The Trump of the Archangel

AN OLD MAN’S NARRATIVE OF THE ULBSTER ESTATE EVICTIONS Part C

To the Editor of the Northern Ensign

Sir,-

"Mr James Waters statements regarding the evictions and vast clearances, with the names of ministers, and about four mills in good working order, and the church converted into a sporting house and a kennel for dogs – all this is strictly true."

Extract from Gloomy Memories in the Highlands of Scotland 

by Donald MacLeod. 

The kennel for dogs in Mr Sage’s study room was Strathnaver

"Will Mr Logan inform me who was the gentleman who made the first eviction in the north of Scotland for a sheep range and imported merino sheep to stock the cleared ground!" 

Sir John Sinclair (again!)

"I am not speaking from hearsay, but what I saw myself, and the persons whose names I give, all heads of families I well remember. I do not include the old names I gave you of the township of Rumsdale."

"There are three large cemeteries in this clearance, with beautiful tombstones, some of polished granite, and many a rich slab of marble; and the inscriptions bear witness to the wealth and generosity and piety of the people of that locality in past times."

Dalnawillan Cemetery

Dirlot Cemetery

Achreny Cemetery

"These rich cemeteries, indicate the love the living had for the dead in erecting over them costly and interesting monuments. In these beautiful cemeteries there are none to be buried now. All the beautiful straths there are now depopulated, and the graves will get rest until the great day when the trump of the archangel shall sound."

 – I am, etc.

One who was evicted and One who knows

Northern Ensign 21 Feb 1884

My Comments:

I haven’t got a copy of the statements by Mr James Waters but think he had read some of the reports of Donald MacLeod.

Donald MacLeod was born in Rosall, Strathnaver near the end of the eighteenth century. He witnessed the horrors of the Sutherland clearances and eventually went to Edinburgh and wrote very courageously of what he had seen. His letters were published in the Edinburgh Weekly Chronicle and other papers. Much later his letters were republished in revised form to counter the views in a publication by Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Sunny Memories.

Tombstone in Achreny Cemetery. 
George McLeod Dalnaha Died 16 March 1848 
and others

Re the three cemeteries in the locality of Rumsdale I have selected what seems to me to be the cemeteries referred to. Some time back I took photos in the old Dalnawillan and Achreny (also known as Acharynie) cemeteries which certainly had very fine tombstones erected long ago. Climbing over the wall into Achreny was a bit disconcerting from a safety point of view with the foot stones becoming almost dislodged now. I haven’t visited Dirlot but it can be seen to have also had very elegant and substantial tombstones put in there.

Achreny from the road.

The beautiful straths are certainly depopulated now as the Google Earth views show. 

A Good Neighbour - Part B

David Badbea Sutherland Part B

Dying near kin

In the autumn of 1854 David Sutherland knew his time on earth was nearing an end. He was 84 years old. He must have had some indication that he was not going to live much longer as word had got back to New Zealand to his half-brother Alexander Sutherland that David was not very well. It was deeply significant for Highlanders to die with, and if possible be buried near, kin. Having no wife or immediate kin at Badbea and no descendants what was he to do? The thought of David, this kind and generous man who had always cared deeply about those around him, pondering his imminent death alone is poignant.

Rumsdale

David left home. He walked away from the place of his birth. He knew where he wanted to go. I can picture David embracing his dear next door neighbour, life long friend and cousin John Badbea Sutherland before he left. What those two had been through together caring for the orphaned children and all the other destitutes who arrived at Badbea! Taking leave of his dwelling, which may again have had the busy patter of another family's feet, David set out for Rumsdale.

John Thomson's Map 1831 showing Badbea to Rumsdale

He may have walked through  Helmsdale and up the Strath of Kildonan or he may have followed an old drover's trail up the Langwell Strath. He had to walk about twenty-four miles - a long way for a failing old man. With the small communities long cleared for sheep there would not have been too many welcoming places to stop on the way. At his destination were his beloved half-sister Christina Sutherland and her husband John McLeod. David made it 'home' to kin with just a few days to spare.

Forty years before David had taken Christina in when she was destitute and now she was there for him as he approached his death.

Death and Burial

The lintel at the  Rumsdale house where the 

fire stones would have warmed David's old body

David Badbea Sutherland died at Rumsdale on September 18, 1854 a few days after he had arrived. Christina and John were there to help him go. John McLeod, practical as always, attended to the funeral arrangements.
David was buried at the old cemetery at Dalnawillan - but not with John's approval and not without trouble.
We can follow what happened through a letter from Alexander Sutherland in Wellington, New Zealand, sent to John McLeod in Rumsdale.

Lyall's Bay, Wellington, 29th December 1855
Mr John McLeod,
Dear Sir,
Your two sons, William and James, arrived safe and are comfortably situated up the country in my employment. They informed me the draft for ten pounds No 3204 on the Union Bank of Australia, dated 19th February, 1855, in favour of my late brother David Sutherland, reached your house on the day he died; I have therefore asked the agent for the Union Bank here to request that bank in London to pay the same on your endorsement of it, and also the enclosed second Bill of Exchange, which can both be forwarded to London for payment, and you can get this money after the Bank Agent hears that it is paid.

It may be as well to take this letter to the Bank near you, so they will understand how the matter stands.
I wish you to get this 10 pounds and 5 pounds sent thro' the late Mr Kenneth Bethune to cover your outlay on my brother's funeral which was a debt due by me.
I regret exceedingly at a difference of opinion about the arrangements made by my brother regarding the coffin expenses with Donald MacKay - and was much vexed on hearing about it because it was only fair to follow out his wishes - on this account I have no wish to hear again from Major Gunn.

Dalnawillan Cemetery

The vexation of Alexander very likely arose from the internment of his brother David in the burying ground at Dalnawillan under a plain stone. Apparently his wish to have been buried in the Berriedale old cemetery, wherein lay generations of his relations was not complied with by Major Gunn whose decision to bury David at Dalnawillan may have come about by the circumstances that David had died at Rumsdale and Dalnawillan was the nearest cemetery.

The remote old Dalnawillan cemetery

Looking toward the Thurso River from the lonely Dalnawillan cemetery

Berriedale Memorial

Alexander Sutherland in New Zealand must have had his brother's wishes in mind for the rest of his days. Before dying at Lyall's Bay, he appears to have given instructions to his sons William and David Sutherland that a memorial stone for David Badbea Sutherland be placed in the Berriedale ground. There appeared in the Northern Ensign of 9 October, 1894 the following:
             
A headstone of an elegant design has been erected in the old burying ground (Berriedale) in                           memory of David Sutherland, Badbea who died at Rumsdale, and was buried there about 40                       years ago; also of his brother, Alexander Sutherland, who died at Lyall's Bay, NZ about 17 years                 ago.'

The inscription on the stone reads:
In Memory of David Sutherland, Badbea, who died at Rumsdale, September 18th, 1854, age 84. This stone is placed here at the request of his brother, Alexander Robert, who died in Lyall's Bay, Wellington, N.Z. Oct 21, 1877, Aged 71

David Sutherland's elegant stone still keeps watch out over the Berriedale shore in memory of a 'braw' man nearly 160 years after his death.