Who Do You think you are?
From an Unpublished work by Richard D.Jackson.
Parish and census records show many branches of the Crockett family, some of them spelled with one t and some with two, living throughout the Counties of Dumfries, Kirkcudbright and Wigton. Crockett’s ancestors appear, with a single t, in the records of the parish of Lochrutton in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright. However, because he himself appears to have adopted a second t around 1880, as well as the second name of Rutherford shortly thereafter, and because that is the spelling by which he is known, it is the version which will be used for him.
His great-grandparents, John Crocket and his wife Ann Milligan, were married at Howgate in the parish of Lochrutton on 11 December 1777. The first of their children, Christian, was born in Lochfoot on 20 September 1778 and married John Hyslop of Lochruttongate which is later referred to as Southpark. Their second daughter, Marion, was baptised at Shillinglaw in Lochrutton on 14 June 1783 and married a David Wilson by whom she had numerous children. Their first son, John, who was baptised at Shillinglaw on 10 May 1789, became a Master Mason, married Henrietta Craig and died in Lochrutton on 27 December 1860. It was another son, William, who was to become Crockett’s grandfather. He was baptised at Third in Lochrutton in July 1794 as was his younger brother Robert at Shillinghill on 30 September 1803.
In the course of time William Crocket married Mary Dickson of Shillinglaw in Lochrutton and they leased the small farm of Park in the nearby parish of Kirkpatrick-Irongray. It was there that their first two children were born, John on 1 May 1824 and Samuel on 23 March 1826. Later they moved to the farm of Bush in Irongray where two more daughters were born, Anne on 25 September 1828 and Janet on 5 August 1830. Further additions to the family arrived with Christina in 1834, William in 1837, Robert in 1841 and Mary in 1844. William Crocket’s younger brother Robert also married in Irongray and with his wife, Janet Clark, farmed at Killylour where they had had four sons, John born in 1834, David in 1835, Robert in 1839, William in 1841 and a daughter, Mary Ann, in 1845. Their youngest son, James, and second daughter, Janet, who was known as Jessie, were born in 1851 and 1856 after the family moved to the parish of Balmaghie.
Another family that was to become closely associated with William Crocket’s in future years was that of the brother of John Hyslop of Lochruttongate, William Hyslop. One of William Hyslop’s sons, Robert, married Janet Craig on 1 July 1825.Their son, John, was christened in Lochrutton in September 1829 and their daughter Agnes in Irongray on 6 July 1832. These children, John and Agnes Hyslop, were the two members of this family who were to become connected with that of William Crocket. When the 1841 census was taken, William Crocket, Robert Crocket and Robert Hyslop were all farming in the parish of Irongray. Agnes Hyslop, who was then aged 9, would eventually become the wife of William Crocket’s second son, Samuel, at that time a 15-year-old joiner’s apprentice.
By 1851 all three families had moved to the parish of Balmaghie. Robert Crocket became the tenant of Drumbreck which was situated south of the village of Lauriston; William Crocket of Little Duchrae which was on the road from Lauriston to New Galloway; and Robert Hyslop of the nearby farm of Creochs. The Valuation Roll for 1855-56 shows Robert Hyslop paying £100 per annum, Robert Crocket £69 per annum, and William’s eldest son John £50, valuations which remained constant throughout the subsequent years. Creochs was, therefore, the largest of the farms and the 1851 records show Hyslop as a farmer of 280 acres employing six labourers. By now he was a widower living with three sons and his eighteen-year-old daughter Agnes.
At Drumbreck Robert Crocket was living with his wife Janet, five sons and his daughter Mary Ann, and farming 143 acres. William Crocket was farming 100 acres at Little Duchrae and on the night of the 30 March 1851, when the census was taken, he, his wife and his family were all there with two exceptions. His eldest son John, whom we shall refer to as John Crocket of Duchrae to distinguish him from his cousin, John Crocket of Drumbreck, was spending the night with a relative of his mother, James Clark, who shared a partnership in a Grocer and Spirit Merchant’s business at 106 St Andrew Street in Castle Douglas. And his daughter Ann was in service with a family not far away across the water of the River Dee. Mains of Duchrae, a little further to the east, was tenanted by James Moffat, a farmer of 160 acres who lived there with his wife Isabella and their three daughters one of whom, Marion, would soon become John of Duchrae’s wife.
Both Duchrae farms were owned by the Cunninghame family who resided, at times at least, in the nearby house of Hensol. William Cunninghame had purchased the properties of Lainshaw and Duchrae in 1786. By the time that the Crockets came to Duchrae, both properties were owned by William’s son, John. When he died in 1864, he was succeeded at Lainshaw by one son, John William Herbert Cunninghame, and at Duchrae by a second son, Richard Dunning Barre Cunninghame. Richard Cunninghame was to play a significant part in the fortunes of the Crockets. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford and became a Captain in the 2nd Life Guards and a JP and DL and died unmarried in 1916.
In the decade between 1851 and 1861 several changes befell the three Balmaghie households. At Dumbreck three of the children, David, William and Mary Ann all died within the space of two years aged 17,13 and 9. The cause of their death is unknown but tuberculosis plagued both Crocket families and it is possible that one or all succumbed to this disease. There was some consolation in the birth of another daughter, Janet or Jessie, on 22 March 1856 but her father Robert did not survive her long dying on 19 January 1860. His death certificate records that he had suffered from phthisis, or tuberculosis, for five months.
After banns according to the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland John Crocket of Duchrae, who was now 30, married Marion Young Moffat, the 21-year-old daughter of James Moffat of Mains of Duchrae on 19 April 1855 and their son William, with whom Sam Crockett was to lodge when a student in Edinburgh, was born the next year. A daughter, Isabella, was born on 27 April 1859 but this child did not survive long, dying of croup when she was only four years old. Their son, James, was born a year later in September 1864. On the day of the 1861 census John of Duchrae was located at the Mains but was said to be farming 108 acres at Little Duchrae jointly with his father.
The most significant birth, however, was that of an illegitimate son, the future novelist, to Anne Crocket at Little Duchrae at 5.20 am on 24 September 1859. He is recorded in the register simply as Samuel Crocket and the informant’s name is given as “Mary Crocket, Nurse”. Although Mary was the name of the baby’s grandmother, this was probably his Aunt Mary. There has been confusion about the date of Crockett’s birth, as indeed there was also to be about that of his death. Once a date is inaccurately identified, subsequent writers tend to follow suit and many reference books continue to give the year of his birth as 1860. Doubts of this kind were not uncommon in the mid-nineteenth century. For example, when Crockett was lodging as a student in Edinburgh, he became closely acquainted with one of the best known preachers of the day, Dr Alexander Whyte of the Free Church of St George’s at the West End of Princes Street.
Dr Whyte’s biographer, G. F. Barbour of Bonskeid, states that, although there is no doubt that, like J M Barrie, Whyte was born in Kirriemuir, there is some uncertainty about the accepted date of 13 January 1836. However, with the formal registration of births, marriages and deaths commencing in Scotland in 1855 it is possible to be more certain of the facts and there can be no doubt about the year of Crockett’s birth.
Like Crockett Whyte was illegitimate in that despite the willingness of his father, John Whyte, to marry the child’s mother the marriage never took place. Alexander Whyte did, however, take his father’s surname whereas Crockett retained that of his mother so that there has been speculation as to the identity of his father. Some of the biographical articles that appeared when Crockett became a best-selling author stated that his father died when he was young. This was an appropriate version for public consumption. One oral tradition handed down locally was that his father was a man of some standing in the neighbourhood. Be that as it may, he was certainly known to the Crocket family.
At some time after 1851 William Crocket’s second son, Samuel, decided to try his hand at farming and emigrated, in the company of Robert Hyslop’s eldest son and daughter, John and Agnes, to the United States where both men began to farm near Rochester, Minnesota. From there Samuel wrote at least two letters, dated 14 February and 19 October 1860 to his brother John of Duchrae. In the first of these letters Samuel relates that both John Hyslop’s wife and his mother in law have given birth to sons. Samuel had married Agnes Hyslop on 25 December 1857 and on 13 February 1860 she too had given birth to a son, William, who was to become a favourite cousin of the author, Sam Crockett.
The interesting point about this letter is that Samuel fills three long pages with gossip about local health problems, a disease among cattle which necessitates the dispatch from Scotland of details of a preventative remedy, the current prices of wheat, oats and corn and suchlike before he eventually gets round to referring to the birth of an illegitimate nephew. Despite his stated concern for religious matters and the news that the Castle Douglas Minister, Mr Symington, may be lured away to Greenock, his attitude to his sister’s misfortune is reassuring. He writes:
“I was sorry to read the account you sent about Anne, all of you must be as kind to her as you possibly can, for he that thinketh he standeth, must take good lest he fall, he must be a miserable wretch to act as he ha done, but vengeance is mine I will repay saith the lord, if no earthly tribunal will punish him for his conduct. I am glad that he did not marry her, I never thought highly of him and the longer the less, you must give Father and Mother, Brothers and Sisters united love, and yourself and family, you must let the Creochs folks know, and Jannet Hyslop how we are all. Tell the old folks to come and see their Grandsons and as many of the young ones as can get but this distance prevents it”.
In his second letter Samuel says that the harvest had been good for both him and John Hyslop:
“This part of America grows fine wheat, there is going to be a great struggle this fall in the electing of a president between Democrats and Republicans, I do not trouble myself about politics much, but if I am spared this fall I believe I shall vote and try to get in a Republican. I should like to see the Black Man have his liberty as well as myself, and I think if a republican President can be elected, that there will be no more slave territory, and I think that confine it to where it is it will soon become unprofitable and kill itself, it is a great curse to this country.”
“You must tell Anne to fetch over her little Sam and let us see him and I will give him a new suit of clothes, it is so far off I cannot send him any thing he will be running all over by this time I expect, you might come over and see us and get a load of wheat”
Back home in Scotland a tragedy had occurred the memory of which may well have been handed down to the younger generation. There was another John Crocket, the son of a Robert Crocket who was a brother of the John Crocket who married Ann Milligan, and was therefore a cousin of William Crocket. This John Crocket had farmed at Marnhoull near Corsock in the parish of Parton, until the death of his wife, Margaret Kissock in 1856, when he gave up farming and occupied a house on the neighbouring farm of Howmuir before purchasing and moving into a cottage in Castle Douglas. On 9 August 1860 he committed suicide by drowning in the River Dee.
Deaths and attempted suicides by drowning were to appear as part of an author’s stock in trade in Sam Crockett’s books but this real incident was deeply felt at the time by the family. Samuel writes:
“..what surprised me most was the end of John Crocket. I read and could hardly believe what I did read, a man like him possest of sound reason and good understanding, to think that he took away his own life, it seems to me that his physician is to blame in not having him sent to a place of safety. I see by the papers that it has been perfectly evident that his mind has been in a bad state for some time, it is undoubtedly a great blessing to have the use of reason, you must if spared to write send me all the particulars about his death, is he was in want, or afraid of comeing to want, or what seemed to bear so heavy upon his mind. Poor man. I always thought highly of Johny he seemed when at Corsock like a father to me, used to come down on Saturdays to take me up with him, it is most distressing to think of his fate.”
2021 NOTE:
If you have any information or comments about this ‘history’ please get in touch. Records from the time are notoriously unreliable and this research was undertaken decades ago, before the rise of online and internet search capabilities, therefore we would be more than happy to discover any errors or additions to the research undertaken here!
Parish and census records show many branches of the Crockett family, some of them spelled with one t and some with two, living throughout the Counties of Dumfries, Kirkcudbright and Wigton. Crockett’s ancestors appear, with a single t, in the records of the parish of Lochrutton in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright. However, because he himself appears to have adopted a second t around 1880, as well as the second name of Rutherford shortly thereafter, and because that is the spelling by which he is known, it is the version which will be used for him.
His great-grandparents, John Crocket and his wife Ann Milligan, were married at Howgate in the parish of Lochrutton on 11 December 1777. The first of their children, Christian, was born in Lochfoot on 20 September 1778 and married John Hyslop of Lochruttongate which is later referred to as Southpark. Their second daughter, Marion, was baptised at Shillinglaw in Lochrutton on 14 June 1783 and married a David Wilson by whom she had numerous children. Their first son, John, who was baptised at Shillinglaw on 10 May 1789, became a Master Mason, married Henrietta Craig and died in Lochrutton on 27 December 1860. It was another son, William, who was to become Crockett’s grandfather. He was baptised at Third in Lochrutton in July 1794 as was his younger brother Robert at Shillinghill on 30 September 1803.
In the course of time William Crocket married Mary Dickson of Shillinglaw in Lochrutton and they leased the small farm of Park in the nearby parish of Kirkpatrick-Irongray. It was there that their first two children were born, John on 1 May 1824 and Samuel on 23 March 1826. Later they moved to the farm of Bush in Irongray where two more daughters were born, Anne on 25 September 1828 and Janet on 5 August 1830. Further additions to the family arrived with Christina in 1834, William in 1837, Robert in 1841 and Mary in 1844. William Crocket’s younger brother Robert also married in Irongray and with his wife, Janet Clark, farmed at Killylour where they had had four sons, John born in 1834, David in 1835, Robert in 1839, William in 1841 and a daughter, Mary Ann, in 1845. Their youngest son, James, and second daughter, Janet, who was known as Jessie, were born in 1851 and 1856 after the family moved to the parish of Balmaghie.
Another family that was to become closely associated with William Crocket’s in future years was that of the brother of John Hyslop of Lochruttongate, William Hyslop. One of William Hyslop’s sons, Robert, married Janet Craig on 1 July 1825.Their son, John, was christened in Lochrutton in September 1829 and their daughter Agnes in Irongray on 6 July 1832. These children, John and Agnes Hyslop, were the two members of this family who were to become connected with that of William Crocket. When the 1841 census was taken, William Crocket, Robert Crocket and Robert Hyslop were all farming in the parish of Irongray. Agnes Hyslop, who was then aged 9, would eventually become the wife of William Crocket’s second son, Samuel, at that time a 15-year-old joiner’s apprentice.
By 1851 all three families had moved to the parish of Balmaghie. Robert Crocket became the tenant of Drumbreck which was situated south of the village of Lauriston; William Crocket of Little Duchrae which was on the road from Lauriston to New Galloway; and Robert Hyslop of the nearby farm of Creochs. The Valuation Roll for 1855-56 shows Robert Hyslop paying £100 per annum, Robert Crocket £69 per annum, and William’s eldest son John £50, valuations which remained constant throughout the subsequent years. Creochs was, therefore, the largest of the farms and the 1851 records show Hyslop as a farmer of 280 acres employing six labourers. By now he was a widower living with three sons and his eighteen-year-old daughter Agnes.
At Drumbreck Robert Crocket was living with his wife Janet, five sons and his daughter Mary Ann, and farming 143 acres. William Crocket was farming 100 acres at Little Duchrae and on the night of the 30 March 1851, when the census was taken, he, his wife and his family were all there with two exceptions. His eldest son John, whom we shall refer to as John Crocket of Duchrae to distinguish him from his cousin, John Crocket of Drumbreck, was spending the night with a relative of his mother, James Clark, who shared a partnership in a Grocer and Spirit Merchant’s business at 106 St Andrew Street in Castle Douglas. And his daughter Ann was in service with a family not far away across the water of the River Dee. Mains of Duchrae, a little further to the east, was tenanted by James Moffat, a farmer of 160 acres who lived there with his wife Isabella and their three daughters one of whom, Marion, would soon become John of Duchrae’s wife.
Both Duchrae farms were owned by the Cunninghame family who resided, at times at least, in the nearby house of Hensol. William Cunninghame had purchased the properties of Lainshaw and Duchrae in 1786. By the time that the Crockets came to Duchrae, both properties were owned by William’s son, John. When he died in 1864, he was succeeded at Lainshaw by one son, John William Herbert Cunninghame, and at Duchrae by a second son, Richard Dunning Barre Cunninghame. Richard Cunninghame was to play a significant part in the fortunes of the Crockets. He was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford and became a Captain in the 2nd Life Guards and a JP and DL and died unmarried in 1916.
In the decade between 1851 and 1861 several changes befell the three Balmaghie households. At Dumbreck three of the children, David, William and Mary Ann all died within the space of two years aged 17,13 and 9. The cause of their death is unknown but tuberculosis plagued both Crocket families and it is possible that one or all succumbed to this disease. There was some consolation in the birth of another daughter, Janet or Jessie, on 22 March 1856 but her father Robert did not survive her long dying on 19 January 1860. His death certificate records that he had suffered from phthisis, or tuberculosis, for five months.
After banns according to the Reformed Presbyterian Church of Scotland John Crocket of Duchrae, who was now 30, married Marion Young Moffat, the 21-year-old daughter of James Moffat of Mains of Duchrae on 19 April 1855 and their son William, with whom Sam Crockett was to lodge when a student in Edinburgh, was born the next year. A daughter, Isabella, was born on 27 April 1859 but this child did not survive long, dying of croup when she was only four years old. Their son, James, was born a year later in September 1864. On the day of the 1861 census John of Duchrae was located at the Mains but was said to be farming 108 acres at Little Duchrae jointly with his father.
The most significant birth, however, was that of an illegitimate son, the future novelist, to Anne Crocket at Little Duchrae at 5.20 am on 24 September 1859. He is recorded in the register simply as Samuel Crocket and the informant’s name is given as “Mary Crocket, Nurse”. Although Mary was the name of the baby’s grandmother, this was probably his Aunt Mary. There has been confusion about the date of Crockett’s birth, as indeed there was also to be about that of his death. Once a date is inaccurately identified, subsequent writers tend to follow suit and many reference books continue to give the year of his birth as 1860. Doubts of this kind were not uncommon in the mid-nineteenth century. For example, when Crockett was lodging as a student in Edinburgh, he became closely acquainted with one of the best known preachers of the day, Dr Alexander Whyte of the Free Church of St George’s at the West End of Princes Street.
Dr Whyte’s biographer, G. F. Barbour of Bonskeid, states that, although there is no doubt that, like J M Barrie, Whyte was born in Kirriemuir, there is some uncertainty about the accepted date of 13 January 1836. However, with the formal registration of births, marriages and deaths commencing in Scotland in 1855 it is possible to be more certain of the facts and there can be no doubt about the year of Crockett’s birth.
Like Crockett Whyte was illegitimate in that despite the willingness of his father, John Whyte, to marry the child’s mother the marriage never took place. Alexander Whyte did, however, take his father’s surname whereas Crockett retained that of his mother so that there has been speculation as to the identity of his father. Some of the biographical articles that appeared when Crockett became a best-selling author stated that his father died when he was young. This was an appropriate version for public consumption. One oral tradition handed down locally was that his father was a man of some standing in the neighbourhood. Be that as it may, he was certainly known to the Crocket family.
At some time after 1851 William Crocket’s second son, Samuel, decided to try his hand at farming and emigrated, in the company of Robert Hyslop’s eldest son and daughter, John and Agnes, to the United States where both men began to farm near Rochester, Minnesota. From there Samuel wrote at least two letters, dated 14 February and 19 October 1860 to his brother John of Duchrae. In the first of these letters Samuel relates that both John Hyslop’s wife and his mother in law have given birth to sons. Samuel had married Agnes Hyslop on 25 December 1857 and on 13 February 1860 she too had given birth to a son, William, who was to become a favourite cousin of the author, Sam Crockett.
The interesting point about this letter is that Samuel fills three long pages with gossip about local health problems, a disease among cattle which necessitates the dispatch from Scotland of details of a preventative remedy, the current prices of wheat, oats and corn and suchlike before he eventually gets round to referring to the birth of an illegitimate nephew. Despite his stated concern for religious matters and the news that the Castle Douglas Minister, Mr Symington, may be lured away to Greenock, his attitude to his sister’s misfortune is reassuring. He writes:
“I was sorry to read the account you sent about Anne, all of you must be as kind to her as you possibly can, for he that thinketh he standeth, must take good lest he fall, he must be a miserable wretch to act as he ha done, but vengeance is mine I will repay saith the lord, if no earthly tribunal will punish him for his conduct. I am glad that he did not marry her, I never thought highly of him and the longer the less, you must give Father and Mother, Brothers and Sisters united love, and yourself and family, you must let the Creochs folks know, and Jannet Hyslop how we are all. Tell the old folks to come and see their Grandsons and as many of the young ones as can get but this distance prevents it”.
In his second letter Samuel says that the harvest had been good for both him and John Hyslop:
“This part of America grows fine wheat, there is going to be a great struggle this fall in the electing of a president between Democrats and Republicans, I do not trouble myself about politics much, but if I am spared this fall I believe I shall vote and try to get in a Republican. I should like to see the Black Man have his liberty as well as myself, and I think if a republican President can be elected, that there will be no more slave territory, and I think that confine it to where it is it will soon become unprofitable and kill itself, it is a great curse to this country.”
“You must tell Anne to fetch over her little Sam and let us see him and I will give him a new suit of clothes, it is so far off I cannot send him any thing he will be running all over by this time I expect, you might come over and see us and get a load of wheat”
Back home in Scotland a tragedy had occurred the memory of which may well have been handed down to the younger generation. There was another John Crocket, the son of a Robert Crocket who was a brother of the John Crocket who married Ann Milligan, and was therefore a cousin of William Crocket. This John Crocket had farmed at Marnhoull near Corsock in the parish of Parton, until the death of his wife, Margaret Kissock in 1856, when he gave up farming and occupied a house on the neighbouring farm of Howmuir before purchasing and moving into a cottage in Castle Douglas. On 9 August 1860 he committed suicide by drowning in the River Dee.
Deaths and attempted suicides by drowning were to appear as part of an author’s stock in trade in Sam Crockett’s books but this real incident was deeply felt at the time by the family. Samuel writes:
“..what surprised me most was the end of John Crocket. I read and could hardly believe what I did read, a man like him possest of sound reason and good understanding, to think that he took away his own life, it seems to me that his physician is to blame in not having him sent to a place of safety. I see by the papers that it has been perfectly evident that his mind has been in a bad state for some time, it is undoubtedly a great blessing to have the use of reason, you must if spared to write send me all the particulars about his death, is he was in want, or afraid of comeing to want, or what seemed to bear so heavy upon his mind. Poor man. I always thought highly of Johny he seemed when at Corsock like a father to me, used to come down on Saturdays to take me up with him, it is most distressing to think of his fate.”
2021 NOTE:
If you have any information or comments about this ‘history’ please get in touch. Records from the time are notoriously unreliable and this research was undertaken decades ago, before the rise of online and internet search capabilities, therefore we would be more than happy to discover any errors or additions to the research undertaken here!