 In Kincardineshire way back in the year 1648, David Barclay had purchased Ury, an acreage flanking the stream known as Cowie Water which flowed a short distance down to the North Sea. Some few decades later, in the small library of the big Barclay family mansion a mile and a half outside Stonehaven, David's eldest son authored many literary works which were published in defense of the Quaker faith, earning Robert Barclay a designation of "The Apologist." Through two more centuries, ownership of Ury passed by inheritance through a succession of Robert Barclays, all direct descendants of David. Outside the little seaport town of Stonehaven which joined the Cowie riverlet to the large body of water sometimes called the "German Ocean," the estate was enhanced with many noticeable improvements during the late 1700's, impressing travellers seeing Ury their very first time. The quote of an anonymous visitor has survived from the early 1800's to reveal that Barclay's estate of Ury had been transformed into "the most beautiful place in North Britain." The highest point in the scenic neighborhood of Ury was at "the top of a little mount" a half-mile's distance from the immense Barclay house. A cemetery for Society of Friends believers was located on this promontory, 126 feet above the level of the North Sea, where David Barclay of London had ordered a structure built at his own expense to shelter the graves of seven Barclay ancestors. But well into the 19th century, descendants remaining on the historic Ury estate once occupied by the famed 17th-century Robert Barclay had fallen away from embracing his ideology. Although greatly dismayed at the family's religious change of heart, contemporary Quakers continued to hold the prominent Barclay forefather in high esteem. Fortunately, the family lineage had preserved all of Robert Barclay's own writings and the old collection of Society of Friends books. Their aged Quaker meeting house, once such an integral part of their family life, was still standing right next to the large Barclay mansion; but its importance had long since dwindled into functioning as a storehouse for broken furniture and spare lumber. Beginning in 1825, the Barclay estate included a still for making booze, and it was named Glenury by its flamboyant founder. The athletic Captain Robert Barclay was a marathon walker, along with serving as a Member of Parliament. Through political connections he secured King William IV's permission for the Scotch made at his distillery to be designated as Glenury Royal. The malt whisky produced on the Barclay estate never became a big seller, however the brewery continued to stay in business for 160 years (until 1985). At the edge of the Fetteresso Forest four miles west of Stonehaven, Mid Hill marks the beginning of the foothills which grow upward into Scotland's huge Grampian mountain range. Three miles due south of the hill, the village of Drumlithie is located; and Carron Water flows through the little valley lying halfway between. The stream meanders northeasterly, lowering itself in a snaky path to connect with the North Sea at Stonehaven Bay. Revolving motion of millstones was generated by waterpower coursing eastward down from a nearby mill dam, where a station was situated in order to conduct neighborhood commerce in the broad Kincardineshire countryside of eastern Scotland. The WILLIAM WISHART family had relocated there near the station at rustic New Mill, six miles southwest of the old Ury estate of the Barclays. The unique village steeple at Drumlithie, a mile and a half to the south, was obscured by a slight rise in the terrain. When the family of five had come up from Forfarshire to accept a sublease on the meal mill, perhaps during late May of 1862, they were planning to remain for up to 16 years at the location next to little Stony Hill, six miles from downtown Stonehaven. Located mile and a half down the coast south of Stonehaven is a rock surface of four and a half acres rising 160 feet above the sea and separated from the mainland by a deep dry chasm. A steep winding path leads upward to the ruins of old Dunnottar Castle, dating back to the 13th century. The aged structure was partly dismantled almost 150 years before the WISHARTS moved into their mill house six miles away to the west. Scotland's third-largest city, Aberdeen, lay on the east coast between the Dee and the Don Rivers up in the county of Aberdeen only a few miles away to the north from Stonehaven and the Ury property. The town's motto was Bon Accord, and a familiar toast was occasionally presented by Aberdonians: "Happy to meet, sorry to part, happy to meet again." The old fishing village at the mouth of the harbor was called "Fittie" (Footdee). Not so very far away was a centuries-old bridge which had long provided the only conduit out of town to the south. In Aberdeen only a couple years previously, during 1860, King's College and Marischal College combined and became the University of Aberdeen. About four decades earlier, when the Scottish winter of 1822 was about to be overtaken by a welcome warmth of springtime, a young ELIZABETH BARCLAY was living in the area nearby. On March 12th of that former year, the 26-year-old daughter of a Dunnottar farmer found herself some 20 miles further up the coast at the big "Granite City" of Aberdeen exchanging Tuesday wedding vows with a youthful WILLIAM WISHART. Presently, in the year of 1862, after about 40 years of marriage and motherhood in Aberdeen, Banffshire, Kirkwall, and Forfarshire, the venerable ELIZABETH had returned to Kincardineshire, the geographical region of her youth and longtime home turf of her BARCLAY ancestors. |
| © Taylor Genealogy, 2000 "Wisharts to New Mill ---and old turf (1862)" by Dick Taylor |