Official Clan MacTavish Society

                                    since 1997

105a. This kist contains the remains of Letitia Lockhart MacTavish, wife to Sheriff Dugald MacTavish. Letitia died exactly one month to the day after Sheriff MacTavish in 1854. The brown cross was erected with the inscription by William MacTavish, Governor of Assinaboia and Ruperts Land, of the Hudson Bay Company Canada on his first trip back to Scotland after the death of his father and mother.

105b. This stone has now been moved inside a small building and standing erect. It is said to be of the era of 1500 and it is an effigy of a Clan Chief. The three items of coat of mail, pointed helmet and long, two-handed sword (the real claymore) indicated a Clan Chief. The long sword was so heavy (6-7 foot long) and required two hands to handle them - in battle the sword could literally cut a man in two. NOTE: Taus and Iver are buried in Kilmartin Churchyard.

106. There must have been a class or guild of monastic stone cutters who went about carving stones, having their own patterns, so that "Iona Crosses" does not necessarily mean crosses brought from Iona, but crosses cut either by Iona workmen or after the Iona style. Kilmartin and Strachur present us with such stones, their carvings being of identical patterns.

106a. It is evident that Tavish Mhor (the younger son) was expelled from the family by his father, the Chief, for the act of killing his older brother (the heir). Had this been other than a brother who killed the heir, there is no doubt that the Chief (in those days) would have had him put to death.

107. PHH - Pg. 17: Scat - Norse tax on land.

108. Carswell's father had been Constable or Keeper of Carnassary Castle, within which in 1520, John Carswell had been born. A student at St. Andrews, he took his degree in 1544. After a somewhat troubled early manhood, he went to Iona, and in 1553 became rector of Kilmartin, and was appointed by Parliament Superintendent of Argyll and of the Isles. The pasture seems to have been very lean so that in 1564, he accepted from Queen Mary the appointment of "Bishop of the Isles," holding it till he died though under censure of the Assembly for accepting that appointment. Carswell showed a remarkable zeal in furnishing not merely his own Diocese but the Reformed Church, with evangelical truth, in the number of his translations of such into Gaelic. He translated the Genevan "Book of Order" and thus laid the foundations of Evangelical Presbyterianism in Western Argyll. He may have occupied Carnasserie for a time, but certainly he neither built or owned it. Carswell died in 1575.

109. Sweyne Castle seems to have been to some extent still habitable, for so late as 1685, its keepership was given to the Campbells from whom it had previously been taken away. In 1678, Inventory of Donald or Dougall MacT. "lawful son of the deceased John" - who had died in April 1677 - gave up the Inventory of Donald given by his brother Hew or Hugh.

110. S.H.S. Scottish History Society