Article XIV
published in the Northern Ensign 30 June 1881 Part A
"I might give
your readers another chapter on Highland poets, but I fear that I have trespassed
rather too much on their patience already. I have omitted some well known and
talented poets, whose productions are very popular and much cherished in the Highlands;
but there are several Gaelic poets whose names are not mentioned either by Mackenzie
or Blackie, such as Duncan Bhan McIntyre, Murdoch Grant, and Samuel Matheson,
with whose songs we were tolerably well acquainted, the latter more especially.
His song on good Sheriff McCulloch, who was the instrument of his conversion,
was very popular, and the tragic end of that good man made the song all the
more thought of."
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| Morning Post London, 25 August 1809 |
The Meikle Ferry (aka Muckle Ferry) Disaster
"The Sheriff
was drowned in the Dornoch Firth in crossing over from Muckle Ferry to Tain,
where he was going on the Thursday of a communion there, and a boat-full of
Sutherland people with him. He had occasion to cross over frequently to
Ross-shire, and to reprove the ferrymen for their profanity and wicked conduct.
For this they hated the Sheriff and declared that all the heaven they wished for
was to get a boat-load of Sutherland Christians, and Sheriff McCulloch in the
middle of them, drowned in the ferry. This fearful language was no mere empty
words, as these wicked men deliberately set to work to accomplish their
diabolical design. They knew the sacrament was to be held in Tain on a
particular week, and that on the fast-day the Sheriff and other people would be
crossing over. They also knew the time of day the people would be there to get
across, and they laid their plans accordingly. The Sheriff and about 50 [111]
people, men and women, arrived at the Ferry, and all entered the boat, a large
one. The day was fine, and while the stream of the tide ran past them with
great velocity, no one suspected that anything serious would happen."
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Ferry
Point
View of
the Dornoch Firth from Edderton Hill. This narrowing was once the ferry route.
|
"They proceeded on their way, and when the boat was about the centre of
the Firth, which is perhaps about three quarters of a mile broad, one of the
fiendish crew pulled the plug out of the bottom of the boat and flung it into
the sea. The water rushed in at once and great consternation prevailed among
the poor doomed passengers. Some of them attempted to stop the water by
pressing their jackets against the hole, but the fiendish crew (only two in
number) attacked them with maddening fury, and pulled them away from their work
of mercy. By this time the boat was
nearly full of water, and the poor passengers cried out for help from the
shore. The people on the shore saw them sinking, and ran to launch a boat to
try and save the drowning passengers when they found there was no plug in that
boat either, but after some delay this was remedied; but where were the oars?
There were none to be had."
"So deliberately did these murderers set about their work
that they took the plug out of the boat and also hid the oars, so as to make it
impossible to render any help or assistance to the drowning passengers, and
they succeeded but too well. The people on shore ran frantically in every
direction in search of the missing oars, and could find none. They saw their
fellow creatures perish before their eyes and almost within grasp of them, and
yet they could render them no assistance, and they had the mortification of
seeing the last of that boat-load of
human beings sink into a watery grave before their eyes, the wicked ferrymen
among the rest."
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| Morning Chronicle 2 September 1809 |
"It was an
awful calamity. It cast a gloom of horror and deepest sorrow over the northern
counties. Most of the bodies were recovered in the course of time, the godly
Sheriff’s among the rest, after being six weeks in the water. It was said there
was not a broken bit on the body when found, and that during the whole of the
time it lay in the water, at night a light shone over it. The bodies of the
ferrymen were also found, but it was said they were so mutilated that, but for
their clothing, they could not have been identified. Be that as it may, they
got their wish. They lost their lives as suicides, and it is to be feared their
happiness ended by the accomplishment of their Satanic plot."
The incident
of the Meikle ferry that Alexander Gunn relates happened on 16 August 1809, 11 years before he was born, and by the time
he related the story in 1881 it was over seventy years after the event so it is
perhaps unsurprising that he has some of his facts wrong. There had been
probably hundreds of retellings of the Meikle Ferry disaster in that time with
every new telling adding another layer to the narrative.
There were
many reports in newspapers at the time of the Meikle ferry disaster and all are
clear that the people were travelling to a market in Tain not to a communion.
The story has
clearly impressed the imaginations of decades of people who were both
superstitious and very religious. Some myths I have uncovered:
An old crofter who was believed to be able to predict death had foretold of a time when the young would wear seaweed in their hair and the shores of the Firth would resound with the keening of the bereaved - a prediction now accepted as the Meikle Ferry disaster.
Alexander Gunn tells of the body of the godly Sheriff being unmutilated after six weeks in the water, and having a light shining over it. The bodies of the ‘wicked’ ferrymen were said to be recognisable only from their clothes.
Another similar story says the spot where the sheriff lay was uncovered in a dream.
Several
reports suggest that the ferrymen were intoxicated and negligent but in no
report (other than this one) is there any suggestion that the ferrymen actually
pulled the plug on the ferry or vandalised the other ferry on shore. There are
reports that the boats were ill-equiped and the ferrymen unconcerned about
deficiencies such as missing tholepins (a wooden peg in a rowing boat to
support oars), torn sails, frayed ropes, and even broken rudders.
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| Northern Times 8 September 1910
Source: http://www.historylinksarchive.org.uk/picture/number10059.asp
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Part B: The Meikle Ferry Relief fund
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