Interesting little puzzle.
We had the baptisms of Duncan McIntosh's five children and had not bothered to get all of the locations as they were outside of 'our' parish of Blair Atholl. As we knew that 1st and 4th were Drumachuine we assumed that the others were likewise. We are using the spelling 'Drumachuine' as that is the title used by the heir to Clan Robertson, even if the Clan no longer owns the land.
Angus Campbell and his wife Janet McDiarmid were living at Black Park of Drumachuine in October 1781 when their daughter Janet was born / baptised (Blair Atholl OPR). Their first child, Margaret, was born at Black Park of Murlagan in July 1770. Now Murlagan is the old name for the Dunalastair estate (i.e. Robertson), and Black Park is just to the north of Dunalastair. After the '45, the Forfeited Estates Commissions tried to settle goverment ex-soldiers at Black Park as a sort of militia. The whole area was deep-ploughed and a deep drainage ditch dug to change the moorland into reasonable land for crops and livestock. The settlement 'Maragdubh' is just to the west. In Gaelic it means 'Black Pudding', so it was encouragement for a tenant - rich black soil!
Anyway, this is a sort of area that you are looking for, not the Killiecrankie site.
It may seem strange that the baptisms of children born at Drumachuine and Drumcastle are mentioned in the Blair Atholl OPRs as they are not in that parish. James Stobie's map of Perthshire, 1783, shows Easter and Wester Drumachewan to the west of Mount Alexander (Dunalastair). It also shows that it was in a detachment part of the parish of Logierait, surrounded by the parish of Fortingall.
Detached sections of a parish often arose when a principal land-owner possessed small pieces of ground in distant places, and this may be the case here. Drumachuine, and Drumcastle next to it, were part of the Duke of Atholl's estate. In January 1738, two of the Dukes vassals, Donald McDonald of Sandwick and Alan Stewart, wadsetter of Innerhadden, agreed to an exchange of land. Alan Stewart gave up his right to Drumachuine and Drumcastle to Donald McDonald who, in return, gave up his right to Innerhadden to Alan Stewart.
Throth (
www.borenich.co.uk)
