Angus, son of Donald Fraser, was born or baptised on 20 February 1759 in Petty, Inverness-shire, Scotland.[1]
Angus Fraser married Anne Russell on July 13, 1790 in the Church of Scotland Petty, Inverness-shire. (The Church is also referred to as Old Petty Church; St Columba's Church; and Macintosh Vault. It is no longer in use.) Anne was 19 at the time of her marriage. Their second of four children was John Fraser, our direct ancestor.
Death: Date: betw 1799-1802 Petty, Inverness-shire, Scotland
Pettie was almost all an entirely agricultural parish, since the whole population, with the exception of the fishers, were employed directly in agriculture, or the subservient arts. Produce grown included turnips, potatoes, hay, pasture grass, oats, wheat and barley.
The Minister of the Parish Church writes of Petty in 1791-9: “The inhabitants of this parish are in general sober, peaceable and industrious. The Gaelic continues in use among them. Most of them can speak nothing else. The Highland dress is still retained by them in great measure. The plaid is almost totally laid aside, but the small blue bonnet, the short coat, the tartan kilt and hose, and the Highland brogues are still the ordinary dress of the men….There are no towns, no villages, no manufactures in this parish. All the inhabitants are farmers or cottagers employed by them. The number of farmers is not less than 90. The cottagers are partly servants and labourers to the tenants and partly other occupations as taylors, weavers, shoemakers etc. There are four mills in the parish for grinding the grain. Besides grain, there is a good deal of potatoes raised. Some of the tenants raise flaxwhich the women spin and have manufactured into linen – some of it very fine, for sale, and some coarser for domestic use…The number of horses is not less than 450. The number of black cattle is about 1,400, mostly oxen used on the plough – eight of them together. Most of the tenant cottagers have sheep. The number is about 2,500. They are a very small size. The wool is spun by the women and manufactured into coarse cloth for domestic use and the sheep are disposed of to the butchers of Inverness and Fort George.”
Petty is a parish on the south side of the Moray Firth, in the extreme NE of the county of Inverness. The average breadth is about 2 miles; and the area is 10,697 acres. A central hollow, from 30 to 40 feet above sea-level, passes along the whole parish from NE to SW, and from this the surface slopes to the SE to a height varying from 150 feet at the N end to over 300 near the South end, along the ridge above Culloden Moor. Between the central hollow and the sea in the North there is a strip of flat ground sloping gradually to the shore; in the centre and S the ground slopes up to a height of over 100 feet, and then down to a terrace along the 50-feet contour, from which there is a rapid fall to the shore. The coast is low and sandy and with a very gentle slope, so that a considerable amount of foreshore is uncovered at low water. Almost the whole surface is under cultivation or woodland, but there is mossy and benty land extending probably to nearly 1000 acres. There are about 1800 acres under wood. The soil toward the sea is light loam and clayey sand, but along the hollow and on the south-eastern slope it is much stronger and very fertile. The underlying rock belongs to the upper Old Red Sandstone system.
The ancient territory of Petty and Brachly first occurs in record as part of the possessions of a branch of the great family of De Moravia, who seem to have held these lands as tenants of the Crown, from the end of the twelfth century and early in the thirteenth century.
The mansions are Castle Stuart (1¼ mile WSW of Dalcross station), Flemington (½ mile NE of Fort George station), and Gollanfield (7 furlongs ENE of Fort George station). The first is a seat of the Earl of Moray, and is a fine example of the castellated mansion of the early part of the 17th century. Traditionally the date of its erection is earlier, some making it a residence of James IV, others assigning it to the Regent Murray; but the building bears date 1625, and Sir Robert Gordon, in his History of the Earldom of Sutherland, says that in 1624 the Clan Chattan went 'to ane hous which he [the Earl] hath now of late built in Pettie called Castell Stuart, they drive away his servants from thence, and doe possess themselves of all the Earl of Moray his rents in Pettie.' This date is also borne out by the style of the building, a large high-roofed structure of several stories, with the great hall and principal rooms in the upper part. In front there is a square projecting tower at each end. That to the west, which contains the main staircase, seems somewhat older than the rest of the building. Formerly the castle was surrounded by a fine park and an orchard noted for its greens; but the trees were all cut down about 1835, the park ploughed up, and the roof of the building removed, so that had not the proprietor's attention been called to it the whole would soon have been a ruin. It was then repaired, and is now used as a hotel.
Lying close to the clan grounds and in possession of the Earls of Moray, whom the Highlanders looked on as foes, Petty was much exposed to inroads for plunder. One such attack has been already noticed, and other two that occurred early in the 16th century are known as the Herschips of Petty.
Behind Castle Stuart is the church of Petty, and on the bank to the West of it are two large tumuli or moat hills. In the churchyard, many of the chiefs of Mackintosh lie buried, and the procession at the funeral of Lachlan Mackintosh, who died in 1731, reached from Dalcross Castle to the churchyard, a distance by road of about 4 miles. In the Bay of Petty close at hand is the famous boulder known as 'the travelled stone of Petty.' It is from 6 to 7 feet long, from 5 to 6 feet wide, and about 6 feet high, and with a projecting ledge all round it near the lower side. It originally served as a march stone between the properties of the Earl of Moray and Forbes of Culloden.
The parish contains a village of the same name near the church, and two small hamlets. Petty is in the presbytery of Inverness and synod of Moray, and is formed of the old parishes of Petyn and Bracholy, which were united after the Reformation, and the original church was dedicated to St Columba, and is said to have occupied the site of a Culdee cell. (In the Middle Ages, the Culdees, anglicised form of Céli Dé (literally "client/companion of God"), were ascetic monastic communities with settlements in Ireland, Scotland and England.)
The present church, built in 1839, includes a portion of a previous church. Population in 1755 was 1,643; in 1801- 1,585; in 1831- 1,826: in 1861-1,602; in 1871 – 1,496; in 1881- 1,531, of whom 794 were females, and 807 Gaelic-speaking.—Ord. Sur., sh. 84, 1876.
Have you taken a DNA test? If so, login to add it. If not, see our friends at Ancestry DNA.
Angus is 26 degrees from Emeril Lagasse, 26 degrees from Nigella Lawson, 23 degrees from Maggie Beer, 46 degrees from Mary Hunnings, 34 degrees from Joop Braakhekke, 35 degrees from Michael Chow, 29 degrees from Ree Drummond, 28 degrees from Paul Hollywood, 21 degrees from Matty Matheson, 30 degrees from Martha Stewart, 37 degrees from Danny Trejo and 35 degrees from Molly Yeh on our single family tree. Login to find your connection.