View Record Number 880

View Record Number 880 - Mr. Kenneth MacKenzie

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Name:Mr. Kenneth MacKenzie
Address:Lochboisdale
South Uist
Originally from:Bracadale, Isle of Skye
Additional Info:This grave is a grey slab of stone which is lying horizontal on the ground, near the top of the hill. It may be covering a complete grave. It is located in the oldest part of Hallan.
The following additional information has been gratefully provided by S.L. MacKenzie, who is the great great grandson of Mr. MacKenzie.

"This grave is that of my great, great Grandfather Kenneth MacKenzie from Bracadale in Skye. In about 1828, he and his brother Donald ran a quarantine station in Gasay, there being, presumably on the part of the estate, fear of a cholera epidemic. In 1833, he married, in Bornish Chapel, Seònaid MacEachan, daughter of Malcolm and Margaret MacEachen from Smerclete. They had two children Somhairle known as "Somhairle Beag" (we do not know if this description reflects stature or whether there was an older Somhairle) and Johann Ellen (thus on birth certificate). Somhairle was drowned at Lochboisdale pier on the night of January 16th 1903, when he went to check his boat during a storm. He was found the next morning by his daughter Johann who was later the mother of Mórag MacAulay, the "Fair Maid of Barra".

The stone is described as being gray and when I viewed it last May, it indeed looked grey. However, when I viewed it some 40 odd years ago it was red, and the late Dr Alasdair MacLean described it as red sandstone. Alasdair further stated that the stone had to have come from Skye because there is no red sandstone in Uist.

Some time in the early 1970s, I cleaned the writing on the stone and transcribed the inscription which reads as follows.

TO THE MEMORY OF
KINNITH MACKIN
AG 30 DIED IN THE ZIE
1837 YERE

Please note that the spacing is not exactly as on the stone because computer generated letters are all the same size and are regularly spaced but those on the stone are not. The "ZIE" being at the end of the line following "MACKIN" is accurate.

The family has no knowledge of where Seònaid and their son Somhairle Beag are buried."




Section:1

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