The inscription reads: -

 

John McDonald - 1876 - 1859

 

John McDonald was my great-great-great grandfather.  He was born in Buchanan near Balmaha about 1786.  Initially he may have been a drover.  On 27^th July 1816 he married a Margaret Coubrough at Campsie and by the 1820s was a shepherd at Blairvockie, north of Balmaha.  Blairvockie was then part of the Duke of Montrose’s Buchanan Castle estate.  By 1830 he had moved to Kilmorich with his family and was living as a shepherd in a croft called Beinacariche (now renamed Abyssinia on the Strone Estate).  Early in the 1840s he, his wife and his 7 children (the youngest of whom, Sarah, was my great-great grandmother) were dispossessed in the Clearances and by 1851 he was a spirit dealer in Carlton, Glasgow.  In the late 1850s he moved with his wife and younger children to Firkin Toll, Croit a’ Chladaich, Arrochar calling himself once again a shepherd.  He died there on 1^st March 1859.  According to the register of deaths he was buried in ‘Arrochar Church Yard’.  His wife, Margaret, continued to live in Arrochar and died at Havelock House, Arrochar on 21^st June, 1881.

 

If you have a loved one and would like a page made up for them please EMAIL HOWARD - include as much information as you have and please include the text from the grave stone. Pictures are also welcome.