Peter McKay 1815 – 1879
Born 4th November 1815 at Tomoriough, Clashnore, Glenlivet, Peter McKay (also known as Patrick) was the second and oldest surviving son of William McKay and his wife Marjory Stuart. He was also the last in his particular line of McKays to have been born in Glenlivet. The sponsors at his baptism were his aunt, Margaret Stuart of Eskemore, and John Grant of Delhandy.
In 1841 Peter was living at Achnarrow, Glenlivet, with his parents and younger brother and sister, William born c1822 and Jane born c1825. Around 1845 the family left The Braes of Glenlivet and settled at Lockers, in the Aultmore district of Banffshire, where they built a house and cultivated approximately 13 acres of land. In the 1851 census Peter is still unmarried and living with his parents and sister but there is no mention (then or subsequently) of brother William.
Family narrative has it that Peter was disabled (crippled) in some way but whether this was a congenital malformation or the result of an accident is not known. It is said that a marriage was eventually ‘arranged’ for him by some friends who had set off North over the hills to Enzie to look for a suitable bride (and incidentally falling in a bog en route, which for some obscure reason was considered to be a good omen). On 2nd May 1857 Peter was duly married to Isabella Clark of Ryeriggs, Enzie; neither bride nor groom being in the first flush of youth, he being 41 and she 36. Peter’s sister Jane died unmarried in 1859 of consumption and this was followed by the death of Peter’s father, William, in 1863.
There were actually three crofts under the name Lockers, only one of which was tenanted by Peter McKay at the time of the record, the other tenants being a James Mitchell and a John McConnachie, one of whom was a native Gaelic speaker. The land was owned by the Earl of Fife as was so much of the surrounding land adjoining Newmill and Keith.
The census of 1861 tells us father William was then aged 72, mother Marjory had passed, and they have a daughter Marjory aged 2 years and son William aged 10 months. Also at Lockers is Isabella’s daughter (step daughter to Peter) Isabella Cameron aged 10 years.
Peter died on 6th September 1879 aged 61 and was succeeded by his widow and younger son George; the elder son William had left home and was by that time living at the Railway Station, Forres. William, who latterly lived in Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, died in Glasgow on 7th March 1906 as the result of a railway accident.
Links, where available, to Peter and Isabella’s children and grandchild sub-pages (click as required):-
- Marjory McKay 1858-1892, b. Lockers, d. Keith
- William McKay 1860-1906, b. Lockers, d. Coatbridge
- George McKay 1862-1915, b. Lockers, d. Lockers
Isabella Clark 1821-1894
Born at Enzie in the parish of Bellie, Banffshire, in either 1821 or 1822, Isabella Clark was one of the several children of James Clark and Janet Chapman. Little is known of her early years although she does seem to have lived in or around Enzie until she married Peter McKay.
It is related that the marriage of Peter and Isabella was an arranged one, it being thought that at the age of forty one it was time that Peter had wife. It is tempting to speculate that the need for another woman at Lockers (Peter’s home) was becoming evident as his mother had died around 1853, and while his unmarried sister Jane would presumably have taken over all the household duties, she herself died of consumption in early 1859, and could well have been already ailing by the time of the marriage.
Although Isabella was a Protestant the wedding was conducted according to the forms of the Roman Catholic church, to which Peter belonged, and was reported thus in the Roman Catholic records for Keith:
“2nd May 1857 After due proclamation of banns and no objections offered Peter McKay of the parish of Keith and Isabella Clark of the parish of the Enzie were married by me in the presence of William McKay, George Inglis and many others. Charles Tochete, Priest.”
Unusually the civil marriage registration underestimates the bridegroom’s age (by six years), rather than that of the bride.
The rites of the Roman Catholic church were not unfamiliar to Isabella as in 1851 she had had her daughter Isabella Cameron baptised as a Roman Catholic. This little girl was the child of one John Cameron, of whom nothing is known other than his name and the fact that he, like Isabella, was a Protestant, as noted by the priest in the baptismal record. Young Isabella was brought up at Lockers with the rest of the family and subsequently married. We know of one son, William Angus, who was born at Marnoch in 1873, and her husband is thought to have been a gamekeeper at Orton.
After the death of her husband in 1879 Isabella senior (who was known as Belle) remained at Lockers in the company of her younger son and his wife, George and Mary, until her own death in 1894.
Isabella Clark Ancestry
James Clark c1781-1852
The earliest reference we have to James Clark is contained in the Old Parish Registers for the parish of Bellie, and is of his marriage to Janet Chapman: “25th December 1813 James Clark in the parish of Rothes and Janet Chapman in this parish were contracted in order to marriage and afterwards married.” Unfortunately the Rothes Old Parish Registers do not yield up any information on him and we are therefore uncertain if he was in fact born there or only resident there at the time of his marriage. Consequently we have no knowledge of his parents.
It seems that after they were married James and Janet settled at Ryerigs, Enzie, where Janet’s family, the Chapmans, had long been established. In the 1841 census James and Janet were at Ryerigs (originaly Ryeridges) with five of their family although the exact relationships are not clear in each case, and three of them may have been grandchildren ; one definitely so (Isabella Cameron, daughter of Isabella with John Cameron, born 1851). By the time of the 1851 census Janet was listed as a widow, so James had evidently died some time in the intervening years.
Janet Chapman 1794-1876
Janet Chapman was the fifth of the seven known children of John Chapman and his wife Margaret Bennett, and she was born at Ryerigs, Enzie, Banffshire on 12th February 1794. Her birth was entered in the Bellie Old Parish Register thus:
“Janet lawful daughter to John Chapman and Margaret Bennett was born 12th February 1794 and baptized. Witnesses Janet Smith and James Scott.”
Janet married James Clark of Rothes on 25th December 1813 at Enzie and they lived at Ryerigs there after their marriage; this being the home of several branches of the Chapman family. There is some confusion as to the number of children produced by John and Janet, although we know of four – Margaret born c1820, Isabella c1822, James c1826 and William c1830, all of these births taking place at Enzie. Two other recorded members of the family, George born c1838 and Andrew c1839, are thought to have been their grandsons.
In 1841 Margaret, James, George and Andrew ware still living at home with James and Janet, along with Alexander Smith, a grandson. Isabella was by then living away from home and listed as being at the Braes of Enzie, with which the Chapman family had also been connected in an earlier generation.
In 1851 Janet, by that time a widow and a farmer in her own right at Shiels of Raefin (or Raffan), had her son William, grandson Alexander Smith and her mother living with her. Ten years later, in the 1861 census she had returned to Ryerigs and whilst she had another grandson, Andrew Clark, his wife and their two daughters, Margaret and Katherine, in her household, she was named as head of the family and described as a cottager.
Janet died at Ryerigs on 11th October 1876 at the age of, 82, her death being registered by grandson Andrew Clark. The following year the rateable value of Andrew’s land at Ryerigs was given as £1.15/- (£1.75p in decimal currency) which is indicative of an extremely small holding.
John Chapman 1758-
John Chapman was the first son and third child of the six children known to have been born to Alexander Chapman and Margaret Spence. He was born at Finfan in the parish of Urquhart on 18th January 1758. The family moved to the mother’s home territory at Enzie (where the couple had been married) between 1758 and 1762, where they lived at Ryerigs.
At Whitsun of 1782 John, along with John McWilliam, was granted a twenty year lease on land at Ryerigs, with the proviso that the payment of additional rent was to commence after nine years. On 11th October of the same year John married Margaret Bennett, as is related in this entry in the Old Parish Register for Bellie, in which Enzie lies:
“John Chapman in this parish and Margaret Bennett in the parish of Rathven matrimonially contracted 20th September 1782 and were married. “
They were actually married in Rathven and this entry refers more specifically to the proclamation of banns. The records show that at least nine children ensued from this marriage. It has not been established when John died but, as in 1841 Margaret was living with their youngest son William and his family at Ryerigs, it seems reasonable to conclude that she was by then a widow.
Margaret Bennett c1754-1856
If this date of birth is accurate Margaret Bennett is undoubtedly the winner of the longevity stakes. Born in the parish of Rathven although not recorded there, she was still living there at the time of her marriage in 1782. It would appear that she was one of the younger children of John Bennett and Anna Clark, as they had been married in 1734, some twenty years before her birth.
On 11th October 1782 Margaret married John Chapman of Enzie, where they lived after the marriage. They had nine recorded children – Margaret born 23/2/1784, Ann 20/11/1785, Jane 10/3/1787, Alexander 18/7/1789, James 6/11/1791, Janet 12/2/1794, John 26/3/1797, Andrew 16/2/1799 and William, who was born around 1805. Her husband evidently died some time before 1841 as in that year Margaret was to be found living at Nether Ryerigs with her son William (a tailor) and his wife and family. Another son, John, also lived and farmed at Ryerigs.
In the last census in which she appeared in 1851, Margaret was living with her widowed daughter, Janet Clark, at Shiels of Raefin (or Raffan), Enzie. Margaret died on 18th December 1856, reputedly aged 102 years. This age is likely to be substantially correct as it fits in with other salient dates. Her death was registered by her son John, and she was buried at Bellie.
Alexander Chapman
Alexander Chapman, of unknown parentage, appears in the Bellie Old Parish Register for the 1752 marriages:
“Alexander Chapman and Margaret Spence, the man from the parish of Urquhart and the woman in this parish, were contracted in order to marriage and married 5th October”, but the Urquhart register contains no reference to him.
It seems that Alexander and Margaret lived at Finfan, Urquhart for some years after their marriage as the first four of their six children known to us were born there. By the time the fifth child arrived they had moved to Ryerigs, Enzie, where Margaret’s family came from.
The first documentary evidence of Alexander at Ryerigs is in 1772 when in an Instrument Sasine reference was made to “those parts of the lands of Ryerigs possessed by Patrick Spence, Alexander Chapman, Andrew Simpson and William Badenoch”. It is assumed that this Patrick (or Peter) Spence was the father or brother of Alexander’s wife, Margaret.
Two years later, in 1774, those same lands were shown in the cess books as having a rental value Of £15.5.7d (about £15.28p in today’s decimal currency).
In 1778 there is mention of Alexander and Andrew Simpson paying 15/- (15 shillings in old money, or 75 pence in decimal currency) in rent; the balance would have been made up in kind. This was the case, in 1806 when Alexander’s son, also Alexander, paid eight bolls of meal and two leats of peat to the Duke of Gordon at Fochabers, being part of the rent crop of the Braes of Enzie for the year. At that time one boll of meal was reckoned to be worth £1.1.4d and one leat of peat £1.10/ -. (A leat was a stack of peat measuring 24′ (24 feet) in length with a breadth of 12′ at the bottom, 3′ at the top and being 12′ high.)
Although Alexander’s name recurs in various documents as late as 1795, by 1786 the references are to “those parts of the lands of Ryerigs sometime possessed by Patrick Spence, Alexander Chapman” etc. In 1782 Alexander and Margaret’s elder son John was granted a twenty year lease on Ryerigs, along with John McWilliam. Whether this was the land previously let to his father or another sector of Ryerigs is unclear. Alexander is known to have been still alive in 1775, when he would probably have been in his fifties.
Margaret Spence 1727-1804
A native of Enzie, Margaret was born there in 1727, as is shown in Bellie Old Parish Register: “1727 September 24th Margaret lawful daughter to Peter Spence and Joan Cumin.”
She married Alexander Chapman of Urquhart in 1752 and they are known to have produced at least seven children – Isabel born 1753, Jean 1755, John 1758, Ann 1760, Margaret 1762, Patrick 1766 and Alexander born in 1767. The first four were born at Finfan, Urquhart, and the last three at Ryerigs, Enzie.
Alexander and Margaret settled at Ryerigs, Enzie (where she had been born) and were succeeded there by several generations of their descendants. Margaret died at Ryerigs May 16th 1804.
There were still Chapmans at Ryerigs until the 1940’s and possibly later, although there is no-one of the name there now. In the early 19th century, some fifty years or so after Alexander and Margaret had left Finfan with their young family, a medicinal well and spa were established on the farm by the Duff proprietors. It is not known how long these facilities were in operation.
John Bennett
John married Anna Clark on 4th November 1735 at Rathven. This much we know althogh no record of either family has been traced and the Rathven O. P.R. (Old Parish Records) is silent as regards the births of their offspring other than that of Anna, who was baptised there on 11th August 1746. Margaret, their only other child known to us, was born in Rathven around 1754 so presumably the family remained in the neighbourhood.
This supposition is reinforced by the fact that Margaret was described as being of Rathven at the time of her own marriage in 1782. It is also recorded that a John Bennett of Broadley of Leitchestown, Rathven was in 1791 paying £2.8.4d and one hen as his annual rent to the Duke of Gordon. Although this John is more likely to have been a son or even a grandson of the original John: it should not be forgotten that the latter’s daughter Margaret lived to be 102 years old, so perhaps we need not be too ready to write him off as being too elderly to fit these dates.
One internationally known figure, James Gordon Bennett, the founder of the New York Herald, is reputed to be a family connection although the precise relationship has so far proved impossible to establish owing to the lack of appropriate records. The son of a crofter from Enzie he was educated at Newmill and Keith before leaving Scotland for America in 1819 to seek his fortune. After a shaky start he did indeed make good in the New World, becoming a millionaire and owning one of the famous mansions at Newport, Rhode Island for use as his summer residence. When he died in 1872 he was reputedly worth more than £2,000,000.
His son, James Gordon Bennett 11, who succeeded him in the newspaper world, is remembered as being responsible for sending Henry Stanley to look for David Livingstone when he was missing on one of his African journeys. They met at Ujiji and Stanley’s greeting “Dr. Livingstone, I presume” has passed into history.
Anna Clark
Nothing has emerged regarding the background of Anna (or Ann) Clark, but we do know that she married John Bennett in Rathven in 1735. It is not recorded how many children they had and although there is knowledge of two only – Anna and Margaret – the likelihood is that there were others.
The dearth of information on this family in the parish records suggests that they, like the Enzie Bennetts, were of the Catholic persuasion, although it is likely that Anna herself was a Protestant. Mixed marriages were common in the district, which although strongly Catholic, was not one of religious bigotry.