History of the Johnstones, 1191-1909, with ... - Electric Scotland

THE JOHNSTOUNS OF DUCHRAE 27
to Galloway—the distance would not be more than about twenty-five miles.
But the Christian names and connections point to a probable relation with
their nearer neighbours of Clauchrie, of whom the first who appears in those
parts, Captain David Johnston, seems to have been a cadet. His Will
describes him " in Orchardtoun " in 1685. His heir and executor is his eldest
son, William, and the witness, Sir Godfrey M'Cullock of Myrton.
In 1685 Hew M'Cullock of Rusco disposes of a tack of Parks in Netherlaw,
held of Sir George Maxwell of Orchardton to William Johnstoun, Patrick Vans
being the witness. In 1706 William wrote from Ballywillwill, Ireland (Chapter
XXVI II.), to Sir George Maxwell, speaking of his tack of Netherlaw, his brother's
illness, and of money owed to him by Maxwell. About this time William
appears as a feuar in Duchrae, which was bought by the Provost of Dumfries,
William Craik of Arbigland, in 1681. The district must have been nearly
deserted, for the struggle carried on between the Covenanters and the troops
sent to coerce them, from 1661 till 1689, had begun there, and continued with
pitiless energy till the accession of William III. William Johnstoun in Duchrae
was married to a daughter of a cadet of Grierson of Lag, and his landlord,
Craik, was brother to the wife of John Johnstoun of Clauchrie, married in 1633.
Duchrae's wife's relatives had also transactions with the Clauchries, and were
connected with Dumfries, where the notorious Sheriff-Depute of Galloway, Sir
Robert Grierson of Lag (Scott's Sir Robert Redgauntlet) ended his long life in
a house in the High Street in 1733.
William Johnstoun in Duchrae appears to have founded a branch in
Ireland ; but a younger son was Robert Johnstoun of Nether Barcaple in
Tongland, who in 17 13 married a second wife, Mary Wallace, a relation of the
Craiks, and whose family lived in Clauchrie. Their younger son, William, born
1718, feued lands in Duchrae from another William, probably his uncle or
grandfather, and married an Ayrshire girl, Janet M'Cready, born 1721.
His maternal grandmother was a Neilson, as he was heir to two aunts of
that name owning lands in Duchrae, but which were sold years before their
death, 1 and his eldest son, William, born 1745, settled in Carlisle. A young
brother, Robert, was drowned in the Bay of Luce, presumably in the engagement
with the French fleet under Thurot, when several local ships assisted the
British squadron (1759). A sister married Laidlaw of Mossgrove. The
youngest brother, John, born at Balmaghie, 1749, the seventh son of a seventh
son, died 1841, married Dorothea Proudfoot, daughter of an old Covenanting
family at Moffat, and on her death, leaving an only child (John), married again,
and had a second family.
John, the younger, settled in New York in 1S04 at the age of twenty-three,
and married Margaret, daughter of John Taylor, of Glasgow, the widow of
R. Howard. Among other family treasures, he carried to America books and
a seal bearing the family crest. He kept up his connection with Scotland by
visits to Edinburgh and Galloway, and by sending donations to the churches in
1 The lands were sold, says family tradition, because the old ladies had no title-deeds.
After their death two silk bonnets were found with the lost writs cut up inside the silk.