About the Author 
Bruce Henderson is a computer engineer living in Southern California. With the help of his cousins he is researching the history of the Henderson family of southern Caithness.
You can contact him at bruce@sigalarm.com |
Little discussion of Henderson history during the early years in Scotland can take place without an understanding of the Scottish clan system, and how their customs and traditions shaped the political and social landscape in which our ancient ancestors lived.
The term “Clan” is from the Gaelic tongue, and literally means “family” or in some sense “tribe”. Our modern notion of Clans comes from fanciful stories, movies and a romanticized image that came about during Victorian times, with what some Scots call the “Balmorification” of the Highland culture. Because most core Scottish culture has been driven underground or banned outright by the act of proscription following Culloden, a new prologue for highland life was created as it became fashionable to be Scottish in the 1800s.
The clan was an evolution from Pictish / Celtic iron age “tribes”, where people banded together in confederation for community, defense and commerce. Contrary to popular belief, the members of a given clan are and were not all blood descendants of a single male progenitor, as is the popular notion. Members of a given clan could be part of the chief’s direct or extended family, or could be tenants on his lands, friends or companions of his or his kin, or families that lived within the clan’s area of influence. The members of the community, or clansmen, gave their loyalty to the clan chief and in return he gave them protection, justice, and leadership. Clan Henderson DNA project has proven this to be the case with several branches, including the Caithness Hendersons from Clan Gunn, which show at least 3 major bloodlines.
Within a clan, all functions of government took place including laws, customs, justice and legal frameworks, treaties with other clans (even other countries in some cases!) and to some extent, religious functions. The Clan chief was monarch of this community who held ultimate power and responsibility for the welfare of his clan. The chief’s court and government typically had high officers and wise men of the clan. This included the designated successor to the chief, sometimes known as the Tanist – who was many times not the chief’s eldest son, the Champion or Commander who led the clan in battle and was responsible for security of the chief’s lands, the Brieve (judge) who administered the laws of the clan and the crown, as well as bards (responsible for documenting the clan’s history) and doctors.
The leading men of the clan were the derbhfine. These were the not always immediate children or brothers of the current Chief, but were generally within 4 generation direct kinship to the current chief. They were the men that the Chief relied upon for counsel, and to carry out the daily functioning of the Clan government. This group of men would be tasked to select the next chief in event the current chief should die in battle, from disease or old age. The frequent recitations of a clan’s genealogy by its bards was therefore a reminder of who was currently in or out of the clan’s derbfine as much as it was a claim to ancient lineages.
The chief’s children were frequently raised for part of their lives away from the clan court. This tradition known in english as “Fosterage” was an important way to reinforce the social ties between allied clans. At a young age, children of the derbfine would be sent to the household of relatives of the leading clan gentry. This meant that traditionally, some portion of the next generation’s upbringing would be within a family of an allied clan. This fostered intense loyalty and inter-clan ties.
Below them was a group known as the duine-uasail, or the gentlemen of the clan. They would frequently be minor chiefs in their own right, holding the land in a given glen or toun and enacting the Clan’s government on behalf of the chief. Below them were the common folk of the clan who may or may not be related by blood to higher ranking members.
This system would often lead to rotation among the leading branches of the clan taking leadership for a generation. The average lifespan in the middle ages was shorter than required for a chief’s children to reach an age to be considered for selection as the Tanist or heir-apparent before he died. This method of succession then saw leadership trade off between core family groups of the clan, creating a balance that helped ensure patrilineal tyranny could not take root. When the new chief took charge of the clan, the next Tanist was elected by the derbfine and duine-uasail to fill the position vacated by the one now risen to chieftainship. He may have come from the branch to which the deceased belonged, or may have been from one of the other related cadet branches. The next succession would be handled in the same manner. If a chieftain attempted to have his own son (or brother) chosen over the choice of the ruling council, the electors were outraged, as they feared subjugation to one branch. This system of checks and balances kept the leadership of highland clans true to their purpose of leadership and benevolence towards the clan.
Tanistry as the system of succession left the Chief position open to those who were ambitious and dedicated to the clan. But it was a frequent source of conflict both in families and between clans, though at the same time it created a democratic monarchy. Tanistry was abolished by a legal decision during the reign of James VI of Scotland, who later became James I of England and Ireland. At that time the feudal system of primogeniture (eldest son assumes rulership) replaced the old highland way.
We can safely assume that some of the Crowner’s sons had been fostered with the Sutherlands, the Cheynes and possibly the Sinclairs. Our oldest surviving records show close bonds between our direct Henderson ancestors and the Sutherland family in Berriedale, where they had held power for some time before the Sinclair’s for Freswick took over the the late 1700s.
During the 1400s, when George Gunn was chief, they were still a very powerful clan that governed the flow country from Clyth in the north to Brora in the south. George had several sons, all of which would have been members of the derbhfine, or clan princes. We can also assume that George’s brothers and several cousins would have made up part of this ruling council. History describes several branches of the Gunns, including Braemore, Dunbeath and Latheron. Each of these regions would have been the responsibility of a member of the derbhfine, and would be represented either at the great hall in Kinbrace or at Clyth when the chief held court.
In terms of our ancient Henderson and Gunn ancestors, we can assume that James, the Crowner’s oldest son was likely the Tanist, while there are ample indications that Henry was likely the Gunn Champion or Commander. Given that many of the derbhfine would have perished in the battle of St. Tears, it is possible that there was no consensus on the next chief, which fueled the conflict which eventually led to Henry’s departing and forming his own Henderson clan.
The origin of the Hendersons of Caithness runs through the tower of Ackergil. The great feud between the Gunns and the Keiths which eventually sundered clan Gunn, and formed the Hendersons, has its roots here.
By the mid 1400s, the Keiths began to openly challenge the Gunns for supremacy in Caithness and Sutherland. The story of Ackergil begins further south in Braemore, to the west of Berriedale and Ramscraigs. In mid 1400’s, the local chief, Lachlan Gunn of Braemore, was to marry his daughter Helen of Braemore to distant cousin Alexander. Helen was reputed to have been of unparalleled beauty, and she had caught the eye of many local men, including Dugald Keith of Ackergil. Dugald had campaigned for her hand, but Lachlan Gunn held no interest in marrying his daughter to the Keiths.
Not content to lose her to another, Dugald mustered a group of clansmen and made their way south to Braemore. On the eve of Helen’s wedding night, the Keiths besieged Lachlan’s great hall, trapping Helen and a large number of feasting wedding guests inside. Pledging safe release for all if Helen surrendered to him, she was bound and taken north to Ackergil. With his prize claimed, Duglad Keith set the Braemore great hall ablaze, burning the wedding party alive.
At Ackergil, Dugald Keith locked Helen at the top of the tower, vowing to win her love no matter how long it took. As the days passed, Helen became increasingly despondent. One evening at sunset, she managed to distract her guards, and flung herself from the tower to the courtyard below.
This bloodshed between the Gunns and Keiths began what would be a 500 year feud that would eventually sunder the Gunns and render them defunct as a power in Caithness.
In May of 2010, I was fortunate enough to visit Ackergil, which is now a very pleasant house that is frequently rented out for weddings and ceremonies.
A stone marking the site of the St. Tear’s Chapel near Ackergil Tower
One of the emotional moments of the this spring’s trip to Caithness was an expedition early in the morning of my last day in Caithness. I have read and written about the pivotal battle at the Chapel of St. Tears, where the Gunn clan slain by an overwhelming force from Clan Keith.
The morning was bright and warm, especially for Caithness. The locals were very tolerant of a large American stumbling around their fields, and eventually they helped put me in the right area.
The site of the chapel is a few yards from the shore between Ackergil and Girnigoe? castles, and much to my surprise is marked by a small memorial stone, shown above.
On this site, I could not help but think what impact the Gunns would have had on Scottish history had the fight never happened. The Gunns resisted the feudalization of Scotland, and their elimination as a force in the north removed a counterweight to the Sinclairs, the Sutherlands and the Mackays. After St. Tears, the Gunns never again held their hereditary role of arbiters and enforcers in Caithness. One could imagine what Scotland might look like had the Kildonan, Langwell and Berriedale clearances had not paved the way for so many “improvers” to push the people from the land.
High Street, WIck
During my trip this spring to Caithness, I had a few hours to spare thanks to major road work to repair the Berriedale Braes. As a result, I went to Wick and spent time at their fantastic heritage center. Their extensive artifacts and holdings include many items from Wicks history, with a special focus during the herring boom.
The friendly staff had a surprise for me, contrary to what I had been told, the Johnston collection of glass photographic plates had not all been lost. In fact many hundreds had survived. In fact they have taken the time to catalog and index them, allowing visitors to look for scenes of interest.
Immediately I began searching for my Henderson kin, and sure enough several Hendersons from Ramscraigs and Dunbeath had their portrait taken on glass plates. For a modest fee, the museum staff were happy to scan these plates into JPEG files.
As a result, I am pleased to share the first of these treasures, a photograph of a young Donald Henderson, the grandson of Angus (second son of James of Rhian) born in in 1864. In this photo he is 19 years old. The family likeness, especially with cousin Sally, is wonderful to see.
As fortune would have it, I am back off to the UK to visit friends, family and partake in adventure. Plans are to spend several days in Caithness documenting our family history through photos and video, and possibly discover a few new and exciting tidbits of information about our past.
This will include a return to Knockfin for a more detailed look, a visit to the “House of Peace” in Ballachly, and hike to the clearance village of Badbea. Updates and photos next week on this site!
Cousin Sheri has come up with family history gold once more, with a group photo showing several of the kin during the mid to late 1910s. Several important members of the Reverend’s family are present including:
Top Row: Isabella Ross (Henderson) Gow – Jane R (Taylor) Henderson aka Mrs. Adam C. Henderson – Adam Cunninghame Henderson Gow
Bottom Row: Mary (McDonald) Henderson – James Henderson – Agnes (Nan) Henderson aka Mrs. John T Henderson
Thanks again to Sheri for the work that went into finding this photo and sharing it.
In the past year we have continued our family research, and as a result an updated version of the family tree poster is now live on the web site. I will be taking a few copies with me to the UK in May, with the “master” copy going to the Dunbeath Heritage Centre.
This version adds the information from Margaret Irvine from her family, as well as expansion of the Knockfin Hendersons and the descendants of Reverend Adam.
You can find it under “Resources” to the right, or at this link: Hendersons Family Tree PDF
The story of our family’s quest to uncover the history of Reverend Adam C. Henderson (my great-grandfather) is now compiled from its pieces and on its own page. You can find it on this site at the top: Finding Adam
The ancient history of the Hendersons is tied to that of Caithness, the land that they settled as their home. Caithness itself is not native to the British Isles geologically, but rather is a piece of the North American continent that plate tectonics has grafted onto Scotland many millions of years ago. It’s geology is distinct and separate from the land south of the Great Glen, and this unique geology is responsible for the rich deposits of oil and shale that are the life blood of the North Sea economy.
But before the norse Vikings came to this Caithness, it was inhabited by Picts and later Gales. There is a great deal of evidence that Caithness has been people for at least the last 4,000 years. This comes in the form of dozens of Brochs scattered across the coast. A Broch is an Iron Age drystone hollow-walled structure of a type found in Scotland. Brochs include some of the most sophisticated examples of drystone architecture ever created, and belong to the classification “complex Atlantic Roundhouse” devised by Scottish archaeologists in the 1980s. In old Norse they are called “Borg”, a name which appears in southern Caithness.
These Brochs were built during the Bronze and Iron ages, between 1,000 BC and 400 AD, most likely by the native Picts and Gaels who lived there at the time. Their purpose and use is still the subject of little agreement among archaeologists, but they likely served the same purpose as later day castles; a fortification that provided defense in times of war, and a symbol of lordship and power in times of peace.
Sometime during the 8th century AD, the Norse began to colonize northern Scotland and Caithness, under claim from the Norwegian Earldom of Orkney. Picts came to Orkney during the Bronze Age and archaeological data shows that there were people living there prior to the Vikings who came to Orkney, probably by the latter part of the 8th century although this is up for dispute. Norwegian Vikings probably either came to the islands first as farmers who were seeking land or as warriors who were claiming territory and riches as was common with Viking conquests elsewhere.
Though it is controversial, there is evidence emerging that the Norse occupation of Caithness was not a violent or tyrannical rule. Much of this evidence is coming in relation to research being performed by George and Nan Bethune, and work done via the Dunbeath Heritage Centre. The emerging picture is of Dunbeath as a town that straddled the Gaelic people of the south of Caithness and the Norse people to the north, where these two groups of people met to trade, worship and interact. Emerging science is describing a history for Dunbeath that goes back to the earliest periods of our recorded history – a tale that deserves much deeper study.
Thanks to the dedication and hard work of a Henderson cousin, we have at long last found our ancestor’s photos. This one is a portrait of him in 1909, the year that he died. By this point his health had become frail, and he was retired from full time duties as the minister of the Busby Free Church.
Words cannot describe the gratitude I feel towards my cousin for finding this, and taking the time to pass this on.
Some days when you are researching history, you get lucky. Early in our research efforts it became clear that it was very likely that photos of Reverend Adam had been taken at some point during his life, and that there was a reasonable chance that his family was photographed as well. The question would be – had any survived to the present age.
Then, as luck would have it, a cousin and member of the research team found an old photo, in a place where you would not normally keep a photo, such as at the bottom of a dresser drawer.
There, preseved for us to find more than a century after it was taken, is the photo we all hoped existed. It appears to be Reverend Adam C. Henderson, his wife Jane, and the lady at the far end being named Connie Cunningham – possibly a cousin of Adam, along with their children Hughina, Annie, Jane, Baby Isabella, Mary, Donald and Dora. No hint of where James (my grandfather) is during this shot, though maybe he is behind the camera. We are still trying to figure out where this photo was taken, thought it seems like it could be a church doorway, it does not match the photos we have of the Busby Free Church.
I cannot thank my cousin Sheri enough, this is truly a treasure.
[Update 07 Feb 2010] – A special thanks to Kathryn Campbell for giving us a possible location: The graveyard house at Cathcart cemetery.
Trinity Divinity School, Glasgow, where Adam studied to become a minister of the Free Church
This is a continuation the story of our joint research to find the history of the Reverend Adam C. Henderson. You can read the first part in Finding Adam – Part One.
In the first part of this story, our research went from a few names and a handful of dates into a the outline of a history about my great-grandfather, the Reverend Adam C. Henderson, who was born in Ramscraigs and escaped his humble origins to attended the University of Glasgow, and become a pillar of the Busby and East Kilbride community. Though we were incredibly fortunate to find not only his university records, but what we think is a photograph of Adam at divinity school, there were still so many gaps in his life we hoped to fill.
As is the case for many parts of the UK, the area around Busby (near Glasgow) and East Kilbride enjoys a group of local scholars who work to discover, document and preserve the local history. For the area where Adam was minister, the Giffnock Library is the hub of the Busby Historical Society. The Giffnock holds a significant and growing collection of documents, recordings and photographs of Busby and East kilbride. We contacted them in 2007, and they were happy to help us locate what information they had, which led us to be in contact with John McVicar by mid 2008, who was compiling a book on the history of Busby.
Busby Free Church, photo courtesy of the Giffnock Library
Thanks to the McVicar’s work, we were able to learn a great deal about Adam’s community; the places, events and environment in which he lived, along with the organizations and associations that he belonged to. Sadly they had no additional photographs of the reverend and his family, but the information they had about his activities was welcome additional detail about a man we knew little about.
A clip from John McVicar’s book on Busby and its history
Though we were adding to our knowledge, it was a nagging problem that we could not locate Adam’s grave. For a man who had played a prominent role in the communities of Busby and East Kilbride, the lack of evidence of his life remained an enduring mystery.
In an attempt to tear through the fog of time, we resolved to locate, by brute force searching if necessary, Adam’s grave and the final disposition of his children and their descendants (if any). By consulting Scotland’s People, we began locating and downloading images for the birth, marriage and death records for every one of Adam’s children. In the process of doing this, we found that sadly there were two babies born to that family that did not survive for long. We were surprised to find that a surprisingly low number of his children actually married, and that for a large family of that size there were very few grandchildren. Most of our searches forward towards the present day dead ended, leaving us with the impression that Adam’s line was not nearly as robust as one might think.
Worse yet, the older members of the family we contacted remembered conflicting information, some of which eventually turned out to be wrong. It was our sincere hope that we could contact some of his descendants in hope that they might be able to help us fill the family history.
As luck would have it, we were eventually sift through immigration, birth and marriage record to determine that two of Adam’s younger children had married and immigrated to Ontario. They died in the 1970s, and were buried in Hamilton, Ontario. Thanks once again to the magic of the internet, I was able to enlist the aid of the local library to uncover the obituaries for them and their wives, which named several of the descendants.
Armed with these names, we worked to find a recent postal address, and then sent a series of introductory letters, asking if they would be willing to re-connect with the family and help us in our research as best they can. Fortunately for us, our relatives seem to be uniformly kind and generous, and we soon incorporated two new cousins into the project. Sadly for us, they were, like us, without much useful information. This lack of passed down history and relics seems to have been universal, and point to some rift in the past that at present we cannot identify.
A portion of my granfather James’ birth certificate, part of the search for the Reverend’s family
Throughout 2008, we searched cemeteries across the Glasgow, Busby and Rutherford area, including walking through looking at headstones. Clearly the brute force method was not yielding results. It could have been that his grave was unmarked, or that weathering had removed any inscription we could read. Early in 2009, I decided to begin “socially engineering” government records keepers in central Scotland to help find his grave. Late in January we got lucky, and we were able to locate his grave in Cathcart Cemetery, Section F, Lair 471, along with his mother, his wife, his mother in law, and two babies that died within the first year, Donald and John. Photographs show that the grave is either unmarked, or the headstone is lying face down in the dirt.
The section of Cathcart cemetery where Adam and his family are buried
Many questions remained, one of the biggest was how could a clever boy from a humble background afford the costly tuition at the University of Glasgow, let alone the cost of living in Glasgow in the 1860s while attending school. We had uncovered as much as we could find in Lanarkshire as we could think to look for, the next step in finding Adam was to visit Caithness, and see what could be found.
Luck would strike again when a few days before my expedition to Caithness, the records of the Busby Free Church turned up in a long forgotten storage location at another Busby church, and we were very kindly invited to review it. There were the church minutes from Adam’s tenure as moderator
Section of the church minutes from the Busby Free Church.
Traveling to Caithness is not trivial, as the best way to reach it is a long drive up the treacherous A9 motor-way north from Inverness. We had contacted the Dunbeath Heritage Centre, and the staff encouraged me to visit to research my family. Words are insufficient to describe the level of emotion as I crested the Ord of Caithness near that ruins of Badbea, and descended the Berriedale Braes. There, perched high above the hairpin turns was the old Berriedale graveyard, where I knew Adam’s father and brother were buried.
The graves of our ancestors overlooking Berriedale and the Ord of Caithness
The hillsides were dotted with ruined and abandoned stone houses, one of which I knew had to have been Donald’s house, where Adam was born and raised. To me, this was a land of legend – yet at the same time only separated from any of us by the will to go there and see it for ourselves.
The Dunbeath Centre was more than I could have hoped for, and the staff were incredibly helpful. Not only did they know of the family, but they had taken the time to catalog and record the family tree on a very long chart, which they generously copied for me to take home. They also identified where to find the graves of many of my Henderson ancestors and kin. The remainder of the trip focused on photographing the area, many of which are now part of this site.
The Dunbeath Heritage Centre – a true Scottish treasure
Though we have made tremendous progress from that first search, there is much that we are looking for but may never find. The mystery remains of why so little was passed down from Adam’s family to the present day, and what became of photos, letters or other things from that day. One fact brought to light from our research regards Adam’s mother, Ann Cunningham Henderson. When Donald died in 1892, Ann moved to south to Lanarkshire and lived with Adam and his family for the rest of her years. By working with Sally, it has become clear that people in Caithness were very enthusiastic about having their photos taken. In fact there were several places, including Wick and Thurso, where there were portrait studios. In addition these photographers would sell a portrait sitting during “Market Days” which would happen twice a year (spring and fall) in Dunbeath. Therefore it is possible that photographs of Donald and Ann were taken when they were quite old. The question comes up then, what happened to them and could they have survived the present age? (more on this in a bit). Ann passed away in 1900, 9 years before Adam’s death and 21 years before Jane’s death. From what I have been able to gather chatting with some folk historians in Dunbeath, it was the custom (and sorry if this is universal to Scotland) that people of that time would keep a “Kist”, a trunk, box or chest that held “bonnie things”. When Ann moved to Busby to live with Adam, the chances are very high that her Kist (if she had one) would have come with her. Whatever Ann may have taken to Busby would probably represent the pinnacle of what we might be able to recover from a family history standpoint, if any has survived to this day.
As a hint that some of what we seek is not so much lost as it is misplaced, a strange photograph came to light in September of 2009. During a visit to my Aunt Moira, she brought out old photo albums and we looked through them. As we were flipping throughout the book, a tiny photograph fell out from behind a larger black and white photograph. In it were four people, sitting in front of what we now know was the reverend’s house on Derby Crescent in Kelvin Grove, Glasgow. One is clearly my grandfather James as a young man. Seated with him is a young lady, whom my Aunt identified as my grandmother, along with an older man and an older woman.
Is this Reverend Adam C. Henderson, his wife Jane and my Grandfather James? We hope to find enough evidence in the future to determine this beyond doubt.
The older man bears a significant resemblance to the young fellow from the 1871 Trinity group photo, while the older lady shares some resemblance to my grandfather. Is it Reverend Adam and his wife Jane? We have no concrete proof until we have a photograph that we know is of him, but it hints that perhaps in a box in an attic somewhere in Scotland or in Canada hides some of what we seek. With time and persistence, we will continue the search as our labor of love.
I hope all our readers had a wonderful a joyous Christmas. With Hogmanay right around the corner, there is much to look forward to in 2010. Currently, the family tree is being updated, and a version that covers some of the other families of the area is in work. We hope to expand the number of lines we have published to hopefully include some of the Gunns, a few Sutherlands, and possibly the Bethunes.
Meanwhile, I am trying to put together an expedition back to Caithness for the summer or spring of 2010. I would very much like to re-visit Knockfin, Rhian and finally pin down which of the abandoned houses in Ramscraigs belong to which family.
Part of the work to make any possible trip as productive as possible is finding out as much about the areas as I can. During the Landward filming, I was presented with a host of new facts, which I have been working to incorporate into the history. One effort of research is using aerial images in both the visible and infra-red bands to try and better establish where the buildings were, and where features of the terrain were located, such as the old road (which pre-dates the path of the A9), the village of Ramscraigs, the buildings at Knockfin and Rhian, and the site where they landed Herring at the beach below Ramscraigs.
It has been a struggle to come up with the data, as most of the companies that might have it seem none too eager for business. It may be necessary to collect it myself during my trip. I am far from an expert and doing so, but I am not without some skill in the area.
Any expedition would (hopefully) include documenting the places and stories of the area, in photos, on video and recording the people, that we hope to share with you.
The ruins of the outbuildings a Rhian
During the time when James Henderson and his family lived at Rhian (1799 – 1840), the two primary forces in southern Caithness was the fishing industry and the clearances. Where the clearances was pushing families out of their highland farms towards the coast, the money that could be made at fishing was pulling young men and abled bodied folk down to the coast to earn a steady wage.
At Rhian, the family likely lived in a traditional highland blockhouse, or taigh dubh. Blackhouses were so named because of the central peat fire that would eventually cover the interior walls with a layer of black soot. They were typically built with double wall dry-stone walls, with a layer of earth or sod at the top of the walls to bring them to full height, and to seat the wooden crucks.
The house only had one door, though which both people and animals would enter the house, with the animals on the byre and and the people on the other, with a sail-cloth separating the two sides of the house. There is a peat fire in the middle of the human end of the house, smoke being left to curl up towards a hole in the thatch. Cooking was done via pots that would hang from the rafters over the peat fire, or a flat iron griddle to cook bannocks.
Image of a typical highland blackhouse
The thatched roof was supported by rafters made of wood held together with wooden pins. The rafters were not laid on the wall head, but were notched into cavities built into the stacked stone walls. The rafters were curved, giving the entire roof a slightly domed effect. These rafters were then thatched with layers of straw, sod and rushes held down with rope and when possible wire netting. The inner walls were plastered with a mixture of lime and sand, while the outer walls were sealed with the same mixture. The house exteriors were pained white when possible.
In many houses the central kitchen / family room held a traditional pit hearth capable of holding a week or more of ashes from the peat fire. Peat was abundant in Caithness, and most houses had a good sized “peat stack” that would provide heat and cooking through the colder months.
A diagram of how the Rhian house was likely laid out
The peat fire was essential to the home, and was rarely, if ever extinguished (it was considered bad luck). Here in the kitchen/living room apartment the fire rested against the gable, the smoke simply curling up the wall and through a hole in the roof.
Interior of a reconstructed blackhouse showing the central peat fire, and the cupboard. Image courtesy of photoeverywhere
Economics of the farm at Rhian was based more or less on living from the land. The diet was largely of oatmeal, potatoes, mutton, pork, milk, cheese, crowdie, eggs, and hares of which there was an abundance, augmented with salt herring and other fish that was available in increasing supply from the fishing. The cow or cattle were often under the same roof as the humans during the winter. This was for the sake of the animal – it was essential to the family that the cow was in good health and gave a good yield of milk. The cow benefited from the warmth of the fire but also gave out large quantities of heat itself, from its body and manure.
The byre was at the lower end of the house so that the urine would drain into the arable land. The ammonia from the urine also helped to sterilize the house. Each spring the byre would be cleaned out of the accumulated manure which would be placed on the crops as fertilizer. Human waste would also be gathered for this purpose with the urine being used for treating fabrics such as tweed.
The cattle they reared were of the Highland type, horned and shaggy, and their horses were the Highland garron. Rhian had a pair of working horses for ploughing and tilling the soil. The Henderson croft likely kept about twenty four to thirty cattle, while on the hill pasture they had perhaps forty to fifty Cheviot ewes.
In all tasks, the family would have enlisted every soul, from the feeding of livestock to the cleaning of the Byre, the two parents and seven children would have been busy nearly every waking hour. School was attended in Berriedale, in a simple one-room school house where the children received a rudimentary education.
The Rhian croft structures, looking south towards Berriedale and the Ord of Caithness
The Sunday sabbath was strictly observed, and young and old alike were expected to study the word of the Lord well.
William, Angus and John showed a great deal of interest in the croft, and as they grew older took on an increasing amount of work at Rhian, and saved what money the could earn for the day when they would have a farm of their own. The family livestock required constant and daily attention.
In summer months, the older boys were given the responsibility of taking the herds higher in the hills to the lush seasonal pastures there. Cattle were milked, and that milk crafted into butter and cheese as a means of storing it for the winter. With the long summer days, the summer grazings required nearly around-the-clock supervision of the herds. While in the highland pastures, the boys would sleep in small, rough structures known as Sheilings. The herds would be driven back down to the coast a few weeks before the grain was brought in, allowing the boys to attend classes, church and help gather harvest.
A typical Caithness Sheiling structure
Donald was frequently nearby with his uncle, John Sutherland. John had a workshop on his croft where he made and repaired boots and shoes. Donald showed a keen interest in things mechanical and working with tools, and John was all too happy to have willing hands to help. Donald eventually formally became John’s apprentice and devoted himself to becoming a shoemaker, a trade that would eventually become pivotal to his family and his descendants.
Younger sons Robert and Alexander heard the call of the sea, and gravitated towards the Berriedale harbor, helping land the catch when the fleet was in, or helping the boats in any way a young man could. In Caithness of that age, fishing for Herring and Salmon was a solid and growing business. With limited tillable land, and eldest sons William and Angus focused on farming, fishing was the best path for a young man to make his way in the world.
Thanks to Meg Sinclair of the Dubeath Heritage Centre for information about the Rhian blackhouse
The episode has aired now (November 27th in Scotland) and thankfully I was able to find a way to see it, and I would now like to share my comments on the episode with you.
First off, I think it was great! It’s by far the best 6 minutes of Henderson ancient history on television thus far. Most of the folks in the family who saw it wish it would have been longer, which is understandable. But the pacing, the camera work and way they packed that much information into 6 minutes was fantastic.
Word from Landward is that they will provide us with the whole footage some time this spring. I am not sure if it will be possible, but I would very much like to try and put together a “directors cut” of the segment from the portion that aired along with some other elements from the tape.
The detailed comments, and hints about what else was filmed Continue reading Landward Episode 23 – Commentary
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What’s Coming For Ramscraigs
I hope all our readers had a wonderful a joyous Christmas. With Hogmanay right around the corner, there is much to look forward to in 2010. Currently, the family tree is being updated, and a version that covers some of the other families of the area is in work. We hope to expand the number of lines we have published to hopefully include some of the Gunns, a few Sutherlands, and possibly the Bethunes.
Meanwhile, I am trying to put together an expedition back to Caithness for the summer or spring of 2010. I would very much like to re-visit Knockfin, Rhian and finally pin down which of the abandoned houses in Ramscraigs belong to which family.
Part of the work to make any possible trip as productive as possible is finding out as much about the areas as I can. During the Landward filming, I was presented with a host of new facts, which I have been working to incorporate into the history. One effort of research is using aerial images in both the visible and infra-red bands to try and better establish where the buildings were, and where features of the terrain were located, such as the old road (which pre-dates the path of the A9), the village of Ramscraigs, the buildings at Knockfin and Rhian, and the site where they landed Herring at the beach below Ramscraigs.
It has been a struggle to come up with the data, as most of the companies that might have it seem none too eager for business. It may be necessary to collect it myself during my trip. I am far from an expert and doing so, but I am not without some skill in the area.
Any expedition would (hopefully) include documenting the places and stories of the area, in photos, on video and recording the people, that we hope to share with you.