DATE GARDEN RANCH: JAMES PETER READ AND HIS COACHELLA VALLEY OASIS

Except for the middle names of my grandfather Lloyd Magruder Read and young cousin Michael Magruder Read, the name “Magruder” drifted off my immediate family tree when Sallie Magruder, daughter of Lloyd Magruder and Caroline Pelham Magruder, married James Peter Read on September 27, 1867, in Marysville, California.  And this single paragraph contains enough Magruders to qualify as a reunion.

James Peter Read (JPR) was born in Newark, New Jersey, April 28, 1836, to John Read and Louise Moore Read, both born in Ireland.  They came to this country soon after their marriage; JPR’s year of birth suggests his parents may have been Famine immigrants.   Future research will attempt to trace their birthplace in Ireland; for now, I rely on the article written about JPR in the July 1912 issue of Out West magazine.

“Up to his fifteenth year the growing lad was sent to school and there gained all the school education he was ever to receive, for when the Gold Rush of 1849 came, he ran away from home, hurried to New York, succeeded in getting aboard a vessel going to the Isthmus of Panama, which he crossed, and eventually landed in San Francisco. 

“Here he spent two or three weeks and then hurried to the mines at Potts Bar of the Yuba River.  Then began a roving life which lasted for several years, life itself being his stern monitor and experience his teacher.  Tired at last of the roving life, he learned the carpenter’s business in Butte County, and soon had a good business—house-building, mill-building and the like.  Forty-three years ago (1869) he built a quartz mill in Brown’s Valley, Yuba County, and there he has occupied every position from the lowest to the highest.” 

Tiring of the roving life might also have been influenced by meeting Sallie Magruder, a young teacher.  She was 19 and he 30 when they married and settled in Brown’s Valley, near Marysville, where their four children (two survived) were born in quick succession.  Their eldest daughter, Nora Chandler Read, died in 1874, five days after her fifth birthday.  Carrie Louisa (named after both of her grandmothers) was born in 1869.  Maurice died at age two and a half.  Last was my grandfather Lloyd, born January 30, 1872. 

Brown’s Valley was an early stagecoach stop and mining town with five hotels and 24 saloons (!).  Freight wagons and mule trains loaded with supplies came up from Marysville destined for the mines and lumber camps in the high country.  In its heyday in the 1860s it had more than 3,000 residents and was known as “Little Washoe.”  I visited Brown’s Valley several years ago and it appeared to the place time forgot, waiting for inevitable development.

JPR, Sallie, Carrie and Lloyd moved to San Bernadino in 1876, perhaps so that JPR could pursue mining interests in the desert mountains.  From Out West:  “Prospecting for gold has always been his chiefest lure and every summer he has gone out into the mountains seeking for the precious metal.”  Still a young woman of 36, Sallie died January 31, 1884, the day after Lloyd’s 12^th birthday.  JPR farmed out the two children and drifted for many years.  From Out West, 28 years later: 

“Ever since his wife died … he has felt he has had no home; hence, when some friends … asked him to come down to the Colorado Desert to prospect for oil, he yielded to their persuasions and came.  He has a good outfit and made a thorough search for what his friends hoped to find.  He entered the desert from San Diego by way of the Carrizo Creek and struck the Coachella Valley just about the time of its first boom.  In spite of its desert appearance, he was attracted to the country and seemed instinctively to recognize its marvelous horticultural possibilities."

In 1905 JPR acquired 160 acres of desert land, 4.5 miles northwest of Mecca.  That year was a semi-millennial course change of the Colorado River that flooded the region and filled the Salton Sea with fresh water.  With plentiful water, irrigable land and the rail system in place, settlers came for farming opportunities and the curative properties of the hot, dry desert air.  Communities sprang up along the rail lines:  Coachella, Thermal, Arabia and Mecca. 

Fan palms had grown for centuries in the desert, and US Government experts and scientists, recognizing the similar conditions to the Middle East, established experimental date farms at Mecca in 1904, sending to Egypt and the Persian Gulf for date offshoots.

Out West:  “(JPR) visited the experimental farm and became so interested that he wrote to Dr. Walter Swingle, head of the experimental department of plant life at Washington, DC, and asked if he would send him a variety of date shoots, all of which he would plant, carefully tend and experiment with.  Accordingly, seeds of 26 different varieties of edible dates were sent to him, all of which were planted with unusual care.  Nearly all of them came up and thrived, but after five years’ experience. Read is devoting the major part of his attention to the seedlings of but three varieties:  the Deglet Noor, the Menaker and Talifot.”

By now JPR enjoyed a good relationship with his children, judging from a letter to them published in the Coachella Star July 1910: 

" ... this is a new country, different in all respects from any other.  Its previous record as a burning desert, the home of the rattlesnake and the graveyard of prospectors, 130 in the shade, 200 feet below sea level, and not a drop of water within miles, encased with a crust of alkali, warning the home-seeker of its perils, until a few years ago, yes, very few indeed, someone introduced artesian water, it was found with proper drainage the alkali soon passed off, leaving the land, the one time sink of the Gulf of California, the most productive of any in this great State, or in the  United States," he wrote.


Plus he had remarried, after 28 years, Caroline Thompson in 1912 and was enjoying the fruits of his labor along with becoming a noted authority.  Here he is, with Caroline, looking very much the desert rat.  And at the start of this post, cleaned up quite nicely for what I guess was his wedding day when he was 76.

He must have hoped his son would take over the ranch.  Lloyd had run away to sea when he was 16, not to be heard from for 20 years.  He did return in 1911 to help run the ranch for a time, but apparently couldn’t stand being on land and only stayed long enough to meet and marry Bess Turner and have their first two children before returning to commercial shipping as a sea captain out of Oakland, California, in 1916. 

This photo is Bess and Lloyd's wedding day, March 14, 1914, at Date Garden Ranch.  JPR is at center, Lloyd to his left and Bess seated before him.  JPR’s second wife Caroline, in hat, is standing above Lloyd.  At the top is Frank Turner, Bess' brother.  Bess, Frank and their mother Julia (second from right, first row) relocated from Kansas to the desert to cure Frank of Tuberculosis.  He died at 28.

Daughter Carrie had married and moved to Oregon but returned to help her father and step mother in their old age.  The couple retired to Banning and the ranch was sold.  They died, 3 weeks apart, in April-May 1921.  Their heirs’ land was also sold.  JPR’s contributions to the development of the date and desert agriculture today seem pretty much forgotten. 

 ~~~ 

In the Out West article JPR is given the title “Hon.,” and I wanted to learn what that meant, plus see the land, find his grave and resurrect his reputation.  He was, after all, a published authority on desert agriculture and can be credited with popularizing dates in this country.

So for my 2016 birthday trip, October 9, 10, 11 and 12, I visited the Colorado Desert, armed with the Out West article and instructions supplied by the county assessor’s office on the exact location of JRP’s date ranch. 

On a personal note, I was accompanied by John Geever, a fellow traveler in my life from 45 years ago, with whom I recently reunited.  I was also intent on enjoying my first date shake.  Of course, Claggett was along for the ride. 


Our first stop was at the Banning library, where we lucked out right away, finding his death notice in the Banning Record on microfilm: “Death Calls Aged Resident.”  It gave me the shivers to read that he “reared one of the choicest male Deglet Noor date palm trees in the world.”  Before the trip I had contacted the Banning cemetery and heard the thrilling words, “Yep, we’ve got him!” so next was a stop up the hill from the library to the town graveyard. 

It was Columbus Day, however, and the office was closed so there was no way to find him on our own.  We assumed his grave would be in a scruffy and untended area due to its age, and I started to imagine enlisting my cousins to help install a headstone and tidy the place up.  However, when we returned two days later and were directed to the grave of JPR and Caroline, it was very well tended, set in a bright green lawn and with a handsome granite headstone.  Kudos to great aunt Carrie for taking care of business.  Still, I had the rewarding feeling that I was the first descendent in a long, long time to pay a visit.

Our next foray was to find the spot where the desert bloomed into Date Garden Ranch long ago. 

 

The assessor’s map directed us a few miles northeast of Thermal, approximately at the junction of Fillmore Street and 63^rd Avenue.  You can Google it (!) and see a puzzling domino pattern from the bird’s eye view. 

 

We ignored several NO TRESSPASSING signs to be rewarded with a barren landscape, devoid of the luscious date palm trees right across the street, and with lots of shell casings strewn about.  Also a foreboding gated industrial area with moderate security and signage that bore the legend:  COACHELLA VALLEY WATER DISTRICT MID-VALLEY WATER RECLAMATION PLANT 4. 

Sigh.

Next stop:  date shakes!  We’d contemplated driving the loop around the Salton Sea, but the heat and slight disappointment over the sad but practical fate of Date Garden Ranch put a damper on further excursions that day. 

We did stop at the north shore where there was a strong smell of dead fish and the feel of an abandoned planet.  I am pointing to the water while Claggett is pointing to back to the car.

John and I stayed just outside Joshua Tree National Park, in a lovely VRBO accommodation.  On Wednesday we visited the park where a high elevation lookout takes in the entire Coachella Valley--JPR’s stomping grounds--and a glimpse of the Salton Sea glittering on the horizon.  I love the desert, and this trip confirmed that it left a notch on my DNA.

About that Hon., I think I have to chalk it up to the gushing journalism of George Wharton James, author of “In and Around the Grand Canyon,” “The Wonders of the Colorado Desert,” and the seven-page article on JPR from Out West, “Date Growing on the Colorado River." That's definitely worth a read, and I am happy to send to anyone who wishes a copy. 

I will follow JPR’s own advice about the Hon., from Out West:  "While I have learned a good deal, I know there is still much more to be learned," said my great grandfather.  "When I first began I used to ask a great many questions and paid careful attention to the answers, but experience has taught me that it is a foolish and dangerous business asking for information from those who don’t know.”

JPR and Worker, Date Garden Ranch, ca 1912

Stay tuned for future posts:  Captain Lloyd Read and the fated Ohioan; The Pelhams of Boston, Arkansas, and Williamsburg; and my father's side of the family's roots in Aclare, County Sligo, Ireland.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
 
 

THE BITTER END OF LLOYD MAGRUDER

 

Lloyd Magruder, Jr.

The key ancestor on my Read family tree is Lloyd Magruder Jr., 1825-1863.  He was my great-great grandfather, whose daughter Sallie Magruder Read’s son was Lloyd Magruder Read, my grandfather.  By virtue of Lloyd Jr.’s gruesome and sensational murder in 1863, while returning from a successful provisioning expedition to the gold strikes deep in the Washington Territory, he entered history and became the subject of many books and articles.  As a result his life story and his forebears in Maryland and Scotland became known to our Read cousins and my mother, Julia Read O’Hara, essentially tying with a bow extensive genealogy spanning 400 years and central themes of this country’s adventurous origins and dreadful legacies. 

As described in my first post, Magruder Country:  Scotland's Perthshire (2013), Lloyd’s great-great-great grandfather, Alexander, born in 1610, came to Maryland in 1653 as a prisoner of war, having fought on the losing side of England’s Civil War.  But Alexander came from privilege.  His father and grandfather were employed by the Drummonds, Earls of Perth who still maintain a castle and gardens there.  It seems likely that Alexander had backing from home that helped him quickly pay off his indenture and begin to amass land along the Patuxent River in Maryland.  He prospered under the slave economy, owning tobacco plantations and river-based means of distribution that remained active into the American Civil War. 



Locust Grove, Bethesda, MD

Three generations later his great-great-great grandson was born at Magruder’s Discovery, a tobacco plantation in Montgomery County, Maryland, where his grandson Samuel Wade Magruder had, ca. 1780, built a large brick house known as Locust Grove, where two more generations would continue the plantation tradition.  Lloyd was born there July 7, 1825, but would be orphaned at 11, and because of his father’s indebtedness would have no Maryland property to inherit.  More than 230 years old, the house where Lloyd was born still stands.  Recently restored and used as a bank branch, at this writing it is offered for sale.




Caroline Pelham Magruder

At 20, Lloyd left Maryland for the frontiers of Arkansas where his brother had married and settled in Batesville.  But Lloyd seems to have been restless for a new way of life. He learned surveying and studied the law; he was a soldier in the Mexican War.  He married Caroline Pelham, the daughter of a well-to-do retired Colonel and could have led a comfortable existence, but ambition and the siren song of the Gold Rush sent Lloyd off to seek his fortune in California in 1849. 

After unsuccessfully trying his hand at panning for gold, he sent for Caroline (and their first born, my great grandmother Sallie) and settled in Marysville, where Lloyd made and lost several fortunes and the family grew with two boys and another girl.  He had a store (it burned down), published a newspaper, practiced law, was Yuba county marshal, clerk of Yuba county, justice of the peace and was nominated and elected by the pro-slavery wing of the Democratic Party to the State Assembly in Sacramento, where he was an active member, frequently introducing bills and resolutions and participating in debates.  He voted against California’s seceding from the Union, although his views on Abraham Lincoln and abolition were virulent. 




That said, Lloyd was a likable guy—well educated, well spoken, according to one writer, “a man of unimpeachable reputation and a packer of intrepidity.”  Having learned how to handle mules in the Army, he was able to organize pack trains of up to 75 mules and horses to transport goods to gold miners as new strikes established makeshift communities in the wilderness.  He was credited as the first trail maker into many famous mining regions of the Northwest. 



Sallie Magruder Read

Again adventurous, he and Caroline left Sallie behind in Marysville to continue school, and with their three younger children set up a base in Lewiston, Idaho, in closer range to the profits to be made in the territory.

In the summer of 1863, his future bright, nominated as an Independent Democrat (back then the Republicans were the liberals) to run for Congress, Lloyd took a large pack train laden with merchandise to Virginia City in now Montana, crossing the Bitterroot Mountains along the South Nez Perce trail.  Having sold his goods, Lloyd prepared to head back to Lewiston with 1,500 ounces of gold dust and more than $2,000 in Union greenbacks – a small fortune of $30,000.  He traveled with four trustworthy companions and four cutthroats who hatched a plan to kill him and his party and make off with the money. 

At ten o’clock on Sunday night, October 11, 1863, as Lloyd lit his pipe while on watch, one of the killers cleaved Lloyd’s skull from behind with an axe.  Four others were attacked and killed in their sleep.  The bodies were rolled off a cliff into a deep canyon, along with camp equipment.  Some of the evidence was burned in a campfire.  All the animals save eight horses were led to the canyon and shot.  Snow soon fell in the mountains, covering the evidence and leaving the carnage for the wolves. 

The killers made it to San Francisco where they were caught, thanks to Lloyd’s good friend Hill Beachy.  Legend has it Beachy dreamed of Lloyd’s death and when he was late to return from the trip, Beachy noticed the suspicious foursome attempting a sloppy getaway by stagecoach from Lewiston and convinced authorities throughout California and the Washington Territory to assist in their capture and return to Lewiston for trial.  History was made because the trial was the first effort at formal court proceedings in the new Idaho Territory, sparing the killers from vigilante justice but condemning them to hang.  The trial and execution drew crowds of spectators, and newspaper reports reached Marysville, where Sallie no doubt felt the keen loss.  Caroline and the other children endured the spectacle there in Lewiston.  One of the criminals escaped hanging by turning state’s evidence.  He recounted the murder details during the trial and in the spring led Beachy and others to the murder site where they collected bits of metal and clothing and remnants of Lloyd’s crushed skull.   

Metal fragments recovered from the murder site

That and a portion of the money were given to Caroline, but her family never gained secure financial footing.  Caroline remarried and died at 69 in 1900, survived by her three children who came with her to Oregon.  Sallie stayed in California, marrying a miner and carpenter, James Peter Read.  They had four children, two of whom survived--Carrie and Lloyd, who turned 12 the day after Sallie died at 28 in 1885.

Of all the tellings of the massacre, I think The Magruder Murders by Julia Conway Welch is the best.  In her preface she describes taking the difficult road from Elk City, Idaho to the Montana border of the Bitterroot National Forest.  The road was built in the 1930s by the Civilian Conservation Corps and has not changed much since then.  In places it follows the Nez Perce trail made by the native peoples who eventually guided the explorers, gold seekers and drovers trying to tame the then territory comprising today’s Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana.  Much of the current road remains unpaved.
 
There are seven steep ascents and seven steep descents, and the roughly 65 miles, one-way, is about an eight hour drive—and a four-wheel drive, high-axel vehicle is a good idea.  Welch made the drive with her daughter to see the terrain for herself, describing the wilderness magnificence and imagining the events that took place there in October 1863. 

Of course I wanted to go, too, and see deep forests and unspoiled vistas through the windshield of a rented Jeep, but even more, to hike the trail that leads to what is the best guess location of the massacre.  I made my plans to visit in September 2013, just shy of the 150^th anniversary. That summer there were forest fires raging in Idaho’s Bitterroot National Forest, where the Gold Pan Fire had gotten under control mere weeks before my visit.  Ignited by lightning on July 16, it was gotten 100% under control on October 3.  Calls to the Darby Ranger Station had been vaguely reassuring, although smoking ash was still spotted throughout the 43,429 burn area in Idaho and Montana.

My small party traced his final outbound journey from Elk City, Idaho, along the Magruder Corridor Road to the Magruder Ranger Station about 20 miles from the Magruder murder site.  Rather than deep green forest there was scorched ground and burnt trees as far as the eye could see.  Efforts to find stark beauty in the silent lunar landscape, or to imagine the regeneration that the fire would later cause, failed to cheer me up.  I had Norman along for company and the difficult driving and Claggett for moral support, but Lloyd’s ghost was a mournful presence. 

Scorched ground or no, the job of driving pack mules and their burden over a rough trail, from Lewiston, Idaho to Virginia City, Montana--415 Google miles--took guts and fortitude and is one of those sad reminders of how soft we as a people have become in our rented SUVs with navigation devices.  After eight hours on the road we were exhausted and relieved to reach the ranger station where lush meadows and the Selway River were a welcome sight.  

The lovely log cabin that bears Lloyd’s name was once the home of the district ranger.  Just weeks earlier it had been the headquarters for the firefighters battling the Gold Pan.  The cabin guestbook carried entries of a well-fought battle, and that the cabin wasn’t destroyed is testament to their fight.  The fire came within a quarter mile of the ranger station.  Yikes. 

We set out the next morning to find the murder site.  Once on the trail we missed a fork and lost a few hours backtracking to the trail marker. It was afternoon by the time we reached the ridge of Magruder Mountain and a soft snow was starting to fall.  With daylight fading, we made the correct call to chicken out and head back.  I have talked with a few people who’ve come upon the murder site, but I believe my search that day would have been in vain.

Tracing Lloyd’s journey all the way to Virginia City wasn’t on the itinerary, but we did press on to the ghost town of Bannack, Montana, founded in 1862 when gold was discovered at nearby Grasshopper Creek. 

It was in Skinner’s Saloon on the return trip that Lloyd met and hired William Page, the fourth bad guy who was a good trail guide but a weak character.  Page was the one who escaped the noose by turning state’s evidence against the other three, then led Beachy’s retrieval party when the snow had melted the following spring.  He himself wasn't a killer in the murder spree, but he was an outcast thenceforth and was shot dead over a woman a couple of years later.

I also visited the Idaho State Museum in Boise, where some artifacts of Lloyd’s fateful journey are part of the collection.  In fact, his gold scales were on display as part of the 150^th anniversary of the territory, focusing on 150 celebrated events, people, places including the Magruder murders.  Apparently the scales and weights, in a wooden box with his pencil marks, were with Lloyd when he died.  His horse was one of the animals spared and used for the getaway, so perhaps the items were stowed in the saddle.  Lloyd’s granddaughter, Ella Braun, donated the items to the museum.

I remain fascinated by this story and find it hard to believe I am related to it.  Despite the Magruders’ 200 year plus of slave ownership; Lloyd’s pro-slavery views that followed him to California; his profiting from western expansion brought about by the Mexican War in which he fought and which took wild lands from native peoples--that long list of European settlers' wrongs--Lloyd left the South to make a new life for himself and his family, one of adventure, integrity and hard work.  From his letters it is clear he was a loving father and husband. His friend Hill Beachy was so loyal he went to the ends of the earth to bring his killers to justice.  Did he leave a proud legacy?  His wife and three children remained poor.  His eldest daughter was left to fend for herself, alone, in California.  He missed the satisfaction of returning home a wealthy congressman.  Still, in the Bitterroot wilderness, there’s a road, a ranger station and a mountain that bear his name, plus a true frontier story that has earned a place in history.  That’s not a bad legacy at all. 

The photo of the smoke column behind the ranger station taken by Leah Moak on July 27, 2013 is used with permission, as is the photo of the scales and weights courtesy of the Idaho State Museum.

Claggett and I on Magruder Mountain

Recommended:

Early Magruders:  Susan Tichy's blog www.magruderslanding.com.  Her new book about the immigrant Alexander is titled Trafficke. 

The Magruder Murders:  Coping with Violence on the Idaho Frontier, by Julia Conway Welch

The Magruder House aka Locust Grove

Staying at the cabin:  Magruder Rangers House

Bitterroot National Forest:  www.fs.usda.gov/bitterroot

Bannack State Park

 

 

MAGRUDER COUNTRY: SCOTLAND'S PERTHSHIRE



OCTOBER 2012

Starting out from Comrie Croft

A ghrá is a Gaelic greeting meaning O Love!  My Irish cousins liberally sprinkle their conversations with it, and, like yeast, the term leavens their speech with affection and lyricism.  My last name in Gaelic is Eaghra, pronounced Ara.  I like that the words are so similar, at least in print.  My father John O’Hara’s parents James and Bridget came to America in the 1890s from Aclare, County Sligo, Ireland and I have been lucky to visit and get to know many cousins.  I’ve always identified with being Irish, and intend to share photos of Aclare in future posts.

 

Map of Scotland ca. 1610, birth year of Alexander McGruder,
my great-eleventh grandfather

But first I want to share impressions of my trip to Scotland in October 2012, ancestral home of my mother Julia Read O’Hara’s ancestors, the Magruders.   My Scottish side has been a pre-occupation since Mom passed away in 2006.  She left boxes of family papers about her storied forebears here in the States and in Scotland, and I got hooked.  I want to visit (and post about) not only Scotland but Boston, Williamsburg, Maryland, Arkansas, the Bitterroot Mountains and the Coachella Valley, all points on the trail of Mom’s interesting family.

 

Mom’s father Lloyd Magruder Read’s mother was Sallie Magruder, daughter of Lloyd Magruder, whose great-great-great grandfather Alexander Magruder came to Maryland as a prisoner of war in  the 1650s.  Legend had it that her Scottish ancestors were descended from kings and the famous McGregor clan, with Rob Roy McGregor perhaps a distant uncle.  Relatively new scholarship and DNA evidence has pretty much disproved a McGregor bloodline, knowledge met with disbelief or disappointment by loyalists to the legend.

 

Wha's Like Us? at Innerpeffray Library

I think the truth is far more interesting, because stripped free of sentimental legend there is vivid evidence of the life and times of the very real people and places they lived.  Thanks to copious research by Magruder descendants, especially Sue Emerson and Don McGruther (authors of Wha's Like Us?  Magruders in America; MacGrouthers in Scotland to 1855), and writer/professor Susan Tichy (publisher of Magruder's Landing), along with contributions by dozens of new and veteran members of the Magruder Family Facebook page, I knew exactly where to travel in the footsteps of my mother’s forebears. 

Drummond Family Crest, Innerpeffray Chapel

The immigrant Alexander was born in 1610, in the Strathearn region in Perthshire, Scotland.    The region was then and is now home to the wealthy Drummonds, whose hereditary stewardship of Perthshire dates from 1605 when James, the fourth Lord Drummond, was given the title of the first Earl of Perth.  James was also first Lord Madderty, Baron of Innerpeffrey, and Commendator of Inchaffray.

  

Alexander’s father, also Alexander McGruder, was Chamberlain to the first Earl of Perth, James, and then his brother John upon James’ death in 1611. By definition, a chamberlain is the chief officer in the household of a king or nobleman, an imposing job that implies that  McGruthar/McGrouther/McGrudars must have been well connected and educated.  Alexander came to the colonies in the 1650s as a prisoner of war, having fought for Scottish King James VI on the losing side in Cromwell’s Parliamentary Wars.  With the Americanized name of Magruder, Alexander would quickly work off his indenture and acquire substantial tracts of land in Maryland, and would spawn the family that would ultimately result in thousands of descendants.   



Strathearn, Scotland, circled in red

He named his Maryland properties after places from home:  Craigneich, Dunblane and Anchovie Hills (presumed to be a phonetic corruption of Inchaffray)—names that still appear on maps and formed my itinerary. Drawing an imaginary triangle on a map of Scotland with Glasgow and Edinburgh at opposite points of the base, the top would point to the towns of Crieff and Comrie, villages with plentiful ties to the McGruders.  My travels encompassed roughly 50 square miles with Crieff as my home base. 

Drummond Arms Hotel, Crieff

Crieff is very much Drummond territory with the prominent Drummond Arms hotel claiming history as the spot where Bonnie Prince Charlie held his final war council in 1746.  Crieff in the day was a turbulent town, “milling with cattle, horse thieves, bandits and drunken drovers,” says the town website.  In one incident, Rob Roy McGregor’s outlaw son was pursued through the streets by soldiers and killed.  Nothing untoward occurred during my visit and I enjoyed safe and convenient lodging at the B&B Galvelbeg House. 

   

The charming hamlet Comrie Croft, midway between Crieff and Comrie, provisioned me with an excellent mountain bike that took me to ancestral haunts from Glen Artney to the west and Madderty to the east.  Day trips were only 10-20 miles in gently rolling countryside, and the vantage from the bike was so intimate with the land that I could almost feel DNA strands perk up experiencing these country landscapes.

Glen Artney view

The landscape seems to have changed very little in 400 years--from the vistas our people beheld to the farmlands still bearing the original names, the countryside remains intact.  Visitor guides describe the area as a national scenic area.  For an American resigned to seeing rivers diverted into culverts and land lost to big box malls and gas stations, Perthshire almost restores my faith in humankind’s ability to be compatible with nature.

 

River Earn

The region is called Strathearn, or valley of the Earn River.  I was curious how people got from place to place 400 years ago, when it took me a half day to cycle from, say, Glen Artney to Crieff.  As I followed the river as it flowed from Glen Artney to Crieff, it dawned on me that the river was also a thoroughfare for ferries and boats carrying people and goods back and forth.  Damage to the river Earn from the industrial era has been repaired and the river sparkles alongside lush banks.  Particularly beautiful is the park Lady Mary's Walk, as you enter Crieff from the west, which has been restored and embellished with wonderfully crafted benches.



Bench at Lady Mary's Walk

 

BELLICLONE, MADDERTY PARISH

Belliclone and Madderty circled in red; Crieff to east

East of Crieff is the home of Alexander’s mother, Margaret Campbell Drummond.  Widowed by Sir Andrew Drummond, first Laird of Belliclone, she was provided for in his will and remained on the farm to raise her children.   She remarried Alexander McGruder, the Drummond’s chamberlain, with whom she had three children, James, Alexander and John.  Belliclone is assumed to be their birthplace.

Today still a working farm, only a small rectangular sign nailed to a tree signals one’s arrival.  I rode the bike along the drive to the house and farms, and made my presence known to the owner and her husband, who I had seen walking across the field with his dog. They graciously tolerated my unannounced visit and allowed me inside the old barn where the original stone wall seems to echo with Margaret and the children’s habitation so long ago. 

Barn at Belliclone Farm--low entry door at left of barn doors

Original wall at Belliclone Farm

Original wall at Belliclone Farm

On the relatively new stonework of the present-day residence is a brass marker that states:

Near this site stood the birthplace of Alexander Magruder, born 1610.  The son of Alexander Magruder and Margaret Campbell, he emigrated to American, circa 1652, where he became a prominent citizen of the Colony of Maryland.  As part of the MacGregor Bicentennial Celebration, this marker was erected by the American Clan Gregor Society, founded in 1909, by descendents of Alexander Magruder. 
-– 9 October 1975.

View North from Belliclone Farm

Inchaffray Abbey ruin

Belliclone is within the region of Madderty Parish, where the old Inchaffray Abbey was established circa 1200.  By the 1500s the abbey was in decline and during the Scottish Reformation was turned over as a secular lordship to the Drummond family in 1556.  Much of the abbey ruins were destroyed in the 1800s when a road was built across the site.  Today a single gable end wall on private property can be glimpsed from the road. The village of Madderty itself contained a church and a school, both functions still in operation in Madderty.  Assuming Alexander’s Maryland property Anchovie Hills is a reference to Inchaffray Abbey, perhaps Alexander recalled attending school at the abbey, or accompanying his father to Madderty on his rounds as chamberlain.

CRAIGNEIGH AND MEIGOR FARMLANDS     

Glen Artney: Meiggars and Craigneigh farms circled

To the west of Crieff is the town of Comrie and the Glen Artney region, popular hunting grounds for Scottish Kings being entertained by the Earls of Perth (James, the first Earl of Perth, was a favorite of King James VI).  Artney translates as bear in Gaelic, and as royal deer forest it supplied venison to Scotland’s sovereigns. 




Glen Artney

Today farmlands rise on either side of a tributary named Water of Ruchill that flows through Glen Artney into the River Earn at Comrie.


Bridge over Waters of Ruchill

Hiking trails and bicycle paths circumnavigate Glen Artney and connect the many small, family cattle and sheep farms, including my destinations. The area was home to various branches of the McGruders who for many years leased the farm named Craigneigh and eventually purchased property known as Meigor in Glen Artney.  Meigor now appears to be three separate farms, Lower Meiggar, Wester Meiggar and Easter Meiggar, all within about a half mile.  The former two are along the north-south Glen Artney Road connecting with Comrie, while Easter Meiggar is on an east-west road from Glen Artney towards Muthill. 

Lower Meiggar (uninhabited) Farm

Wester Meiggar (sheep?) Farm

Easter Meiggar (cattle) Farm

 This lovely road is perfect for a leisurely bike ride and passes by Craigneigh Farm about two miles east of the Meiggars. 


Road skirting Craigneigh Farm with standing stone visible

Craigneigh Farm

Craigneigh Farm

There may be portions of the structures at Craigneigh that date from the family’s time, but nobody was at home (at Meiggar farms either) when I visited to provide that background.  Sue Emerson remembers talking with an older gentleman living there who showed her a grinding stone and told her it had been Alexander’s great-great grandfather’s house. 

Craigneigh Farm

The farm is truly a time machine with sheep grazing in pastures and on hillsides much as they must have been 400 years ago.  The most exciting moment of my entire visit was finding the Craigneigh standing stone.  These solitary stones set vertically in the ground date from six to seven thousand years ago and once numbered 50,000 in Northern Europe.  Ten thousand now remain with 35 in Perthshire.  They signify a religious or burial site or territory marker.  I hugged the “family stone” and tried to climb it, as I imagined children over the generations would have as well.

Ancient Standing Stone at Craigneigh

INNERPEFFRAY CHAPEL AND LIBRARY

Drummond Castle and Innerpeffray Library with Crieff to North

It was time to ditch the bicycle after 3 days of riding, and my cousin Kath Kennedy came with her two dogs from Liverpool and spent a day with me exploring Innerpeffray Library, Drummond Castle and Dunblane Cathedral.

"Innerpeffray is a place of great charm and tranquility on the site of a Roman road by the River Earn.  It is the oldest free public lending library in Scotland, representing the very origins of the Scottish Enlightenment," says the website.

Innerpeffray Library (from website)

Innerpeffray's Saint Mary's Chapel with Library at rear

Interior of Saint Mary's Chapel dating from 1508

The complex includes Saint Mary’s Chapel, burial place of the Drummond family, built by John, the first Lord Drummond in 1508, and in great shape.  As trusted servants to the Drummonds, the McGruder probably worshipped there or attended important gatherings.  A bas relief headstone in Latin gives the date 1638--before Alexander came to America.  That is the date of Lady Jane Drummond’s death, daughter of the first Earl of Perth. 

Possibly Lady Jane Drummond's headstone

The chapel survived the Reformation by its use as burial vault for the Drummonds.  It is easy to imagine McGrouther footsteps among the headstones in the grounds around the chapel.

Saint Mary's Chapel Grounds

The loft of the chapel was the original home to the library, which was founded by David Drummond in 1680 when he made 400 of his family books available to the public.  A school was founded at the same time, both endeavors “for the improvement and education of the population, particularly the young students,” as stated in his will. 



Saint Mary's Chapel loft was original Library

The present library was built in 1762.  Remarkably, the library’s holdings are perfectly preserved.  One of the Library’s greatest treasures is the borrowers’ ledger, recording every loan made from 1747 until lending ceased in 1968, scrupulously handwritten by generations of librarians.  We were allowed to handle the ledger with our bare hands (the librarian told us that gloves tend to tear the pages).  There are a few inscriptions recording  eighteenth century McGrouther loans and bearing actual signatures! 

20 January 1759:  I James McGrouther surgeon apprentice in Crieff grant me to have borrowed forth of the Library as foresaid the 3d Vol. of the Philosophical Transactions which I oblige me to return in three months.  (Signed) James McGrouther.

1 December 1765:  I Duncan McGrouther in Bow of Marbourne (sp?) grants me to have borrowed forth of the Library Abercromby’s History of Scotland Vol. 2 which I promise to return in three months.  (Signed) Duncan McGrouther.

When the volumes were returned, the librarian crossed off the entry.  For our visit the librarian proceeded to the shelves and produced the actual manuscripts for us.  These McGrouthers’ tastes in reading were practical if not reflective of the times. 

Abercromby's History of Scotland Vol. 2

DRUMMOND CASTLE

 

Drummond Castle and Gardens

To get a sense of the magnitude of the McGrouther/McGruder family's relationship to the Drummonds of Perthshire, one need only visit Drummond Castle and Gardens.    The castle is best known for its gardens, described by Historic Scotland as “the best example of formal terraced gardens in Scotland.”



Sundial, 1630

Surviving sacks and renovations is the garden’s central feature, a sundial erected in 1630 that shows the time in different countries.   

Also from the era are the original castle keep and the kitchens, at times thought to be a dungeon (this cool image was found on the internet as the buildings aren't open to the public).

Original Castle Keep

Kitchen in Castle Keep

Although the castle and grounds bear little resemblance today to how they would have appeared, the history of the property makes a vivid lens through which to view Scottish history and the impact of politics and wars on the Drummonds that would have affected the McGrouther’s fates as well.  During Alexander the chamberlain’s tenure, significant building and landscaping projects took place that underscore the responsibility of his position.

The Drummonds owned the lands from the fourteenth century and the original tower house was built by John, first Lord Drummond, from about 1490.  In 1605 James, first  Earl of Perth, added to the castle.  John, second Earl of Perth, laid out the first terraced garden in the 1630s. The castle was sacked by the army of Oliver Cromwell in 1653, just after Alexander was sent to the colonies as a prisoner of war.  The Drummonds have held onto the property through upheavals, forfeitures, reclamations and rebuildings and it is still the family seat.  

DUNBLANE CATHEDRAL

Final stop was Dunblane (fort of Blane), namesake of a 250 acre plantation in Maryland that Alexander the immigrant purchased in 1671.  Half way between Glasgow and Perth, the town is presumed to have been named after the early Irish Saint Blaan of the sixth century. The town’s main landmark is its cathedral which dates from the tenth century by two cross-slabs preserved in the cathedral and an eleventh century bell tower.  The nave is of the thirteenth century. 

Dunblane Cathedral (from internet)

 

Cathedral Interior

Beautiful as is the cathedral, the graveyard holds interest as a headstone very near the main entry to the cathedral marks the grave of John M. McGruthar, Writer, Dunblane, who died 17 April 1859.  The headstone also lists his children Helen, William and Jessie. 

McGrudar resting place

Their lifespans were well after Alexander the immigrant’s time; yet, by virtue of Alexander’s Maryland property named Dunblane, I assume Alexander had ties to Dunblane and that and these McGrudars were related somewhere down the line. 

Another resident of Dunblane’s cemetery is Margaret Drummond (1475-1501), daughter of John, first Lord Drummond and a mistress of Scottish King James IV. She died of food poisoning, along with her sisters Eupheme and Sibylla, while staying at their parents' residence. The three sisters are buried together and their graves can still be seen in front of the altar. Margaret may have been murdered by pro-English forces who wished the king to marry the English princess Margaret Tudor (Henry VIII’s sister).  Had James IV married Margaret Drummond instead of Margaret Tudor, the Union of the Crowns might never have taken place and Scotland might have remained an independent country.

While we’re speculating, how might that have affected the fates of the McGrouthers a century later?  Would Alexander have made his way to the colonies, either as a prisoner of war or emissary of the wealthy Drummonds, or stayed home, farming in the Strathearn?

Entryway, Dunblane Cathedral

I want to thank all the Magruder experts for their encouragement, research and pointers, especially Sue Emerson--who gave me my "itinerary" via email as well as by her book; Don McGruther--who was my in-country informant and suggested I make Crieff my base of operations...hoping to meet Don next trip; and Susan Tichy, whose rich knowledge of early Magruders in Scotland and this country is the subject of her eloquent blog, Magruder's Landing (see link at beginning of post).  I invite corrections to this amateur effort and apologize for the tardy posting and my clumsiness with this technology.