"Glenmoriston of the Past"

Appendix A:                       Note: The place names are copied exactly from the Rental.

GLENMORISTON ESTATE RENTAL at MARTS 1802

Note: The rents were increased in the following year and the bill from Kenackock (Ceannacrooc) to Aulteorryoian (Aultararich) were leased to Fraser of Foyers for £200

Appendix B

REPORT by the Rev. GAIR

Glenmoriston manse
30th October 1874

To the Trustees of Glenmoriston Estates,

Gentlemen,

According to your desires I send you a short outline of the present state of the Parish of Glenmoriston as to morals, education and other statistics.
Though this year has been very wet yet upon the whole there was a very good crop in the Parish of Glenmoriston. In the Braes of Glenmoriston there has been some more than average crop and all secured in a sound state except Tomcrasky where the corn crop and hay are not yet secured and I believe now is hardly worth securing. The potatoes in the Braes are above average and very little deseased. In Invermoriston were far below an average accompanied with about ¼ diseased ones.

The poor people of Invermoriston lost almost all their potatoes owing to the Park which Mr. Urquhart set apart for them this year. It was the Park by Invermoriston Pier and the wettest part of it. They lost almost all their potatoes and very few of them got the return of their seed.

Agriculture is in a very low state in the Braes of Glenmoriston. The season though wet answered the sandy soil of the Glen very well. If it had been a dry season some of them would have had little or no crop.

In the Braes the large farmers are doing pretty well but the crofters without leases are exhausting the land without feeding it properly and if they go on as they are doing in a short time they will not be able to make them pay even the rent, losing their seed and labour. For instance there are two of these crofters came under my own personal observation one of them with one park had a greater crop than the other with three parks of the same extent of ground.

The population of Glenmoriston was in 1868 about 550 of which 300 were females and 250 males of which there were about 110 above 15 years of age and 140 below it.

But this year there is a considerable diminution. I don’t think now the population of the Glen will rise in number more than 500. This is evident from the diminution of the children that attended the schools. This last year namely 1873/74 there were only 48 scholars attending the school in the Braes in winter whereas there used to be 70.

This year as above there were only 45 attending Invermoriston School in the winter months whereas there used to be about 60. During the rest of the year the scholars in both schools gradually dwindled away to 20 to 25 and even much less.

(Paragraph omitted - of not much interest)

For the last two months I have kept a Sabbath School assisted by my Niece's leading the singing by means of a harmonium. Most of the young persons in Invermoriston attend coming in crowds so great that the Chapel is almost half full. The most of them exhibit considerable talent for vocal music, some very superior. There are 6 or 7 that exhibit great talent, two of which are the sons of the old Piper of Glenmoriston who died long ago.

Immorality is on the decrease, there not being one illegitimate child in the Braes for the last two years and only two in the Invermoriston district. Drunkenness is still too prevalent among the old and middle aged, and yet not half as much as it once was. The young both male and female have signified as much that they are all ready to take and never taste this baleful liquid.

The improvement in morality and other things is greatly owing to the better education and training of the females who leave and go south to service.

I am anxious to get a Sabbath School in the Braes of the same kind but there is no house in it fit for such a purpose.

If Glenmoriston were separated from Glen Urquhart the poor rates would be lessened by half in a short time – and   as pauperism is diminishing in Glenmoriston already, it might then if properly conducted be reduced to very few.

I attended this year about 200 patients and all of' then recovered. I have been the means of doing such good to the pauper patients by sending promptly for the doctor and sometimes in cases of necessity giving them medicine before the doctor could come.

I have got an estimate of a kitchen which with a grant of some fallen trees only cost about £20,the sum promised by the Trustees through their late factor John Sinclair Esq.,

The two windows in the north end of the dwelling stand greatly in need of repair that would only cost about 15/- each.

I hope the Trustees will do me the favour to continue the gratn of £10 which they have hitherto continued to pay through the hands of the late Mr. Sinclair.

In conclusion I beg to thank the Trustees f or their liberation and attention

I remain etc.

(signed) Alexander Gair.

Note: At a Meeting of the Trustees on 3/12/1874 it was agreed to pay rh-. Ge,ir a donation of ten pounds for the present year. They further authorised the Factor to get the repairs on Kitchen etc. executed. But the total expenoe not to exceed ^25.

Appendix C

It is stated that an English Gentleman, Mr. Bainbridge, M.P. for Taunton was lessee of the Glengarry shootings previous to the purchase of the property by Lord Ward; and annoyed by the loss of game, this gentleman set about a vigourous system of war and extermination against all the vermin intruders. He engaged numerous gamekeepers paying them liberally and awarding prizes to those who should prove most successful. The result was the destruction within three years of above four thousand head of verain and a proportional increase in the stock of game.

A full list of the verain destroyed at Glengarry from Whitsunday 1837 to Whitsunday 1840 is subjoined and may be quoted here as still interesting:

11        Foxes
148 Wildcats
246 Martin Cats
106 Pole cat
301 Strats and Weasels
67 Badgers
48    Otters
78 House Cats going wild
27 White tailed sea Eagles
15 Golden Eagles
18 Osprey or fishing eagles
98 Blue Hawks or Peregrine Falcons
7 Orange legged Falcons
11 Hobby Hawks
275 Kites called s almon tailed glades
5   Marsh Harriers or Yellow legged Hawks
61 Goshawk
285 Common Buzzards             
371    Rough Legged Buzzards
3 Long Buzzard s
162 Kestrels or Red Hawks
78 Martin Hawks
83      Hen Harriers or Ring, Tailed Hawks
9      Ash Coloured or Blue Tailed Hawks
1431 Hooded or Carrion Crows
175   Ravens
35 Horned Owls
71 Common Sern Owls
3 Golden Owls
8       Ma gpies
6 Ger Falcon Toefeathered   Hawks

Appendix E

                                                                        Colonel John Grant
Patrick Grant Esq.                                           of Glenmoriston
London
                                                                       Inverness 17th March 1873

My dear Sir,

In a letter you wrote me some time ago you asked if I would provide any particulars of your grandfather, Col. John Grant (your paternal grandfather) and if he was at the Seringapatam with the 42 nd Highlanders in 1799. On looking over what I wrote to you in reply I observe some inaccuracies.

In Stewart's history of the Highland regiments published after 1816 and which is the best authority on such subjects I observe that Colonel Grant was one of the captains appointed to the 2nd Battalion of the 42 nd Highlanders raised in 1780 and embodied at Perth in that year. In a note it is said "he is retired and died in 1801” I have every reason to believe that was the year of his decease, followed by a long minority and unlike the present there was no lack of money, but badly managed.

Col: Grant went to India with his regiment where he served with it notably in the siege of Mangalore 1783/4/5 and was the only officer who came out of it unwounded. Many years ago I saw a diary of his giving an account of the voyage out. The activities previous to the siege of Mangalore and what took place then and afterwards until his departure for Europe. What has become of the manuscript, I do not know. I would say that he returned home in 1786 for you will find from the extract from the family Bible. His eldest son Patrick Grant, your uncle, was born in April 1788. The close intimacy and friendship which ever before existed between the Grants of Glenmoriston and their Chief existed in those days. Your grandfather married Miss Grant, his wife a ward of Sir James Grant of Grant at Castle Grant and he, Colonel Grant, was appointed Major in the Fencibles. I believe he was on active service with the Brevit rank of Colonel when he died in 1801. The late Captain Macdonell Aonach was one of the men who joined and followed him in the Grants. When you grandfather joined the 42 nd in 1780 twenty men were the quota demanded to entitle a gentleman to his Company. That number from the Glen followed him to India. It was in that age, at least it was practised in the Glen, the custom that such as left "for the wars" should before departure, march past someone capable of conferring "charmed lives" of your grandfather's twenty, nineteen were thus passed before a certain lady, all of whom returned to the Glen scatheless, the twentieth man, Alexander Ferguson from Dundreggan not being present, never returned having been killed in a sortie at Mangalore.

Of your grandfather's twenty men I have seen three.

1) John Macdonald, Pensioner 42 nd Reg. Blind from Opthalmia contracted with his regiment in Egypt whose glory it was to detail accounts of the siege of Mangalore, and in whose estimation Nap I was as nothing to   Tippoo Sahib.

2) Duncan Grant, Pensioner 42 nd Reg. Hale and hearty to the day of his death (8,7,1844). He was in Egypt after which he was pensioned. Both lived in Urquhart.

3) John Mackintosh, Pensioner 93 rd Reg. into which he volunteered about 1803. He was one of the "twenty" who accompanied your grandfather. He lived and died in Glenmoriston after he left the service. His father was one of the Glenmoriston men who fought at Prestonpans and Falkirk, in the "45" and thus had the prescriptive right to Shoulder his Weapons and off to the wars. His grandfather was at Killiecrankie with John Grant (a' Chraggan) in 1688 and is believed to be the man who passed his claymore from left shoulder to right loin of a Hessian soldier declared to be one of the three "wonders" of the battle. "Ne importe" enough of his kind of lore. It is endless, the weather is most inclement snow and-frost with premonitory fears that we are to have a repetition of last year's weather which the clerk of the weather we all truly forbid.

I have made a good sale of some of the wood valued and selected by Mr. Young which will be duly reported to you.

yours faithfully
John Sinclair
(Factor previous to Burgess)

Appendix F: (From the Inverness Courier of 1822)

The obsequies of the late Colonel Grant of Moy, which were recently celebrated in Glen Urquhart, may be noticed as another lingering instance of a genuine Highland funeral. Besides the gentlemen from all parts of the country, it is calculated that about 4000 Highlanders were assembled chiefly from Kintail, Strathglass, Glenmoriston and Glen Urquhart. The quantity of whisky expended on this occasion is variously estimated. So most of our readers are tolerable judges of Highland capacities when executed by zeal it is data sufficient to mention that the whole of this funeral train were, according to their own ideas, comfortable. The gentleman who rode off the scene of action

late in the evening   gave a very ludicrous account of the appearance of the field. The first return of Killed, wounded and missing was truly alarming. We are glad to learn from subsequent accounts that only one individual, a native of Abriachan, was immolated to the manies of the Colonel.

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