The Colhouns of Crosh, Part 3: Scottish Origins

Recap

As I mentioned when I began this series, I believe I have found a new and well-supported genealogical connection between the Colhoun of Crosh family in Ireland and an ancestral family branch in Scotland.  In the last two posts, I have tried to lay the groundwork for this new proposal.  In this post, I will describe it in detail.

In the first post of this “Colhoun of Crosh” series, I tried to establish:

• That the James Colhoun listed (as “James Cacone”) near Alexander McCausland on the 1631 muster roll from the Newtownstewart area of Co. Tyrone is the Scottish-born founder of the Colhoun of Crosh family in Ireland; more specifically, that he was the father of the William Colhoun of Newtownstewart who married Alexander McCausland’s daughter Catherine.
• That James was the brother of John Colhoun of Letterkenny, who appears on several 17^th century records including as an overseer of the will of Alexander McCausland from 1674.
• That John Colhoun of Letterkenny was the probable father of Peter/Patrick Colhoun, who moved back and forth between Aughnish and Letterkenny in Co. Donegal and Newtownstewart in Co. Tyrone, both areas with ties to the Mountjoy family.

In the second post of the series, I tried to establish:

• That the Alexander McCausland mentioned above was the son of Patrick McCausland and his wife Agnes Colquhoun, of Caldenoch in Dunbartonshire, Scotland.
• That Patrick’s will of 1616 mentions other Colquhouns in addition to his wife, Agnes.
• That for centuries, the McCausland family of Caldenoch had been closely associated with, had been feudal tenants of, and had married into, the Colquhoun of Luss family.

Hopefully I was able to convince you of at least some of those ideas.  I will now try to put the pieces together to show how all this can be used to establish a continuous male lineage of the Colhoun of Crosh family. 

Agnes and Robert Colquhoun

The pedigree of the McCausland family that I included with the last post showed three intermarriages with Calhouns.  The first marriage I mentioned was between Catherine McCausland and William Colhoun (from the “Colhoun of Crosh” family) in Ireland.  A second, probably occurring about 1538, was between one of the early 16^th-century barons of Caldenoch and Marjory Colquhoun, who I argued was a daughter of the Colquhoun of Luss; as this was probably a second marriage for both parties, there is a good chance that Marjory was not an ancestor by blood of the later McCauslands.  The third, perhaps occurring in the late 1580s, was between Patrick McCausland and Agnes Colquhoun.  As Patrick and Agnes were the parents of Alexander McCausland, determining Agnes’s identity is critically important.

Some secondary sources state that Agnes was the daughter of Sir Humphrey Colquhoun, 14^th/16^th of Luss, who was assassinated in 1592, but this is not true.  Sir Humphrey died leaving three daughters:  Jean, Margaret, and Annas (see Fraser vol. 1, pp. 163-166 and 168, and references therein).  Some may mistake Agnes for Annas, but Annas married Colin Campbell of Carrick in 1610, and the other two daughters are also accounted for (ibid).  Agnes was indeed the daughter of a Humphrey Colquhoun, but not that Humphrey.  James Dennistoun’s research dated June 1828 (PRONI D669/52) states that Agnes was the daughter of Humphrey Colquhoun of Tullichintaull.  I don’t know what sources Dennistoun used or how he came to this conclusion, but I believe he was 100% spot-on.

Recall that Patrick McCausland’s will of 1616 mentions two other Colquhouns in addition to his wife, Agnes: Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss, to whom money was owed, and Robert Colquhoun of Ballernick, who was named as an executor of the will (although he declined the position).  The appearance of the Colquhoun of Luss is perhaps not surprising since he was Patrick McCausland’s feudal superior, hence the money owed.  Robert Colquhoun of Ballernick, on the other hand, was almost certainly a very close relative given that his surname was the same as Patrick’s wife and that he was named an executor of the will.  I propose that Robert was Agnes’s brother, and I will show evidence to support this.

Excerpt from the legacy portion of Patrick McCausland’s estate records. First line reads, “At Caldonoche the second day of August 1616.” Boxed in red are the following names: (1) executor “Ro’t Colquhoune of Balornok”, (2) spouse “Agnes Colquhoune”, and (3) sons “Ro’t & Alex’r McCausland”.

The Colquhouns of Ballernick

In volume 2 of his work, Fraser devotes chapters or sections to numerous cadet branches of the Colquhoun family.  I provided a pedigree showing the relationships of these family branches to each other in one previous post, and I highlighted members of these families who might have living male-line descendants in another.  Since then, I have noticed that not every land-owning branch of the Colquhoun family received such treatment from Fraser.  Those branches that did not may not have had as much land, or been as wealthy, or held onto the land for enough generations to warrant a dedicated chapter.  One such branch of the family is the Colquhouns of Ballernick.  Although Fraser did not devote a chapter to this branch, he provided enough scattered references to them from which to build a pedigree.  I will try to do just that here, collecting and rearranging Fraser’s references into roughly chronological order. 

Ballernick (also spelled Balernock, or in Gaelic, Balarnaig) actually comprises two properties, Ballernick-beg (“little Ballernick”) and Ballernick-mor or Meikle Ballernick (“great Ballernick”).  Both are located in Dunbartonshire, just east of Faslane on the slopes of Gare Loch.  Originally part of the parish of Luss, in the mid-17^th century they were transferred to the parish of Row (Fraser vol. 2, p. 102).  Although the family is often referred to simply as Colquhoun of Ballernick, the property from which they got the title was specifically Ballernick-mor.

Topographic map of the isthmus sometimes called the Isle of Ben-Leven. Colquhoun strongholds of Luss and Camstradden are highlighted in boxes, and several other place names relevant to this post have been added. Most of these are not marked on modern maps, as they are archaic names or refer to settlements now gone or in ruins. Source: Google Maps.

Sir John Colquhoun, 11^th/13^th of Luss and the lands of Ballernick-mor and Tullichintaull.  The association of Colquhouns with the lands of Ballernick-mor begins with Sir John Colquhoun, 11^th/13^th of Luss (d. 1536).  Sir John first married Elizabeth Stewart, by whom he had four sons (including Humphrey, ancestor of the later lairds of Luss, and Walter, ancestor of the Colquhouns of Kilmardinny) and four daughters (including Marjory, wife of Sir Duncan Campbell and also, as I propose, of Patrick McCausland of Caldonach).  He second married Margaret Cunningham, by whom he had two sons and two daughters.  As if that weren’t enough, he also had four illegitimate children, a daughter and three sons.  (See Fraser vol. 1, pp. 84-102.)  During his lifetime, he provided financially for his sixteen children by distributing at different times a number of lands to them.  Fraser reproduces two charters of particular importance here:

• Sir John’s charter to Patrick Colquhoun, one of his “natural” (illegitimate) sons, of the lands of Tullichintaull and Gortane:  “Charter by John Culquhoun of Luss, Knight, to Patrick Culquhoun, his son, of the lands of Twllichintawell and Gortane.  29^th August 1522” (Fraser vol. 2, p. 334).
• Sir John’s charter to Thomas Colquhoun, his eldest son by his second wife, Margaret Cunningham, of lands including Ballernick-mor:  “Charter by John Culquhoun of Luss, Knight, to Thomas Culquhoun, his son, of the lands of Fynart, Portcaple, and Forlinbrek, and lands of Ballernik Moir.  22d August 1532” (Fraser vol. 2, p. 335).

Besides Patrick, Sir John’s other illegitimate sons were Adam Colquhoun of Blairvaddoch and David Colquhoun of Stronratan.  I have already mentioned Adam as having sold to his probable half-sister Marjory and her husband, Patrick McCausland of Caldonach, the annual rent of the lands of Letterwald-mor, in 1543.  That same year, Adam purchased the lands of Faslane and Ballernick-mor from the Earl of Lennox, suggesting that Thomas had by that time died without heirs, with Ballernick-mor reverting to the earldom (Fraser vol. 1, p. 100).  Adam died by 1558, apparently unmarried, leaving his brother David of Stronratan sole heir to the lands of Blairvaddoch, Letterwald-mor, and Ballernick-mor (Fraser vol. 1, p. 101).  David himself died in 1559, with these lands again reverting to the earldom.  In 1564, the reversions were purchased from the earl by David’s nephew and lord superior, Sir John Colquhoun, 13^th/15^th of Luss (Fraser vol. 1, p. 121).

Patrick Colquhoun of Ardinconnal and Tullichintaull, son of Sir John above.  It seems therefore that Thomas, Adam, and David all died without male heirs.  Of the brothers mentioned above, it is only Patrick Colquhoun, recipient of Tullichintaull and Gortane in 1522, whose line continued.  Patrick, often styled “of Ardinconnal”, married Isabel McAulay of Ardincaple sometime before 1528 and died sometime between 1565-1577 (Fraser vol. 1, p. 98).

Tullichintaull (also Tullich-in-Taul) was a settlement at the west end of Glen Douglas, just north of the lands of Gortan.  (See Alistair McIntyre and Tam Ward.  “The History and Survey of Several Settlement Sites in Argyll.”  North Clyde Archaeological Society, p. 5.)

Humphrey Colquhoun of Tullichintaull, son of Patrick above.  A document dated 17 January 1559 at Rossdhu names “Patrick Colquhoun of Ardinconnal, and Humphrey Colquhoun, son and apparent heir to the said Patrick” in regards to the redemption of Ardinconnal (Fraser vol. 1, p. 99).  There is also a citation:  “Protocol of Instrument of Sasine in Notarial Transumpt (Original), dated 23d April 1577, obtained from the Sheriff of Dumbarton by Humphrey Colquhoun of Tullichintaull, son and heir of the deceased Patrick Colquhoun of Tullichintaull, at Rossdhu” (Fraser vol. 1, p. 97, footnote 2).  Note that a different source states that this sasine was from 1569, not 1577 (McIntyre and Ward, “Argyll”, p. 6.)

Humphrey married Agnes Kelso, based on the following record pertaining to his son Robert:  “On 8^th October 1589, Sir Humphrey Colquhoun [14^th/16^th of Luss] was infefted in the lands of Ardinconnal, Finnart, Portincaple, Forlingbrek [Fairholmbreck], Tullichintaull, and others.  Robert Colquhoun of Ballernick acted as his attorney on the occasion; and among the witnesses was Gilchrist Macaulay, servant of Agnes Kelso in Ballernick-mor, mother of the said Robert Colquhoun” (Fraser vol. 1, p. 150).  Humphrey died by 1587 according to the record below.

Robert Colquhoun of Ballernick, son of Humphrey above.  The Cartulary of Colquhoun includes the following record dated 1587:  “Precept of clare constat by Sir Vmphry Colquhoun of Luss in favour of Robert Colquhoun of Ballernickmoir, as heir of the deceased Vmphry Colquhoun of Tullichintaull, his father, in the lands of Gortan” (McIntyre and Ward, “Argyll”, p. 6).  In 1587, Robert Colquhoun of Ballernick was likely a young man in his 20s, as he seems to have died sometime around 1640.

In 1616, Robert was named an executor of the will of Patrick McCausland of Caldonach, and it is now evident why:  he was indeed the brother of Patrick’s wife, Agnes.  The records above state that Robert was the son of Humphrey Colquhoun of Tullichintaull, and the research of James Dennistoun (PRONI D669/52B and C) states that Agnes was also the daughter of this same Humphrey.

As mentioned in a previous post, the will of Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss from 1617 mentions a bequest of 1000 merks to Robert Colquhoun of Ballernick (Fraser vol. 1, p. 231).  While there is evidence of a close relationship between the Luss and Ballernick families, it is unclear exactly why this was given.  It could have been in gratitude for support at the Battle of Glen Fruin in 1603, or it could have been compensation for the loss of land by Robert’s family.  Following that battle, and probably in the period 1603-1610, there seems to have been an exchange of lands between the Colquhoun and MacFarlane clans intended to help quell the blood feud between them.  Among the lands that transferred from Colquhoun to MacFarlane ownership were Tullichintaull and Gortan, representing a loss to the Colquhoun of Ballernick family.  (See McIntyre and Ward, “Argyll”, p. 6).

In 1631, Robert Colquhoun of Ballernick purchased the lands of Bannachra from Alexander, brother of Sir John Colquhoun, 16^th/18^th of Luss (Fraser vol. 2, p. 64).  The lands of Ballernick and Bannachra were mentioned as being in Robert’s possession in 1639 when the parish of Row was formed (Fraser vol. 2, p. 102).  Robert likely died that year or in 1640, when his son Humphrey became infefted in this same property.

In addition to Humphrey, Robert had a daughter named Christian or Christina.  The first wife of Robert Colquhoun, 10^th of Camstradden was Mary Macaulay, eldest daughter of Alexander Macaulay in Ballernick-mor (Fraser vol. 2, p. 201).  Their son and Robert’s successor, Alexander Colquhoun, 11^th of Camstradden, married secondly Christian, daughter of “Robert Colquhoun in [sic] Ballernick” (see Fraser vol. 2, pp. 208-209).  This may have been a second marriage for Christian as well, assuming she is the same person as the “Christina” in the following reference:  “This latter Quentin Lindsay [in possession of Bonhill 1641] was married to Christina, eldest daughter of Robert Colquhoun of Ballernick, and had an only daughter, Anne, upon whom he settled the estate in 1660, on condition of her marrying some gentleman bearing the name and arms of Lindsay” (Joseph Irving.  The Book of Dumbartonshire, vol. II.  Edinburgh: W. and A. K. Johnston, 1879, p. 174.)

Fraser mentions Robert one other time, in the context of the 1647 marriage of Walter Stewart and Jean, daughter of Sir John Colquhoun, 16^th/18^th of Luss.  The minister performing the ceremony was admonished by church authorities for doing so without the consent of the bride’s father.  As Sir John died in 1647, this may have been because he was either ill or deceased at the time of the wedding.  The minister stated that in fact “he had received her father’s consent, through Robert Colquhoun of Ballernick” (Fraser vol. 1, p. 251).  This reference is cryptic in that I believe Robert died between 1639-1640, as I stated above.  Possible explanations include:  Robert did not actually die by 1640 but survived until at least 1647; this is a mistaken reference to Humphrey Colquhoun of Ballernick; or, Robert had a son of the same name not mentioned elsewhere by Fraser, and this record refers to the son.

Humphrey Colquhoun of Ballernick, son of Robert above.  As mentioned, Robert Colquhoun of Ballernick purchased the lands of Bannachra in 1631.  “His son Humphrey and his wife, Margaret Sempill, were infefted therein in 1640” (Fraser vol. 2, p. 64).  In 1656, “Humphray Colquhoun of Balernik” was among numerous Colquhouns subject to a letter of complaint by the provost and bailies of Dunbartonshire (Fraser vol. 1, p. 264).  In 1659, Humphrey is mentioned as heritor of the lands and castle of Bannachra when it was transferred from parish Row to Luss (Fraser vol. 2, pp. 62-63).  Interestingly, Fraser indexed Humphrey as “Colquhoun, Humphrey, fourth of Ballernick” (Fraser vol. 2, p. 398).  He does not similarly refer to him as “fourth” in the text, nor any other members of the family with ordinal numbers, so this may have been the remnant of a reference system that Fraser considered but abandoned by the time of publication.

Robert Colquhoun of Ballernick, son of Humphrey above.  Fraser states, “Humphrey’s eldest son, Robert, married in 1664, for his second wife, Jean, eldest daughter of Mr. John Darleith, in Dumbarton.  His first wife was Margaret Sydserf” (Fraser vol. 2, p. 64).  “After the decease of her husband, Robert Colquhoun of Ballernick, Jean Darleith having married, secondly, Robert Colquhoun, son of Alexander Colquhoun of Camstradden, sold, with the consent of her second husband, by disposition dated 10^th April 1675, to Aulay Macaulay, her liferent and conjunct-fee in the lands of Easter and Wester Bannachra” (Fraser vol. 2, p. 66).  Robert’s estate records are dated 27 April 1675.  Records cited below show that Robert had a brother named Archibald Colquhoun.

Robert Colquhoun of Bannachra, son of Robert above .  Robert, “only lawful son of Robert Colquhoun of Ballernick” (Fraser vol. 1, p. 307), was a minor in 1675 when his father died, and he was not immediately served heir to his father’s estate (Fraser vol. 2, p. 65).  Shortly after the elder Robert’s death, Sir John Colquhoun, 17^th/19^th of Luss, received from the Duchess of Lennox the property of Bannachra “by reason of ward and non-entry of the said lands through the decease of Robert Colquhoun of Ballernick.  This gift thereof was of all years bygone since the death of the said Robert, and in time coming, until the entry of the next lawful heir thereto, being of lawful age, with the relief of the said ward when the same should happen, with the marriage of Robert Colquhoun of Bannachra, son and apparent heir of the said deceased Robert, and failing of him by death unmarried, with the marriage of any other heir or heirs, male or female, that should happen to succeed” (Fraser vol. 1, p. 276; this issue is also discussed in vol. 2, p. 65).

During Robert’s minority, bonds were issued on his family’s lands, which eventually fell into the hands of James Smollett of Stainflett and Bonhill (ca. 1648-1731).  To recover the money in the bonds, James took legal action, raising letters of general and special charge “against Robert Colquhoun, son of the deceased Robert Colquhoun of Ballernick, dated 6^th December 1687, charging him to enter himself heir to his father.”  Courts ruled in Smollett’s favor, agreeing in 1690 that the total owed to him on the two bonds, for the lands of Ballernick and the lands and mill of Bannachra, totaled £5231.  (See Fraser vol. 2, pp. 65-66.)

The court decree “further decerned [Smollett] to be infefted in the said lands, etc., by Frances Duchess of Lennox, or any other the immediate and lawful superior thereof.  Soon after obtaining this decreet, James Smollett sold the lands of Ballernick and Bannachra to Sir Humphrey Colquhoun of Luss, who obtained from him a disposition of them, dated 12^th May 1691.  This purchase of the lands was afterwards confirmed in the favor of Sir Humphrey Colquhoun of Luss, by the said Robert Colquhoun, younger, with consent of Archibald Colquhoun, brother-german to the said deceased Robert Colquhoun, his father, by disposition, dated 4^th November 1692” (Fraser vol. 2, p. 66).

In 1698, Sir Humphrey Colquhoun paid Robert 2300 merks as the remainder of the price for the lands of Ballernick-mor and Bannachra.  The bond was later redeemed by Sir James Colquhoun, 23^rd/25^th of Luss, 8^th Baronet.  (See Fraser vol. 1, pp. 307 and 362.)  I have not determined what happened to Robert after the loss of his family’s lands, or whether he married or had children.

Connection to the Colhouns of Crosh

Having now worked out a pedigree of the Colquhoun of Ballernick family, we can begin to see where the Colhoun of Crosh family fits in.  In the accompanying tree, I have placed the founders of the Crosh family in Ireland, probable brothers James Colhoun of Newtownstewart and John Colhoun of Letterkenny, as sons of Robert Colquhoun of Ballernick.  There do not appear to be surviving estate records for Robert, so there is no documentary proof of these relationships at present.  However, in my opinion the circumstantial evidence is quite strong.

Pedigree of the Colquhouns of Ballernick and their relationship to the Colquhouns of Luss and Colhouns of Crosh in Ireland. Ancestors of the Colhouns of Crosh are in boldface, and those who went to or were born in Ireland are shaded in green. Not shown is Christian, daughter of Robert Colquhoun of Ballernick (d. 1640). Birth dates are to be taken as very approximate in most cases. Dates for the Colquhouns of Luss at left are the dates each served as laird of Luss. Dotted lines indicate proposed relationships that do not yet have documentary support.

The placement of James and John Colhoun in this tree does not contradict what we know about the Ballernick family, since none of the few records pertaining to Humphrey Colquhoun of Ballernick (who seems to have lived, very approximately, during the period 1595-1670) states that he was Robert of Ballernick’s only son.  As inheritor of the estate, he was clearly the eldest son, but he could well have had younger brothers, as I show here.  The Crosh family’s financial and social position in Ireland suggested to me that it originated with a branch of the Scottish gentry, and this tree is consistent with that hypothesis.

In addition, note that Humphrey Colquhoun’s wife was Margaret Sempill, whom he probably married in the 1620s.  John Colhoun of Letterkenny became the “servant” (likely the estate agent) of Sir William Sempill in Ireland.  I do not yet know what the relationship was between Margaret and Sir William, but a family connection certainly explains how John could have attained the position that he did.  

Finally, and most importantly, this tree structure is strongly supported by the oral tradition within the Colhoun of Crosh family.  Recall Croslegh’s summary of this tradition (on p. x of his book):

The Irish branch [i.e., the Colhoun of Crosh family] had always retained the tradition, but it had lost all documentary record of its descent from the old Chiefs of Colquhoun.  It knew that its first ancestor in Ireland, Robert Colquhoun, had come from Luss, as a child, under the charge of his uncle MacCausland.

By the Crosh family’s “first ancestor in Ireland, Robert Colquhoun”, Croslegh was referring to the man of that name made denizen of Ireland in 1630 and grantee of the Luss family’s estate of Corkagh.  Croslegh identified this Robert, incorrectly, as a grandson of Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss.  In an earlier post, I argued instead that he was probably Robert Colquhoun later 10^th of Camstradden, as stated by Burke’s and other sources.  While this is still possible, I now feel that an equally strong if not stronger candidate is Robert Colquhoun of Ballernick, evidently another close associate of the Luss family.  I suggested that in the early years of the 1600s, the Colquhoun of Ballernick family suffered loss of property including Tullichintaull as a result of a land exchange with the MacFarlanes engineered by the Luss family.  One can imagine that the Colquhoun of Ballernick family’s brief ownership of Corkagh in 1630 was part of a complex land transaction intended to belatedly compensate them, just as the bequest from Alexander’s 1617 will might have been.  It is possible that Corkagh’s reversion to Luss ownership coincided with the Ballernicks’ acquisition of the lands of Bannachra from the laird of Luss’s brother Alexander in 1631, only a year later.

This is all speculation on my part, and I will return to Robert’s identity in the future if further evidence is found supporting either thesis.  In the meantime, this has been a long winded way of saying that the proposed tree agrees with the oral tradition in that an early ancestor of the Irish Crosh family was named Robert, even if Robert did not live “in Ireland”.  Instead, it seems to have been Robert’s son James who was the first to migrate to Ireland, and at the time he did so, Ballernick-mor belonged to the parish of Luss.  Thus, the oral tradition’s statement that this first ancestor had come “from Luss” is also accurate, even if he did not belong to the senior-most branch of the family, the Colquhouns “of Luss”.

Most importantly, the proposed tree shows Alexander McCausland as the first cousin of James and John Colhoun, explaining why Alexander and James settled near each other in Ireland and why Alexander chose John, who lived some distance away in Letterkenny, as an overseer of his will in 1674.  The 1642 muster roll of Sir William Stewart’s regiment that includes Alexander McCausland also includes several Calhouns, but not James.  I now believe that James probably died during the Rebellion of 1641, leaving his son William as a fatherless child who was taken in by (therefore “under the charge of”) Alexander McCausland.  This tree shows Alexander to have been William’s first cousin once removed, which is about as close to an uncle/nephew relationship as you can get without Alexander having been an actual uncle, as the oral tradition states.  In short, this proposed tree structure supports just about every element of the oral tradition maintained by the Colhoun of Crosh family.

There remain plenty of unanswered questions and plenty of research to be done, but I think we’re getting somewhere!

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Today marks the first anniversary of my first post to this blog. Special thanks yet again to Paul Calhoun for critical reading of this post and helpful edits, and for his valuable input into almost all previous posts over the past year. This blog has been much the stronger for his help. Please check out his own blog about the Calhoun family, calhoun.info.

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© 2024 Brian Anton. All rights reserved.

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For a list of posts, visit The Genealogy of the Calhoun Family homepage.

The Colhouns of Crosh, Part 1: The First Generations in Ireland

The Importance of the Crosh Family

Of the Colhouns of the Irish gentry, undoubtedly the most well-known group came to prominence near Newtownstewart, parish Ardstraw, County Tyrone, a family I refer to as Colhoun of Crosh.  (I realize this term does not accurately describe the family as a whole, but it is a heck of a lot more convenient than referring to them as “The descendants of James Colhoun of the Newtownstewart area, one particular group of whom later lived in a manor house in the townland of Crosh in County Tyrone.”)  They owe much of their renown (among genealogical researchers, at least) to a book published in 1904 by Charles Croslegh, who was himself a member of that family.  The pedigree that Croslegh proposed shows his family to be the patrilineal descendants of Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss, the first well-documented Scottish Colquhoun landowner in Ireland.  Because William Fraser had in 1869 published a pedigree of the Colquhoun of Luss family stretching from Alexander all the way back to the Colquhoun family’s 13^th-century founder, anyone claiming descent from the Colhoun of Crosh family in Ireland could boast of an unbroken pedigree back to the year 1240 or so.

The idea of an unbroken pedigree back to Luss proved too tempting to resist for many Calhoun genealogists, whether amateur or professional, casual or serious.  Many Calhouns left Ireland for the Americas and other parts of the British Empire in the 18^th century as part of the Ulster Scot migration, and modern-day descendants of those emigrants who try to trace their ancestors often find their paper trails end at the Atlantic Ocean.  Because Croslegh’s has been the most readily accessible pedigree of Irish Calhouns from the 17^th and 18^th centuries, many of these modern-day descendants make the assumption that their immigrant ancestor belonged to the Colhoun of Crosh family.  And why wouldn’t they?  Doing so would not only allow them to claim specific 18^th-century ancestors in Ireland, but would seemingly join their family to a ready-made pedigree stretching back an additional 500 years.

As I have tried to lay out in previous posts, there are two problems with this.  The first is that the Colhouns of Crosh were only one of many Calhoun families in Ireland in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, each founded by a different settler from Scotland; therefore, it stands to reason that most Calhouns of the Irish diaspora are not closely related to the Colhouns of Crosh.  The second is that even if one’s connection to the Crosh family were to prove true, the part of Croslegh’s pedigree connecting the Colhouns of Crosh in Ireland to Alexander Colquhoun of Luss in Scotland is seriously flawed.  I described all the reasons why in two earlier posts (here and here), so I direct anyone interested to those articles rather than repeat the reasoning here.

In the last section of a previous post, I discussed the importance of finding at least one living Calhoun with both a genealogical and a Y-DNA genetic connection to the family’s 13^th-century founder, Humphrey of Kilpatrick:  it would enable us to at least begin to map William Fraser’s extensive pedigrees onto the Y-DNA genetic tree, thus helping to interpret the ancestry of many modern Y-DNA testers.  While the senior Scottish Colquhoun families have all died out in the male line, many people pointed to Croslegh’s pedigree as providing a critical male lineage through an Irish branch of the family.  If my posts managed to convince you that Croslegh’s proposed connection between the Crosh and Luss families is not correct, then we were stuck, since to my knowledge at least, there was no alternative.

This left us in the following quandary.  We had a number of living people who could claim genealogical descent from Humphrey of Kilpatrick, including the present-day Colquhoun lairds of Luss, but none followed the Calhoun male lineage continuously, meaning their Y-chromosome is not inherited from the earliest Colquhouns.  Conversely, we had many others who could claim genetic descent from Humphrey in the male line, namely those men belonging to Y-DNA haplogroup E-Y16733, but none had a well-supported, unbroken genealogical connection to him.  Therefore, we had people who could satisfy each one of our two necessary conditions, but no one who could satisfy both.

As it turns out, I believe we do have a group of living Calhouns that satisfies both conditions, and it is … the Colhoun of Crosh family!  I have now managed to construct a new genealogical connection between the Crosh and Luss families.  It is quite different from the one Croslegh proposed, but in my opinion, it is well supported by evidence.  Furthermore, those of the Colhoun of Crosh family who have tested do indeed belong to Y-DNA haplogroup E-Y16733.  We’re back in business!

I originally envisioned writing a series of two or three posts about the Crosh family, the first of the Colhoun families of the Irish gentry that I planned to tackle.  However, it was in the course of writing and researching this first post that I discovered what I believe to be the family’s true origins in Scotland.  To thoroughly discuss not only the various generations of the Crosh family in Ireland but also this new proposal will now probably take five or six posts altogether.  Oh, well.  In this first post of the series, I will discuss the family’s earliest days in 17^th century Ireland and the other Calhouns from that time who may have been related to them.  In the next two posts, I will lay out my new proposal and invite feedback, so stay tuned!

The Mountjoy Family

The Colhouns of Crosh can be traced in Ireland back to 1631, when they were living on the manor of Newtownstewart in County Tyrone.  Newtownstewart was named for Sir William Stewart, the senior-most owner of the property at that time.  A Servitor who came to Ireland in the early days of the Plantation and diligently developed his land, Sir William was rewarded with numerous properties, including Newtownstewart.  His descendants in the Stewart and Gardiner families were elevated to the peerage, and for simplicity, I will often refer to this family in its entirety as the Lords Mountjoy or the Mountjoy family.  Subsequent generations of Mountjoys added to the family’s holdings before all of it was finally sold off in the mid-19^th century.

As a family of the gentry, the Colhouns of Crosh had ownership rights to various properties, but property rights were multilayered in those days, and their rights to most if not all of their holdings seem to have been subordinate to the Lords Mountjoy.  Before discussing the Colhouns themselves, I want to describe those of the Mountjoys’ holdings in the Counties of Tyrone and Donegal most relevant to the Colhouns:

• Manor of Ramelton and Fortstewart (parish Aughnish, barony Kilmacrenan, Co. Donegal).  Originally the manor of Clonlarie [Glenleary] granted by patent in 1610 to the Servitor Sir Richard Hansard, it quickly passed to Sir William Stewart to become his first Irish holding.
• Manor of Tirenemuriertagh [Tirmurty] (parishes Cappagh and Bodoney Lower, barony Strabane Upper, Co. Tyrone).  Originally granted by patent to James Haig, it was surrendered in 1613 to joint ownership of Sir William Stewart and George Hamilton.
• Manor of Mountstewart (aka Aghanteane, aka Rashmount Stewart; parish Clogher, barony Clogher, Co. Tyrone).  Originally the manors of Ballyneconolly and Ballyranill granted to Edward Kingswell, Esq., probably a Servitor.  Kingswell sold these lands in 1616 and they were enfeoffed to Sir William Stewart shortly thereafter.  Except for a single mid-19^th century marriage record, I have found no Colhouns living in parish Clogher.
• Manor of Newtownstewart (parishes Ardstraw and Cappagh, baronies Strabane Upper and Lower, Co. Tyrone).  Originally the manors of Newtown and Lislap granted to James Clapham in 1610, they were soon transferred to Sir Robert Newcomen, from whom they passed by inheritance to his son-in-law Sir William Stewart in 1629.
• Part of the manor of Wilson’s Fort (aka Killynure, aka Cavan; parishes Convoy, Raphoe, and Donaghmore, barony Raphoe, Co. Donegal).  Originally the estates of Aghagalla and Convoigh [Convoy] granted to the Wilson family, it was around 1661 inherited by a descendant, Charles Hamilton, son of Andrew Hamilton, Esq.  In 1676, a portion went to a Wilson relative, Capt. John Nisbitt of Tullydonnell, and the rest was sold in 1712 to Col. Alexander Montgomery of Croghan, Co. Donegal.  Part was soon after acquired by the 2^nd Viscount Mountjoy.  (Marilyn Lewis. “William Willson: From Clare to Donegal.”  Ivan Knox, “The Houses of Stewart from 1500-” (2003), pp. 24-25.)

With the exception of Mountstewart, Colhouns lived or held property in all of these places (such as the townland of Crosh itself, which belonged to the manor of Newtownstewart).  Because of the Colhoun of Crosh family’s long association with the Mountjoys, it is worth considering that Colhouns living on any of these Mountjoy estates––not just Newtownstewart––prior to the mid-19^th century might have been related to the Colhouns of Crosh.

Pedigree of the Mountjoy family. Owners of Newtownstewart are shown in boldface. Upon the death of Sir William Stewart, Earl of Blessington, Newtonstewart and the majority of the Stewart estates passed to Charles Gardiner, for whose son the title of Mountjoy was recreated. The Baronetcy of Ramelton, meanwhile, passed to Sir Annesley Stewart. Presumably, ownership of the Donegal estate went with the baronetcy, since at the time of Griffith’s Valuation, Sir James Stewart (8^th Baronet, son of the 7^th) was a significant landowner in the parishes of Aughnish, Conway, and Tullyfern in Co. Donegal.

James Colhoun and Alexander McCausland

A 1631 muster roll of men living on Sir William Stewart’s estates in Co. Tyrone includes the following names, located relatively near each other on the long list:

• 80. James Cacone, sword and pike
• 111. Alexander McCaslane, sword and snapchance

As I mentioned in a previous post, despite the butchering of the names, I believe these two men to have been James Colhoun and Alexander McCausland (the presumed future father-in-law of James’s son William), respectively.  As they were considered old enough to fight in 1631, I estimate that both men were born between 1600-1610.  Given that time frame, both men were probably born in Scotland.  Unfortunately, the muster roll does not specify which townland, or even which manor, these tenants were living on.  However, both the Colhoun of Crosh and the McCausland families later lived in the vicinity of Newtownstewart, so my best guess is that Alexander and James were living in that portion of the manor of Newtownstewart lying in parish Ardstraw. 

Alexander McCausland was a soldier in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms, ultimately siding with Oliver Cromwell, and through this service he became entitled to a share of forfeited land in 1653.  “[Alexander] obtained a commission in the army, in time of the civil wars, in the reign of king Charles I.  At the end of those wars, partly by debenture, partly by purchase, he acquired the estates of Resh and Ardstraw in the county of Tyrone” (William Buchanan of Auchmar.  A Historical and Genealogical Essay upon the Family and Surname of Buchanan.  Glasgow: William Duncan, 1723, pp. 274-5).  Alexander’s land holdings in County Tyrone included the following:

• Manor of Ardstraw (parish Ardstraw, barony Strabane Lower).  Also known as the Termon, Erenach, or Churchlands of Ardstraw, this property was leased from the Bishop of Derry starting sometime prior to 1674.  It appears that the McCauslands’ rights to Ardstraw were subordinate to the Earls of Abercorn.
• Manor of Mountfield (parish Bodoney Lower, barony Strabane Upper).  This property was first purchased or leased by the McCauslands from Sir Henry Tichbourne of Blessing in 1658 (patent rolls #3455, 18 Jun 1658, Merze Marvin Book, James II, p. 43).  Alexander McCausland’s will states rent was owed to Sir William Tichbourne, suggesting the McCauslands’ rights remained subordinate to the Tichbournes’.
• Manor of Rash (parish Cappagh, barony Strabane Upper).  Located in the southern part of parish Cappagh.  The townland of Rash was later called Mountjoy Forest, and it appears that the McCauslands’ rights to this property may have been subordinate to the Mountjoys.

Alexander’s will of 1674 states that his daughter Catherine was married to William Colhoun of Newtownstewart, who I presume was the son of the James Colhoun with whom Alexander appears on the muster roll.  

The association between McCauslands and Colquhouns can be traced back to at least 1395 in Scotland, when John McAuslane of Caldenoch witnessed a charter in which Humphrey Colquhoun, 6^th/8^th of Luss granted the lands of Camstradden to his brother Robert.  In 1631, the Colquhoun lairds of Luss were the immediate feudal superiors of the McCausland barons of Caldenoch, the family from which Alexander came.  While it is by no means clear that James Colhoun was closely related to the Colquhouns of Luss, based on the long-standing connection between their ancestral Scottish families, it is certainly possible that James Colhoun and Alexander McCausland were friends and/or kinsmen in addition to being neighbors.  Given the marriage between their children, the two men were probably also of similar social standing.  Since Alexander was the supposed grandson of one of the barons McCausland, it seemed likely that James belonged to one of the Colquhoun families of the Scottish gentry.  Initially, I tried to identify a candidate for James among the “missing links” of the various senior Scottish Colquhoun families, but to no avail.  Eventually, I was able to determine that he was indeed from the Scottish gentry, as I will detail in an upcoming post.

At the risk of creating a new false narrative, (look out!) here come my unproven speculations.  Alexander McCausland served in the army in the 1640s, likely as a middle-aged officer, and was rewarded with Irish property.  James Colhoun, meanwhile, disappears from all records after the 1631 muster roll.  My working hypothesis is that James either died in the Rebellion of 1641 or served in the army alongside Alexander McCausland and died in the ensuing war, in either case leaving his son William Colhoun an orphan, or at least fatherless.  I speculate that after James’s death, the McCauslands “took charge” of William’s upbringing, in which arrangement William had the opportunity to meet and marry Alexander’s daughter.  This scenario seems to me a plausible origin of the oral tradition handed down in the Colhoun of Crosh family (as related by Croslegh on p. x of his book) that states the family’s “first ancestor in Ireland … had come from Luss, as a child, under the charge of his uncle MacCausland.”  Alexander McCausland was married to Jane (aka Janet, Jennett, Gennet) Hall, but we do not know anything about James Colhoun’s wife.  While it is possible that she was a McCausland or a Hall, making Alexander a true uncle of William, I think it is equally possible that Alexander was more distant kin or even a family friend, with the oral tradition casting him as an “uncle” as a term of affection.

Again, Alexander McCausland was probably born between 1600-1610; William Colhoun was probably born about 1635 and married Alexander’s daughter Catherine about 1660.  Records of the two men include the following (note that the 1659 Pender’s Census for County Tyrone does not survive):

Commissioners appointed for Poll Money Ordinances:

• 1660, County Tyrone, includes William Cahoon and Alexander mac Castguile (p. 627).
• 1661, County Tyrone, includes William Cahoon and Alexander mac Castlan (p. 646).

Hearth Money Roll, Co. Tyrone (1666):

• Rathkelly [Rakelly], parish Ardstraw, William Colhoune, 1 hearth.
• Lisnaresh [Lisnacreaght], parish Cappagh, Alexander M’Causland, 1 hearth.

Alexander McCausland’s Will

Fortunately, complete transcripts of the will of Alexander McCausland, Esq., dated 11 January 1674 and probated 1 July 1675, have survived the centuries (PRONI D669/29D).  Here are a few of the relevant highlights:

• To his “dearly beloved wife Jennett McCausland” he leaves half his moveable property and one third of the rents from the manors of Ardstraw and Mountfield.  She is to pay the proportionate share of the rents due to the Bishop of Derry and Sir William Titchburne, Knt. on these manors, respectively.
• To son Oliver McCausland he leaves the other half of his moveable property, plus the rights to the manors of Ardstraw and Mountfield with the exception of several townlands left to son Andrew.  Rent profits to be paid to his wife.
• To son Andrew McCausland £150; the outright ownership of the townland of Eskeradooey (parish Cappagh); the reversion of the leases of John Cunningham, Gent. for the townlands of Cullion and Lislap (parish Cappagh) in manor of Mountfield; rights to “the two towns of Aldclife” [Altcloghfin, parish Errigal Keerogue ?] and the townland of Ballykeel (parish Cappagh) held by lease from Lord Mountjoy.
• To daughter Anne McCausland £150.
• “I leave and bequeath to my grandchildren, viz., Alexander Coulhound and Gerrard Colhound £100 sterling English money equally to be divided between them, which I do hereby ordain and appoint my son Oliver McCausland to pay to them, and if it happen that they or any of them die that then the said sum to be paid by my son Oliver to the rest of the children begotten to be betwixt my daughter Catherine and my son in law William Colhoune.”
• Should Oliver and Andrew and their heirs die, the manors of Ardstraw and Mountfield to be divided equally among his daughters Catherine Colhoun, Margery McClenahan, and Ann McCausland, “always reserving thereout to my daughter Catherine Colhoune more than to any other of my said daughters the castle of Ardstreagh with the other House, Gardens, Orchards, and two Parks adjoining to the Bridge of Ardstreagh” in addition to her equal share in the remainder.
• Appoints sons-in-law William Colhoun of Newtownstewart and David McClenaghan of Newtownstewart, and son Oliver McCausland, as executors.
• Appoints his “truly and well beloved friend[s]” Sir William Stewart, Bart. [Lord Mountjoy], John Colhoune of Letterkenny, John Johnston of Clare, and John Logan the Elder of Newtownstewart as overseers of the will.
• Witnessed on 11 January 1674 by John Logan, Peter Colhoune, and John Logan Jun’r.

Selected passages from the will of Alexander McCausland, Esq. relevant to the Colhouns. (PRONI D669/29D; cropped from image kindly provided by Matthew Gilbert.)

From the will, we know that his eldest daughter Catherine married William Colhoun of Newtownstewart and that they had two children by that time, Alexander and Gerrard.  It appears that these two were William and Catherine’s only children at that time, since he also held out the possibility that the couple might have more children in the future.  We also know that among his trusted associates were two other Colhouns:  John Colhoun of Letterkenny and Peter Colhoun of unstated residence.  What are the odds that he would have such close ties to other Colhouns, at least one of whom was living a considerable distance away in Letterkenny, unless they were close relatives of his son-in-law William?

John and Peter Colhoun

The following Irish records mention a John and/or Peter/Patrick Colhoun that I believe refer to the men of those names in Alexander McCausland’s will.  (As I have mentioned before, the names Peter and Patrick have highly similar Gaelic cognates and were often used interchangeably in those days.)

Prerogative will of Sir William Sempill of Letterkenny, dated 12 May 1644 (transcribed in Betham’s genealogical abstracts.):  “To my servant John Colhoune, £18.”  Witnesses to the will included Rev. Preb. Alix’r Coninghame, and John Colhoune.  

Pender’s Census (1659):  names Peter Colhoune and John Colhoune, Gents., of Letterkenny town (see p. 54).  Also associated with them was Levinis Semphill.

Hearth Money Rolls (1660s):

• 1663 and 1665, Co. Donegal, Barony Kilmacrenan, parish Aughnish, Aughnish.  John Colhoune.
• 1666, Co. Tyrone, Barony Strabane, parish Ardstraw, Lisnaman (Newtownstewart).  Peter Colhoune.

Will of Henry Wray of Castle Wray, Co. Donegal, dated 9 August 1666 (Charlotte Violet Trench.  The Wrays of Donegal.  Oxford: University Press, 1945, p. 60.):  mentions Henry Wray is to be buried in the church of Letterkenny, and names his wife as Lettice née Galbraith.  A John Colhoune served as witness to the will.

List of representatives to the Laggan Presbytery during the period 1672-1700 (Rev. Alexander G. Lecky.  In the Days of the Laggan Presbytery.  Belfast: Davidson and M’Cormack, 1908, p. 144.):  a John Colhoun was named as representing congregations at Donaghmore and Letterkenny as a Presbyterian elder or commissioner.  

Chancery Bill, dated 25 Oct 1684 (PRONI T280, pp. 62-63.):  Plaintiff Patrick Hamilton, Gent.  Defendants Thomas McCausland (of Claraghmore, Co. Tyrone), Oliver McCausland, and John Colhoune.  Defendant Thomas McCausland sold to the plaintiff his half-interest in the town of Drumragh in the Barony of Omagh, on lease from Bishop of Derry, for £131 on 23 Aug 1684.  Will of Alexander McCausland left half-interest to son-in-law William Calhoune, other half in dispute but claimed by defendant Thomas McCausland, Alexander’s grandson, now age about 29 but a minor at the time of the will.  Although the plaintiff paid the money, the defendant and his trustees, Oliver McCausland and John Colhoune, have refused to execute the deed.  

Will index entries:

• Patrick Colhoun, Aughnish (townland or parish), Co. Donegal, 1703.
• Patrick Colhoune, Ardrummon (parish Aughnish), Co. Donegal, 1704.

An analysis of these records now follows.

John Colhoun appears first in 1644 and last in 1684, so we might estimate he lived in the general range 1610-1685, of similar age to James Colhoun of Newtownstewart.  John appears in three wills, all associated somehow with Letterkenny.  In the will of Sir William Sempill from 1644, John is described not only as a witness, but also as Sir William’s “servant”, to whom he left a small bequest.  The other witness, Rev. Alexander Conyngham (d. 1660), was the Dean of Raphoe and a powerful and influential cleric in the Church of Ireland.  This, along with the fact that John was a Gentleman, i.e. had some social standing, suggests John was not a menial servant but rather served in some administrative capacity, perhaps as Sempill’s estate agent.  Importantly, not only was Sempill the owner of the Manor of Letterkenny (later the Manor of Manor-Sempill) and other lands in Donegal, but he was also the son-in-law of Sir William Stewart of Ramelton, owner of the manors of Ramelton in Donegal and Newtownstewart in Tyrone (see the tree of the Mountjoy family above).  

In 1659, Pender’s census lists among the ten titled land-owners in Letterkenny, John and Peter Colhoun, Gents.  Also with them were Rev. Alexander Conyngham (co-witness with John Colhoun on Sempill’s will) and his son James, and Levinis Sempill (not a son of Sir William, but presumably a relative).  These names suggest this is the same John Colhoun who witnessed Sempill’s will in 1644, and that he and Peter were associated and likely related. 

In both 1663 and 1665, the Hearth Money Rolls for the Barony of Kilmacrenan, Co. Donegal show a John Colhoun in Augnish, parish Aughnish.  This was on the lands owned by the Mountjoy family, close relatives of Sir William Sempill, suggesting this is again the same John.  About that same time (1666), John was a witness on a second will, that of the young Henry Wray, from a land-owning family related to the Gores and Galbraiths.  Wray lived at Castlewray and Bogay in parish Aghanunshin, which is sandwiched between parish Aughnish to the north and Letterkenny to the south.

The last records of John of which we can be relatively certain are his appearance on Alexander McCausland’s will in 1674, where John is described as “of Letterkenny,” and a chancery bill from 1684 to resolve a disputed claim from that will.  Whether he was the same person as the John Colhoun of Letterkenny who was a Presbyterian elder during that period is less clear.  Most of John’s other known associations were with solidly Anglican gentry, namely the McCauslands, Stewarts, and Conynghams.  However, it cannot be ruled out.

Peter Colhoun first appears in Pender’s census in 1659, when he and John were among the tituladoes of Letterkenny.  At the time of the Hearth Money Rolls (1663-1666), Peter is found only in County Tyrone (1666), when he was living in Lisnaman (which probably referred to Lislas, the original name of the townland of Newtownstewart), parish Ardstraw.  He was likely still living there in 1674 when he served as witness to the will of Alexander McCausland.  However, he may have later returned to Donegal, since will index entries for a Patrick Colhoun of parish Aughnish can be found in 1703 (Aughnish, parish or townland) and 1704 (Ardrummon townland in parish Aughnish).  (These two entries may refer to the same person, since the 1703 entry is for a testamentary and the 1704 entry for an administration bond.)  If we assume that the Peter of Pender’s census was born about 1630, he could certainly have died around 1703.  Both Aughnish in Co. Donegal and Newtownstewart in Co. Tyrone were Mountjoy properties, and movement back and forth between properties under the same landlord is not unreasonable.

If in fact Peter were born about 1630, he was of an age to have been a son of James and brother of William Colhoun of Newtownstewart.  Despite the fact that Peter lived near William in 1666, I think this is unlikely for two reasons.  First, it appears that Peter lived near John in Letterkenny before moving to parish Ardstraw, suggesting a closer association with John.  Second, the name Peter/Patrick does not appear among William’s known descendants.  I therefore think it is more likely that Peter was a son of John (or perhaps a brother or some other relationship).  Finding John and/or Peter on the 1631 muster rolls would have been very informative, but unfortunately the rolls for the Barony of Kilmacrenan in Donegal (where he/they would most likely have been living at that time) have not survived.  Finally, although I think it is unlikely that Peter was a brother of William, I do think it is quite possible that John of Letterkenny was the brother of James from the Newtownstewart muster roll.

Either way, both James and John appear to have been Scottish natives, meaning that to date, Colhoun of Crosh is the only Irish Calhoun family for which we can name the Scottish founder(s).  Now if only we could place them in Scotland….

Are you aware of any other records pertaining to James, John, and Peter/Patrick Colhoun?  Can you shed any further light on the relationships between them?  If so, I’d love to hear from you!

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Special thanks to Paul Calhoun and Mike Barr for critical reading of this post and helpful edits, and thanks as well to Matthew Gilbert for the photos of Alexander McCausland’s will.

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© 2024 Brian Anton. All rights reserved.

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For a list of posts, visit The Genealogy of the Calhoun Family homepage.

The Manor of Corkagh: Part 2 of 2

The Colquhouns of Corkagh 1659-1665

At the end of Part 1, I mentioned that the Galbraiths claimed they were the legal owners of much of the original manor of Corkagh, but that Sir John Colquhoun, 17^th/19^th of Luss and his brother James Colquhoun had illegally occupied the property to prevent them from exercising their ownership rights.  The following independent records show that the laird of Luss’s brother James did indeed reside in Corkey.  While one can only speculate as to whether, as the Galbraiths claimed, he tried to force possession of the remainder of the manor of Corkagh, the influx of Colquhoun family members to the townland after 1662 does suggest a show of force.

Pender’s Census of 1659.  Tituladoes (landowners claiming title to the land) in the Barony of Raphoe, County Donegal:

• Robert Galbraith, Esq., Dowish, parish Ray [not part of the manor of Corkagh]
• James Calhoune, Esq^r, Corkey, parish Ray

Subsidy Roll for Co. Donegal, 8 May 1662.  Those who paid a grant in aid to the crown (i.e., the wealthiest of society such as nobility, clergy, and gentry):

• James Colhoune, parish Ray, £7-3/-.
• Alex Colhoune, parish Ray, £7-10/-.

Hearth Money Roll, County Donegal, Barony of Raphoe, 1663:

• James Colhoune, Esq., Corka, parish Raymoghy, 2 hearths
• Alex Colhoune, Corka, parish Raymoghy, 1 hearth
• David Colhoune, Corka, parish Raymoghy, 1 hearth

Hearth Money Roll, County Donegal, Barony of Raphoe, 1665:

• Adam Colhoune (sen.), Corcy, parish Raymoghy, 1 hearth
• David Colhoune, Corcy, parish Raymoghy, 1 hearth
• James Colhoune, Esq., Corcy, parish Raymoghy, 2 hearths
• James Colhoune, Corcy, parish Raymoghy, 1 hearth
• John Colhoune, Corcy, parish Raymoghy, 1 hearth
• John Colhoune (jun.), Corcy, parish Raymoghy, 1 hearth

These lists are not equivalent in terms of how much of the population they included, with the 1659 and 1662 lists including only the wealthiest and the Hearth Money Rolls also including the middle class.  However, the two Hearth Money Rolls should be equivalent, and they show the number of Calhouns living in the townland of Corkey to have doubled from 1663 to 1665.  This is the time period when the laird of Luss was trying to regain the rest of the manor of Corkagh, and again, the increase suggests that he may have been packing the area of the manor that he still legally possessed with his family members and allies.  (Compare this with the situation in 1630, when the muster roll showed no one named Calhoun living anywhere in Corkagh.)

A total of seven Calhouns are listed in at least one of the records above.

• James Colhoune, Esq. was the younger brother of Sir John Colquhoun, 17^th/19^th of Luss, the one mentioned in the Chancery Bill (discussed in Part I of this article) as having tried to illegally occupy Corkagh.  More about James below.
• Alexander Colhoune was most likely another younger brother of Sir John Colquhoun, 17^th/19^th of Luss.  He disappears from the Hearth Money Rolls after 1663, having likely returned to Scotland.  In 1664, he married Annabella Stewart and shortly thereafter acquired the estate of Tullichewan in Dunbartonshire, becoming the first in the line of that cadet branch.  (See Fraser vol. 2, pp. 161-166.)
• David Colhoune, present in 1663 and 1665.
• Adam Colhoune, Sr., present in 1665.  There was also an Adam, Jr. listed in the 1665 Hearth Money Roll in nearby Balleghan, which was on the estate of James Cunningham, Esq.  The two Adams may or may not have been father and son.
• James Colhoune, presumably a younger man distinct from James, Esq., present in 1665.
• John Colhoune [Sr.], present in 1665.
• John Colhoune Jr., present in 1665.  The two Johns may or may not have been father and son.

Aside from James, Esq. and Alexander, the identities and relationships of the other Calhouns living in Corkey at the time of the Hearth Money Rolls are unknown.

James Colquhoun of Corkagh, of Balvie, and of Luss

The only known member of the Colquhoun of Luss family to put down roots in Ireland was James Colquhoun, younger brother of Sir John Colquhoun, 17^th/19^th of Luss.  His father, Sir John Colquhoun, 16^th/18^th of Luss, married Lady Lilias Graham in the summer of 1620 (Fraser vol. 1, p. 242).  As James was one of six children and the second son, a reasonable timeframe for his birthdate is 1625-1630.  Upon the death of his nephew in 1680, James succeeded as laird of Luss, and so Fraser devotes a chapter to him in volume 1 of his work (pp. 294-301).  However, Fraser appears largely ignorant of the time James spent in Ireland and makes essentially no mention of it in the book, so I hope to correct that record here.

Fraser notes that James was still in Scotland in 1655, when he obtained the following letter of safe passage from General Monck for a trip to England:

Permitt the bearer hereof, Mr. James Colquhoun, with his servant, horses, and necessaries, to passe with his travayling armes to London or other pairts of England, and to repasse into Scotland without molestation, hee doing nothing prejudiciall to his Highnesse.  Given under my hand and seale att Dalkeith the 22th day of September 1655.   –George Monck.

Fraser vol. 1, p. 294, citing “Original Letter of Protection at Rossdhu”.

Sometime between late 1655 and 1659, James moved to Ireland, settling at Corkey, one of the only townlands of his family’s original estate still in their possession, perhaps accompanied by his younger brother, Alexander Colquhoun.  As one of the wealthier residents of that area, James was recorded among the tituladoes in Pender’s Census of 1659 and in the Subsidy Rolls of 1662, as well as in the Hearth Money Rolls of 1663 and 1665 (where he was taxed on 2 hearths, again indicating wealth).

As I mentioned above, James’s older brother Sir John, 17^th/19 of Luss was interested in regaining the parts of the Manor of Corkagh that his father had sold off to the Galbraiths.  It may be that James and Alexander were sent to reside there as a way of bolstering the laird’s position during this reclamation.  Other Colquhoun family members also seem to have been installed in Corkey during the 1660s, as the Hearth Money Rolls show.

Sir John Colquhoun, 17^th/19^th of Luss, 2^nd Baronet. Portrait from Fraser vol. 1, after p. 254.

During his time in Ireland, James was styled “of Corkagh”.  For example, in the probate records of his uncle Sir Humphrey Colquhoun of Balvie, drawn up in 1672, he is called “James Collquhown of Corkie” and, as best I can read the old document, was recipient of one of Humphrey’s brown mares.  Even a later biographical sketch refers to him as, “Sir James Colquhoun, Baronet [s. 1625], of Luss aforesaid, uncle and h. male, formerly of Corcagh, co. Donegal” (Complete Baronetage: English, Irish, and Scottish, 1625-1649, vol. II.  Exeter: William Pollard and Co., 1902, p. 294).

It was also during his time in Ireland, and likely in the early 1660s, that James married Penuel Cunningham.  Penuel was the daughter of John Cunningham, Esq. of Ballyachen (son of the Undertaker of Ballyachen, James Cunningham, Esq.) and Ann Cunningham (daughter of the Undertaker of Portlough, Sir James Cunningham of Glengarnock).  Both Fraser (in vol. 1, p. 294) and Complete Baronetage (in footnote (d) on p. 294), as well as some other sources, err in naming Penuel’s father, with Fraser calling him “William” and Baronetage calling him “Sir James.”  The following documents enable the proper determination of her parents:

• Abstract, prerogative will of James Cunningham, Esq., of Ballyachen (dated 7 May 1664, probated 11 Mar 1667), names eldest son John (to whom he bequeathed all his land), son Robert, and daughters Giles and Frances.  
• Index entry, will of John Cunningham, Esq., of Ballyachen, 1674.
• Abstract, prerogative will of John Cunningham, Gent., of Tully, Co. Donegal (dated 15 Nov 1669), names sisters Catherine (wife of Robert Sanderson, Gent., of Co. Cavan) and Pennell (wife of James Colquhoun).
• Legal brief from the Wicklow Collection #69 (dated 10 Jan 1669; National Library of Ireland, MS 38,556), which states Sir James Cunningham died 1620, leaving wife Katherine, son and heir George, and daughter Ann; that George died ca. 1640, leaving only a daughter; that James Cunningham, Esq. [of Ballyachen] served as George’s trustee; and that John Cunningham, Esq. [son of James] died leaving heirs Katherine and Pennuel “who are sisters by the father but not the mother” but also “daughters and heires to Ann, the daughter to the said Sir James and sister to George.”

The legal brief is 77 pages in length, and I have not consulted the original, only a brief abstract, with further details to be found here.  In the will of John Cunningham of Tully, both Catherine and Penuel were treated as his sisters, and in the legal brief both women were described as “daughters and heires to Ann” with no distinction, so the other statement that they were half-sisters with different mothers is puzzling.  No matter who her biological mother was, Penuel was clearly treated as the heir of Ann as well as of John of Ballyachen.

The marriage with Penuel may have been advantageous in that it cemented an alliance between the Colquhouns and two neighboring Cunningham families.  In his will of 1664 noted above, James Cunningham, Esq. named his “trusty and well-beloved friend” “James Colquhowne, Esq. of Corcagh” as beneficiary of an annuity of £110.  Also to be given to beneficiaries were proceeds from a debt owed to Cunningham by “the Galbraiths.”  Although James Colquhoun was not described as a grandson-in-law, he was likely already married to Penuel at the time.  Through Penuel’s dowry, the marriage also provided James Colquhoun an ownership interest in several townlands in parish Allsaints that Penuel inherited from her mother, Ann (originally part of the Manor of Portlough issued to Ann’s father, Sir James Cunningham), plus several townlands in parish Raymoghy that she inherited from her father, John (originally part of the Manor of Ballyachen issued to John’s father, James Cunningham, Esq.)  On 10 Jul 1672 James Colquhoun, along with his wife’s sister and brother-in-law Catherine and Robert Sanderson, sold the townlands in Allsaints, namely Portlough, Colmakiltraine (Chúil Mhic an Tréin, later known as Castleforward), and Drummay, to John Forward (NLI Wicklow Collection, MS 38,522/5).  The absence of Penuel’s name from the record is again puzzling and could reflect an omission in the transcript, since she was alive at the time.

In 1664, James’s brother Alexander returned to Scotland, with several other people of the name Calhoun taking his place in Corkey.  Shortly after the sale of the Allsaints properties in 1672, James himself returned to Scotland, bringing his family.  James’s uncle, Sir Humphrey Colquhoun of Balvie, passed away that year, and as mentioned above, his probate made some special consideration for James.  Fraser picks up the account of James’s life from the point of his return to Scotland, having been unaware of events in Ireland.  

While James was still styled “of Corkagh” in his uncle’s will of 1672, by 28 Jul 1674, when he was made a burgess of Dumbarton, he was styled “of Balvie” (Fraser vol. 1, p. 294, citing Dumbarton Records vol. i).  James gained official possession of his late uncle’s property on 19 Apr 1679, when he was infefted in “the lands of Balvie and others” (Fraser vol. 1, p. 294).  Thus, it appears he was already absent from Ireland when the court battle with the Galbraiths over Corkagh was settled in 1678.

Penuel died in Scotland sometime between April and October 1679, after which James returned to Ireland for an extended period to visit her friends and family.  His eldest son, Humphrey, was left money to handle her funeral expenses (Fraser vol. 1, p. 295).  In 1676, James’s brother Sir John died at Luss and was succeeded by his son, another Sir James Colquhoun, 18^th/20^th of Luss.  The young laird’s tenure was brief, as he died in 1680 while a minor and unmarried.  Fraser notes that “Sir James Colquhoun of Balvie for some time after the death of his nephew, Sir James Colquhoun of Luss, declined to enter himself as his heir” (vol. 1, p. 296).  Nonetheless, he eventually relented and by commission he was officially served heir on 17 Feb 1685, becoming Sir James Colquhoun, 19^th/21^st of Luss, 4^th Baronet.  He died in the second half of 1688 and was succeeded by his eldest son, Sir Humphrey Colquhoun, 20^th/22^nd of Luss, who would be the last laird of Luss in the original, unbroken male line from Humphrey of Kilpatrick.

James and Penuel had three children altogether:  Humphrey, James, and Elizabeth.  Son Humphrey, who succeeded as laird of Luss, has already been mentioned, and daughter Elizabeth married Alexander Falconer of Kipps, Linlithgow, West Lothian, Scotland (Fraser vol. 1, p. 301) in Edinburgh in 1708.  Fraser says that son James “is mentioned as the second son of Sir James Colquhoun in the renunciation dated in 1682.  There is no later trace of James among the family papers” (vol. 1, p. 301).  This is because son James (who I will now refer to as Capt. James) returned to Ireland, again out of Fraser’s purview.  I will return to Capt. James in a subsequent section.

The Colquhouns of Luss associated with Corkagh and their Cunningham relatives; not all children of each family are shown. Undertakers of Ulster and their successors are indicated in bold. Those who resided in Ireland as adults are shaded in green.

Sale to the Leslies

In 1678, the majority of the Manor of Corkagh was surrendered by Sir James Colquhoun to the Galbraith heirs.  What of the remaining townlands, Corkey and Rosamonil?  They were sold by Sir James, perhaps even before 1678, to Rev. John Leslie, Rector of Kilmacrenan, son of George Leslie, 9^th of Kincraigie in Scotland.  (Interestingly enough, this is not the same Rev. John Leslie who was married to the daughter of Humphrey Galbraith, nor were they closely related.)  According to a dubious printed account from 1869, upon the death of his father, the Rector of Kilmacrenan returned to Scotland and attempted to claim the estate of Kincraigie, but he was blocked from doing so by the machinations of his stepmother.

John Leslie was obliged to compromise matters with his stepmother and her family, and relinquished his claim for £5000, a large sum in those days.  With this money he returned to Ireland, and purchased from Sir James Colquhoun the manor and castle of Rosamonil and Corkee, to which he gave the name of Kincraigie.

Charles Joseph Leslie. Historical Records of the Family of Leslie from 1067 to 1868-9, vol. III. Edinburgh: Edmonston and Douglas, 1869, pp. 338-339.

The source above also states that John Leslie’s father was served heir to Kincraigie in Scotland in 1705, which implies that John purchased the Irish properties no earlier than 1705.  This is echoed by a second source, likely derivative, that states, “John Leslie, of Durosamount, now called Kincraigie, co. Donegal, who settled in Ireland about 1705, and had issue, a son, Charles, of whom presently…” (Ashworth P. Burke.  Family Records.  London: Harrison and Sons, 1897, p. 385.)  However, Rev. Leslie died in 1693, so the entire backstory related in the 1869 book is questionable at best.

Despite this, we know the sale did indeed occur, since Rev. John Leslie’s will, dated 31 Aug 1693, notes that Corkey and other townlands were in his possession when he died.  So when did the sale happen, if not in or after 1705?  Clearly, it must have taken place after the Hearth Money Rolls in 1665 and before the death of Sir James Colquhoun in 1688.  I believe the two most likely times for the sale to have occurred are about 1672 (when Sir James left Ireland) and about 1680 (when Sir James became laird of Luss and Corkagh became undisputedly his to dispose of).

Captain James Colquhoun

Capt. James Colquhoun, son of Sir James, returned to Ireland sometime between 1682 and 1687, during his father’s lifetime.  About 1685, he married Deborah, daughter of Sir Henry Blennerhasset, becoming the second of her four husbands.  Deborah married first Christopher Irvine (1654-1680), son of Sir Gerard Irvine, by whom she had no children (John Irvine. A Brief Account of the Irvine Family, County Fermanagh. Dublin: Robert T. White, 1828, p. 33).  A Chancery Court case from 1687 involved plaintiffs “Sir John Hume, Bt., James Colquhoune, Esq. and Debora his wife,” and defendant “Sir Gerrard Irwine.”  By Capt. James Colquhoun, she had two daughters, Lilias and Penuel.

Capt. James served in the English army during the time of the Nine Years War between France and the Grand Alliance (1688-1697), rising (obviously) to the rank of captain.  A summary of his military service is as follows:

Jas. Cahoun or Calhoone, Ens. to Lt.-Col. Geo. Macgill in Scots Foot Guards, 1/11 Sep 1691.  Promoted to Lieutenant to Lt.-Col. Jas. Scott in same regiment, 1 Mar 1694.  Appointed Captain in Col. Jno. Buchan’s Regt. of Scots Foot, in Flanders, 21 Mar 1695.  Died of wounds at siege of Namur, 1696.

English Army Lists and Commission Registers, 1661-1714, Vol. III (1689-1694).  London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1896.

The second Siege of Namur took place between July and September 1695 in the Spanish Netherlands, so that is the most likely time and place when Capt. James Colquhoun died.  He was the last known male Colquhoun from the Luss family to live in Ireland.  

By the time Capt. James returned to Ireland, all of the original manor of Corkagh had probably passed out of his family’s hands.  Although he didn’t own any of Corkagh, he did inherit his father’s properties derived from the manor of Ballyachen, namely a half interest in the townlands of Balleeghan, Drean, Maghera Beg, and Errity, plus numerous houses in the village of Manorcunningham (at that time known as the Manor of Fort Cunningham).  Accordingly, Capt. James was styled “of Manorcunningham” and not “of Corkagh” (Earl of Belmore. Parliamentary Memoirs of Fermanagh and Tyrone from 1613 to 1885. Dublin: Alex. Them & Co., 1887, p. 38).  Upon Capt. James’s death in 1695, the Ballyachen lands passed to his two daughters, Lilias and Penuel.  A deed, partially summarized below, describes the property.

Memorial of deed of conveyance tripartite dated 8th Sep 1715 between Henry Lecky of the City of Londonderry, Gent, 1^st part; Alexander Squire of same city, Alderman and Lilias Squire alias Calhowne of the 2^nd part; Robert Houston Junr of same city, gent, 3^rd part.  Whereas the one half or moiety of the Manor and Lands of Fort Cunningham, Barony of Raphoe containing the town and lands of Bellaghin and the milln [sic] thereunto belonging, the town and lands of Drecan, Magherybegg and Errily als Eerity and also twelve houses and Gardens in and about the town of Man. Cunningham with abt 40 acres belonging to the said houses were the estate of Sr James Calhown Knt, deceased, being seized thereof in fee simple, the same came from him to his second son James Calhown the said of [?] being so seized died in possession thereof leaving issue only two daughters (viz) the said Lilias his eldest & Penwell his second daughter, late wife of Doctor James Erwin.

Transcripts of Memorials of Deeds, Conveyances and Wills (FamilySearch.org). Book 22, p. 489, no. 12,661.

The deed goes on to indicate that Henry Lecky had purchased the Squires’ fourth part of the manor and that it was in actual possession of Robert Houston.  Further, “The intention both by the fine and said conveyance and by all the parties, that the use of the premises shall be forever hereafter remain to the said Alexr Squire and his heirs and assigns exclusive of any estate or use therein to or for the said Lilias his heir or assns.  Which said deed of conveyance tripartite was effected the aforesaid 8^th day of September.”  I confess I don’t really understand exactly what was going on in this deed and what the various types of ownership meant, but perhaps someone else can explain it to me.  Regardless, it does seem like some interest and benefit from these properties were retained by the heirs of Capt. James Colquhoun for generations afterward.  All of his descendants, apparently down to the present day, are through his grandson James Squire.

Later Colhouns in and Near Corkagh

The Colquhoun of Luss family, owners of Corkagh for decades, left no known descendants of the name in Ireland.  However, there were Calhouns living on the former Manor of Corkagh (both the part sold to Leslie and the part that went to the Galbraith heirs) long after 1678.  Their relationships to the Colquhouns of Luss and to each other are for the most part not known, but at least some of them may have been descendants of the Calhouns listed in the Hearth Money Rolls in the townland of Corkey.

One such resident, a William Colquhoun, was living in or near Corkey in 1688, during the lifetime of Capt. James Colquhoun.  On 9 Dec 1688, at the time the apprentices locked the gates of Derry against Catholic army forces, many Protestants in the area declared openly for William of Orange, and many went to Derry to offer service.  “Soon afterwards, … Mr. William Colquhoun, of Corkey, near Manorcunningham…, and many other gentlemen from different parts of the North, accompanied by their tenants and followers, came to this city of refuge to fight for the faith and freedom they which they held so dear.”  (Rev. Alexander G. Lecky.  The Laggan and Its Presbyterianism.  Belfast: Davidson & M’Cormack, 1905, p. 30.)  It is possible he is the same William Calhoon who served as lieutenant in the 20^th Regiment of Foot under Col. Gustavus Hamilton in 1689, but his identity is unknown.  (English Army Lists and Commission Registers, 1661-1714, Vol. III (1689-1694).  London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1896.)

Rev. John Leslie’s 1693 will makes mention of a John Colhoune residing at Carrickballydooey, a townland of Corkagh that Leslie must have purchased from the Galbraith heirs; and a David Colhoun residing at “Drumlans” (which might have referred either to Drumcarn in Raymoghy or Drumleene in Clonleigh).  Records from the 18^th and 19^th centuries, including the Tithe Applotment Books, show Colhouns living at Drumcarn, Roosky, Corkey, Lisclamerty, Carrickballydooey, and Labbadish, all in or adjacent to the former Manor of Corkagh.  It is not known whether they are descendants of Colhouns who lived there continuously from the 1600s or were later transplants, but it is clear that they were not direct descendants of Sir James Colquhoun, 19^th/21^st of Luss.

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Thanks once again to Paul Calhoun for critical reading of this post and helpful edits.

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© 2024 Brian Anton. All rights reserved.

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Fact and Fiction About Adam, Nancy, and Robert Colquhoun

In my previous post, I traced the origin of the story and the pedigree purporting to connect the Colquhouns of Luss in Scotland with the Colhouns of Crosh in Ireland.  To summarize, it originated as a hypothesis published by Charles Croslegh in 1904, then was expanded on by Orval Calhoun in 1976.  With advances in information technology and increased availability of sources made since those authors’ times, we now have the ability to cross-check many pieces of this hypothesis.  I began this process in the previous post by questioning what we can truly say about the inheritance of the Colquhouns’ Irish estate, Corkagh.

In this post, I will continue by examining many commonly held “facts” about the three central figures in this pedigree––Adam Colquhoun, his sister Nancy, and his supposed son, Robert––to assess what is likely to be true and what isn’t.  The format I will use is to put the asserted “fact” in italics, followed by my assessment of whether it is substantiated by evidence in bold, followed by my comments on why.  For the purposes of this post, the term “true” means that I personally believe it is substantiated by the evidence I have seen, and “false” means it is not.  Of course, I encourage every reader to make up his or her own mind.

Adam Colquhoun

“Adam Colquhoun was a son of Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss.”  True.  Alexander’s probate records, dated May 1617, name Adam as a son.  In my earlier post about Adam, I discussed that Adam Colquhoun, son of Alexander of Luss, acquired the estate of Glens in Stirlingshire, married Giles MacFarlane in 1644, and died in 1655.  There are primary source records to support these dates of marriage (namely, a muniment of Clan MacFarlane) and death (namely, Adam’s probate records).

“Adam Colquhoun was born about 1601.”  False.  As I elaborated in my earlier post about Alexander’s family, strong circumstantial evidence indicates that Adam was Alexander’s seventh and youngest son, and his tenth child overall.  Given Alexander’s marriage in 1595 and a typical two-year spacing between children, Adam was more likely to have been born about 1612.  The commonly-cited date of 1601 was probably suggested by Croslegh to squeeze several generations into a limited timeframe.  For details see the earlier post. 

“Adam Colquhoun inherited the Irish estate of Corkagh from his father.”  False.  In another post, I described how the Scottish probate laws at the time required that Corkagh pass to Alexander’s eldest son and successor, Sir John Colquhoun, 16^th/18^th of Luss.  Documents bear out that Corkagh was in the possession of Sir John from the 1620s, and I will lay these out in an upcoming post about Corkagh. 

“Adam Colquhoun married a daughter of Lindsay of Bonhill and had a daughter who married Thomas Buchanan of Carbeth.”  False.  Again, Adam married Giles MacFarlane in 1644.  Is it possible that Miss Lindsay was an earlier wife?  No.  The idea that Adam married Miss Lindsay originated with a case of mistaken identity by Charles Croslegh in 1904.  There were many men with the name Adam Colquhoun, and Croslegh mixed up two of them.  Writing in 1723, William Buchanan of Auchmar stated that Thomas Buchanan, son of Thomas Buchanan, 3^rd of Carbeth, “married a Daughter of Adam Colchoun Merchant in Dumbartoun, said to be a Son of Luss’s, her Mother being Lindsay of Bonneil’s Daughter.  He had by her Two Sons, John his Successor, and Walter.”  (William Buchanan. A Historical and Genealogical Essay Upon the Family and Surname of Buchanan. Glasgow: William Duncan, 1723, p. 88.)  However, when did this Adam live?  John Guthrie Smith states,

Thomas Buchanan of Carbeth, by disposition dated 2^nd December 1614, sold the Temple lands of Letter to Sir William Livingstone of Kilsyth.  He married Agnes Blair, and he and his spouse are parties to a contract, 3^rd March 1621….  Auchmar (p. 88) states that the last Thomas Buchanan of Carbeth married a daughter of Adam Colquhoun, merchant in Dunbarton.  If this is correct, Agnes Blair must have been the second wife.

John Guthrie Smith. Strathendrick and Its Inhabitants from Early Times. Glasgow: James Maclehose and Sons, 1896, p. 347.

Because Thomas Buchanan’s eldest son, John, was married in 1632, he was probably born about 1605, give or take a few years.  Working backwards, that means that Thomas and his first wife (Adam’s daughter) were born about 1575, and his father-in-law, Adam Colquhoun, merchant of Dumbarton, was born around 1550, give or take a few years.  This was 60 years before the birth of Adam son of Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss.  Clearly, the Adam Colquhoun who married Miss Lindsay and the Adam son of Alexander of Luss were two different people from two different generations.

Orval O. Calhoun goes one step further than Croslegh, calling Adam’s wife “Christian Lindsay.”  This first name appears neither in Buchanan nor in Croslegh, so I suspect Orval mistook her for the Christian Lindsay, daughter of John Lindsay of Bonhill, who married John Colquhoun, 7^th of Camstradden (see Fraser vol. 2, p. 189).  However, this Christian was born in the early years of the 1500s, about 100 years earlier than Adam’s wife would have been.  There was also a 16^th century Scottish female poet named Christian Lindsay (fl. 1580-1620), but she was married to William Murray and had nothing to do with any Adam Colquhoun.

As far as evidence currently shows, Giles MacFarlane was Adam Colquhoun’s only wife.

“Adam Colquhoun was a merchant in Dumbarton, and an unsuccessful one.”  False.  The same case of mistaken identity that caused Croslegh to believe that Adam married Miss Lindsay also caused him to believe that Adam was a merchant.  According to Buchanan of Auchmar, the Adam Colquhoun of an earlier generation who married Miss Lindsay was indeed a merchant.  However, I have seen no document that describes the occupation of Adam the son of Alexander of Luss.  Fraser notes a record stating, “In December 1634, Adam Colquhoun, brother to the Laird of Luss, was indebted to William Towart (Stewart) £42, 2s” (Fraser vol. 1, p. 235).  Croslegh, perhaps taking this debt as evidence of poor business acumen, states, “The ownership of one thousand acres beyond the sea could not tempt the merchant of Dumbarton to give up his apparently not very successful business, in order to become a resident landlord in Ireland” (Croslegh, p. 214).  Adam was not a merchant, but even if he had been, it would be a stretch to suggest that a single debt of £42 meant he was an unsuccessful businessman.  Furthermore, as I noted above, Adam was not the owner of Corkagh, the 1,000-acre property in Ireland that Croslegh alludes to.

“Adam’s wife died in 1629.”  False.  As described above, Adam was not born until about 1612, and his only known marriage did not even occur until 1644.  The idea that he had a wife who died young was probably invented by Croslegh to explain why Robert Colquhoun went to Ireland as a boy.

“Adam himself died in 1634.”  False.  His probate records tell us unambiguously that he died in 1655.  The idea that Adam died in 1634 seems to have originated with Orval Calhoun, who states,

Records show that Robert’s father, Adam Colquhoun, brother of Sir John Colquhoun, BT, Laird of Luss, in Dec. of 1634, at the time of his death was indebted to William Stuart, Captain of Dumbarton Castle, for £42.2s. on account of Sir John Colquhoun encumbering the Estates.  But this was cleared and paid off at the time, Adam’s WILL was probated in 1635…. 

[Adam’s wife died in 1629. It] is not recorded what caused her death at such an early age, but it sure left Adam Colquhoun, in quite a quandry [sic], with a store on his hands to operate and two very small children to raise and look after.  Being that Adam was not a well man, health wise, he made his WILL and gave the Lands in Ireland to [his son] Robert in 1630, when Robert was only eight years of age.  It was a good job that he did, for Adam died in December of 1634, a young man, with both health and financial troubles, as there are records to show this.

Orval O. Calhoun. OCF vol. 1, pp. 21 and 24.

Records do show that Adam incurred a debt in December 1634:  as I stated above, Fraser notes that Adam was indebted to William Towart in December 1634 (Fraser vol. I, p. 235, in which he cites “Dumbarton Records, loose slips, vol. i”).  However, Fraser does not state––nor is there any reason to infer––that this was at the time of Adam’s death or had anything to do with his brother encumbering Irish property.

Orval reiterates that there are “records to show” that Adam died in December 1634 amidst health and financial troubles.  To be blunt, I have seen no such records.  The “records” Orval mentions may be his own assertion that Adam left a will that was probated in 1635 and that bequeathed Irish land to a son named Robert.  Adam’s actual probate records from 1655 do not include a will, and the inventory makes no mention either of Irish property or a son named Robert.  I have considered the possibility that Orval could have mistaken some other probate record from 1635 for Adam’s will.  However, the only probate record for a Colquhoun from 1635 on file with the National Records of Scotland, as per the indexes at ScotlandsPeople and elsewhere, belongs to John Colquhoun, 2^nd of Kenmure.  The source of Orval’s claim is unknown, at least to me.

Nancy Colquhoun and John McAuselan

“Nancy Colquhoun was a daughter of Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss.”  True.  We know this from Alexander’s will, dated May 1617.

“Nancy Colquhoun married John McAuselan, a younger son of the last Baron McAuselan, of Dunbartonshire.”  Unknown, but probably false.  We have no evidence as to who Nancy married, if anyone, so there is no way to gauge the truth of this statement.  For what it’s worth, The Red Book of Scotland states that Nancy died unmarried.  Why would anyone postulate a marriage between Nancy and a McAuselan in the first place?  Croslegh mentioned an oral tradition in his family that stated the founder of his family, who he claimed to be Robert, was raised by an uncle named McAuselan.  A surmised marriage between Nancy and John would have satisfied that claim.

“Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss, sent his son-in-law and daughter John and Nancy McAuselan to Ireland to manage the Corkagh estate for him.”  False.  Nancy was probably born about 1604 and would have been about 13 when her father died.  Even if she did eventually marry John McAuselan, it would probably not have been before 1624 and therefore not during her father’s lifetime.  According to William Buchanan of Auchmar, “the greatest Number and of best Account of [McAuselans] reside in the Counties of Tyrone, Derry, and Down in the North of Ireland.  The Ancestors of the principal Men of there last were Andrew, and John M’Auselans, Sons of the Baron M’Auselan, who went out of the Paroch of Luss to that Kingdom, in the latter Part of the Reign of King James VI” (Buchanan, p. 275).  James VI/I ruled Scotland from 1603-1625, so it does appear that John McAuselan’s relocation to Ireland would have occurred in the early 1620s.  Where in Ireland he went, and whether he was married to Nancy Colquhoun when he did so, are open questions.

In the list of Irish counties mentioned by Buchanan, Donegal is not included.  Furthermore, a muster roll of able-bodied males on the Colquhouns’ Corkagh estate from 1630 mentions no one named McAuselan.  That is not to say that John could not have been a freeholder at Corkagh either before or after 1630, but Buchanan’s failure to mention Donegal as a place of McAuselan settlement argues against this.

Robert Colquhoun

“A Robert Colquhoun was made denizen of Ireland in 1630.”  True.  Index entries to the letters patent of denization clarify him as follows: “1630, July 14.  Robert Colqunhowne, Esq., a native of Scotland.  (Patent Roll 6, Car. I., 1^st part, f. m. 25.).”  This Robert was made an undertaker of “the small proportion of Corkagh” consisting of 1,000 acres.  (James Morrin. Calendar of the Patent and Close Rolls of Chancery in Ireland in the Reign of Charles the First. Dublin: Alexander Thom, 1863, p. 538.)

“The Robert Colquhoun made denizen was the son of Adam Colquhoun.”  False.  Adam Colquhoun did not marry until 1644, and his only known sons were named John and Alexander (sources: Adam’s probate records, and The Red Book of Scotland).  Let’s say for the sake of argument that Adam also had an illegitimate son named Robert, born before his marriage to Giles, who went unrecorded. Even so, with Adam born about 1612, such a son would likely not have been born before 1632. Therefore, this son could not have been made denizen of Ireland in 1630, and he could not have been the father of William Colhoun of Newtownstewart, who was born about 1635.

“The Colhoun family of Crosh was founded by a man from Luss named Colquhoun who went to Ireland as a young boy, in the charge of an uncle named McCausland.”  Unknown, but possibly true.  As I outlined in the previous post, this comes strictly from oral tradition in the Crosh family, as related by Croslegh.  There is probably at least a kernel of truth to this, and the fact that William Colhoun of Newtownstewart married a McCausland does support a connection between the two families in the 17^th century.  This founder might have been William himself, but it was more likely his father, whose name is not stated on any primary source document.  William was probably born about 1635, and his father (whatever his name was) was probably born around 1600-1605.  (Actually, I now have my suspicions about who William’s father was, but you’ll have to wait a couple of weeks for my next post!)

“The Robert Colquhoun made denizen of Ireland in 1630 was that founder.”  Probably false.  Having come across the denization record of Robert Colquhoun from 1630, Croslegh concluded that Robert was the founder of the Crosh family and the father of William of Newtownstewart.  To make this hypothesis work, he proposed a birth year for Robert of about 1622, making him a boy in 1630.  However, there is no reason to assume any of this, since many other scenarios are equally possible if not more likely.  Worth noting is that the name Robert was not used for any known sons, grandsons, or great-grandsons of William Colhoun, which argues against William’s father having been named Robert. 

So who was Robert colquhoun?

In the section above, I tried to establish that the “Robert Colqunhowne, Esq.” made denizen of Ireland in 1630 was not the grandson of Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss and not the ancestor of the Colhoun family of Crosh, County Tyrone.  So who was he?  We know from the letter of denization that he was from Scotland, and since Undertakers came from the peerage and the gentry class, we need to look to the Scottish Colquhoun families from these classes––namely the Colquhoun of Luss family and its cadet branches––to identify him.  The title “Esq.” was reserved for the eldest sons of peers and knights, but within those senior Colquhoun families, I cannot find a knight or baronet who would be a candidate for Robert’s father.  Keep in mind, however, that the same index of letters patent where he was called “Robert Colqunhowne, Esq.” also referred to Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss as “Sir” and “knight”.  Alexander was not in fact a knight, so I suggest that Robert’s title might have been similarly inflated.

By 1630, the name Robert had not been used in the Luss family for many generations.  In fact, the only senior Colquhoun family where the name Robert was in common usage at that time was Colquhoun of Camstradden.  Interestingly, two independent sources suggest that Robert was in fact from the Camstradden family.  The first is Burke’s entry for “Colhoun of Carrickbaldoey”, which states,

By Patent dated 14 July, 1630, another member of the family, Robert Colquhowne (probably Robert Colquhoun, afterwards of Camstradden) was granted letters of denization together with Corkagh, which was then created the Manor of Corkagh, with the usual manorial rights.

Sir Bernard Burke. A Genealogical and Heraldic History of the Landed Gentry of Ireland. London: Harrison and Sons, 1912, p. 121.

The second source, interestingly enough, is noted by Croslegh himself in the following footnote:

The Venerable William Colquhoun, Archdeacon of Derry,––who tells me that he takes no personal interest in the history of the family,––has very kindly sent me a pedigree which makes the Irish branch to spring from “Robert Colquhoun of Comstroden, living in 1620.”  I am unable to attach any importance to this document.  It is impossible to reconcile it either with Fraser’s Monograph, or with the public annals of the nation.  [Croslegh then enumerates several errors in the pedigree between the years 1120 and 1373.]  It is unnecessary to examine this alleged descent more closely.  I have not indeed gone into the history of the Camstradden branch.  But the identification of any Robert of that line with our ancestor Robert, who received letters of denization in 1630, is negatived by all the evidence before me, whether of extant documents, or of uninterrupted and unvarying family tradition.

Croslegh, p. 211.

Croslegh is right in pointing out the errors in the very early part of the archdeacon’s pedigree.  However, by using that as a reason to discard the more recent (and likely more reliable) parts of the pedigree, I think he was being overzealous.  Ven. William Colquhoun (1842-1920) was from an Irish Colhoun family originating in parish Taughboyne, Co. Donegal, not from the Crosh family.  Several years ago, I contacted William’s only surviving great-grandchild, but unfortunately he had no records of the family handed down from William.  The fate of that pedigree is unknown, but it is possible that if research notes from Rev. Croslegh have survived, it might be among them.

I believe that the Robert Colquhoun made denizen of Ireland in 1630 was indeed from the Camstradden family, and in fact was the Robert Colquhoun (ca. 1588-1669) who in 1642 became 10^th laird of Camstradden.  This Robert was a close associate of the Luss family and likely a personal friend of Alexander, 15^th/17^th of Luss and of his son, Sir John.  Robert’s father, John Colquhoun, 9^th of Camstradden, was witness to the will of laird Alexander in 1617.  In 1612, Robert, then fiar (heir-apparent to the laird) of Camstradden, received a charter from Alexander to the lands of Auchengavin, perhaps as a wedding present (Fraser vol. 2, p. 201).  Robert was also the man who in 1653 paid off the mortgage of the lands of Aldochlay to Adam Colquhoun of Glens, son of Alexander (Fraser vol. 2, p. 202).  In 1662, Robert served as bailie of barony to Alexander’s grandson Sir John Colquhoun, 17^th/19^th of Luss (Fraser vol. 2, p. 202).  Taken together, this suggests that several generations of the Luss family had placed their trust in this Robert.

I do not know exactly why Robert Colquhoun of Camstradden should have been made Undertaker of Corkagh, a property that both before and after 1630 was clearly under the ownership of Sir John Colquhoun, 16^th/18^th of Luss.  However, in 1630 Sir John was engaged in the purchase of several new Scottish lands from John Colquhoun of Kilmardinny “for great sums of money” (Fraser vol. 1, p. 248).  Therefore, I speculate that Sir John temporarily sold Corkagh to Robert, a trusted family friend and associate, as a means of raising funds, keeping open the option of reclaiming Corkagh at a future date, which he seems to have done.

The commonly-cited pedigree linking the Colquhouns of Luss with the Colhouns of Crosh. This is the same figure shown in my previous post, but with relationships I have shown here to be problematic now marked in red.

This is how I would revise the figure based on the evidence I have presented here. Note there is no longer a link between the Colquhoun of Luss family and the Colhoun family of Crosh in Ireland. Rather, they are presented as two separate pedigrees. Not shown is Robert Colquhoun, 10^th of Camstradden, who was not closely related to the Luss family or, as far as known, to the Crosh family.

Summary

In my assessment, most of what is commonly believed about Adam, Nancy, and Robert Colquhoun is not true.  Again, many of these beliefs originated with the hypothetical connection between Luss and Crosh proposed by Croslegh in 1904.  This connection was not an entirely unreasonable assumption on Croslegh’s part: since Robert Colquhoun held title to Corkagh in 1630, and since Corkagh was the Irish manor previously granted to Alexander, 15^th/17^th of Luss, Croslegh assumed that this Robert must have been an heir and therefore a direct descendant of Alexander.  Unfortunately, this does not seem to have been the case.  (Worth noting here is that George Hill made the same mistaken assumption on p. 511 of his work, An Historical Account of the Plantation of Ulster, where he states without evidence, “On the 14th of July, 1630, letters patent of denization were issued to Robert Colqunhowne, son of Sir John….”)

As far as I can tell, neither Adam Colquhoun of Glens (originally of Luss) nor Robert Colquhoun of Camstradden (made denizen of Ireland in 1630) left descendants in Ireland.  Robert became 10^th laird of Camstradden in 1642, so if he lived in Ireland at all, he had returned to Scotland by 1642, and it appears that his children lived in Scotland as well (see Fraser vol. 2, pp. 202-204).  The parentage of William Colhoun of Newtownstewart, and therefore the origin of the Colhoun family of Crosh, therefore remains unknown.  However, if we are at long last willing to part with Croslegh’s story, the way will be clear for us to look for the truth.  With some luck, we may find it.

*****

Once again, I express my gratitude to Paul Calhoun and to a second reader for critical reading of this post and helpful edits.

*****

© 2023 Brian Anton. All rights reserved.

*****

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Most Recent Posts

• The Colhouns of Crosh, Part 3: Scottish Origins
• The Colhouns of Crosh, Part 2: The McCausland Connection
• The Colhouns of Crosh, Part 1: The First Generations in Ireland
• The Colhouns of the Irish Gentry
• The Manor of Corkagh: Part 2 of 2

The “Luss-Crosh Link” and the Story Behind It

The most commonly cited link between the Colquhouns of Scotland and the Colhouns of Ireland spans five generations, from Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss, Scotland to Rev. Alexander Colhoun of Crosh, County Tyrone, Ireland.  This five-generation pedigree, and the narrative behind it, has found its way into thousands of Calhoun family trees and written histories, both online and in print.  In my own words, I summarize the story told as follows.

“Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss, acquired the estate of Corkagh in Co. Donegal, Ireland in the 1610s.  Instead of residing there himself, he designated his son-in-law John McAuselan, husband of his daughter Nancy, to live on and manage the estate as his personal representative.  However, when Alexander died in 1617, rather than give Corkagh to John and Nancy, he instead bequeathed it to his son Adam, a merchant in Dumbarton.  Like his father, Adam also decided not to relocate to Ireland.  Upon the death of his wife in 1629, Adam sent his seven-year-old son Robert to reside there in his stead.  Adam died in 1634, after which Robert inherited Corkagh.  In 1641, Robert married his first cousin Catherine McAuselan, daughter of John and Nancy.  They had several children including a son William.  In 1651, at the age of eight, William inherited yet another Irish estate, Crosh House in Co. Tyrone, from Sir William Stewart, Baronet, apparently some kind of relative.  A stipulation of the inheritance was that William live there, and so the boy relocated from Corkagh to Crosh, where he was raised by Alexander McCausland and his wife, who were relatives of his mother’s.  William later married their daughter Catherine McCausland and had several children, including son Alexander, later Rev. Alexander Colhoun.”

This story has been part of Calhoun family lore for more than a hundred years, and many people have come to rely on it for determining their own ancestry.  However, if we are interested in getting as close to the truth of the historical record as we can (and why wouldn’t we be?), then every piece of received wisdom, no matter how old, is worth re-examining from time to time.  After all, the digitization of records has brought to light many sources that may not have been easily accessible to researchers a hundred years ago, or even forty years ago.  So getting back to this particular story, how true is it, or more accurately, how much of it is true?  Based on my interpretation of the evidence, the short answer is (spoiler alert!), “not much.”  I will analyze the specific elements of the story in the next post, but in this post, I would like to discuss how the story as a whole came to be.

The commonly-cited pedigree linking the Colquhouns of Luss with the Colhouns of Crosh. Additional details on the McCausland family added by me based on McCausland research.

From Oral Tradition to Croslegh

The core elements of this story originated with Charles Croslegh who first published it in his book on the family in 1904.  Croslegh’s roots ran through the Colhoun family of Crosh, and like many Calhouns, he was curious as to how his family was connected to the senior Colquhoun family of Luss, Scotland.  He says the following:

In the case of the [Colhoun] family I may claim credit for having established the historical connection between the Scotch and the Irish Colquhouns.  The Irish branch had always retained the tradition, but it had lost all documentary record of its descent from the old Chiefs of Colquhoun.  It knew that its first ancestor in Ireland, Robert Colquhoun, had come from Luss, as a child, under the charge of his uncle MacCausland.  But how that child was linked to the Lairds of Luss on the one hand, or to the Colquhouns in Ireland on the other, it did not know.  I have recovered that lost record.  I do not mean that I have discovered documents which would be received in a court of law as unshakeable evidence to prove the descent at every step.  But I have found testimony, (resting all along on trustworthy written or printed statements), sufficient, I think, to remove all reasonable doubt as to the general correctness of my deductions.

Croslegh, p. x.

I have to disagree with Croslegh here:  I believe there is plenty of room for reasonable doubt.  Croslegh performed his research 120 years ago, and it is a fact that there were sources available to him at that time that have not survived to the present day.  So are there things that he knew that we don’t?  Probably not:  he did an excellent job of citing the documents and personal communications he relied on, and there is relatively little in his list of references that is not also available to us.  On the other hand, the internet, digitization of books and records, and modern-day travel permit us access to sources that were not available to him.  Therefore, we can examine his story not only in light of the sources he used to construct it, but also in light of additional sources he may not have been aware of. 

Croslegh’s “story,” as I have called it, is in fact a hypothesis he built to explain the origin of his Irish Colhoun family in light of the documentary and oral sources he had to work with.  He says, “it is interesting to see how the chaos of apparently impossible dates and contradictory statements soon begins to grow, under careful attention, into an orderly and consistent story” (Croslegh, pp. 211-212).  In other words, he took discontinuous data and filled in the gaps with estimated dates and surmised relationships where necessary in order to create a continuous narrative.  There is nothing wrong with doing this, as building hypotheses is a necessary part of the process of discovery.  However, equally necessary to the process is the critical examination of hypotheses to determine which parts hold up and which do not.  Let us consider the two streams of evidence Croslegh used:  the oral tradition handed down in his family, and the set of documents he cites.

Croslegh mentions an oral tradition passed down through “the Irish branch” of the Calhouns, by which I presume he meant specifically his own family, the Colhouns of Crosh, County Tyrone.  According to Croslegh’s preface (quoted above), this tradition stated that (1) the Colhouns of Crosh believed they were somehow descended from the old Chiefs of Colquhoun in Scotland (i.e., the Luss family), and (2) the first of the Crosh ancestors to come to Ireland was a Colquhoun perhaps named Robert, born somewhere near Luss, who came to Ireland when still a young boy as the ward of an uncle named McCausland.  Because this tradition was more than 200 years old by the time Croslegh wrote it down, it is possible and even likely that errors had crept into it through repeated retelling.  Furthermore, we have only Croslegh’s version of the story, so we can’t know which parts might have been his own additions.  Nonetheless, such traditions often contain at the very least a kernel of truth, and we have to respect this possibility.

Croslegh also mentions his reliance on “trustworthy written or printed statements.”  As far as I can tell, these statements include not much more than the following, at least among those he cites specifically in his endnotes:

• Fraser’s discussion of the Battle of Glen Fruin.  (Endnote 12; from Fraser vol. 1, chapter XIV.)
• Fraser’s transcription of the will of Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss, specifically the statement about Adam and the Irish lands.  (Endnote 17; from Fraser vol. 1, p. 231.)
• Statements that Adam Colquhoun married a daughter of Lindsay of Bonneil and that John McAuselan went to Ireland.  (Endnote 16; from William Buchanan of Auchmar.  A Historical and Genealogical Essay upon the Family and Surname of Buchanan.  Glasgow: William Duncan, 1723, pp. 88; 122-123.)
• General residency requirements for all undertakers to the Plantation of Ulster.  (Endnote 17; from George Hill.  An Historical Account of the Plantation in Ulster at the Commencement of the Seventeenth Century, 1608-1620.  Belfast: M’Kaw, Stevenson, and Orr, 1877, pp. 80-83.)
• Pynnar’s Survey of the Ulster Plantation from 1619, entry for Corkagh.  (Endnote 17; from Hill, pp. 511-512.)
• Instructions to the Lord Deputy of Ireland regarding denization and inheritance.  (Endnote 17; from Sir Richard Cox.  Hibernia anglicana, or, The history of Ireland…, p. 51.)
• Letter Patent of Denization for Robert Colquhoun of Corkagh, 1630.  (Endnote 17; from James Morrin.  Calendar of the Patent and Close Rolls of Chancery in Ireland of the Reign of Charles the First, vol. III.  Dublin: Alexander Thom, 1863, pp. 538-539.)

These documents may be trustworthy and provide important information (like the identities of laird Alexander’s children and his family’s ownership of Corkagh), but upon close examination, many of them prove to be of a general historical nature, and those that do refer to Calhouns don’t speak to the other specific relationships he proposes. 

Given the oral tradition and the set of documents above, one might imagine that Croslegh came up with the hypothesis that he did using the following reasoning.  He was aware that his ancestor Rev. Alexander Colhoun was born around 1663 and was the son of William Colhoun of Newtownstewart.  The oral tradition within his family stated that the first of them to come to Ireland was a Robert Colquhoun, who arrived from Scotland at a very young age, to be raised by an uncle named McCausland.  Therefore, he reasoned, this Robert must have been the father of William.  The tradition also stated that Robert had come from Luss and that the family had somehow descended “from the old Chiefs of Colquhoun.”  This is a vague statement, but Croslegh took it literally to mean that Robert must have been the son or grandson of one of the lairds of Luss.  He then searched Fraser’s work to see where such a connection might be made.

In Fraser’s book, Croslegh came across two “loose ends” among the children of Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss:  a son Adam, who Croslegh believed inherited Alexander’s Irish estate at Corkagh, and a daughter Nancy, whose husband Fraser could not identify.  Adam’s connection to Ireland via Alexander’s will, and the fact that Robert physically went to Ireland, suggested to him that Adam must have been the father of Robert.  Why would Robert go to Ireland as a young boy in the company of an uncle and not his parents?  Perhaps it was because his mother had recently died, and his father could not care for him.  Who was this mother?  In Buchanan of Auchmar’s book, Croslegh found reference to an Adam Colquhoun, merchant of Dumbarton, who married a daughter of Lindsey of Bonneil and had a daughter named Helen.  He figured this was the same Adam mentioned in the will of Alexander of Luss and that, in addition to daughter Helen, Adam must have had a son Robert whom Buchanan neglected to mention.  Buchanan also mentioned a John McAuselan who went to Ireland in the last days of the reign of James VI/I, and so Croslegh reasoned that John must have been the uncle of his Robert and therefore the husband of one of Adam’s sisters, probably Nancy.

Croslegh was constrained by the birth of Rev. Alexander Colhoun in 1663 (which he probably knew from Trinity College records) and the marriage of Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss in late 1595 (known from Fraser and references therein).  Between these two dates, he had to squeeze in the births of three other generations, and so he estimated the following birthdates to make it work:  Adam Colquhoun ca. 1601, Adam’s supposed son Robert ca. 1622, and Robert’s supposed son William ca. 1643.  This was a very tight fit:  most men from the Scottish gentry did not marry until their mid-20s at the very earliest, but Croslegh’s timeline required three successive generations of men to marry at ages 19-21.  Again, these birth dates do not appear in any of the written sources he cites, and because he does such a good job of referencing, it seems unlikely that they came from uncited sources but rather were his own estimates. 

If you have read my previous three blog posts, you already know that I believe that Adam was not born until about 1612, that Adam did not inherit Corkagh, that he did not have a son named Robert and in fact was not even married until 1644, and that if Nancy married at all, she did not marry John McAuselan, at least not before her father died in 1617.  If I convinced you of the truth of even a single one of these statements, Croslegh’s hypothesis falls apart.

From Croslegh to Orval

Croslegh’s hypothesis was expanded 70 years later by Orval Calhoun in his book series Our Calhoun Family (OCF).  As many have pointed out, Orval was not as diligent as Croslegh in referencing his sources, in part because he relied heavily on information sent to him by other family members from around the world.  Although we do not know what sources were or were not available to him, we must use the sources now available to us to cross-check his statements as best we can.  To do so, we must first identify statements that are Orval’s and not also Croslegh’s––in other words, statements in OCF that were not also present in Croslegh’s earlier work.  For example, Croslegh says the following:

That the Laird of Luss should exchange the bonny banks of Loch Lomond for the wilds of Donegal was out of the question. He fulfilled the condition of residence by deputy. He sent his son-in-law, John MacAuselan or MacCausland, a younger son of the last Baron MacAuselan who was then living in the parish of Luss, to Ireland, to live on the estate, and to manage it. He also made certain arrangements, the precise nature of which does not appear, concerning this newly acquired property. But whatever these arrangements may have been, he cancelled them by his last will….

Croslegh p. 213-4.

If these “certain arrangements” that Alexander supposedly made regarding the Corkagh estate “do not appear”, how did Croslegh know about them?  Fraser, who unlike Croslegh actually worked from the documents at Rossdhu, did not mention anything about this, so I tend to believe this was speculation on Croslegh’s part, although again, we cannot know for sure.  Orval tells the same story as follows, with the underlined portions being new elements that he added:

The Laird of Luss, had no desire to exchange the Bonnie Banks of Loch Lomond, for the wilds of Donegal. That is how it became possible for him to place his daughter, Nancy & her husband John McAuselan (Younger son of the last Baron McAuselan) to live on the land in Ireland, to develop it according to the directions of the Crown. They had proceeded with these instructions according to schedule and received the O.K. from the Royal Commission on each of the Surveys that were conducted about every two years, so that Nancy & John were still living on the Irish Lands, when Sir Alexander died on May 23rd 1617, but they did not inherit Manor Corkagh from her father at his death, like an earlier WILL had stated they would, as Sir Alexander Colquhoun had made some previous arrangement for this estate with John & Nancy. But for some unknown reason he cancelled them by his last WILL….

Regardless of the disappointment on not inheriting Corkagh, Nancy and John McAuselan, continued living at Corkagh, & managing it for Adam Colquhoun, her brother, who had inherited it. Sir John realizing what expenses Adam would be up against at Corkagh, agreed upon a sufficient provision for his brother Adam, to maintain the Estate.

OCF vol. 1, p. 20.

As a first new story element, he mentions biannual surveys that apparently mention Nancy and John McAuselan living at Corkagh before and after 1617.  Indeed, four Plantation surveys were conducted between 1611 and 1622, but at best, they simply recorded the number of tenants on each proportion of Irish land, not the names.  I have been able to find no surveys, nor any other document, stating that John and/or Nancy McAuselan either lived at Corkagh or were associated with the property in any way.  The earliest record of anyone of that surname I have found living there is a Patrick McCausland recorded in the townland of Corkey in the Hearth Money Rolls of 1665.

Second, Orval states that the “certain arrangements” made for Corkagh, which Croslegh provided no evidence for and told us were unrecorded, were in fact detailed in an earlier draft of Alexander’s will.  Neither Fraser nor Croslegh described such a document, and only one version of the will is currently deposited at the National Records of Scotland.  If in fact no such earlier draft of the will exists, as I believe to be the case, this statement most likely arose from a misunderstanding of Croslegh’s use of the phrase “last will” (meant as in “last will and testament” and not “last of several wills”).

Finally, he states that the provision that Sir John Colquhoun made for his brother Adam was intended to maintain the estate of Corkagh.  Not so.  Sir John was obligated by his father’s will to provide for each of his younger siblings as they came of age, essentially giving each of them the share of inheritance they were owed.  As I mentioned in a previous post, Fraser notes that around 1631, when Adam was about 19, “Sir John agreed upon a sufficient provision for his brother Adam” (Fraser p. 248).  The details of this provision have not survived, so there is no evidence that it was for the purpose of maintaining Corkagh.  Since we know for certain that Adam acquired the estate of Glens in Stirlingshire, the provisions more likely had to do with arranging money for the purchase or long-term lease of Glens, but even this is not known for certain.  

I have summarized how I believe the well-known story about the relationship between the Colhouns of Crosh in Ireland and the Colquhouns of Luss in Scotland came into being.  I recognize that there may have been sources known to Croslegh in 1904 and Orval in 1976 that I am not aware of, but I believe the story as we know it today is largely the product of their work and not from pre-existing sources.  In the next post, I will go into more specifics of what I believe is true, false, and unknown concerning Adam, Nancy, and Robert Colquhoun, so stay tuned!

Do you disagree with me based on your own research?  For example, have you seen the mysterious early draft of Alexander’s will, or tenant lists showing the McAuselans at Corkagh, or the details of any provisions made by Sir John to Adam Colquhoun?  If so, I’d love to see them for myself!

*****

I am greatly indebted to Paul Calhoun and to a second reader (you know who you are!) for critical reading of this post and helpful edits. I believe this article was much improved thanks to their efforts.

*****

© 2023 Brian Anton. All rights reserved.

*****

The Probate Records of Alexander Colquhoun, 15th/17th of Luss

Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss, who died in 1617, left a substantial probate file, some 17 handwritten pages long.  The record is of immense genealogical value, and it provides much more than just a list of his children.  As Alexander was able to leave a will, the probate is considered a testament testamentar, which contains an introductory clause, an inventory of possessions, a confirmation clause (i.e., a validation of the inventory by the court for the benefit of the executors), and the will itself.  The document on file in the National Records of Scotland (and digitized at ScotlandsPeople) is written in “secretary hand,” an old form of cursive that can be challenging for anyone not trained to read it.  To make matters worse, the 17^th century dialect in which it was written uses archaic Scots spellings, vocabulary, and legalese unfamiliar to many of us.

William N. Fraser, a trained legal scholar, transcribed the will, which appears in volume 1 of his work, pp. 230-232.  However, the will forms only the last two of the seventeen pages in the file, and the remainder (primarily the inventory) has not been transcribed or even, to my knowledge, investigated, although I am hoping that will soon change. 

Handwritten copy of the beginning of Alexander’s will.  For comparison with Fraser’s transcription, the part of the will in the image begins, “Att Rosdo, the sextein and sevintein dayes of Maij, the zeir of God…” and ends, “… Johne Colquhoun, portioner of Mylntoun, dispone his assignation of fortie….” The red slashes mark the position of an apparently missing section (see below).

Scottish probate in the 17^th century categorized property into two types.  Heritable property included land, buildings, ownership rights, and other fixed things.  Heritable property was not typically dealt with in wills, since by the rules of Scottish succession, all heritable property was automatically inherited by the eldest son by right.  Movable property included goods, money, livestock, and other things that could be moved.  Movable property was divided into three equal shares:  the widow’s part, the children’s part, and the dead’s part.  (It would be two equal shares if the spouse was not living.)  As with heritable property, the widow’s part and children’s part were determined and distributed automatically by right.  All children shared equally in the children’s part except for the eldest son, who did not participate because he received the heritable property.  The only part of the estate that the deceased could specify in the will was the dead’s part of the movable property, which could be bequeathed to the spouse or to any of the children (over and above their by-right share of the estate), or to anyone else such as extended family, friends, and associates.  Because the spouse and children were dealt with automatically, it was often the case that they were not named in a will, with the dead’s part going to others outside the immediate family. 

Provisions of Alexander’s Will

Fortunately, Alexander’s children were named in his will, since all except the oldest son, John, were designated as co-executors, and special provisions were made for several of them, including John.  This is not surprising, since Alexander took care to put all of his children on firm financial footing from very early ages.  In 1602, at age about 6, son John received liferent income from the Kirk of Luss and chaplainry of Rossdhu, and a charter from King James VI/I of the lands of Auchintorly and Dunnerbuck (Fraser vol. 1, pp. 239-240).  In 1607, at age about 5, son Alexander acquired land rights and rental income (Fraser vol. 1, p. 234).  In 1617, at age about 11, son George acquired rights to a debt owed by Thomas Fallasdaill through actions taken by his father shortly before his death (Fraser vol. 1, p. 235).  At an unknown date before 1617, son Patrick (probably 6 years old or less) acquired a mortgage on property at Aldochlay, worth 200 merks, taken out by the Colquhouns of Camstradden; upon Patrick’s death, it was transferred to his brother Adam (Fraser vol. 2, p. 202).  These are just those cases for which Fraser found documentation.

The will transcription can be found in Fraser volume 1, so I will not repeat it here.  However, I can summarize it as follows.  First, Alexander names all his sons and daughters except John as his executors and representatives with respect to his movable property.  Second, he gives to daughter Jean whatever silver and gold are in his chest, over and above what she received by right, and that she could redeem her rightful share to brother John in exchange for £10,000 as dowry.  Third, eldest son John, likely the only child of age at that time, was designated “helper and consenter” to his father’s will, and as fiar of Luss, he promised, in the presence of the witnesses, “to perform and do my father’s will in the whole premise above-written, and further to the will of my brothers and sisters, as best I can.”  At the time of Alexander’s death, most of the children were much too young to manage their own shares of the inheritance.  Perhaps because of John’s own relative youth and potential conflicts of interest, Alexander designated Rev. Andrew Boyd, Bishop of Argyll, and the laird of Buchanan (probably a close relative of his wife’s) as co-guardians of the younger children “with power to settle various matters in regard to the provision which Sir John should make for them.”  Sir John made his provisions for each sibling as they came of age, in consultation with Boyd and Buchanan.

Other stipulations in the will were that (1) youngest son Adam was to receive something related to the Irish property, and (2) second son Humphrey was to receive money through various means to help purchase the estate of Balvie for his exclusive use.  (Note the bequest to Humphrey was in the form of money [movable] and not of property owned by Alexander [which would have been heritable and therefore disallowed].)  Witnesses to the will were John Colquhoun of Camstradden, Mr. Archibald Cameron of Inchcailloch in Loch Lomond, John Colquhoun of Milton (Barnhill), and John Buntein of Ardoch. 

There is also an extensive supplement to the will, including the following bequests, most to be paid at the next St. Martin’s Day (11 November).

• To Thomas Falasdaill, 1,000 merks.
• To John Colquhoun of Camstradden, 1,000 merks.
• To Robert Colquhoun of Ballernick, 1,000 merks.
• To John Colquhoun of Milton, 500 merks “in consideration of his part of the hardship of Colquhoun,” i.e., his help in the Battle of Glen Fruin.
• To Patrick Colquhoun of Milton, 500 merks, also for his help at Glen Fruin.
• To Andrew Colquhoun and Beatrix Colquhoun, both servants of Patrick above, 500 merks and £100, respectively.
• Mr. Archibald Cameron’s debt of £100 to be discharged, as a token of goodwill.
• To James Colquhoun, 500 merks.

Witnesses to this addendum were Thomas Fallasdaill of Ardochbeg, Mr. John Campbell, minister of Luss, James Colquhoun at Port of Rossdhu, John Colquhoun “his eldest sone” (it is unclear to me whether this was James’s son or Alexander’s own son), and Duncan McInturnour of Tor.

The beneficiaries and witnesses to the will who were from outside of Alexander’s immediate family are important to recognize, since they were clearly close friends and associates of the laird of Luss in 1617.  As such, they are candidates for people who might have settled as freeholders on the laird’s recently acquired property in Ireland.  I will deal with them further in a future post.

A Break in the Will

In Fraser’s transcription, he notes a mid-sentence break in the original will, about which he says, “A portion is here evidently omitted.”  This break occurs at a crucial point in the text:  “Lykas, he ordanes his eldest sone Johne, Mr. Andro Boyd, Bischop of Argyle, the Laird of Buchanan, …. …. His will is, that notwithstanding quhatsumever provisioun is anent the Ireland landis, that Adame haif the same.”  This apparently omitted portion (the two ellipses in this quote) I have marked with two red slashes in the image of the handwritten copy above.  Note there is no physical break in the paper, no ink stain, and no acknowledgment on the part of the transcriber that anything is missing.  It is possible that this is in fact a transcription or memorial of an original copy where there is such a physical break, but there is no way to know.

In any case, the missing portion probably included details of how his eldest son John was to make provisions for his younger siblings, as he began to describe just before the break; Fraser makes some attempt to address this in his book (vol. 1, p. 248).  Right after the break is some provision to be made for youngest son Adam regarding the recently acquired Irish estate.  It seems likely that the missing portion would have included equivalent provisions for the middle sons, Alexander, George, and Walter, since there is no reason to think they should have been neglected.

It is also likely that the missing portion included some further details about the Irish estate vis-à-vis Adam.  The surviving sentence on this topic has often been interpreted as Alexander bequeathing the estate of Corkagh to Adam.  However, this is probably incorrect, since by Scottish inheritance law, Corkagh would have been considered heritable property and passed by right to the eldest son, Sir John.  This appears to be what happened, since later documents show Corkagh in the possession of Sir John, with Adam’s name never mentioned.  This sentence must instead mean that Alexander made some provision whereby a certain portion of income derived from the Irish lands was to go to Adam, given as part of the “dead’s part” of his movable property. 

There is an interesting twist to this.  Alexander was a Scottish citizen, and prior to 1707, England and Scotland were separate kingdoms.  As England was in control of Ireland, for Scots to buy and sell property in Ireland, they needed to obtain letters patent of denization.  This granted them the status of “English denizens of Ireland,” an intermediate status between citizen and alien.  Alexander obtained his letter of denization from King James VI/I on 20 May 1617, just three days before his death.  (He is called in the patent roll, “Sir Alexander Colquhon [sic], of Corkagh, in Co. Donegal, Kn’t,” although he was not in fact a knight, as I mentioned previously.)  This may have been done to make his acquisition of Corkagh retroactively legal. 

As I understand it, denizens could buy and sell Irish property, but they could not inherit property (see here).  Oddly enough, however, it seems that they could still bequeath property to non-denizen heirs.  Among the instructions to the Lord Deputy of Ireland and Council promulgated on 24 May 1629 was the stipulation that “All Scotishmen, Undertakers in Ulster, and in other Places there, ar to be made Free Denizens of that Our Kingdom; and no Advantage for want of Denization to be taken against the Heirs or Assigns of those that be dead.”  (Sir Richard Cox. Hibernia Anglicana, or, The History of Ireland, from the Conquest Thereof by the English, to This Present Time…., p. 51.)  I take this to mean that the heirs of denizens, whether denizens themselves or not, could inherit property from denizens who are deceased.  This explains why Corkagh was subsequently in possession of Sir John, for whom no letter patent of denization has been found.  I invite help with this interpretation from any expert in old Scottish probate law.

As I mentioned above, I intend to deal further with the topic of Corkagh in a future post.

*****

© 2023 Brian Anton. All rights reserved.

*****

The Family of Alexander Colquhoun, 15th/17th of Luss (ca. 1572-1617)

Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss is an important historical and genealogical figure for several reasons.  First, it was during his tenure as laird of Luss that the fateful Battle of Glen Fruin occurred on 7 February 1603.  This was the culmination of a long-simmering feud between the Colquhouns and their allies on one side and the MacGregors and their allies on the other.  The battle did not go the Colquhouns’ way to say the least, and several men from the Luss and various cadet branches of the Colquhoun family were killed.  Fraser has more to say about Alexander than any of the other chiefs of Colquhoun, largely because of this battle. 

Second, it was also during Alexander’s tenure that the Plantation of Ulster began in 1609.  Under this scheme, the British crown parceled out roughly 500,000 acres of land confiscated from Gaelic Irish chieftains in Counties Donegal, Tyrone, Coleraine, Fermanagh, Cavan, and Armagh, granting individual tracts to English and Scottish landlords (“undertakers”).  The goal was to install tenants who were loyal British subjects at the expense of the native Irish, and the result was the first of several large-scale migrations of Scots to Ulster that occurred in the 17^th century.  Sometime in the early or mid 1610s, Alexander acquired one of these grants, a tract of 1,000 acres in County Donegal called Corkagh.  This paved the way for Scottish Colquhouns from various families, including Luss, to resettle in Ireland.  I intend to devote a future post to the complicated history of Corkagh.

Finally, Alexander is the last (i.e., most recent) of the pre-1718 Colquhoun clan chiefs who might have male-line descendants alive today.  As he was himself a male-line descendant of the family’s founder, Humphrey of Kilpatrick, he presumably belonged to Y-DNA haplogroup E-Y16733.  As I outlined in a previous post, for the purposes of genetic genealogy, identifying a male-line descendant of as recent an E-Y16733 chief as possible would be of tremendous importance.  In 1718, the male line of the clan chiefs came to an end with the death of Alexander’s great-grandson Sir Humphrey Colquhoun, 20^th/22^nd of Luss, with all chiefs after Sir Humphrey being male-line descendants of the Grant family.  All patrilineal lines of descent from every chief between Alexander’s time and 1718 are also known to be extinct.  Therefore, to find a documentable male-line descendant of Humphrey of Kilpatrick, we need to look to Alexander’s younger sons (most likely, to his youngest son, Adam), or to the younger sons of chiefs prior to Alexander.

Throughout this post, all citations that are simply page numbers refer to Fraser volume 1, with the rest of the reference omitted for brevity.  I have seen Fraser and other 19^th century historians of the Scottish clans accused by more modern scholars of “antiquarianism” and of pandering to their patrons rather than portraying historical events in an objective light.  (See, for example, D. J. Johnston-Smith.  “The Clan MacFarlane of North Loch Lomondside c. 1570-1800” (2002).  M.Ph. thesis, University of Glasgow, p. 16.)  I can’t really speak to this and won’t comment extensively on historical events like the Battle of Glen Fruin here, but as I have mentioned before, I do for the most part trust Fraser on genealogical details except where proven wrong.  He is typically very diligent in detailing his own sources, so the page-number citations direct the reader both to Fraser and to the references therein.

Alexander’s Life

Considering Alexander’s importance to the genealogy of the Calhoun family, I was shocked that I was unable to find any serious analysis of what is known about his life and children beyond what appears in Fraser and The Red Book of Scotland.  Identifying dates of birth, marriage, and death for him and his family would go a long way to determining which family traditions are likely to be true and which are not.  Parochial records from Luss begin only in 1698, long after the births and marriages of Alexander and his children, so for the most part we must estimate these dates based on other information.

Alexander assumed the role of chief and laird in mid-1592 upon the assassination of his older brother, Sir Humphrey Colquhoun, 14^th/16^th of Luss (p. 153), who was at that time about 27 years old (p. 160).  Alexander, meanwhile, was still in his minority in January 1592/3, since a chancery return from that time granting him power to administer the affairs of his late brother’s children states that Alexander was “of lawful age, by virtue of a royal dispensation, granted on account of his minority” (p. 168).  Although a minor, we might guess that since Alexander was deemed able to manage their affairs, he was at least close to majority, so a reasonable year of birth for him is probably 1572 or 1573.

The murder of Sir Humphrey in 1592 was one of the events that precipitated the Battle of Glen Fruin some 11 years later.  When Alexander became laird of Luss, he inherited several ongoing feuds, not only with the MacGregors and MacFarlanes with whom that battle was fought, but also with the Buchanans and Galbraiths.  Marriage was one means of quelling feuds, and Alexander’s marriage to Helen Buchanan, daughter of George Buchanan of that Ilk, was meant to, and apparently did, put to rest the Colquhouns’ differences with the Buchanans, turning one enemy into an ally.  The marriage contract between Alexander and Helen is dated 18 August 1595 at Glasgow, and a charter granting Helen liferent from the lands of Sir Humphrey’s widow, dated 15 October 1595, names Helen as Alexander’s “future spouse” (pp. 172-173).  The marriage between Alexander and Helen most likely took place soon after, in the last months of 1595.

Alexander was therefore married at the age of about 22, which is slightly on the young side for that time.  This relatively early marriage may have been arranged not only to settle a feud, but also to produce male heirs quickly, since by that time his two brothers were both deceased.  By the time of Alexander’s death on 23 May 1617, he and Helen had twelve children, eleven of whom were named in his will dated 16-17 May 1617 (p. 230).  Although he died at a relatively young age (44 or 45), the fact that he was able to draw up a will about a week before his death suggests that he died of illness as opposed to something sudden.  The first of his children (son John) would likely have been born in 1596, and if we assume a child was born roughly every two years thereafter (since there is no evidence there were any twins), the last of his children would have been born about the time of his death, 1616 or 1617.  Assuming Helen was of similar age to her husband, she would have been about 44 in 1616 and therefore nearing the end of child-bearing age anyway.  Helen seems to have died prior to July 1629 (p. 235).

Signature of Alexander Colquhoun, 15th/17th of Luss dated 7 November 1599. From Fraser vol. 1, p. 238.

There are a few scattered references to Alexander as “Sir” and “knight.”  Fraser states, “It does not appear that Alexander Colquhoun was ever knighted. Among the Luss writs there is none in which he is designated knight, although in some of the numerous official documents connected with the Macgregors he was so designated, apparently through mistake” (p. 232).  One other record, not mentioned by Fraser, on which Alexander was mistakenly referred to in this way is his letter of Irish denization, issued in 1617.

Alexander’s Children

In Fraser’s chapter on Alexander, there are three lists of his children.  Fraser’s numerical lists (pp. 232-238) break out the sons and daughters separately, in the following order, evidently by age:  sons John, Humphrey, Alexander, Walter, Adam, George; and daughters Jean, Nancy, Katharine, Helen, Mary.  Fraser also lists the younger children who were represented as executors to their father’s will by proxy (p. 230) in the order (Humphrey), Jean, Alexander, George, Walter, Adam, Nancy, Katharine, Helen, and Mary.  Finally, the list of those same younger children taken directly from Alexander’s will and testament (p. 230) is in the order Humphrey, Jean, Alexander, Nancy, Katharine, Walter, Adam, Helen, Mary, and George.  This last list, because it was dictated by Alexander himself, is likely to be closest to the correct order of the children’s births, and the separate orders of the sons and daughters in this combined list match Fraser’s numerical lists.

One child is missing from all of these lists, namely son Patrick.  Patrick’s existence is known from the following passage in Fraser vol. 2, which I also mentioned in my previous post about Alexander’s son Adam:

John Colquhoun of Camstradden, the father of Robert, had impignorated and wadset his lands of Aldochlay, on having received in loan the sum of 200 merks Scots, from Alexander Colquhoun of Luss, who gave the same for the behoof of his son Patrick.  On the death of the said Patrick, his brother-german, Adam Colquhoun of Glens was lawfully retoured and infefted as Patrick’s heir, in the foresaid lands, during the non-redemption thereof.

Fraser vol. 2, p. 202, referencing “Original Discharge and Renunciation in Camstradden Charter-chest.”

Exactly when Patrick died is not stated in the above passage, but it must have been before 1653, when the mortgage was paid off to his brother Adam.  Some secondary sources state that Patrick died in Sweden in 1639, but no evidence is provided.  Given that Patrick is not mentioned in his father’s will, it seems more likely that he died as a child and predeceased his father.  Even if he survived to adulthood, he probably had no children of his own, since his assets (or at least, the mortgage mentioned above) passed to his brother upon his death.

If we assume the list of children in Alexander’s will is ordered by birth, the expected birth dates of the children (except Patrick) would all be consistent with other known facts about them, with one exception.  Son George was last in the list, which would have placed his birth about 1616.  However, he entered the University of Glasgow in 1622 and graduated in 1625 (see Munimenta Alme Universitatis Glasguensis vol. III [1854], pp. 76 and 16), so he could not have been born this late.  As other university students at that time were graduating around age 19, I instead estimate George was born about 1806, making him the fourth of the seven sons rather than the youngest.  This is also how Fraser places him in his list of executors by proxy.  Taking the list from the will, moving George to where he probably belongs, and adding Patrick, I suggest the correct birth order of Alexander’s children, with estimated birth dates, to be as follows.

1. John Colquhoun (ca. 1596-1649), first mentioned in records in January 1602 (p. 239).  In various parts of Alexander’s will and testament, John is referred to as “John Colquhoun, fiar of Luss, son and heir to the said Alexander” and “John Colquhoun, his eldest son.”  (The fiar was the heir-apparent to the laird, typically the eldest son.)  Upon the death of his father in 1617, John became 16^th/18^th of Luss, and by charter dated 30 August 1625 at Edinburgh, he was granted the rank and dignity of Baronet (p. 245).  In July 1620, he married Lady Lilias Graham, eldest daughter of John, 4^th Earl of Montrose (p. 242).  He died between February 1649 and May 1650 (p. 250).
2. Humphrey Colquhoun (ca. 1598-1672).  Alexander’s will calls him “Humphrey, his second son” and leaves money for him to purchase the estate of Balvie in the parish of East Kilpatrick.  Despite his youth, Humphrey served as executor at his father’s probate in his own name and as representative of his younger siblings (p. 230).  Sometime around 1660 he was created a knight, becoming Sir Humphrey Colquhoun of Balvie.  He married Dame Margaret Somerville, second daughter of Gilbert, 8^th Lord Somerville at an unknown date.  His own will was drawn up in June 1672, so he probably died about that time (original copy of his probate records from Scotland’s People).  He had no children (as per both Fraser [p. 234] and the probate records).
3. Jean Colquhoun (ca. 1600-1677).  Named as Alexander’s eldest daughter in a Latin charter from 28 July 1632:  “Jeanne Colquhoun … filie legit[ima] natu maxime quond. Alexandri C. de Lus ac sorori germane Joannis C. tunc de L.” (Register of the Great Seal of Scotland, A.D. 1306-1668, charter 2056, p. 701).  In support of this, her father’s will “ordains Jean to have whatever silver and gold be in his chest, over and above whatever is purveyed to her, with all the help her brother may, as he chooses, that he be first respected especially to advance her the sum of £10,000, in the name of dowry, for satisfaction of all, she disposes all benefit she might have by her father, in favor of John, who is to pay the said sum.”  Additionally, John was to pay her 1,000 marks per year at Martinmas.  She married three times, first to Allan, 5^th Lord Cathcart, with the marriage contract to him dated 29 October 1626 and the marriage probably occurring in 1627 when she received the dowry money from John (p. 236).  Her probate records, in which she is named as “Dame Jean, Lady Cathcart, par. of St. Quivox”, are dated 29 October 1677.
4. Alexander Colquhoun, born ca. 1602, first mentioned in records in 1607 (p. 234).  In a contract from May 1612, he is styled “third son of Alexander Colquhoun of Luss” (p. 234).  He enrolled at the University of Glasgow in 1618 (as Alexander Colquhoune filius Baronis de Lus) and graduated in 1621.  He married Marion Stirling before 18 June 1632, when his daughter Jean was baptized at Edinburgh.  Apparently, no children survived him (p. 235).
5. Nancy Colquhoun, born ca. 1604.  Fraser provides no information about her.  She was likely only about 13 years old when her father died and clearly not married at the time.  She is said to have died unmarried (The Red Book of Scotland, vol. III.  Gordon MacGregor, 2022, p. 254.)
6. George Colquhoun, born ca. 1606.  He enrolled at the University of Glasgow in March 1622 (as Georgius Colquhoune filius de Luss), graduating in 1625.  Because his older brother Alexander graduated at about age 19, I estimate George’s birth date to be about 1606, which would place him as his father’s fourth son, in agreement with Fraser’s list of executors by proxy.  Immediately after graduating, George took Thomas Fallasdaill of Ardochbeg to court to recover money owed to him (p. 235).  In 1627, he made assignation of a bond stating, “John, now of Luss, my eldest lawful brother, in my necessity has contended, paid, and delivered to me a certain sum of money employed by me for settlement of certain of my debts and necessary affairs, and for my better settlement and furnishing to my intended voyage and journey to other foreign parts beyond this kingdom” (p. 236, with archaic Scots words and spellings updated by me).  Fraser contends that George indeed went abroad, where he died without issue (p. 236).
7. Katharine Colquhoun (ca. 1608-1696).  Fraser notes a decree from Andrew, Bishop of Argyll, “dated 27^th June 1632, decerned that John should pay his sister Catherine, the eldest, who was then of the age of twenty-one years, and so marriageable, the sum of 7000 merks…” (p. 248).  As Katharine was “of 21” in 1632, she must have been born prior to 1611, consistent with the 1608 estimate.  However, the decree is probably in error in stating she was the eldest, since the 1632 charter described above, provisions for Jean made in her father’s will, and all list orders, indicate that Jean was undoubtedly the eldest daughter, not Katharine.  She married Sir John Mure of Auchindraine, as she was named as his future wife in a liferent contract dated 20 October 1632 (RMS 1634-1651, no. 1086, as cited in The Red Book of Scotland, vol. III.  Gordon MacGregor, 2022, p. 254.)  She lived to a very old age, as her probate records, in which she is named as “Dame Katherine, relict of Sir John Moor, of Auchindrain, burgh of Ayr”, are dated 12 May 1696.
8. Walter Colquhoun, born ca. 1610.  Like his brother George, Walter received money from his brother John, essentially a payout of his inheritance share, “for the furtherance of his business, and for his better outfit for foreign parts” (p. 235).  This transaction was dated 27 July 1629, when Walter would have been about 19, the same age as George probably was when he graduated from university.  Fraser states that, like George, Walter died abroad without issue (p. 235).
9. Patrick Colquhoun, born ca. 1611.  Patrick’s placement in this list is somewhat arbitrary, since he does not appear in any of the lists of children related to his father’s will.  He was clearly younger than his brother Alexander (the “third son”), and given the dates when his brother George graduated college and his brother Walter received his inheritance, Patrick was probably younger than them as well.  Because Patrick’s assets passed to Adam upon his death, Patrick was likely older than Adam, so I have squeezed Patrick’s birth between those of Walter and Adam here.  As noted above, Patrick probably died as a child, before his father’s will was drawn up in 1617.
10. Adam Colquhoun (ca. 1612-1655).  It appears that Adam, the subject of my previous post, was the youngest of Alexander’s seven sons.  Alexander’s testament states, “His will is, that notwithstanding whatever provision is made concerning the Irish lands, that Adam have the same” (p. 231, with archaic Scots words and spellings updated by me).  Much has been made of Adam’s tenuous connection to Ireland, and I will treat this topic more fully in future posts.  Adam’s oldest brother, Sir John, was tasked with providing for his younger brothers and sisters, and sometime around 1631, when Adam was about 19, “Sir John agreed upon a sufficient provision for his brother Adam” (p. 248).  Unfortunately, Fraser does not state what this provision was, but it may have involved the purchase of the estate of Glens in Stirlingshire, since Adam was later styled, “Adam Colquhoun of Glens.”  Fraser states, “In December 1634, Adam Colquhoun, brother to the Laird of Luss, was indebted to William Towart (Stewart) £42, 2s” (p. 235), so his establishment at Glens must have been after 1634 and before 1644, when he married Giles, daughter of Walter MacFarlane of Arrochar.  Just as his father’s marriage quelled a feud between the Buchanans and Colquhouns, Adam’s marriage may have been arranged to quell a feud between the MacFarlanes and Colquhouns (who fought on opposite sides in the Battle of Glen Fruin) and/or between the MacFarlanes and Buchanans, Adam’s mother’s family.  Adam died in 1655, as per his probate records.
11. Helen Colquhoun, born ca. 1614.  Neither Fraser nor The Red Book provide any information about her. 
12. Mary Colquhoun, born ca. 1616.  Neither Fraser nor The Red Book provide any information about her.  However, Fraser says, “It has not been ascertained whether Nancy, Helen, and Mary Colquhoun had ever married, although it is understood that one of them became the wife of William Cunninghame of Laigland, in the parish and county of Ayr” (p. 238).  Given what The Red Book has to say about Nancy, it must have been either Helen or Mary who married William.  There is a brief treatment of the Cunninghams of Laigland or Lagland on p. 210 of James Paterson’s History of the County of Ayr, with a Genealogical Account of the Families of Ayrshire (Edinburgh: Thomas George Stevenson, 1852).  It mentions that William died shortly before 1 February 1643 but makes no mention of his wife.

Worth mentioning here is the fate of Alexander’s sons George and Walter, both of whom left Scotland for other lands.  Where might they have gone?  One possibility is Ireland, where records from the 1660s-1670s do mention a George Colquhoun in Co. Antrim and two Walter Colquhouns, one in Co. Antrim and another in Co. Donegal.  However, it is not at all clear that these were Alexander’s sons as opposed to other Colquhouns of those names.  Furthermore, records of the brothers state they were going “beyond this kingdom” and to “foreign parts”.  At that time, England and Scotland were ruled by a common monarch, James VI/I, with Ireland considered an English possession, so my feeling is that these terms imply the brothers went elsewhere, likely to the European Continent.

The Thirty Years War, which pitted the Habsburgs and their Catholic allies against the anti-Habsburg (primarily Protestant) powers, raged across Europe from 1618 to 1648.  Scotland played a significant role in the conflict, both in military and diplomatic capacities.  It is possible that George and Walter left for Europe in the 1620s as military officers or diplomatic officials.  (The same might have been true of Patrick, if in fact the claims of him dying in Sweden in 1639 are correct.)  There is no further record of George or Walter that I can find, and I suspect that Fraser’s statements that they died without issue were based on recollections of the Luss family and not on written records.

Alexander’s probate records merit a post in and of themselves, so I will wrap up here and save that for next time.  As always, if you have any evidence that refutes or supports any of what I’ve said here, be sure to let me know.

*****

© 2023 Brian Anton. All rights reserved.

*****

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• The Colhouns of Crosh, Part 3: Scottish Origins
• The Colhouns of Crosh, Part 2: The McCausland Connection
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• The Manor of Corkagh: Part 2 of 2

We Didn’t Know Adam from Adam

So, I had my next few blog posts all set to go.  I had written two about Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss and his family, and then three more about the oft-repeated pedigree that connects the Colquhouns of Luss in Scotland with the Colhouns of Crosh in Ireland.  This pedigree runs through Alexander’s son Adam, meaning that Adam appears in the family trees of hundreds if not thousands of people descended from Irish Calhouns.  The gist of what I was going to say in my upcoming posts is that I think the whole story about Adam being born in 1601, inheriting the Luss family’s estate in Co. Donegal, Ireland, being widowed at a young age, sending a son named Robert over to Ireland to manage the estate for him while he remained an unsuccessful merchant in Dumbarton, and then dying himself in 1635, is wrong.  Not only is the story in its entirety wrong, but each one of those statements individually is incorrect.  (I still think this, and I’ll give the details in these future posts.)  What I was going to propose in place of this story is that Adam did not inherit the Irish estate, but that he did eventually go and live there, since the Irish Hearth Money Rolls show an Adam Colhoun Sr. living at Corkagh, the family’s estate in Co. Donegal, in 1665.  Must be him, right?  As it turns out, I have to completely revise those upcoming articles, since I have now discovered that this proposal I was going to make is also wrong!

As I was wrapping up some background research on Robert Colquhoun, 10^th of Camstradden, I ran across the following passage in Fraser vol. 2 that stopped me in my tracks:

John Colquhoun of Camstradden, the father of Robert, had impignorated and wadset his lands of Aldochlay, on having received in loan the sum of 200 merks Scots, from Alexander Colquhoun of Luss, who gave the same for the behoof of his son Patrick.  On the death of the said Patrick, his brother-german, Adam Colquhoun of Glens was lawfully retoured and infefted as Patrick’s heir, in the foresaid lands, during the non-redemption thereof.  On 11^th February 1653, Robert Colquhoun of Camstradden, and Alexander, his eldest son and heir, having made payment of the said 300 [sic] merks, received from Adam Colquhoun of Glens, son of the deceased Alexander Colquhoun of Luss, a discharge and renunciation of all right to the lands of Aldochlay.

Fraser vol. 2, p. 202, referencing “Original Discharge and Renunciation in Camstradden Charter-chest.”

There are several archaic Scots legal terms in there, but as best I can interpret it, it means the following.  John Colquhoun, 9^th of Camstradden, evidently in need of cash, mortgaged his property at Aldochlay (a hamlet on Loch Lomond just south of Camstradden) for 200 merks, with Alexander Colquhoun, 15^th/17^th of Luss serving as lender.  Alexander gave the note over to his young son Patrick for Patrick’s financial benefit when the loan was paid off.  Patrick apparently died young, after which the note passed to his brother Adam.  In 1653, a generation later, the loan was finally paid off by John’s son Robert, 10^th of Camstradden, upon which Adam (by then known as Adam Colquhoun of Glens) discharged the mortgage.

I’m not sure how this passage could have escaped the notice of everyone from Croslegh’s time onward—a span of some 125 years—but as far as I can tell, it did.  It even seems to have escaped the notice of Fraser himself, since he makes no note of the mortgaging of Aldochlay in his discussion of Alexander and Adam in volume 1 of his work.  Perhaps he was unaware of it at the time he wrote volume 1 and did not amend the draft of that volume when he later discovered the document.  Fraser also did not make mention of Adam’s fate several years after the books’ publication when Croslegh inquired about the Irish property.  Croslegh states,

I wrote to Sir William Fraser, some twenty years ago [ca. 1884], to ask whether he had met with anything among the Ross-dhu papers which could serve to throw light upon the settlement of the family in Ireland.  His reply was, that he had found nothing which in any way pointed to Ireland.  When I drew his attention to Alexander Colquhoun’s devise of the Irish lands to his son Adam, he admitted that it had escaped his notice. 

Croslegh, p. 211.

So it seems that Adam became a landowner residing on the estate of Glens, a position more befitting the station of a son of Luss than small-time merchant.  Glens (also spelled Glennes, Glennis, Glinnes, Glinnis, Glyns, etc.) was located in the parish of Balfron, Stirlingshire, which was due east of Loch Lomond and north of Glasgow.  The first Colquhoun styled “of Glens” was Patrick, younger brother of Sir John Colquhoun, 8^th/10^th of Luss (d. 1439).  This Patrick was the ancestor of two cadet branches of the family:  the Colquhouns of Glens and the Colquhouns of Kenmure.  The Colquhoun of Glens family that Patrick founded lasted only four generations:  Patrick’s great-grandson George Colquhoun of Glens had only a daughter, Margaret, who in 1535 married her cousin Robert Boyd, after which the Colquhoun line ended and the property passed into the Boyd family.  Adam Colquhoun, son of Alexander of Luss, was styled “of Glens” roughly 100 years later, and how exactly the Glens estate returned to Colquhoun ownership is not known to me. 

Pedigree showing the relationship of the various Colquhouns of Glens (or Glinnis) to the Colquhouns of Luss and Kenmure. Adapted from Fraser vol. 1 pp. xxiv-xxv, Fraser vol. 2 p. 260, and a previous post to this blog.

Knowing that Alexander’s son Adam was styled “of Glens” enables us to learn the details of his marriage and death.  In or about October 1644, Adam Colquhoun of Glens married Giles MacFarlane, daughter of Walter MacFarlane of Arrochar.  Their marriage contract, drawn up at Luss on 10 September 1644, states that Giles brought a dowry including property at Craigend and Dalhilloch, which like Glens were located in parish Balfron, as well as 4,900 Scottish merks. 

Signatures of Adam Colquhoun of Glens and his wife Giles MacFarlane, from their marriage contract. (Source: muniments of Clan MacFarlane Worldwide, Inc.)

Probate records of “Adame Colquhoune of Glennis” show he died in March 1655.  As I will detail in the next post, I believe Adam was born about 1612 or 1613, making him about 32 when he was married and 43 when he died.  Perhaps because he died young, his probate file does not include a will; rather it is a testament dative, which essentially just names executors and provides an inventory or valuation of possessions.  Unfortunately, I am not adept enough with old Scottish secretary hand to read the document in its entirety, but other names in the record that I can make out include Archibald Colquhoun of Kirkton (parish of Old Kilpatrick), James Galbraith, James Lockhart of Glens, John Koy of Craigend, Robert Koy, James Koy, Andrew Colquhoun of Garscube, Donald Mitchell, James Porter, Adam’s father-in-law Walter MacFarlane of Arrochar, John MacFarlane fiar of Arrochar, Adam’s nephew Sir John Colquhoun of Luss, Walter Colquhoun, and Jonet Colquhoun. 

In addition, there is mention of a “second son” Alexander Colquhoun, so it appears that Adam did have children, at least two of whom were sons.  I suspect the eldest son might have been named Walter Colquhoun, after his father-in-law, but I don’t know for sure.  I have not yet found any later Colquhouns styled “of Glens”, so further research is needed to figure out who Adam’s descendants might have been.  Whoever they were, they almost certainly do not include either the Robert Colquhoun made denizen of Ireland in 1630, or the Colhoun family of Crosh in Ireland.  As for the Adam Colhoun Sr. living at Corkagh in 1665, it seems he was not the son of Luss, so who was he?  That too remains a mystery—for now.

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Most Recent Posts

• The Colhouns of Crosh, Part 3: Scottish Origins
• The Colhouns of Crosh, Part 2: The McCausland Connection
• The Colhouns of Crosh, Part 1: The First Generations in Ireland
• The Colhouns of the Irish Gentry
• The Manor of Corkagh: Part 2 of 2