45— to adduce only a few of the striking topics falling to be treated in this work in its course downward from the dawn of history.
A History of the Scottish People.
It is a complete history of the people and of the country, and, while presenting a picture of Scotland in the very earliest period, brings the narrative down to the present time, and thus gives an account of numerous events for which other histories of Scotland will be consulted in vain.
New Light on Early Scotland.
Special attention is given in this history to early Scotland, and to the various interesting questions regarding its inhabitants—those warlike natives, who so manfully withstood the Roman invaders. The history of these ancestors of ours, back to the remotest times—so far as it can be traced—is the subject of the introductory chapter. Treating of the country as it was long before its written history began, this chapter throws light upon a period that up till very recent times was enveloped in profound darkness. Such a chapter, indeed, could only have been written at the present day, since it exhibits the recent results obtained by geologists, archaeologists, and other scientific inquirers.
A History of the Daily Life of the People, as well as of Wars, Battles, and Affairs of State.
Wars and battles, and the doings of kings and nobles, of parliaments, and governments, have their due importance given to them in this work. But the daily life of the people, as it varied from period to period, is so intensely interesting that one chief aim of the present Work is to describe this life, to tell how and what our forefathers ate and drank, what was the character of their dress, ornaments, and abodes, how they married, what were their amusements, and the manner of their behaviour generally.
A History of Religion and of Great Ecclesiastical Struggles.
In this section the aim has been, while giving a full and detailed narrative, to be fair and just to all parties. The great topics dealt with are the introduction and spread of Christianity, the Culdees and the early Scottish church, the full establishment of the Roman Catholic system and its final overthrow, the triumph of Presbyterianism over Episcopacy after the sufferings of the persecuted Covenanters, and the later developments giving rise to the churches of the present day.
A History of Scottish Literature, and of Progress in Arts, Science, and Industry.
Scotland has been conspicuous in Literature as well as in the discoveries and improvements made in every Art and Science, and the number of illustrious men she has produced is out of all proportion to the scantiness of her population. Such names as Burns, Scott, Hogg, Campbell, Carlyle, Chalmers, Livingstone, Watt, Brewster, Wilkie—to mention only a very few—would be an honour to any country. Notices of such men and of their achievements and personal history form part of this Work, while the improvements in agriculture, the introduction of manufactures, the development of trades, the extension of commerce are also fully described.
Written by Competent Authors.
The larger portion of The History of the Scottish People was written by the Rev. Thomas Thomson, whose name is well known in connection with various important publications, more especially The Comprehensive History of England, and the Biographical Dictionary of Eminent Scotsmen. Mr. Thomson’s decease having prevented his labours on this history being brought to their full conclusion, the work has been continued and the narrative brought down to the present time by Dr. Charles Annandale, editor of the world-renowned Imperial Dictionary of the English Language, of The Popular Encyclopedia, and other works; the instructive and far-reaching Introductory Chapter being also from his pen.
Pictorial Illustrations by eminent Artists.
The Work will be illustrated by a series of forty original designs by the eminent artists W. H. Margetson, Alfred Pearse, Walter Paget, Gordon Browne, &c., which will greatly enhance its attractiveness and usefulness. For in these drawings the characteristics of the men, the costumes of the periods in which the incidents represented took place, and the various needful accessories, have been carefully depicted. There will also be three maps, printed in colours, showing how the country was divided at various epochs.
You can download these volumes at: http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...tishpeople.htm
Buchanan
The Sacred Bard of the Scottish Highlands. I found a new book about him which does a better job of translating his Gaelic poetry and provides a good biography as well.
Here is what the Preface has to say about this book...
The public has had to wait long for a complete edition in English of the works of Buchanan, the sacred bard of the Scottish Highlands.
Of his Spiritual Songs, certain passages and even entire poems have appeared, and a few years ago a complete translation into English prose was published by the Rev. A. Sinclair. In 1885 the present writer rendered the whole of these beautiful works into English verse, but that book has been long out of print. It is therefore felt that a new issue of the poems in English verse is now overdue. Accordingly the translations have been revised and in some cases recast for this volume. Each poem has been supplied with a brief introduction and supplemented by notes on certain words in the original text, and the collection is prefaced by a chapter on the metrical forms that Buchanan employed.
Buchanan’s Diary, so-called, here entitled his Confessions, was among the papers he left at his death in 1768. It was published in 1836, and in 1853 it was reproduced in a work on “Man’s Twofold State.” But for many years it has been inaccessible to ordinary English readers, although a Gaelic translation has been available, at least since 1844. The original edition has been carefully edited for this book, and some passages have been omitted in order to increase the effectiveness of the story. At the same time, the periods covered by the different sections of the narrative have been more distinctly indicated.
Along with the Poems and the Confessions, two important letters by Buchanan are given in an appendix. One of these is here printed for the first time.
In the books enumerated in the Bibliography several interesting details regarding Buchanan are given, but it has been thought well to provide now a more definite account of his life as a whole, to accompany this complete edition of his remarkable works.
October, 1919.
I've added this to his page at: http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...nan_dugald.htm
THE STORY
Thanks to L M McIntyre for sending this in
Story of 'dead' piper's trip to Canada holds audience spellbound
RYAN TAYLOR (Oct 20, 2003)
People like to say, ''You could have heard a pin drop.'' They mean an audience was so entranced they didn't shuffle, gurgle or snort. They just listened.
I have been in crowds like that, but less often than you might think. There was a concert when Benjamin Luxon sang Bring the News to Mother. There was the Shaw Festival's immortal Cyrano de Bergerac when the only sound in the final scene was the audience weeping.
It doesn't happen often at genealogical conferences, I can tell you. But it did this year, when the Ontario Genealogical Society met in Cornwall. Taking advantage of the eastern Ontario venue, the society asked Marianne McLean, historian of Glengarry, to give the keynote lecture.
McLean's The People of Glengarry: Highlanders in Transition, 1745-1820 (McGill-Queen's, 1991) traces the journey of Scots displaced by changing circumstances in their homeland who created a new society in British North America. I would like to say it was the first English-speaking settlement in what would become Ontario, except that the Scots spoke Gaelic. Many of the highlanders who left Glengarry in Scotland to erect a new one north of the St. Lawrence River were being forced out by their landlords, who wanted their land for more profitable agricultural ventures.
She told the story of a piper who joined the British army and was sent to the far-flung empire. News came back to Scotland that he had died in India. His family were among the earliest emigrants to Canada.
Twenty-six years after his departure, he returned to Scotland, not dead and searching for his relations. He was told where they had gone, so he followed.
Once he landed here, he asked after his family and was told they lived 10 miles north in the bush. He set out on foot. His family were sitting at dinner when a sound came through the trees. It was the bagpipes, not an expected thing to hear in the Canadian wilderness. They rushed outside and were greeted by their long-lost son and brother, piping himself home.
Having so firmly grasped the hearts of her audience, McLean went on to discuss the adventures of her own research, which took her to Scotland. She visited the villages whose names were carried to the new Glengarry: Glenshiel, Lochalsch, Locheanan, Strath.
She found herself telling the Scots who stayed behind about the emigrants. The Scottish BBC has a Gaelic component, for the dwindling number of highlanders who still speak the old language. McLean showed them a Gaelic poem she found in a 19th century Ontario newspaper, a lament in which one of the 18th century migrants says farewell to his native loch.
The BBC found it so interesting they set the poem to music, and filmed an elderly man singing the dirge while sailing in the Highlands.
McLean ended her lecture by playing a video of the song. It made no difference that the language was beyond us, or that we had no Scottish heritage. The effect was the same -- you could have heard a pin drop. For genealogists who find long-dead ancestors as lively (and alive) as the people they work alongside every day, it was a moment of heightened reality. We were all saying a farewell to a land we loved.
It was my job to thank the speaker, and I had a hard time getting my thick throat in gear to do so. McLean had given us an unforgettable moment.
McLean's People of Glengarry is available for those who want to know more about the Scottish migrations. Also recommended is Adventurers & Exiles: the Great Scottish Exodus, by Marjory Harper (Profile Books, 2003).
Family historian Ryan Taylor's column on tracing your roots appears on the first and third Mondays of the month.
“From the lone shieling of the misty island
Mountains divide us, and a waste of seas—
Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland,
And we in dreams behold the Hebrides:
Fair these broad meads—these hoary woods are grand;
But we are exiles from our fathers’ land.”
TO anyone who has ever felt the enchantment of Sir Walter Scott’s poetry and romance, the very word “Glengarry” calls up visions of chivalrous chieftains in waving tartans and plumed “bonnets,” and of their wild following of kilted clansmen, armed with dirk and claymore and almost drowning the skirling of the war-pipes with their fierce battle-cries. Their tongue to most of us may be unknown, yet, thanks to the “Great Magician’s” wondrous art, we know and love them as if they were our kin. Our hearts beat in sympathy with their passionate love for their deep glens and misty mountains, and we mourn with the exiles torn from their “own, their native land.” Many of us, I doubt not, in days when the romance-world was almost more real to us than the calmer life about us, have gone campaigning with "bonnie Prince Charlie,” that graceless, fascinating, most luckless of mortals, and, forgetful of due respect to our forbears, have all but learned to hate the Saxon —or let us say “the Sassenach.” We have looked on at many a hard-fought field, and so we approach the story of "Glengarry” in Canada in a mood inured to the clash of blades and shouts of men in deadly combat ; and it is well, for it was the tide of war which first swept the hot-hearted Celts into our now quiet land, and in a later struggle—the War of 1812—Glengarry men, gallantly defending the soil of their new country as they had defended the heathery mountains of their fatherland, again and again drank "delight of battle with their peers.”Mountains divide us, and a waste of seas—
Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland,
And we in dreams behold the Hebrides:
Fair these broad meads—these hoary woods are grand;
But we are exiles from our fathers’ land.”
It was after the suppression of the Jacobite rebellion of 1745 that the Highlanders of old Glengarry in Scotland first emigrated to America, settling, at the invitation of Sir William Johnson (the friend of Brant and his Indians), in the Mohawk Valley. It was a beautiful and fruitful land, but not for long did the Highlanders give themselves to the quiet cultivation of their farms and orchards. The Revolutionary storm was brewing when they arrived, and when it broke many of the Gaelic clansmen took up arms to strike for the King. Soon the war was raging with peculiar fury along the banks of the Mohawk. Fire and sword turned the fruitful farms into blackened deserts; cruelty and rapine were repaid in kind and with interest, hundreds of wives became widows and thousands of children orphans. Men languished for years in prison, infants were snatched away by the Indians to grow up white savages, families starved while their bread-winners were with the army, and war, shorn of all glamour save that which through every horror clings to deathless courage, appeared as the grim, heart-breaking, evil thing it is.
From time to time, parties of the non-combatants, left behind in the Mohawk Valley, made their way to Canada. Once a large number of women and children were brought off by an armed band of their husbands and brothers, but others came, a few at a time, suffering many a hardship and adventure in their weary journey through the woods. One woman, it is told, undertook to carry two small children on her hack. On one occasion it occurred to her that her burden had become strangely lighter, and she discovered that she had actually dropped one little fellow by the way. Hurrying back along the track, she found the child, sleeping peacefully beside a decayed log over which she had had to climb. His hands were begrimed with earth, and to old age he was known by the nickname “Spogan Dubh,” or "Black Paws,” as his mother had exclaimed on finding him.
The war ended, many of the Highlanders settled in what are now the three counties of Glengarry, Stormont, and Dundas. As a rule, the heads of families made their way to New Johnstown (now Cornwall), where the Government land agent allotted lands to them by letting them draw from numbered slips of paper shaken together in a hat. Amongst the new-comers were a number of Highland gentlemen who had held commissions in the “Royal Highland Emigrants” and other regiments; and the half pay received by these ex-officers was for some years the chief source of the very limited supply of cash which circulated in the settlements.
Sir John Johnson (son of Sir William, previously mentioned), who had lost an enormous amount of property, received some lands in Glengarry. He built a mill at Williamstown, named after his father, and later presented to the people twelve acres for “fair grounds" still in use under the name of the “Glengarry Agricultural Grounds.” Lord Dorchester recommended his appointment as the first Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, but the authorities at home thought it better not to choose a resident of the colony.
But in the history of the county, where the good old Scottish names of the early settlers still, abound, Macdonell is a greater name than Johnson. In the first Parliament of Upper Canada, two Macdonells, brothers, sat for Glengarry, and one of them was elected Speaker. The famous Glengarry Regiment of Light Infantry, which so distinguished itself throughout the War of 1812, was raised chiefly through the exertions of two other men of the name; and a Macdonell shared the fate and the glory of Brock in the battle of Queenston Heights. Yet another Macdonell, a priest, Alexander, came from Inverness in 1786 with almost his whole parish of about five hundred souls, to found in the new Glengarry St. Raphael’s, the pioneer parish of his communion in Upper Canada. Here he built the first Roman Catholic church, known as the "Blue Chapel,’’ upon the site of which another priest of the same name, who became the first Roman Catholic Bishop in Upper Canada, erected a large and handsome church.
This last-mentioned Alexander Macdonell is a most interesting figure. Physically, almost a giant, he held, it is said, that every man of his race should either be a priest or a soldier, and, though his cloth forbade him to fight, it did not prevent his working with might and main to raise Highland regiments, first in Scotland and afterwards in Canada. It must be said, however, that his object, in the first instance, was to relieve the distress of his parishioners, who had been thrown out of employment by the war between England and France; and when the regiment was disbanded he was instrumental in bringing a large number of them to settle amongst their kinsmen in Upper Canada Later, when war with the United States was threatening, the future Bishop, actuated by patriotic motives, was "most active in rousing and recruiting the Glengarries.” “The fiery cross” had passed through the land and every clansman “obeyed the summons," the more readily, no doubt, for the exhortation and example of the valiant chaplain. But by no means were all his energies devoted to military affairs. As a missionary, the sphere of his labours extended over a great part, of Upper Canada, and, as a pastor, he laboured for the temporal as well as the spiritual benefit of his flock. For instance, immediately after his arrival in Canada he made it his business to obtain legal patents for the lands held by the Highlanders—a matter of which few of them understood the importance.
Another Scot who had also been an army chaplain, the Rev. John Bethune, was for long the only minister in Upper Canada of the Kirk of Scotland. He settled at Williamstown, but ministered also to congregations at Martinlown, Lancaster, and Cornwall. One of his six sons, Alexander Neil Bethune, succeeded Dr. Strachan, whose pupil he had been, as Bishop of Toronto. It is a somewhat curious circumstance that these two earliest Bishops of the diocese should have begun life as Presbyterians and have passed some of their youthful years amongst the people of Glengarry.
The “Man from Glengarry,” however, has always had the reputation of being strong and forceful, and it has been said that the history of the county “is a proud record of most valuable services rendered to the country in early times, when the men of that county made its name famous in war and peace.”
You can read a complete book about Glengarry at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...arry/index.htm
There is a book entitle "The Man from Glengarry" by Ralph Connor which can be read at:
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3287/3287-h/3287-h.htm
There is an audio version of this book in 2 parts on YouTube.
And that's it for this week and hope you all enjoy your weekend.
Alastair