Tropical Beans Inscription Skipness MacKays Gathering
Three Interesting E-mails
From: BobKamman@aol.com
To: iforshaw@ndirect.co.uk
Date: 03 October 1998 09:45
Subject: Wonderful Online Magazine -- thanks
I found you through a link from Johnny McKinnon. As I wrote him:
I always knew I had some Scottish and Irish relatives, but I now learn that
my great-great-grandfather was Peter Ross, of Campbeltown, and (should I
believe this?) my great-great-grandmother was Annie Murphy, of Ballycastle.
"According to family tradition," a relative who has done considerable
genealogical research writes, "when Peter Ross was courting Annie Murphy,
he would row across the North Channel, after nightfall, to call on his
sweetheart. From the best information available, it is believed that he had
to row his boat from the Mull of Kintyre to Benmore Head, a distance of 10
to 12 miles. Because their marriage was frowned upon by both families concerned,
they decided to elope and left Ireland for America, settling in Zanesville,
Ohio where they had friends."
These events would have taken place around 1845.
I was particularly interested in the reference to Johnny Ross, the distiller
of the early 1800s. If there are other references to Ross family members
that I have overlooked, please let me know.
The American experience of Peter Ross and Annie Murphy is not a happy one.
Peter was killed in a bridge construction accident, four months before my
great-grandmother Cecelia Ross was born; and Annie died, four months after
her birth. Cecelia was adopted by Robert and Ellen Campbell, who then moved
to Iowa; Cecelia's three older brothers remained in Ohio with another family.
I wonder if Robert Campbell has Campbeltown connections, perhaps to early
historian Mary Campbell. I hope to come visit your part of the world someday,
to find out.
Bob Kamman
Phoenix, Arizona
From: Bruce Arnott
BNARNO@webtv.net
To: iforshaw@ndirect.co.uk
Date: 03 October 1998 19:19
Subject: Campbeltown
Just read your notice in the Campbell Clan page. My Arnott ancestors
emigrated from Campbleton in 1828 to Canada. I visited Campbleton in 1993
at farm Auchencorvey where the Arnot family were tenant farmers from late
1700's until 1828. Received much assistance from Mrs. Efric Wotherspoon,
Mrs. Francis Hood, Mr. A.I.B. Stewart, and Angus Martin (Mailman) all of
"Kintyre Antiquarian and Natural History Society." Am also related to Ferguson,
McSporran, Howie, and Currie families.
At this writing it is believed more likely Arnots were attached to clan Donald
than clan Campbell.
Sincerely,
Bruce Arnott
Michigan, U.S.A.
From:
CPort1214@aol.com
Date: 25 November 1998 21:24
To:
iforshaw@ndirect.co.uk
Subject: Re Kintyre Mag
I am a new subscriber to the semi-annual Kintyre Magazine and only
discovered with the Autumn 1998 issue that you had this wonderful web-site!
Thanks so very much for your sterling efforts.
I visited Campbeltown in May of this year (stayed a week at Rosemount ) Sorry
I did not know about you then ---I would have enjoyed a visit.
My ancestral connection is thru the Porter's of Crossibeg farm & Baraskomill
farm. I have traced them back to1679. My Great,Great Grandfather John Porter
married Janet McNair of Smerby Mill in 1816---they came to the US in 1821
and settled in Nicholsville Ohio.
The letters you published last year from Alexander Porter & Robert Porter
were of interest to me because they were brothers to John Porter. Also, in
the Autumn issue of the book, Lt. Col. John Porter was also part of our
family.
Sorry to get carried away on this subject; but you know how important it
is to fill up all the gaps.
I shall look forward to all future efforts on your part. Thank you for the
reading & thinking pleasure.
Best regards,
Carl S Porter
2821 Cromwell Drive
Columbus Georgia 31906
TROPICAL BEANS
Angus Martin
I'd read about tropical beans long before I ever
saw one, so that when I did see my first I had a good idea what it was. But
I didn't expect to see where I did see it - lying among the tide-borne litter
of the Inans, that bit of Paradise that somehow went adrift in the master
plan of Creation, and ended up in the unlikeliest of spots. That was in June
of 1987, and I placed the bean in my display-cabinet reserved for just such
curios, delighted to have found one and not expecting ever to chance upon
another.
But, in 1988 - on 25 June, during another solitary hike to the Inans - I got it into my head that I would look for another bean. I spent only minutes in the bay, and to my surprise I had another. It was high up the shore - a winter arrival, no doubt - and was bigger than my first, with a cracked and weathered surface, suggesting a longer passage through the elements.
These beans, for the benefit of anyone who wants to know what he or she should be looking for, are tough-skinned, brown-coloured, quite dumpy, and fit comfortably into the hollow of a hand. Tropical Beans is one name for them, but they are also called West Indian Beans and Molucca Beans. They are the seeds of a West Indian climbing vine, with the scientific name Entada gigas and are one of about a dozen kinds of bean which cross the Atlantic.
The vines grow close to the sea and the beans fall into the water and float. They can then drift into the Gulf Stream and so carried towards Western Europe end up on beaches all down the west side of Britain and Ireland. The crossing is reckoned to take about two years.
Dr Malcolm A. Ogilvie, Director of the Islay Field Centre in Port Charlotte - which has a couple of the beans on exhibit - tells me that they have been worn as lucky charms in parts of Western Britain, and that fishermen in Devon and Cornwall keep one on their wheelbouses to protect themselves from drowning. In West Wales, they are given to babies to cut their teeth on. (I offered one to my first child, Sarah, when she was cutting teeth, but she refused to have anything to do with it!)
Closer to home, Margaret Fay Shaw - in her Folksongs and Folklore of South Uist - described a "large glossy Molucca bean called Cno Mhoire or Mary's Nut, found in the seaweed on the Atlantic shore... This bean brought luck to the finder, who carried it with him, and I have seen one made into a neat snuff-box for an old lady. Another smaller bean which comes from the same source sometimes has a mark like a cross and is called Airne Mhoire or Mary's Kidney. Young women used it as a charm to guard virtue, and it was also held in the hand during childbirth".
Under cno-bhacaill, Dwelly's Gaelic Dictionary records the Lewis tradition of young women wearing the beans strung around their necks as a "charm"; and under cno-spuinge that same authority - evidently, treating the two as distinct - mentions that the kernels were "used as a cure for diarrhoea and dysentry".
The Skyeman, Martin Martin, writing about 1695 in A Description of the Western Islands of Scotland, referred to a "variety of nuts called molluka beans" which in Harris were "used as amulets against witchcraft or an evil eye". Children wore them around their necks. Martin mentioned a "white" bean which was especially protective. It was supposed to turn black in the presence of evil.
Some weeks before Martin's arrival on the island, the cows belonging to Malcolm Campbell, steward of Harris, "for several days together" gave blood instead of milk. One of the neighbours told his wife that witchcraft was to blame and advised that she take "the white nut, called the Virgin Mary's Nut, and lay it in the pail into which she was to milk the cows". At the milking of the first cow blood came, but the bean changed its colour. She used it again, "and all the cows gave pure good milk, which (the people) ascribe to the virtue of the nut". Martin concluded: "This very nut Mr. Campbell presented me with, and I keep it still by me".
Such, then, is the folklore surrounding these Atlantic-voyaging beans. Until recently, I had prided myself in possessing the only ones found on the Kintyre shores, though I could scarcely believe it to be so. In April of last year, however, on a hike to the Inans with my wife and first child, and George McSporran and his son Sandy, we lingered in the Galdrans, beachcombing. To my chagrin, I'm ashamed to say, I witnessed George's finding of a tropical bean - he spotted it right at my feet!
Later in the year, in conversation with Alasdair Thompson, a native of Campbeltown and friend of my school-days, now married in Sarnia, Canada, I mentioned the beans and showed him my finds. He immediately recognised them as being identical to one he had picked up as a boy on Westport beach. He took it home and kept it, without knowing exactly what it was, but it later disappeared, and he suspected his mother of having thrown it out.
The Inans to Westport is probably the approximate range of these beans in Kintyre, though they may also appear farther north. It is likely that they come and go with the tides, but if you happen to be walking on that stretch of coast, look out for them - you might be lucky in finding one, and, by finding one, consolidate your luck!
Editor's Note. J.F. Campbell, under the heading "The Fairy Egg and what came of it" begins his lengthy introduction to his four volume Popular Tales of the West Highlands with a reference to these beans and states: "Philosophers having discovered what they were, used them to demonstrate the existence of the Gulf Stream, and it is even said that they formed a part of one link in that chain of reasoning which led Columbus to the New World".
Norman Newton tells me that these beans, imported by the bagful, are for sale in Oban souvenir shops. These however surely cannot have the magical 'properties of beans which have crossed the Atlantic under their own steam!
No 27 Spring 1990
Inscription in Stewarton (Ayrshire) Old Churchyard
Jean Stark,
native of Campbelltown,
who was 45 Years
in the service of
Mrs Patrick of Drumbuie
and died at Standalane
1st October 1842
John Menzies at one time kept the Public House in the village. He also farmed Strone and was a cattle drover as well at the same time a man named Peter Macmillan kept the Public House at Claonaig. People used to come from all parts to Claonaig Fair which was held twice a year in May and November, for buying and selling cattle. So these two worthies John Menzies and Peter Macmillan met in Claonaig one Fair day, they were drinking together. Menzies had a wife and family, but Macmillan was a bachelor. So when Menzies was in his cups he sold his wife to Peter Macmillan. Menzies after coming home and getting sober forgot all about the transaction. But Macmillan did not, he came next day in full dress on horseback with an extra saddle for John Menzies wife. The wife did not know anything about it until Macmillan told her that he had bought her the day before and demanding her to mount his horse. There was a terrific row between Menzies and his wife. It is said that she thrashed him up and down the village until his clothes were in tatters. She did not go away with Macmillan, but she had a small room built at the back of the house for herself. It was said that she never ate nor slept with her husband after that, also that she never forgave him for selling her to Peter Macmillan.
No 35 Spring 1994
A GENEALOGY of the MACKAYS of UGADALE
Fearchar McImair ic Gillachrist mc Gilleaspic ic Gillanaemh
ic Gillacrist ic Cormac mc Gillamichel ic Aid ic Gallbuirt
ic Gillacatan mc Domnaill ic Eoghan ic Filip ic Disiat
ic Eordi ic Angusa ic Finlaeic ic Carla ic Domnail og
ic domnaill duin ic Fearudaig
From "A Book in the Mitchell Library"
The Gathering
MACEOIN DUBH, son of Black John was the title of the Chief of Clan
MacAlister. A new light on this appears in a recent edition of The Fayetteville
Observer, North Carolina where some 200 of the clan, all as black as the
Ace of Spades and representing five generations met for a family reunion!
(Quoted as printed. No disrespect meant to our
African-American brothers and sisters - Ian)
Page 2: A Presidential Brush-off // Family History
Page 3: The Bronze Age Cist Burials at Monybachach, Skipness
Page 4: Campbeltown's Glasgow Face
Page 5: A Beached Sowerby's Whale // Somerled Lives On
Page 6: The Ritchies of Sanda Island
Page 7: The Haldanes in Kintyre
Page 8: By Hill and Shore - Delights from Mr. Angus Martin
Page 10: The Wm Low Supermarket // Carradale Rental 1724