Ardtaraig

continue to use, being most familiar with it. They were a branch of the family of Ardkinlas. The male line of Dergachy became extinct about the latter part of the seventeenth century, and one of the M’Ivan Campbells of Asknish and Glasserie married a sister of the then laird of Dergachy, by whom he got possession of all their lands. I may now tell a little story which I got from the late Baron Buchanan, not long before his death.
The last laird of Dergachy, John, was absent as an officer in the King’s service in 1685. The king must have been James II, and from this we may gather that our Dergachy ancestors were Jacobites. On this occasion, in his absence, the laird and his tenants were robbed by the Atholl men of horses, cattle, and sheep, besides household plenishing. It appears from an appendix to “The Depredations Committed” (a State paper), that so far as the robbing of the effects of the mansion was concerned they were recovered by Mrs Campbell, who, from all accounts, must have been a plucky dame. John Brown, the genealogist, says: “The heroic Mrs Campbell of Dergachy, when her husband’s property was plundered by the troops of Atholl, followed to the camp, on the borders of the district of Lennox, in Dumbartonshire, where she was delivered of a child (in the camp). No sooner was the Marquis (of Atholl?) informed of the circumstance by the doctor and chaplain, than he gave orders that every attention that the situation of the lady required should be paid; and on her recovery the property was restored, with which she returned to Dergachy, and her memory has often been celebrated in Gaelic song.”
The origin of the Campbells of Ballochyle is mixed up with that of the Dergachys. Like many other Highland families, the Ballochyles were too lavish with their means. During the Peninsular War, the laird of the period (about 1808), got an advance from the “Gall Rewaah,” for which he gave part of his land as a security, in order to raise money for appointments for his sons in the Army. This money he was unable to redeem, and, of course, had to part with that portion of his estate; and very likely other, portions went the same way. Farm after farm was undoubtedly sold; yet the people of the district simply adored the family; and it was a well-known cry in that part of the Highlands, “Stand aside, the great Ballochyle’s coming!” a translation, doubtless, from the Gaelic. Grandpapa was a Dergachy on the mother’s side; she, Susan Campbell, being a lineal descendant of the aforesaid heroic Mrs Campbell.”
There have been some wonderful “trees,” or tables of descent, in connection with our family, going very far back – myths, for the most part, I consider them – so I shall take the liberty of setting them aside and confining this record to facts that are distinctly traceable, or nearly so, despite some conflicting statements, which it is now impossible to clear up.
Leaving alone, then, “The Black Knight of Lochawe,” and sundry other more or less shadowy personages, there emerges from the dim past into the reasonable light of day, the venerable Duncan Campbell of Dunoon, Chapelton, and Knockamellie, Esq. His style and titles show him to have been, as tradition has it, a man of considerable influence but, except in the person of his son Donald, our direct ancestor, there appears to be nothing to hold by – of wife or children not a trace. Of this son Donald, it is recorded that he was a younger son of the family of Dunoon and Knockamellie, probably born about 1670, as be was known to have been building properties in Dunoon in the year 1713. He married Violet MacArthur, daughter and co-heiress of John MacArthur of Milton, near Dunoon, who bore him four sons; first, Hugh, born in 1700, married Susanne, daughter of Campbell of Asknish, and died minister of Rothesay in 1764; second, Duncan, our great-grandfather, born at Dunoon in 1706, married his cousin, Susan Campbell, daughter of Campbell of Dergachy by his second wife, Elizabeth MacLachlan of MacLachlan – the above Susan Campbell was younger sister of Violet Campbell, who married Campbell of Ballochyle ; third, Archibald, – married Miss Melville, sister of Dr Melville, minister of Dunoon; fourth, Donald, went to the Island of Islay, took land, and settled there. It was probably up in the glens, at the head of Holy Loch, that these boys spent their childhood. Hugh’s wife, Susanna of Asknish, was one of the M’Ivan Campbells who got possession of the lands of Dergachy by marriage.
As regards the old mansions of those days, how I wish I could locate them! Both Ballochyle and