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Post by Thomas Cameron on Dec 16, 2003 17:49:35 GMT -6
John,
Well said! I had considered making a post regarding the Loyalist issue, but you've made my points - better than I could have.
I was born and raised in the U.S., but my grandfather was born and raised in Canada. All told, "my" Cameron line resided in Canada for 65 years, and has now been in the U.S. for 85 years. All of this is post-Revolutionary era, so regardless of my citizenship I hope to present an unbiased opinion.
In researching this era, and many others, for the ongoing book project (The Camerons in America) I've found many fascinating stories. Unfortunately I have much better access to U.S. records. As a result I've identified 54 Camerons who fought for the fledgling States, but only 10 Loyalists who fought for the Crown. I know that there were many more stories of the Camerons who fought for King George, but to date they're proving elusive.
One such gent was Daniel Cameron. During February 1776 the Royal Standard was raised at Cross Creek, North Carolina, and a regiment of Scottish-Americans, under the command of Culloden veteran General Donald MacDonald was formed. Their eventual defeat at the hands of Colonial forces on February 27th of that same year was decisive, with 850 prisoners taken. Among these prisoners was Daniel Cameron, a “common soldier,” who followed his heart and fought for his mother country, or perhaps the country his parents or grandparents originally hailed from.
There was also Charles Edward Cameron (gee, I wonder who he was named for...!) He was a Captain fighting with the forces from Virginia. During the war he fought at the battles of Brandywine and Germantown. Charles was drafted for service once again in 1781 as a captain of the militia and the following year was appointed by Virginia’s Governor as the Commissary of Purchases of Augusta County.
I guess the point of this rambling posting is to once again make a call to Camerons, especially Canadian Camerons, to tell me the stories of their ancestors. I'd love to have more tales of the Loyalists, and of the difficult, brave choice they made.
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Alans
Dedicated Clansperson
Posts: 197
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Post by Alans on Dec 18, 2003 5:29:40 GMT -6
Hi Chris you may have found the right people especially if they disappear after 1841 as Cosmo came to Australia in 1848 at the age of 24 totally alone on the ship "Aurora" and did not sponsor any close relatives which is surprising as he became a moderately wealthy farmer by the 1870's. His daughter Jessie my G.Grandmother married a 2nd cousin whose father had come to Tasmania in the 1830's and then moved on to Victoria in the early 1840's and also worked for Donald Cameron at Clunes(Victoria Australia) Cosmo was sponsored by a Donald Cameron (arr. Australia in 1838) who had returned to Scotland (Lochaber) in 1847 to marry and styled himself "of Clunes" although he was probably a younger son of a branch of that family. This man actually met Cosmo on the quay at the port of Geelong having travelled a considerable distance from his sheep station. Cosmo described Donald as a "Friend" on the Ships records. Donald Cameron sold his lands and returned to Scotland in 1853 a very wealthy man and bought himself a much larger estate( not in Lochaber) than that which his family had leased from the Lochiel Camerons until the 1850's. His grandson Frank Cameron a Scottish descendent of an Australian born child of Donald's, wrote a small book in the 1950's about a number of Scots "Overlanders" often sons of moderately well off tenants who took family capital out to Australia in the late 1830's and early 1840's (Adelaide and Sydney) and then bought stock and drove them (overland) into South East South Australia, Central and Western Victoria and Southern New South Wales. They followed the Bullock wagon tracks of Sir Thomas Mitchell (A great Scots explorer of Australia) who journeyed through most of the abovenamed areas in 1836. If you are interested I can find the book's title and publication details. It has quite a lot on the History of the Clunes family, some of it not completely accurate, but is quite fascinating in the details it gives of the Scots influence in pastoral agriculture's development during the early settlement of South Eastern Australia, following Mitchell's great journeys of exploration. Cosmo definitely trained in Edinburgh as a Teacher and appears to have first married a Charlotte Devine in 1846 in Edinburgh who apparently died (in childbirth?) prior to his emigration. He married again in Australia in 1854 to a Mary Morrison and seven children survived. He never followed his original profession here in Australia, managing stores on the Goldfields and then buying a farm. His letters, which a cousin still has show him to have had a very fine hand and good grammar. He died in 1901 aged over 75. My granny knew him as a young girl( she was 8 or 9 when he died), and he had said his parents names were John and Mary and that they were tenants of the Clunes family. Cosmo grew up on a farm close to Letterfinlay which he regarded as the place he came from. Another reason that his birth may be unrecorded is that my recent Scots forbears were mainly free Presbyterians or Catholics and only one was a member of the official Church of Scotland as far as we know; although when Cosmo's parents married at Kilmaillie(Mormon records) the major disruptions had not occurred. It is strange that a well educated young man connected with the Clunes family would have no Baptismal record unless he wasn't brought up in another denomination eg. Episcopalian or changed later. Please don't go to too much trouble as finding detail about Cosmo's parents is I think a thankless task given their names. It is also possible that a middle name became his given name- a common habit in my father's family. My great Uncle Norman was christened Alan but that was his father's name and he was always called Norman which was his middle name. I think I really need to find descendents of Frank Cameron, who may have family documents about Donald Cameron the overlander, one the few Colonial Scots who returned home wealthy. If he kept a diary or family Bible a fgew questions could be answered.
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Post by ChrisDoak on Jan 8, 2004 11:22:09 GMT -6
Hi Alan,
Sorry for taking so long to reply to your entry (in reply to my message of 1 November 2003) ,but the holiday is now over,and it's time to hoist myself back into the saddle.
Cosmo,I think you are correct in saying,was most likely not his baptismal first name,but more likely a nickname he aquired because of his pride in his Letterfinlay roots,or a name he preferred to use because it gave him a dash of the exotic.
It is possible he could have been baptised in the Episcopal Church in Fort William.It was established in 1817,but unfortunately records from that period do not seem to be in existance.If he was Christened in the Catholic Church,however,we may be able to track him down.Records for the Parishes of Bunroy ,and of Fort William,have survived,with details of Births from 1820 on,and Marriages(unfortunately for you),from 1830 onwards.Copies are kept in the National Archives of Scotland,and I shall check them out,the first opportunity I get to go through to Auld Reekie.
Regarding the listing on the LDS Site of a marriage in 1823 between a John Cameron and a Mary Cameron,I think it refers to a marriage between two of these names in Kilmonivaig Parish,as opposed to Kilmallie.This pair came from Tomacharrich (between Fort William and Spean Bridge) ,but their first boy Alexander was not born till 1828,and he was still living there with the rest of the family at the time of the 1851 Census.
I'm sure we will eventually get a result to this conundrum - the answer is out there somewhere!
Cheers,Chris.
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Alans
Dedicated Clansperson
Posts: 197
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Post by Alans on Jan 13, 2004 20:22:20 GMT -6
Chris thanks for your reply. Like you I have been on recreational activities. Our weather has been very pleasant at the moment-its normally very hot at this time of the year even in Soutern Australia. I am sure you are correct to exclude the Kilmonavaig marriage even though its not far from Letterfinlay. Cosmo's arrival in Australia ("Aurora" Geelong 1848) is properly recorded and his link with the Clunes family through Donald Cameron his wealthy friend/distant relative is clear. His second wife Mary Morrison was from Glenelg but had no long term connection with that area. Her parents were cleared from Skye prior to her birth in the 1830's and her elder brothers were born in the Sligachan district of Skye. This family migrated without the mother who died of TB on the "Stebonheath" arriving in the Port of Melbourne in 1851. Whatever his original denomination Cosmo seems to have adopted the Morrison family's Free Presbyterianism, and in fact most gaelic speaking immigrants to Victoria, who were not Catholics, joined the free Church in Australia because they could worship in Gaelic. His daughter married a 2nd cousin Alan MacDonald in Australia who had Clunes and Glen Nevis connections through his mother but this ancestry is also very hard to trace beyond a GGG grandfather of mine, Alexander Cameron who arrived in Tasmania in the 1820's ( I dont know the ship) as a free settler, gained some wealth and removed to Victoria in the late 1830's again due to Mitchell's discovery of pime grazing land. I also have no idea of this man's exact religious affiliations although one of his nephews also called Alexander was a Catholic who settled in Penola in South East South Australia-just acorss the border from Western Victoria and married the blessed Mary MacKillop's(founder of the Australian based Sisters of St.Joseph) aunt, who eventually died after having 8 children. This Alexander had another 10 children with his second wife. Needless to say there are many Camerons in Western Victoria and South East South Australia descended from him.
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tr
New Member
Posts: 1
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Post by tr on May 6, 2006 17:14:34 GMT -6
Chris - My ancestors are the Kennedy's of Leanachan. Could you tell me if they are in the survey taken in Lochaber in 1778 by the Duke of Gordon? And where could I access that survey? Is it on the internet? I thought I would send you a private email because you seem quite knowledgeable in this area and I have many questions. But your email is hidden. So I will ask a few here. I would like to basically understand the situation of the Duke of Gordon in Lochaber. Is there a good book that explains that? Like how long did the Duke of Gordon have control of those lands? Also how did he lose them? I would also like to learn more about the clearances in those areas. And, I have heard that the people of Leanachan were Catholic until around the 1840s. Is there any book that speaks of this in any depth? Were any Catholic records of birth and marriage preserved from this area? I would also like to discover the family tree of the tacksman of Leanachan. I have a bare skeleton of a key, but wonder if anyone has a much fuller version. Also would like to read any history about these people, incidents, anecdotes.
Thanks,
TR
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Post by SherbrookeJacobite on May 8, 2006 9:53:47 GMT -6
Welcome TR!
I have a copy of Somerled MacMillan's book "Bygone Lochaber" - which contains both information and anecdotes about your family. I would be pleased to share this information with you, as the book can be quite hard to find.
Please do stick around, and post/comment on anything you find interesting. We have been quiet here lately, but it is starting to get a bit more active.
Slainte,
John
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Post by ChrisDoak on May 13, 2006 3:06:50 GMT -6
Hi TR, The survey undertaken in 1778,to establish the names of able-bodied men (for military purposes) between the ages of 16 and 60,living on the Duke of Gordon's Estate in Lochaber,is unfortunately not on the Internet.The original document is held at the National Archives of Scotland in Edinburgh.However,I have taken a note of it's contents in the distant past,and here are the Kennedy entries for the locality which should be of interest to you,though it will be tricky working out who is who: -LEANACHANBEG:Alexander Kennedy,Ewan Kennedy. -LEANACHANMOR:Alexander Kennedy,John Kennedy,John Kennedy and John Kennedy (Joint Tacksmen),Allan Kennedy,Alexander Kennedy,Neil Kennedy,Alexander Kennedy,Allan Kennedy,John Kennedy,John Kennedy,Angus Kennedy,John Kennedy. -ACHNASHINE:Donald Kennedy,John Kennedy,Duncan Kennedy,Alexander Kennedy. -CORYCHONLIE:Ewan Kennedy. I think that John is right in suggesting that "Bygone Lochaber" by Somerled McMillan is a good book to borrow to get a good handle,in detail, on what was going on in the area.I am not an expert on the Duke of Gordon's circumstances (the Lochaber Estate formed possibly only a tenth of his vast empire),but am indebted to McMillan's book in clarifying that in 1546,Mary Queen of Scots granted to George,Earl of Huntly (and of the Gordon family) certain lands in Lochaber which had been confiscated from Ewan Allanson Cameron of Lochiel.The Gordons subsequently held these lands till the 19th century. Off the top of my head,the Duke of Gordon got into severe financial difficulties in the early decades of the 1800s,and in 1834 sold off a parcel of his Lochaber lands - entitled "The Inverlochy Estate" - to his cousin the Earl of Huntly.The boundaries of this estate were roughly the River Spean to the north,the River Lochy to the west,Fort William to the south,and the Ben Nevis range of mountains to the east;it included the farm of Leanachan.The Earl of Huntly went bust in 1840,and the estate was sold to James Scarlett,Baron Abinger - a distinctly unpleasant Landlord who allowed his farms to stagnate,and was loathe to finance any improvements which alleviated the poverty of his tenants.When he came up to Lochaber from England,Abinger preferred to spend his money on the sumptious mansion he erected for himself on the estate - the present day Inverlochy Castle Hotel,and one of Scotland's most expensive and reclusive. There is a good chance that many of the Kennedys were Roman Catholic,through their close relationship with the McDonnell of Keppoch clan,and Birth and Marriage Records for the Bunroy Parish that Leanachan fell under,can also be found at the National Archives of Scotland.The records,however,are only in existance from the period of approx.1820 onwards. Regarding a fuller family tree for the Leanachan Kennedies,there is certainly some detailed information in "Bygone Lochaber",but I suggest you maybe access the website www.kennedydna.com where Iain Kennedy of Glasgow has set up an extensive one-name-study of the Kennedy name,and will surely be able to assist you with more information. Regards,Chris.
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