Peter McKay 1742 – 1837
The inscription on the gravestone at Buitternach cemetery claims that Peter was ninety five years old at the time of his death in 1837, this would make the year of his birth approximately 1742, and it is likely that this would have taken place at Nether Clashnore.
The relevant entry below in this baptismal record of 1745 (the same year as the final Roman Catholic Jacobite uprising – there were five between 1689 and 1745 – in Scotland led by ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ and the year before the Battle of Culloden near Inverness which saw the rout of the Jacobeans and the flight of Prince Charles Stuart back to Europe, to put it into historical context) reads as follows…. “February 1st, Peter son to Don.(ald) McKay in Clashnoir was baptised”.
After Culloden (1746), the wearing of Highland dress was banned, as was the playing of bagpipes, and open allegiance to Roman Catholicism brought hostility and danger of death from Hanoverian English troops in Scotland. Buitternach cemetery in Glenlivet which contains the bones of several McKay family tree members was at one time for that reason a secret burial location in the hills not far from Nether Clashnoir (a.k.a. Clashnore) farm.
In Buitternach Cemetery which sits on a hill close to Chapeltown of Glenlivet, Peter McKay’s gravestone records his own death along with his wife Elizabeth, his father Donald and mother Jane, as well as others in the family. The inscription is badly weather-worn but some detail can be read, as follows:
Here lie the mortal remains of
Peter McKay late farmer of Nether Clashnore who died 29th November 1837 aged 95
years
and his wife Elizabeth Tom died December 1804;
his daughter Jane who died June 1806;
his son John who died January 1812;
and his father and mother
Donald McKay and Jane Robertson
Pray for the souls of
Robert McKay, Farmer, Nether Clashnore
who died 6th November 1888 aged 97 years.
his son Robert who died 6th June 1898 aged 72
his daughter Mary who died 21st July 1906 aged 70 years.
RIP
The Robert McKay mentioned in the above headstone transcript for Donald / Peter is also memorialised on a separate headstone at Chapeltown Cemetery for his wife, Elizabeth Rattray, who died aged 47 years (1797-1844) and is buried with their son James who died at Nether Clashnore in 1862 aged 21. Chapeltown Cemetery lies in the grounds of the church of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour in the hamlet of Chapeltown, less than a mile from the once-secret Buitternach Cemetery and less than five miles from Tomintoul as the golden eagle flies. It is accessed by a minor single track road which leaves the B9008 at Knockandhu, and runs for some three miles towards the Ladder Hills which rise steeply to over 800m or 2,600ft just a short distance to the south-east. Buitternach was deliberately located on a remote hillside away from any obvious access route to Chapeltown for Roman Catholic burials at a time in the highlands when it was illegal to be Roman Catholic, when Government troops would seek out and destroy Catholic dwellings and property.
Linda Smith of Peterhead, our cousin who descends from George McKay (great great granddaughter) via daughter Mary McKay of Lockers, has contributed the interesting information below about a previously unknown son of Peter McKay, James, who entered the Priesthood in Spain via a seminary near Aberdeen. So Peter it seems had at least four children with his wife Elizabeth Tom (or Thom, or Tam depending on sources). There is William (1788-1863) mentioned above, Robert (1791-1888), Jane (d.1806), John (d.1812), and now a fifth, James (1802-1884).
Peter and Elizabeth married in 1781. As previously explained on Peter’s grandfather’s (William’s) page the McKay tenant farmers were sometimes identified under the alias Duff, and like his grandfather Peter McKay could also be called Duff. It is likely that the McKays from this era in Glenlivet were native Gaelic speakers. In modern Scottish Gaelic, Patrick exists in several forms: Pádruig, Páruig, Para, and Pádair or Pátair. This last Gaelic form led to confusion with Peter, the equivalent form in English for Patrick, and the two names Peter and Patrick were often treated as equivalent in the 18th and 19th centuries and used interchangeably.
Hence Peter McKay also being known as Peter or Patrick Duff as evidenced by the marriage record shown below for Elizabeth.
The issue of inaccuracies of spelling of names throws up another anomaly just to confuse everything further. In the Old Parish Records for Aberlour (Elizabeth Thom’s home parish) Peter is identified below as Peter McCai. There being two recorded instances (Catholic and Old Parish records) it is quite clear that both of these records are for Peter McKay and Elizabeth Tom (Thom, Tam).
Family Members
James’s services seem to have been greatly in demand at baptisms as in 1821 alone he acted as sponsor to three infants that we know of – to James the son of his brother William and Marjory Stuart, to James the son of another brother Robert and his wife, Elizabeth Rattray, and to James, the son of Robert McKay, Burnside, Achnarrow, and his wife, Jean White.
Robert McKay and Elizabeth Rattray (son and daughter-in-law of Elizabeth Thom) had required to have a dispensation granted before they could marry, on the grounds of consanguinity, they being second cousins. This is good example of the close-knitting of the relationships uniting the different families who made up the farming townships, as is the fact that Peter Mckay the younger was married to Jean Gordon, whose mother, Sarah, was also a McKay.
Elizabeth and Peter lived at Nether Clashnore, Glenlivet and she died in December 1804. She was buried in the old walled graveyard at Buiternach which had been consecrated as a Roman Catholic burial ground in 1750. It is situated high on the east facing slope of the hill directly above Nether Clashnore and had originally been part of the lands of Clashnore. From Buiternach there is a panoramic view of the basin formed by the Ladder Hills enclosing the Braes of Glenlivet. This landscape has been described as a vast natural amphitheatre with one range of hills being entirely surrounded by more distant mountains.
Links to Peter and Elizabeth’s children and grandchildren sub-pages (click as required where these exist):-
- William McKay 1788-1863 b.Glenlivet, Morayshire d.Keith, Banffshire
- Robert McKay 1791-1888 Glenlivet
- Jane McKay d.1806 Glenlivet. Records not yet located.
- John McKay d.1812 Glenlivet. Records not yet located.
- James McKay 1802-1884 b.Glenlivet d.Leicester (England)
Addendum: It now seems that a previously thought second marriage for Peter to Elizabeth McHardy in 1807 was incorrectly cited and in fact confused with the (unrelated) history of another Peter McKay from Aberlour.