Reunion: A Search for Ancestors

by Littrell, Ryan

  “Aye,” he said.

  CHAPTER 20

  NA SEUMASAICH

  Nuair a chruinnich na fineachan, cha robh cus a’ cromadh an cinn.

  When the clans gathered, there were few bowed heads.

  The chiefs and their men had agreed to meet here, upon the field called Dalcomera beside the River Lochy, in May of 1689. Our King James had fled England after being deposed by the usurpers William and Mary, but had gone safely to our cousins the Irish, who had just now proclaimed him their king, as well. With James advancing from Dublin into the north of Ireland, where English and Lowlanders had settled, it was time for Highlanders to come out. All of the clans who had pledged their loyalty to James marched to the place. Every piper played the music of war, and we were soon called Na Seumasaich.

  “Jacobites,” in your tongue.

  Here, at Dalcomera, stood the MacDonalds from the southern parts of the Isle of Skye, whose boats rightly caught the winds, and the MacDonalds of Glen Garry, who well knew the highest peaks of Kintail and the quiet forests of Bunloinn and Inchnacardoch. Here stood the MacDonalds of Keppoch, who never shied from a proper foray, and the MacDonalds of Clan Ranald, whose call reached from the outermost isles into the mainland.

  Here were the Camerons, led by their great-hearted chief Ewen Cameron, and the MacLeans from the green Isle of Mull, who had withstood the invasions and sieges of the Campbells. Here, among so many of the others, were the Frasers who lived about Loch Ness, the MacLeods from the winding peninsulas of northern Skye, the Grants and the MacLachlans, the Stewarts and the MacAulays, the MacAlisters of Kintyre, and the outlawed MacGregors.

  Here, too, were the MacDonalds of Glen Coe. There were barely more than one hundred of us, but our Alasdair MacIain was esteemed by the clans as though he commanded an army. He was an older man now, with white hair that came down far, and yet he had the same eyes, and the same voice, that he had when he returned to his people from Paris, almost forty years before. He still stood six feet, seven inches tall, with the same shoulders. Beside him were his sons, while his tacksmen remained close by: MacDonald of Achtriachtan, of Inverrigan, of Dalness and of Laroch.

  This army was led by James Graham, Viscount Dundee, who would come to be known as Bonnie Dundee. He was daring, resourceful at each turn, trusted by his king and respected by all of the chiefs, so that the rivalries among them receded. More Highlanders quickly declared their loyalty to James, although a few chiefs, not the Campbell alone, profited from William’s new government and so decided to support it.

  Just weeks after the gathering at Dalcomera, Dundee and the loyal clansmen went southeast and took Blair Castle, and on the 27th of July, the government forces marched from the south to confront us. The government army was nearly 4,000 strong, led by Sir Hugh Mackay, a Highlander and veteran general whose clan once had been loyal to James and his family.

  At Blair Castle, Bonnie Dundee convened his war council, listening to each of his commanders. Their men had been on a quick, fatiguing march, and the government army was fully a third larger, with more food, provisions and horses besides.

  Therefore remain here and rest our men, advised his regular officers, the career military men who had come from all parts. Pare down the government army, gradually, in the hope of gaining the advantage in the near future, but do not risk so great a loss with tired soldiers.

  No, urged Alasdair MacIain and the other Highland chiefs: Attack now and shock them, for our men are not nearly so fatigued as your officers suppose, and they are not afraid. Our spirits will rise only when we fight. Ewen Cameron, chief of the Clan Cameron, said that he could not promise a victory if the cautious path were taken, but “be assured, my Lord, that if we are fairly engaged, we will either lose our army, or carry a complete victory…and I have still observed that when I fought under the greatest disadvantage of numbers, I still had the greatest victories.”

  Bonnie Dundee chose whole-heartedly to fight, and he insisted upon leading the attack himself. Knowing that the government army would have to march through a particular pass in order to reach Blair Castle, the Highlanders rushed to that place, known as Killiecrankie, and so were able to take a commanding position on the hill above.

  The MacDonalds of Glen Coe were on the right flank, with the MacDonalds of Clan Ranald and Glen Garry, when Mackay and his army arrived and formed their battle lines below. The government forces began firing their muskets up the hill, rapidly at first and then only occasionally, as the Highlanders waited for the proper time.

  At seven o’clock the advance began, and Bonnie Dundee stood before his army and said, “Remember that today begins the fate of your king, your religion and your country. Behave yourselves, therefore, as true Scotsmen, and let us, by this action, redeem the credit of our nation, which is laid low by the treacheries and cowardice of some of its countrymen.”

  The Gaels marched, while the government’s bullets came into us, once and again, killing dozens and soon hundreds. None fled. We kept marching, as more of our clansmen fell, and marched on while yet more fell, and yet more. But now the Highland men were near enough to let loose one volley from our muskets, and then we threw the guns to the ground, took our swords into our hands, and charged.

  We crashed into the government line, sending William’s servants into a retreat, or to the ground. Everywhere, all along the line, the redcoats collapsed and fled within minutes, unable even to summon a hope at matching us, man to man. Most of their army lay upon this field, with Mackay scrambling away.

  Still, even as the redcoats disappeared to their south and their east, even as the pipes began the tunes of praise and remembrance, Bonnie Dundee lay dying. He had charged with the rest, and was among those hundreds who fell to the government’s muskets. He was brought, in plaids, to the churchyard near Blair Castle.

  Several days later, after his messengers had gone all the way to London, William was given the news of Killiecrankie, and shortly was asked whether he might wish to send reinforcements north to Scotland. He replied: “Armies are needless; the war is over with Dundee’s life.”

  Thus, William’s good servant Mackay quickly wrote to the Highland chiefs, offering them a full pardon if they only would give their loyalty to their rightful sovereigns William and Mary. He sent his letter along, and waited with confidence.

  After a few days, his messenger brought him the response from the chiefs. He held the letter in his hands and broke the seal. It read: “That you may know the sentiments of men of honour, we declare to you and all the world that we scorn your usurper….We will all die with our swords in our hands before we fail in our loyalty and sworn allegiance to our sovereign.”

  Despite even their defeat at Dunkeld a few weeks later, the chiefs did not waver. Autumn was upon them, however, and after a whole summer at arms, without farming or fattening, they needed to prepare for the coming winter. They agreed to part ways for now, pledging to rise for James when called.

  They paused, too, because their main army was yet in Ireland with James himself, and a final victory there would turn the tide in Scotland, allowing our king to bring his full power to the Highlands. But the victory would not come during this autumn of 1689, for the two armies remained at a stalemate in County Louth throughout September and October before retreating to their headquarters for the winter.

  So it was that Alasdair MacIain and his clansmen made our way home in October with our neighbours and kinsmen of Keppoch. The MacDonalds found ourselves passing through the country of the Campbells of Glen Orchy and Glen Lyon, and took the opportunity to unburden the traitors of some cattle, horses, and sheep. We felt no pangs of conscience, after all of those centuries in which the Campbells plundered with lawyers and pilfered with politics. Taking from a thief is no thievery at all. Soon, we were back in the glen, as the cold arrived and Alasdair and his tacksmen awaited word of the rebellion’s course.

  Perhaps
, during that winter, Alasdair learned of the new drills at Perth, roughly ninety miles away. Straw-filled dummies were being stabbed by bayonets. Archibald Campbell, the Earl of Argyll, had graciously offered to create a regiment that would answer to William and Mary, and the government in Edinburgh had blessed this act of public service. The Lowland authorities had been so impressed with His Lordship’s selflessness that they had given their approval even before Campbell’s arrival, in London, to hand William and Mary the throne of Scotland.

  Already there were five hundred soldiers in this Royal Regiment bunkered at Perth, and like Englishmen, like the troops we had felled at Killiecrankie, they wore red. While most of the ordinary men were tenants from Campbell lands in the southern Highlands, their officers were veteran Lowlanders and Campbell gentry, who even now were forging a modern, efficient unit.

  Once a month, standing in formation, the soldiers were read aloud William’s laws. Once a month, they heard: “If any shall presume to beat or abuse his host, or the wife, child or servant of his host where he is quartered, he shall be put in irons for it.”

  CHAPTER 21

  BACK TO THE

  SECOND MACIAIN

  In Robert’s boat, droplets started collecting on our hair, and Penny and I could hear the quiet motor and the water sloshing behind us. All three of us stayed silent. The wind was cold in our faces, and the waves were weak, for now, and the boat bobbed up and down just a little while going forward. We were the only ones on the loch.

  Out ahead of us, the isle was blurred by all the drizzle, and from here, most of the trees seemed to have changed their colors. Now we were drawing closer, though, and I could make out some green leaves and the wet grass, and I could see how the first few feet of the isle, right above the surface of the loch, were moss and rock. And there on the hill, sticking up like bottom teeth, were gravestones.

  We slowed down, drifting for a little, and soon we were floating into the MacDonald port. It was a pebbled beach, just a few yards across.

  We walked on slippery grass and rocks, stepped around little pools. Then we climbed up this short slope, and there were the first gravestones. Most were from the 19th century, with some from the early 20th. They were dark gray, made from the slate of Ballachulish.

  This one was placed by Alexander McKenzie in memory of his wife Isabella McColl, who died at the age of thirty-three, and their daughter Ann, who died at the age of three days. It read: “My glass has run, Yours is running, Be wise in time, Your hour is coming.” There was an Alexander McKenzie who lay over here, maybe the same Alexander McKenzie, with a stone that said: “He was honest in business, much respected by all who knew him.”

  Then I saw that name for the first time: “Angus McDonald, Tacksman of Inverrigan, and his wife Mary Rankin, by order of their son Allan McDonald.” And nearby we found this: “Alexander McDonald, Hereditary Henchman to the Chief of the McDonalds of Glencoe, and Gardener on the Estate for 40 yrs.”

  We walked slowly, watching our steps, wondering. We stopped and bent over to read. After a bit, we found: “Angus McDonald, tenant, formerly in Achtriachtan, d. 20 Feb. 1786 aged 67 yrs.” The gravestones didn’t stand in ordered rows, but fit where they could, wherever there wasn’t a rocky outcrop or the near-surface roots of an old tree. Robert took us to the stones he knew, and told some of the stories he knew. A few minutes later, we saw: “Angus McDonald, son of Alexander McDonald of Dalness, who d. 22 Apr. 1794 aged 80 yrs.”

  And among all of them were the stones that said things like: Tha n leachd so air suidheachadh n so le Domhnuill MacCoinnich saor ann so n Laraich mar chuimhneachan air a mhn aoidh Mairi nicRaing chaocheal beatha anns a chair nich air XXII do’n mhairt MDCCCXXXVIII.

  Another one read: Tha n cuimhneachan so air a chur a suas leis a bhantraich Caorstan nic an t-soar agus a chuild eile don teaghlach aig am an dol an air chuirt do dh Australia 1852. I ran my hands across the words, like they were in Braille.

  Only then did we notice the burial vault, off to the side, looking across the loch to the mainland. It had three short walls, forming three sides of a rectangle, and one side rose up into a gable, so that the burial vault looked like a little house whose roof had fallen away with one of its walls. We walked to it and saw the inscription: “Burial Place of MacDonald of Glencoe.”

  “Underneath this,” Robert said, “is the crypt. That’s where all of the chiefs and their families are buried, going back to the second MacIain.”

  He and Penny walked off to other graves. I stepped out to the edge of the isle, looked out at the houses and mountains on the mainland, came back to the crypt, and now Robert’s voice was muffled, almost distant, and Penny’s was, too.

  I placed my hand on the wall of the little house. The wind was coming through the long grass and the leaves in the trees, and the water was hitting the rocks below. I bent my head down and closed my eyes. I could hear my breath. Hopefully, nobody was watching me. I said it just once, and said it silently.

  I will find you.

  Soon I could hear Robert and Penny’s voices coming closer, and they didn’t even look at me like I was crazy. I’d told myself no, I wouldn’t do it, but when Robert asked whether I’d like to have a picture taken of me beside the burial vault, I said OK, fine. And as he pointed the camera at me, and I clasped my hands, I didn’t feel like an intruder. It didn’t seem like I was posing in someone else’s family photo.

  The three of us stepped away, back down to the port, and we pushed off. The engine started again. Penny and I looked back and saw the isle getting smaller and smaller behind us, while the glen became bigger and bigger before us.

  Back on shore, rain gear off, we walked to our cars. Robert told us how to get to the coffee shop, where we’d soon have the pleasure of meeting Dr. Lachlan MacDonald, dentist of Paisley, a large town outside Glasgow.

  Last night, sitting at the Clachaig Inn, I’d received an email from the DNA company saying that, like Uncle Chuck and my New Zealand cousin Colin, Lachie MacDonald of Paisley had gotten another thirty DNA markers tested, beyond the original thirty-seven. Clicking through, I’d discovered that Chuck and Lachie matched perfectly on all thirty of the new markers; Chuck matched Lachie on sixty-five out of sixty-seven markers, but only matched Colin on sixty-two out of sixty-seven. That meant my line probably branched off from Lachie’s line between the early 17th century and the mid-18th century, more than a century after my line branched off from Colin’s.

  All right, back to the Glencoe family tree:

  A few days ago, after visiting Alistair, Rosalin and their son Alexander, I’d suspected that my ancestor Angus McDonald of Garrard County, Kentucky was patrilineally descended from one of those four tacksmen on the right side, and now, just maybe, there was a way to find out whether that could be true. Since Lachie only matched Colin on sixty-three out of sixty-seven markers, it was likely that their two lines branched off from one another in the 16th or 17th centuries, which meant that Lachie very well could be a descendant of one of the tacksmen. And if he was, then I was probably descended from one of them, too, because of how closely Lachie matched Uncle Chuck.

  So, walking up to the place called Crafts and Things with Robert and Penny, I wondered whether I was about to learn more from Lachie. This was an old house near the village of Glencoe, with stone walls and a slate roof, and there were crafts, and things, to be bought on the first floor. There were paintings of the loch and antiques. There were photos of the mountains. We went downstairs to the coffee shop, found a table, and soon the three of them were joining us.

  Jeanette, Robert’s wife, was first down the steps, shaking our hands and welcoming us. I could see the slight resemblance to her sister Rosalin. Then Diane gave us a hug, and behind her was her husband Lachie, who wanted to know all about how our trip had been coming along.

  We told them about our walks around the glen, about meeting up with Alistair and Rosalin
and Alexander, about life at the Clachaig Inn. “Oh,” Jeanette said, “you don’t have to do that. You’re welcome to stay with us whenever you’re here. We’d be happy to have you.”

  Lachie and Diane spent a lot of time in Paisley, down south, but also lived on the Isle of Lismore, near here, where Lachie had been born and raised. His parents and grandparents had always spoken Gaelic at home. His father and grandfather had been well-known Gaelic poets and songwriters, and his uncles had been, too. Lachie knew most of their poems and songs by heart. He made sure not to forget.

  Since childhood, he’d known that his MacDonald ancestors were from Glencoe, and many times over the years, he’d attended the memorial service, held each February 13th. He’d climbed many of the mountains of the glen, and had sailed in and out of Loch Leven again and again, and all over the west coast of Scotland. He knew the history of the Highlands and the Isles, not just from the books on his shelves, but also from the stories he’d grown up hearing.

  “Well,” I said, “it looks like I’m descended from a man named Angus McDonald, and I don’t know where he was born, but I know that he died in the state of Kentucky.”

  Pause. “That’s, I don’t know, a few hundred miles south of Chicago.”

  Yes, OK, right.

  “So I figured out from some records in Missouri, which is west of Kentucky, that my ancestor Hiram McDonald was the son of John McDonald and Elizabeth Downing, and then a genealogist discovered that John McDonald lived in this particular county in Kentucky. Then a DNA match with Jim McDonald of Houston, Texas, which you all probably know about, proved that my ancestor John McDonald was the son of Angus McDonald of Kentucky.”

  “Well, Ryan,” Lachie said, “that’s great. Thank you very much for that. Now, I take it that the DNA shows that your MacDonalds were related to my MacDonalds?”

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Well, then, from here on out, it’s just like taxes and recordkeeping, you know.”