Donald McNaughton's Descendants

From Arnold McNaughton's 1954 book, this chapter tells the lineage of Donald McNaughton and his wife Elizabeth Kennedy and his second wife Anna Cameron. He had five children by each. Donald McNaughton was also a grandson of Thomas and Malcolm McNaughton who were born in Dunderave. (Thomas's son Duncan married Malcolm's daughter Katherine, first cousins.) Donald McNaughton was born about 65 years after the birth of Thomas and Malcolm. Malcolm was probably still alive at the time of Donald's birth. So Dunderave castle was not ancient history to Donald and his family. It was their living history. Donald McNaughton and Anna Cameron gave us the genealogy tree of our decent from John MacNauchtan of Dunderave.

Here is Arnold's chapter about them.

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THE McNAUGHTONS OF HAVELOCK

Ten years after Finlay McNaughton, John McFee and their families came to America and settled at Hemmingford, Finlay's elder brother Donald arrived with his wife and family.

Donald was born in 1776 at Corrie Chorle, Inverness-shire, Scotland, the eldest child of Duncan and Catherine McNaughton. When Finlay and John, his younger brothers, went to the Ross estate to learn the estate management business, Donald's interests took him into a far different field for he desired to enter the ministry. He was a studious man, and eventually became a scholar in both English and Gaelic. With this background he tutored boys for their entrance to Edinburgh University, the chief of these being the sons of the Kennedy family at Spean Bridge near Fort William. Two of the Kennedy sons went in for medicine and later returned home to practice in the Highlands, but unfortunately both died during the smallpox epidemic. While at the Kennedy home, Donald contracted a white swelling on his knee and had to be sent to Edinburgh to have it properly cared for. It seems that he was there for at least a couple of years and his friends pressed him to enter the University and study medicine; but no, he was determined to enter the church and refused. Although he never managed to carry out his ambition, he was always very religious and read the Bible right through twice a year, though few others ever manage to read it through even once in a lifetime.

The trouble which he had with his knee left him lame for the rest of his life; and after he came to America to live, he was known far and wide as "the lame schoolmaster".

It was while at the Kennedy home that he met Elizabeth Kennedy, a niece of the family, and they were married in 1814. He was then thirty-eight years old. They were five children by this marriage, Margaret in 1817, Alexander in 1820, Catherine in 1823, Thomas in 1825, and on the birth of Elizabeth in 1827 Donald's wife died. He continued with his teaching at Spean Bridge and tutored the younger sons of the Kennedy family.

However, owing to the difficulty of caring for his young family, he soon married again. His second wife was Anna Cameron whom he married in 1828. Her father had been in a bank, his duty being to bring the money up to the Highlands from Edinburgh which he did on horseback armed to protect it. On one of these trips he caught smallpox and died leaving his widow with three small children, one of whom was Anna who married Donald.

Donald was never closely associated with the sheep ranch which was finally managed by his brother John who married Catherine Cameron, no relation to Anna; and after selling out he retired to the Isle of Skye.

In the late spring of 1831, Donald sailed for America with his wife and family, leaving from Spean Bridge for a journey cross the Atlantic that took seven weeks and three days. The crossing was terribly stormy and the captain was so occupied with handling his ship that Donald assisted him by acting as chaplain throughout the whole voyage. There were apparently several people In board, just how many is unknown, but each family had brought practically all they possessed. As a provision for the younger children they brought a goat with them; and having survived the voyage it began life in the New World also, for they took it with them wherever they went. They arrived safely at Quebec towards the beginning of the fall season. At Quebec, corn on the cob was brought on board and passed around. This was a novelty to the passengers especially to Donald's wife who picked off the kernels and threw them into the water trying to eat the bare cob. A passenger sitting beside her during those few minutes and seeing what she was doing told her that she was throwing away what should be eaten, and explained that the kernels were delicious and nourishing but the cob was as useless as the stone of a cherry. This little incident seems to have survived after so many years and appears in the history of the family written by the granddaughter of Donald McNaughton, Donalda McFee, who knew her step-grandmother Anna Cameron personally.

From Quebec the family made their way to Montreal, and some time in September 1831 reached Hemmingford where a family reunion was held at the old Dunderave homestead. Donald and his family moved into the vacant log house on Finlay's place which they too had used ten years earlier on arriving here, and lived there until 1833. In that year Donald purchased a farm of 106 acres eight miles west of Hemmingford at Vicar's Corners or Havelock as it is called today. This was the most westerly part of the property that his brother Finlay had bought from the Waterloo veterans, and in September 1833 he moved his family there at the foot of Covey Hill. During his two years at Hemmingford, Donald continued his educational work by teaching at the district school.

By his second wife Donald had five more children, the eldest of whom was Jessie, born in 1829 in Scotland, and Christena in 1831 at Inverness. The three who were born at Havelock were Hughena in 1833, Donald in 1835 and Andria in 1838. All but Christena were laid to rest in the Hemmingford cemetery.

With the help of his eldest son Alex who was about twelve years old, Donald cleared the farm and brought up his family. It was here that he died nearly twenty years later, but by then most of his family had departed elsewhere.

His eldest child by his first marriage was Margaret who married Frederick Wood in 1844 at the Fisher home in Barrington, Que., three miles north Hemmingford. Fred was an Englishman who lived in Hemmingford where he worked as a bookkeeper in Fisher's store after arriving in this country. His people had been quite well-to-do, but like the McNaughtons after the Napoleonic wars, the times had been against them. His father, a prosperous wine merchant, had invested money in a coaching service from London to Dover. Then came the railways, and all he made in his wine business was needed to keep his coaches going. Finally he died leaving his son and daughter badly off. They had lived in an attractive suburb of London, but after the father died they all decided to come to Canada, the others going to London, Ont., while Frederick came to Hemmingford.

After they were married, Margaret and Fred Wood lived at Beauharnois where her sister Catherine and her husband were living at the time, but Frederick's bookkeeping took him to various other places to which he did not always take his family. In their later years they went west to Vancouver Island and both died at Victoria. They had six children: Henry, Catherine, Frederick, Donald, Mary and George.

Henry Wood, the eldest son, went to Chicago where he had a grocery business which he carried on successfully. He married Phoebe Cornelia but had no family. Catherine, or Kate as she was called, never married and lived with her family, then died at London, Ont., but was taken for burial to Victoria, B.C., where her parents are buried. Mary Wood married John Winer Wardrope and they lived in Ottawa where he had a good position in the lumber business of his brother-in-law, Mr. Greer. They had seven daughters and one son, who have lived miles apart from one another for many years. All attempts to locate their whereabouts have been unsuccessful at this time of writing.

Donald Wood married Elizabeth McLaren whose sister married Donald's first cousin Alexander Mcree, brother of Donalda McFee who has supplied so much information for this story. Donald died when he was thirty-nine years old leaving his widow with three small children, then the fourth, Donalda, now Mrs. George Mallinson of Montreal, was born a few months later. The eldest of the family is Dorothea, or Dora, now Mrs. Juergens of Venice, California, then Arthur McNaughton Wood who lives in Peterborough, Ont., and David, also of Peterborough. It was David's youngest son Douglas who at the age of twenty-one died in an air crash near Goose Bay, Labrador, in February 1953.

George Wood was the youngest child of Margaret McNaughton and Fred Wood. He went west with his parents when they were fairly advanced in years. He married and lived in Chicago for a time and later in California where he died at Riverside. He had no family but had adopted a girl, Gladys Norah.

The third child of Donald McNaughton of Havelock was Catherine who married her first cousin Coll McFee of Hemmingford in 1846. He was the son of John McFee and Catherine McNaughton. They lived at St. Chrysostome near Havelock where seven of their nine children were born, Elizabeth, Alexander, Kutusoff, Peter, the twins Catherine and Anna, and Coll who died when he was only a year old. They then moved to Beauharnois where Louisa was born in 1860 and then Donalda in 1863. Three days after Donalda's birth her mother died, and for several years Donalda was cared for and brought up by her Aunt Jessie McNaughton at Havelock.

The eldest son of Donald McNaughton was Alexander who married Jane Brisbin of Covey Hill and lived on the farm at Havelock in a house he built for himself behind where the apple orchard now is. He carried on the farm at Havelock for his father until the latter died in 1838, and a couple of years later he went west to Iowa with his wife and six of their children to farm. They left their twin son Donald, known here as Smithy, with his Aunts Jessie and Hughena until he was twenty-three years old, for the aunts were so attached to him. He then went west, I think some time around 1877, with a friend of his father who had a large ranch in Nebraska. After continuing on to Iowa to where his parents lived, and making their acquaintance after not having seen them since he was six years old, he returned to his friend's ranch in Nebraska until he became manager of it. Later, as this section of Nebraska was being settled more and more, they moved the ranch to Montana where there was greater scope for cattle raising. By that time he had his own herd of about eight hundred head of cattle. The labour used on the ranch was Mexican, many of whom returned south in the cold winters. Smithy, as manager, was obliged to remain on horseback most of the time, overseeing the cattle and the ranch help; but in time he found that the blazing sun was injuring his eyesight. On the advice of his oculist he was obliged to leave the ranch and sell his share, and then went to Iowa where he bought about two hundred and fifty acres of land but at some distance from his father's farm. From the beginning he put it in the hands of a tenant manager, the son of a Danish farmer who lived near his father.

In 1893 Smithy's grandmother died and in 1897 his uncle Donald, leaving the two old maiden aunts all alone at Havelock on their farm. It was then that Smithy returned to the east nearly every year to help his aunts, returning to the west for short intervals to look after his own property. In 1907 when a fire destroyed the old home at Havelock one summer afternoon, he returned east to help build another home for his aunts before the winter set in. In 1922 after his Aunt Jessie died at the age of ninety-two, Smithy seldom came back east. Finally in 1941 he and his nephew John Briggs made a visit to the old home which for many years had been vacant. Leaving the place in the care of his cousin Anna McFee, he returned to the west and was active until his death on October 4, 1951, when he had reached the grand old age of ninety-seven. He never married but left several nephews and nieces in the west.

Smithy had four brothers and four sisters all of whom remained in the west. The eldest was Charles who had two children, Janet and Vernon, who I believe went to California; Finley remained on his father's farm in Iowa; Louisa married Thomas Gillan who was the town Marshal of Laporte City, Iowa. They had two daughters, Neva and Pearl, the latter of whom survives and lives at Cloutier, Iowa, and has a large family. Donalda, the twin of Smithy, married Andrew Hoenig and had three children. John and Joseph were the two youngest who farmed in Iowa but never married, neither did their sister Jane who stayed on the farm with them. Anna married William Briggs and had two sons the elder of whom John, a Professor in the State University of Iowa, Iowa City, passed away very suddenly in February 1952.

The second son of Donald of Havelock was Thomas who went St. Paul, Minnesota. He married a Southerner, Laura Lawson, and they had a son Robert and two daughters, Rebecca and Olive. Due to the great distances between Thomas's family and those here, all contacts between the two have disappeared with the years and efforts to find their descendants' locations have so far proved fruitless.

(Excuse me for inserting this information. In the 1970's Arnold McNaughton contacted the postmaster in St Paul, Minnesota and got addresses for all the McNaughtons who lived there, and he wrote to them in search of the descendants of Thomas McNaughton. In this way he found us. Or rather, he found my cousin Russel McNaughton. What a doorway into our past Arnold opened up for us! Minnesota records indicate Thomas McNaughton was living in St Paul as early as 1860. Thomas married Laura Lawson in 1867. They had three children, Robert Watson McNaughton, Rebecca Ann McNaughton, and Olive McNaughton. Olive married Henry Flint. They lived in Pepin Wisconsin and had no children. Rebecca Ann McNaughton married Daniel Gordon House and they had four children and many of their descendants of this line exist today. Robert Watson McNaughton married Sarah Howard in 1896 and they had four sons, the second of whom was my grandfather, Robert Clifford McNaughton, born in 1899. Robert Clifford McNaughton married Mable Uglem in 1925 and they had one daughter, my mother, Norma Jean McNaughton. She married Thomas Ross Holme Sr, my father, in 1946. And they had five children, me and my siblings. Now - back to Arnold's chapter.

The third daughter of Donald McNaughton of Havelock was Elizabeth, known to the folks at home as the Aunt Betsy. She married John Stuart of Howick and they migrated to Minnesota where they raised their six children. All efforts so far to find the locations of this family have also been abortive.

Of Donald McNaughton of Havelock's second family, only two of the five children married. Jessie the eldest remained on father's farm where she died at the age of ninety-two, and it is from her that so much of this family history was passed on to her niece Donalda McFee many years ago. She was largely responsible for the early upbringing of her nephew Smithy McNaughton and her niece Donalda McFee when they were very young. She never married and was the last of the family of that generation who died. After Jessie came Christena who married her first cousin John McCallum, his mother and her mother being Cameron sisters. They had a large family of eight children. After much searching through the old records I discovered that this family had gone to Ontario and that Ailsa Craig was where they settled. A note to the postmaster of that town resulted in my contacting the family and a daughter of Christena and John at Ilderton who has so whole-heartedly given of her time to supply the needed information. Until then the families here knew nothing about this branch of the family tree at all.

Hughena McNaughton was the next child of Donald. She remained on the farm at Havelock with her sister Jessie and brother Donald. She died there in 1917 unmarried. Their brother Donald had for many years been crippled with rheumatism and arthritis and died in 1897 also unmarried.

Andria, the youngest of the family often, married Thomas Saunders in 1867. He lived on the Franklin Road and was a member for the district in the Provincial Legislature. They built a house for themselves which still stands at Havelock Corners close to her parents' farm, but she died within a year in childbirth. Her husband who remained at Havelock never remarried.

When Donald and his family first came to America they built a large wooden house, giving their farm the name of Sandy Hill because of the quantity of sand found on their property. In August 1907 the house burned down owing to an overheated stovepipe; but thanks to the neighbours' efforts a great deal of furniture was saved, although many family treasures and keepsakes were destroyed. Smithy came east immediately to help build a new home for his aunts before the winter set in. The second home was built on the foundation of the original and was a large two-storeyed frame house Which was very plain It was clapboarded on the outside, and into this the family moved to spend the rest of their days. In 1917 Aunt Hughena died in her seventy-seventh year and Smithy returned to stay with his Aunt Jessie, who was now all alone, except for very short intervals when business called him to the west. When Aunt Jessie passed away in 1922 the home was occupied for a few years by neighbours and then for nearly twenty-five years it remained unoccupied. For some time a neighbour was left in charge to keep an eye on the property, and in 1941 When Smithy made his last visit east he left it in the care of his cousin Anna McFee. However, as she was living some distance away, she seldom visited the place; and then shortly after the recent war her youngest sister Donalda acquired it and had a new and modern home built on the original foundation of the two previous homes.