"Glenmoriston of the Past"

Today some people may say that education should come first but it was the Churches of different denomination that were the pioneers of the public schools in the Highlands and should therefore be entitled to priority in the heading of this chapter.

The Christian missionaries who visited Glenmoriston around the fifth century must have duly impressed the inhabitants as the burying grounds and the wells sanctified by St. Columba and St. Merchard were, and still are, named after them. However there is little doubt that the Highland folklore probably dating back to pre-historic times was until the eighteenth century, the religion, if it can be described as such, of the local populace. Ancient rites such as the festival of Beltane when the livestock were put out to pasturage on the first day of May were strictly observed; the same custom existed in the pastoral areas of Central Europe.

"The Little Folk" were in the habit of shooting cattle with elf-bolts, prehistoric stone arrow heads, and it is just conceivable that in the dim ages, the last surviving aborigines did in fact do this. Today if a cow is found dead we are bound by law to call in the vet, for a post-mortem, but in those days before such ailments as " the grass staggers" were understood a great deal was known about such menaces as "the evil eye" and the depredation of ill-disposed fairies. While we are perhaps entitled to smile at these old superstitions, we should not laugh at them. In the days before electric light or the paraffin lamp it would have been much easier to see something uncanny in the twilight, after all even today plenty of people claim to have seen ghosts, if not fairies.

Returning to the subject of religion we know of course from history books how the Church became a racket leading to the Reformation, followed by about three centuries of shocking civil war in which divergent religious beliefs were claimed by the opposing nobility to be the cause of their dispute. The evidence is that the bulk of the Highland population were little concerned with either their Christian faith or politics.

In the year 1723 it was reported to the Presbytery that " Priests and Popish emissaries" were making great encroachment in Glenmoriston. At that time the Presbyterians regarded the Catholics as vermin and the Episcopalians as little better than that. The latter sect were supporting the Jacobite cause owing to their long-standing loyalty to the Stuarts and reverence for the Bishops. There were of course exceptions. John Grant, the Presbyterian minister for Urquhart and Glenmoriston, followed Prince Charles and was consequently imprisoned in Tilbury Fort for a period after the "45" Rebellion; William Grant, the missionary at Invermoriston submitted a statement on the characters, both good and bad, of the sixty eight men who had surrendered to the Duke of Cumberland needless to say the Duke did not pay any attention to the pleas on behalf of those who had been forced into the service of the Prince.

In the year 1756, Alexander Shaw, a native of Elgin who had been appointed manager, in those days known as "Principal Undertaker", of the Linen Manufactory, erected at Invermoriston wrote an interesting report to his superiors on the state of affairs in Glenmoriston. Like all outsiders, whether from the Lowlands or over the Border, he was critical of most aspects of the Highlanders outlook and way of life. However he did suggest the erection of a Church and a School at Invermoriston "To civilize the inhabitants" as their Parish Church was eight miles distant, presumably at Fort Augustus. He went on to say that the "locals" knew no more of religion than the wild Americans and "if any of them had any kind of religion it is Popish." This seems rather contradictory but no doubt Mr. Shaw was a Presbyterian. It is significant that Daniel Defoe who toured the Highlands earlier in the century deplored the fact that the Catholics were alone in their attempt to spread the Gospel.

Prior to the 1811, a Presbyterian minister stationed at Fort Augustus made visits to Glenmoriston but in that year a Meeting room with dwelling accommodation was erected at Invermoriston. At this point the story links up with our estate records which show that in the year 1815 our Laird paid £25 for repairs to Churches and School houses in the Parish, presumably including Urquhart and a further £20 towards the local Missionary's salary. By way of explanation a missionary carried out all the duties of a Minister but being a Lay Preacher could not administer the Sacraments.

In 1843 came the disruption of the Church, resulting in the breakaway of the free Church which itself fragmented into several different bodies, two of which merged in the year 1900 to form the United Free Church. As a result of the disruption, the present Free Church was erected at Culnacarn and seems to have had a larger following than the Established Church at Invermoriston which now came under the wing of the Parish Church at Urquhart in place of Fort Augustus. The Invermoriston building must have been very primitive with three small rooms on the upper floor of the Missionary's quarters and it was not until 1880 that the ground floor was constructed with timber along with other improvements. I am told that the Laird had a pew in the old Kilmore church at Drumnadrochit and I get the impression from the correspondence that the Glenmoriston outpost was still regarded as a Mission to the Poor.    

It was not until 1892 that our Parish Church became a full charge but from the middle of the last century we have been fortunate in having a succession of Ministers, or before 1892, Missionary Preachers, who spent most of their lives attending to the needs of the Glenmoriston folk of all denominations. Our present Minister The Rev. Peter Fraser came to us in the year 1949 and also represents our community in local Government matters. As mentioned earlier, the Church at Invermoriston was built with funds provided by Mrs. Harriet Morrison, a daughter of our twelfth Laird. Not many years back when the writer leased a croft in the Glen to a Catholic family, an old resident of Free Church persuasion was heard to remark that the old Laird would never have done a thing like that. Going further back, to the year 1892, the Laird had a difference of opinion with the Abbot at Fort Augustus concerning the extent of land that went with the Catholic chapel at Torgoyle. He reckoned that they were claiming an area on which a Cathedral could be built rather than a chapel and wrote to his factor saying that he "thought it as well to be sharp with these priests although later it might be possible to do something with Lovat through them."    At the same time the Free Church was considered by the Establishment to have a pronounced leaning towards the Radical Party, but this did not stop the Laird's mother, during his minority, providing them with - the Culnacarn site on which to build a Church and Manse. She was not one to be influenced by religious prejudices.

Mackay who devotes two chapters in his "Urquhart and Glenmoriston" to the history of the Church in the Parish concludes by asserting that while Puritanism has done much for religion in the Highlands "it has suppressed innocent customs and recreation whose origin was to be found in remote antiquity". He considered that the creed was entirely foreign to the nature of the Celt.

It seems that before the 17 th century few people in the Highlands could read and that many of the lairds could not even sign their own names. Before the Reformation, such documents as existed were compiled by the monks and written in Latin. Presumably their contents were explained to those concerned. Later on, chiefs such as Lochiel engaged the services of a preacher of the Gospel when attending "summit" meetings as those men of learning had legal knowledge and could also guide the chief's hand in putting his name to documents. Although professional men in the form of the Notary Public and Writer were available in towns such as Inverness, by the 17 th century many letters to Glenmoriston from his tenants, until quite recent times, were obviously written by a third party, and probably the Minister.

In these circumstances it was only to be expected that religion and education went hand in hand. It was one of John Knox's ambitions to erect a school in every parish but it was not until the year 1616 that the idea was adopted by the Privy Council who declared "that all his Majesty's subjects especially the youth, be exercised and trayned up in civilitie, godliness, knowledge and learning; that the vulgar Inglishe tongue be universallie planted and the Irish (Gaelic) language which one of the chieff and principall causes of the continuance of barbaritie and incivilitie among the inhabitants of the Isles and Highlands may be abolishit and removit".

A few years earlier the same Privy Council had been able to force certain powerful Highland chiefs to sign a code of regulations whereby any of their clansmen of a certain position were obliged to send their eldest sons to be educated in the "in country" and learn to speak and write English. The "certain position" amounted to the ownership of sixty cows or more but it seems unlikely that in those days much attention would have been paid to the edicts issued from Edinburgh by persons who obviously regarded the Highlands with contempt. Although there were no local schools in Urquhart or Glenmoriston, the lairds and others had for a long time back made use of those in Inverness, Petty and Fortrose, presumably run by the Church and they sometimes employed students to teach their children during the college recess.

In 1677, some fifty years after the Privy Council's declaration of intent, there was still no Parish School despite the efforts of the Minister, Mr. Alexander Grant and it was the Society in Scotland for Propagating Christian Knowledge (S.S.P.C.K.) that set the ball rolling. Their first attempt at Abertarff presumably at Fort Augustus was not encouraging, the schoolmaster after two years being driven from the district which was a Catholic stronghold. However the Society then enlisted the aid of the General Assembly and it was resolved to open free – known as "Charity Schools" in the district that most required them. In the year 1726 certain gentlemen of Urquhart pressed the Presbytery to open a school in the Braes of the pariah where Popish priests were encroaching and in October of the year one Henry Urquhart, a learned shoe-maker, was, with their approval appointed schoolmaster at such an establishment opened at Meikle. Two years later the Presbytery had prepared a school house at Dundreggan to which Henry Urquhart was transferred in 1732 a charity school was opened at Milton in Urquhart but later moved to Pitkerrald.

It seems that the lairds had dragged their feet in providing the education facilities as required of them by law but took action following pressure from the Society, who had for many years before employed a teacher working under very primitive conditions at Dalchreichard. In the early stages it had prohibited the Gaelic language in its schools, presumably on the instruction of the General Assembly, who still associated the native language with Popery.

Their schoolmasters were in fact bound to the "Formula against Popery " conse quently their pupils, under threat of dire punishment, were bound to recite the Proverbs and the Catechism etc. in a language that was meaningless to them. However in 1767, the Society had come to see the error of its ways and began to publish Gaelic translations. They had also been empowered to give instruction in husbandry and what is now known as domestic economy.   For instance in 1755, they had a gardener and a blacksmith teaching their trades in Glenmoriston. It is rather strange that Mr. Alexander Shaw, the Linen Station Manager at Invermoriston, mentioned earlier in this narrative, makes no mention of these act ivities, which makes one wonder if he really knew much about local affairs.

After the disruption of 1853, the free Church opened two of their own schools in Glen Urquhart and did good work but when the election for the first School Board took place, Sinclair the Glenmoriston factor expressed alarm as three of their ministers were "standing". H e hoped however that, although many of the electors were radical, a sufficient number of them would vote for the Heritor's representatives i.e. the Seafield factor and himself.

At Invermoriston several buildings were used for a schoolroom early last century including the old wing of the shop, the tailor's croft house (also once used as a police station) and the Old Farmhouse. However the Education Act of 1872 laid down certain standards both as regards school buildings & teachers. Up to that time the school house at Dalcreichard had belonged to the Estate, the Ladies' Association of Edinburgh paying the teacher's salary of £210 per annum towards which the Laird contributed £8. By 1876 new school buildings had been erected at Invermoriston and Dalcreichard on the present sites.

Miss Margaret Mackenzie who lived at the Pole cottage told us that when her father, who was shepherd at Inverwick, went to school, the pupils paid 6d a week and were expected to bring a piece and a faggot with them, some of those attending in the winter months were up to thirty years of age.

If it had not been for education the young men of Glenmoriston would not have qualified for the jobs that were available in the city police forces and other such employment while the young women would not have been in demand for domestic service all over the country. At the same time it can be argued that education has been responsible for the depopulation of the highlands over the last century which is naturally deplored by everyone. We cannot have it both ways.

Today the elderly sometimes remark that some prevalent bodily ailment was unheard of in their youth. Probably their memories may be at fault but there seems little doubt that changes in the way of life and the environment have some effect on the health of the populace, for instance the more sedentary existence, the great increase in smoking in both sexes and the present day pollution of the atmosphere. Against this medical progress eliminated such diseases as smallpox and consumption, which were quite common until comparatively recent years. Even last century, there were epidemics of cholera and typhus, presumably brought from abroad as a result of the great expansion in overseas trade.

As might be expected in the Highlands, sickness, and superstition went hand in hand, the idea prevailing, that whoever was destined to get better would recover and that he who was doomed to die was beyond cure. Alexander Macdonald, from whose book "Story and Song from Loch Ness side”, the writer has extracted this paragraph on sickness, states that whisky was regarded as about the best cure, even for smallpox, and if the patient did not respond to this medicine the patient was beyond cure. There were certain herbs used in the treatment of common complaints such as coughs and diarrhoea while the masticated leaf of the Rib-Wort healed wounds and cuts. Alexander Macdonald states that it was common habit for the neighbours to gather around the sick bed, isolation or fear of infection being out of the question. "Falling sickness" was not uncommon and thought to be caused by something supernatural which could be cured by a seventh son. The same author, a native of Achnaconneran, relates a story of the sudden illness of a local man of fine physique who normally enjoyed good health. His neighbours were much concerned at this unexpected happening and there was soon a crowd round his sick bed. One said it was a case of galloping consumption, another thought it was ricketts, a third diagnosing rheumatism of the spine, while a fourth quietly predicted a speedy 'end'.

As the nearest doctor lived at Fort Augustus it was unanimously agreed that the Rev. Gair, the Missionary who lived at the bottom of the hill, should be called; he had already dealt with a number of such emergency cases. However before going further, the choice of the members of the deputation had to be made and this question required considerable debate. It was a cold winter's night but the good minister on the pony provided soon reached Achnaconneran and by that time most of the township had turned out. After examining the patient he was able to assure them all that it was not a dangerous illness and so proscribed warm fomentations. After the minister's departure the pain in the patient's chest grew worse but an old man sitting by the bed-side had a bright idea and applied a piece of hot buttered toast to the affected spot as a result of which a quantity of clotted blood was expectorated, The patient then made a speedy recovery. Another "lay" doctor of last century, Donald Macdonald, was reputed to be an expert bone-setter having acquired the knowledge while employed as horseman to the resident practitioner at Fort Augustus. He was later "carrier" for the Laird, before the days of the steamers.

The introduction of so called "modern" sanitation last century did have its teething troubles. The family of Burgess, the Estate factor living at Drumnadrochit, went down with typhoid, one of the daughters succumbing, and our own family had the same experience while living at Ploy House, faulty sewage systems being no doubt to blame in both cases. Was it not a blocked drain at Windsor Castle that was the indirect cause of Prince Albert's death?

The expectancy of life has shown a remarkable change for the better during the present century, due no doubt to improved medicine and antibiotics. Perhaps it is a case of the exception proving the rule but the inscriptions of many of the gravestones in Glenmoriston record ages of over 80.

In the olden days the "Wake" which preceded the funeral was considered an important function. People came from far and near to the house of mourning. The fiddler made it his duty to attend and also a piper. There was in fact considerable merriment with adequate refreshment and the local seanachie, the acknowledged authority on tale telling, would be in his element. At the funeral the coffin was carried on the shoulders generally by six people. Before departure it was the practice to serve around or two of whisky with some bread and cheese. Similar refreshments were served at the grave. Times have of course changed but it is still customary to have a dram or two on such occasions.

Chapter 11