Stewarts of Ballintoy and some related families

[pablo1]

Lord Dawson, prior to marrying Philadelphia Freame in 1770,  was first married to Lady Ann Formor, 6th dau of Thomas, 1st Earl of Pomfred.

Also, another son of Christopher Dawson was the Rt. Rev. Robert Dawson, who died in 1643.
(See book, Clergy of Connor);  Rev. Robert Dawson had issue,
Robert, b 1621
Rowland
Mattew
Randal
Margarie, m. abt. 1642 to Col. James Harris.

[Gilby]

These Dawsons are probably related to Dawson Downing who married Katherine Fullerton, niece and heiress of Alexander Fullerton who bought the Ballintoy estate from the Stewarts in about 1759.

[Gilby]

This will interest you I am sure!  This is a Crossle abstract (PRONI T780/1) of a petition by Archibald Stewart to the Duke of Ormonde, probably in about 1663:

In the year 1643, your Grace was pleased to grant him a commission to raise a troop of horse and a foot company and your Grace assigned him his own lands for quarters for them.  Your petitioner raised them and went to the field and joined with Major General Munro, to serve against the common enemy, according to your Grace’s orders, and was upon the field with them, from June till the last of October.  When your Grace’s petitioner came off the field, he was denied quarters for one more [?] by Argile’s Lieutenant Colonel who forced your petitioner to disband his men after all the charge he was at in raising them.  In the year ____ [blank] he was the means (by God’s providence) to break the said Regiment of Argile’s, and procured 500 men of the said regiment to join with Sir George Monro to go to England upon Duke Hamilton’s engagement under the command of your petitioner’s son-in-law Major Alexander MacAuley, for which after the Duke was broken at Preston, your Grace’s Petitioner was prosecuted by Argile’s Lieutenant Colonel, before the now Duke of Albemarle, then commander of Ulster and was brought to a council of war held at Belfast for life and estate, as the Lord Conway and Major George Rawdon can testify.

So this would suggest Alexander MacAuley's wife Alice Stewart was daughter of Archibald rather than Ninian.  And if that's true, might Christian Stewart also have been his daughter?

[pablo1]

Gilby, I have come across this before, but I have never been able to reconcile it as Alexander Macaulay, Arthur Dobbs, and Conway Richard Dobbs were all involved in the preparation of the Hutchinson Bequest which states that Alice is descended from Ninian.
This is one of the mysteries that we are faced with.
By the way, I was unable to find any evidence of another Ninion who had d. Abt. 1740 or that William had a son named James.  As such, I doubt whether this family was of the Ballintoy line.
I am still trying to unravel the Stewart-Dawson connection.

[Gilby]

Hmm, there are two possible explanations I can think of:

1. He was using the term “son-in-law” very loosely to refer to the husband of his niece.  Perhaps Alice had even lived with Archibald, and he considered her a sort of daughter.

2. There was a second Archibald Stewart (as stated by Hill) who was the father of Mary Stewart who married Richard Dobbs, while Alice was the daughter of Archibald senior.  This would explain why the Dobbs bible didn’t mention Alice (or Christian).

However, I’m increasingly doubting whether there was a second Archbald for reasons I’ll explain later if I get around to it.

Do you happen to understand the chain of events described in the 1663 petition?  I’m a bit confused about his run-ins with the Argyle regiment.

[Gilby]

By the way (you probably know this already too) the Crossle abstract is from the Carte papers which are now in the Bodleian library, so it may be possible for someone to view the original someday.  And there may be other letters.

[Gilby]

And here’s a relevant bit from the Dobbs report:

Several witnesses swore to Christian Stewart, the mother of testator, being the daughter of Archibald Stewart, of Ballantoy, by his wife Martha Dobbin; but besides contrary parole testimony, an old family bible in the possession of Dean Dobbs, of Carrickfergus, was given in evidence, in which the names of the children of Archibald were put down; and not one of them, except the name of Mary, answered to the names of the brothers and sisters of Christian, and that Mary was married to Richard Dobbs: Whereas Mary, the sister of Christian, was married to Mecum McConoghy.  Besides this, there was clear evidence that the wife of that Archibald was a Ward of the county of Down; and Mrs. Shaw, a most respectable old lady of 95 years of age, and perfectly clear in understanding, swore that Jane McCullogh was one of the Testator’s grandmothers; and beyond all doubt, Mary Ann Boyd was the other.  This Mrs. Shaw was well acquainted with the family, and Mrs. Ann McAlister another old witness, who had lived in the family for many years, also proved that Ninion Stewart was the father of Christian.  I am this particular as to shewing that Archibald was not her father; and that Martha Dobbin was not her mother; because some thousands of claimants came forward, as allied to said Martha Dobbin, the alleged wife of Archibald Stewart, and th alleged mother of Christian, the mother of Testator.

[pablo1]

The only reason I can think of as to why Archibald may have gotten into trouble with the Campbells would be due to his relationship with Alexander Macaulay and the MacDonnels.
Macaulay came to Ulster under the command of Sir Duncan Campbell of Auchinbreck.  I can imagine that he wasn't very pleased when Macaulay jumped ship so to speak.  And as Stewart had acted as agent to the Antrim family, this probably doubled the Campbell ire as they knew that the MacDonnells would like to get back their lands in Scotland that had been taken by the Campbells.
In addition, even before Capt. Alexander arrived in Ulster, c. 1618, the Chief of Clan Macaulay, also named Alexander, had lodged a complaint against Archibald Campbell, Provost of Kilmun, for harassing his workers and stealing their salt and salmon.  There was just a lot of bad blood between these parties.

[Gilby]

Ok, thanks.  I’m struggling to understand who was on which side and when!

I think Robert Monro, Archibald Stewart and the Argyll Regiment were all on the same side in 1643 when “Argile’s Lieutenant Colonel” (Alexander Leslie?) forced Stewart to disband his regiment.

Between 1644 and 1646, Robert Monro left for Scotland where he fought against the Royalists.  Archibald Stewart later sided with George Munro who was a Royalist.  So when Stewart had “the means (by God’s providence) to break the said Regiment of Argile’s” sometime between 1644 and 1648 they may have been on opposing sides.

I think Stewart is saying that he took 500 men from Argyll’s regiment and sent them under the command of Alexander MacAuley to fight with George Munro in England (where they were defeated at the Battle of Preston in 1648).