Local tradition give two dates for this event 1802 and 1808 and furthermore it was said that it was during the ministry of Rev. Alexander Simpson the Parish Minister who was at Lochs from 1793 to 1830 which was during the time of the Napoleonic Wars, that the young men were taken. One source give the dates of the building of the new church and manse as 1796 for the church and 1800 for the manse, but we have seen slightly later dates given, 1808 seems rather late as the date of the Press Gang, as the new church was probably in use by then. On the other hand the old thatched church might have been used on occasion as well.

It is implied that Rev. Alexander Simpson was involved in the luring of the young men to the church and that whiskey played a part, but we would expect folk-lore to add colour to the event and no one knows what, if any part the well known minister played in the episode.

A late Crossbost Free Church Minister seemed to be well aware of the details of the event, but unfortunately we do not know if he could identify any young men that were involved in the event.  Some Keose sources are inclined to think that possibly some or all of the men were in the North Lochs area rather than the Kinloch area.

We would be grateful for any more information about the 32 young men.

In confirmation of this local tradition it is maintained that a painting could be seen hanging in one of the rooms of Brahan Castle, when it was occupied, depicting the king in the act of rising from the ground while close behind him a bare-armed kilted figure could be seen holding a stag by the antlers, and in the background a lady was seen to be calling “Cuidich ‘n Righ“, {Help the King}.  At the foot of the picture was the locus of the incident given as “Brinigil” on the shores of Loch Seaforth.

The Wick riot which took place in August 1859 between Lewis fishermen and East coast fishermen was a ‘free for all’ that lasted a whole week.  Although perhaps relations between East Coast fishermen and Hebridean fishermen may not have been too good, it was a dispute between two lads over an apple, a lad from Wick and one from Lewis that started the “Sabaid Mor”

Police apprehended the 14 year old Lewis lad, Malcolm Macleod “Calum Alastair“, 2 Habost, Lochs who was helping in his father’s boat.  Skipper Alastair had moved from Balallan to Habost to take the place of a family that was evicted and moved away to Harris by the notorious factor Donald Munro.

Hundreds of people were engaged on each side in the fight and some Lewismen were arrested and taken to jail and this action by the police aggravated the situation. Domhnull Ruaridh Mackenzie, 10 Laxay,  assisted by his crew and others removed the mast from his boat and used it as a battering ram against the jail door and released the prisoners.  Almost every village in Lewis were represented in the riot and some of the men were stabbed and many hurt while some on both sides were given a ducking in the harbour.

An unusually strong man from Keose played a prominent part, Rob MacDhòmhnaill 12 Keose “Mac Domhnuill Bhan“, one of his roles was to provide ammunition for the rioters by breaking up barrels and supplying staves.  In the end the local authorities called in the military and Rev George Mackay of Tongue and peace was restored just before the end of the fishing season. A warrant was issued for the arrest of the strong man from Keose, Robert Macdonald and in order to evade the police he fled immediately first on foot,  but he had not gone far when he was overtaken by a carriage and pair. MacDonald’s signal for a lift was ignored and as a consequence he ran after the carriage and jumped in and ejected the driver and his passenger and left them by the roadside.  By the time the horses became exhausted he was near Poolewe, where he got the ferry “Mary Jane” to Lewis but the Lewis police were informed and Macdonald had to go into hiding with friends in Cromore until he thought the furore had died down.  Back home in Keose he soon joined the other youths who used to gather in the manse kitchen with the servants. One evening the Stornoway police turned up and arrested Rob and handcuffed him to one of the officers.  Near a Loch outside the village Rob said he was not going any further and asked the police to release him, when they refused he threatened to drag the officer to whom he was handcuffed  into the Loch.  After a brief struggle the officers felt they were no match for Rob and decided to release him to the delight of his friends, a large number of whom had gathered to give moral support to Rob. Knowing that he was a marked man he decided to leave via Tarbert to resume his seafaring career, this time in the Merchant Navy.  Alas a few years later he was lost in the Thames Estuary.

In 1942 a Lockheed Hudson bomber crashed in Southern Pairc close to Mulhagery. The bomber flew into the rocky hillside at Fiar Chreag while flying in over the water in foggy weather. Had the plane managed to climb another 10 feet they would have cleared the top of the hill. Fiar Chreag rises very steeply from close to the sea and would have come up very quickly if they were flying blind in fog.

A Hudson bomber on Atlantic patrol

The RAF knew that the plane must have come down over land but despite spending over three weeks searching from the air they failed to find the crashed bomber. At that time there were Walrus Seaplanes based at the airfield in Stornoway and these flew over the area but without any success.

Nearly four weeks after the crash the crew of the regular passenger flight from Glasgow to Stornoway spotted something glinting in the sun and reported this when they reached Stornoway. The passenger service plane at that time was a Dominee bi-plane which carried only 10 passengers.

Following the sighting a land based search was undertaken but still failed to find the plane on the first day as they had been directed to the hills above Valamus 10 miles away. The following day when they found out that they were searching in the wrong area they moved to the Fiar Chreag close to Mulhagary. There seems to have been some confusion between the shepherds house at Mulhagery and the house at Valamus. The search team was led by Duncan Macrae, Head Gamekeeper at Eishken Estate.

Mulhagery- ruins of Sheep Farm in Southern Pairc

They found the remains of the bomber scattered over a wide area and totally disintegrated. The three crew were all dead and one was found some distance from the plane with a coat pulled over his head. He must have either been thrown clear or managed to crawl out of the wreckage. The bodies when removed and taken down to the beach at Mulhagery but the weather was unfavourable with strong winds preventing a boat from coming in to collect the bodies.

After 4 weeks when they had not been collected Lady Jessie Thornycroft, the owner of the Eishken Estate, complained to the RAF as the bodies were still lying  under canvas on the shore. They made arrangements for a team to go over land into what is a very inaccessible area but in fact they managed to make a landing from a boat and the bodies were taken to Stornoway.

The Lockheed Hudson bomber was on lease-lend from the US and was flown by Coastal Command and engaged in anti-submarine defence. Some of the remains of the bomber are still on the hillside and the engines are still clearly visible.

Narrated by Dan Macleod, Lemreway and written by Donnie Morrison, Chairman, Pairc Historical Society.

12^th July 2000

Further extract from our archives :-

15/31 31.07.42 HUDSON III FH375 V/500 Sqn Stornoway

The Squadron was getting ready to move to St Eval, and all aircraft were serviceable except for FH375 which had its radar U/S.  The radar was repaired but it required an air-test to finish the job.  The weather at Stornoway was bad with low cloud and all aircraft were grounded.  But for some reason the Hudson was allowed to take off.  Its crew were F/O Rigby as pilot, P/O Hancock on radar and Sgt Rixon who was the radar technician.

When the Hudson failed to return a sea search was started, followed, when the weather improved by an air search.  Nothing was found and the search was wound down.  Then on the 25^th August, the pilot of a Scottish Airways Rapide reported seeing wreckage near Kebock Head.  But this reported location was too far north and again nothing was found.  The Squadron had to move and leave the search in the hands of 15 Gp Coastal Command.

The search was now made on foot, by means of landing the men on suitable beaches.  On the 29^th August, the party landed at Mulhagery, and within 90 minutes they had returned to the boat with the bodies of the crew of the Hudson. Because of rough water it was not possible to put the bodies aboard the pinnace.  So it was not until the 9^th September that the bodies were landed at Stornoway.

There are still large remains of the Hudson on Fiar Chreag at map reference 14/365074.  It lies on private land, and the permission of Eishken Estate should be obtained to visit the crash site.

RAF records give the date of death of all three crew members as 31.07.42, but the head stone of F/O Rigby is dated 01.08.42.

Crew:

F/O John Derek Brearley Rigby (age 22)                    buried – Sandwick Cemetery

P/O Frank Richard Hancock                                     buried – Sandwick Cemetery

Sgt Bernard Frederick Charles Rixon (age 37)            buried – Hoddesdon, Herts

[Show as slideshow]

 

Photos from Dave Earl whjo visited teh site in May 2000

Here is a brief history of the life of Donald Smith, 15 Cromore.  His father was Finlay, son of  ‘Big John Muldonaich’, and his mother was Ishbel, daughter of Roderick.

“I was born in Cromore in 1907 where I went to school at five years of age.  The headmaster was Mr Duncan.  Many people made out that he was no use, but looking back I am not of that opinion.  It is said that his predecessor, Mr Bruce, was good at teaching Gaelic.  When Mr Duncan came he was of the opinion that the children were fluent enough as they naturally spoke in Gaelic, but they were in need of being taught English.  When the Gravir minister came to give us a test he didn’t agree.  There were only two or three able to read and write Gaelic, and he was wild.  The two fell out, and the headmaster ordered the minister to leave.  When the argument was over, Mr Duncan said, “Well, if that man is in Heaven, I’ll walk out.”  Mr Duncan was good at teaching us psalms.  I learned more English psalms in the day school than I did in Sunday school.  I still remember five or six of them.  There was one that our Finlay always requested when the headmaster gave us a choice of which one to sing, and  this is it: -

‘When he cometh, when he cometh
To make up his jewels
All his jewels precious jewels
His loved and his own.’

I was about seven years of age the first time I went to Stornoway by boat.  There was no road round the loch then.  We slept in the home of Donald, Kenneth’s son of 19 Cromore.  At that time they were living on Mackenzie Street.  We came home in a small boat belonging to Alastair the Tailor.  We left from the Battery in Stornoway with my father and another two or three men, rowing to Cromore.

When I left school I worked at home on the fishing, the croft and odd jobs round about.

When they started building the Nurse’s cottage in Gravir they took a lorry from Stornoway to take supplies from the quay to the house.  My father thought it would be handy to have one based in the community. And that was what happened.  He brought over a one tonne truck from Callanish.  She arrived in Cromore on the boat ‘Good Hope’.  She was put ashore at the point where the quay is now.  My father steered her home up the hill.  He would let me drive her.  It wasn’t long before I wrecked her.  I would go round the district with her, but since the road was not complete, I couldn’t go past Habost with her.  I remember going to Kershader to take people to Lemreway for the wedding of Iain, son of ‘Domhnull Chalum’ and Mary, daughter of ‘Domhnull Bhig’.

There were a lot of boats in Cromore when I was young.  I remember the names and registrations of the first ones I saw.  They were ‘Violet, SY 217, and ‘Dove, SY 72’.  MacConnachaidh had a boat called ‘Pioneer, SY 1021’.  The skippers of all these boats lived locally.

Dan had a post office and shop, and MacConnachaidh also had a shop.  It was when he retired that we opened a shop ourselves.  MacConnachaidh didn’t have much help so I used to carry supplies up from the shore for him.  He wouldn’t have been able to keep me away anyway.  If there was a boat coming ashore I was in it.  I also would go and give MacConnachaidh a shave with the ‘cut throat’ razor.  It’s a wonder I never cut his throat.

We also had boats.  One of them was named ‘Star of Hope’.  She originally belonged to Lord Leverhulme, and then some men from Ness bought her to take supplies to their shop in Ness.  She was too big to berth at their quay so they had to sell her.  That’s how we got her.  She was then taken to Calbost and went on fire there.  We then had the ‘Spray’, and the ‘Aurora’, and in the year of the big herring landings in Loch Erisort it was the ‘Elsie’ we had.  There was plenty herring at that time, but MacConnachaidh was partially blind.  One of his eyes was pure white.  I never found out why.  People used to say that that was why he always left the boat at anchor and swam ashore.

They came from everywhere to fish for herring.  A drifter from the mainland came over by the name of ‘Burnt Haven’.  She set her nets in Loch Torostaidh one beautiful evening and the crew went down below.  She began to list and they couldn’t figure out what was wrong.  When they looked she was aground on a rock.  She didn’t suffer too much damage.  She was made out of steel.  Everybody fished for as much as they could get.  I remember ourselves going out really early one Monday morning.  We set the nets and never caught a thing.  I was quite pleased, in case folk thought that we had gone out on the Sabbath.

We used to go into the Park Estate deer hunting as well.  John Angus, Aonghas Dick, Iain ‘Aonghas Sheonaidh and I went in one night.  We left Iain looking after the boat while the rest of us went ashore.  We had killed two deer when out of the blue the gamekeeper and his son appeared.  We hid, because we knew they would return to Eishken before dark.  When they left we made off in the boat, and they put me ashore further up to retrieve the deer from where we had left them.  Then they returned with the boat and picked me and the deer up.  We took both of them home.  Iain was wearing a coat of mine with the letters D.S. written on the back and we were afraid they would recognise us as I was driving the bus at that time.  But they couldn’t have realised because a while after that the gamekeeper was in Cromore and he never came near us.  I remember another time when my father and grandfather went up to Brollum in a small 14 ft boat.  They rowed there and back.  They killed enough to fill the boat.  My grandfather took a bad turn and my father maintained it was the rum that kept him going until they reached home.  They were fortunate in more ways than one on that day.  They hadn’t got up from the shore when a gale came in from the southeast.

Once I turned eighteen I joined the Reserves.  A number of us had tried to get in before we reached eighteen.  Roderick ‘Dick’, boys from Gravir and I went together.  They could tell that we were underage and the police lifted us.  We were fined two pounds.  Roderick never tried again.  He went to America.  He was quite right.  It was at Chatham that I carried out my first drill.  My uncle Angus, and Angus, son of Norman came with me.  The first drill lasted six weeks, and the second lasted three.

I got my licence in 1923.  There was no test; you just had to send for it.  Domhnuill Moil from Gravir had the first car here.  Murdo Alex used to drive it.  We then got a van from Mitchell.  I then got a seven-seater.  When the road round Kinloch was completed, we would take passengers to Stornoway.  At first we didn’t have a timetable, but when other buses started running we set up a timetable then.  We would take turns in waiting in Stornoway for the steamer coming across from Kyle.  It was often the early hours of the morning before we got home.  It was quite hard in winter with the snow.  There was no salt put on the roads in these days, which resulted in icy conditions.  It didn’t really bother us.  We were quite brave in those days.  We didn’t have the sense to not drive the bus until the snow stopped.  If it wouldn’t start for me in the morning I would connect it to the battery from the radio.  That worked.

When the War started in 1939, Roderick ‘Dhomhnull Choinnich’, Alex Iain, and I were the first three to leave from Cromore.  I spent three weeks in a large shed learning rifle drill.  I then joined the training ship ‘Iron Duke’.  They took us out three miles for firing practice and although the noise was deafening we had no ear protection.  That did us no harm.  When we saw the papers the next day, we read that the local people were complaining of their windows smashing with the noise.  The next ship I was on did the same run as the Suilven is doing now going between North Island and South Island in New Zealand.  She was built in Glasgow and was a beautiful ship.  She was not long in New Zealand when the War broke out, and she was sent to Cape Town.  What an upheaval.  She was stripped of everything put into her in Glasgow.

When we left Glasgow we headed for the Western Approaches, and we went back and fore from there to Freetown in Sierra Leone.  When we arrived back we got two days off.  I came home, but when I went back she had sailed.  It took a while before they got me another ship to go on.  It was on to a Norwegian trooper I was sent.  We sailed from Shetland to Norway but we got turned back.  That was fortunate for me because I had enrolled for a torpedo course.  I spent some time at barracks before I went down to Cardiff to join an old cruiser that had been used in the First World War.  There was only a couple of officers and myself on board.  We spent the days on board then came ashore at night.  We left not having a clue where we were heading.  Eventually we arrived in South Africa, and returned to Liverpool with ten tonnes of gold.  Nuggets of gold.  I never got one of them.  I took ill with pain in my joints and returned to barracks where I was hospitalised for two months.  I wasn’t feeling too well when I got out of hospital and so they told me to go to H.M.S Quebec, a shore base in Inveraray.  There were marines and soldiers there, training like mad for an invasion.  We would go out in the boats with them.  When there was a gale they would break off and we would have to tow them back in.  That’s how I spent my time for the rest of the war.  I was very lucky.  I didn’t suffer much.

After the war I returned home to Cromore and started fishing.  I got a boat, the ‘Dòchas’.  I married Marion ‘Snudaidh’ from Cromore, and we lived in Cromore until 1954 when we moved to Laxdale.

I then went out on any boat that needed a crew, helping out here and there.  In due course I got a half share in the ‘Ivy Rose’.  Murdo C. was a brilliant navigator.  He would go anywhere, but when he got tired he headed for Stornoway.  He would say, “There isn’t a market in Ullapool today.”  I remember meeting the Marvig boys one day as they were heading for Ullapool.  We were heading back from Ullapool.  I spoke to Duncan but didn’t tell him that there wasn’t a market in Ullapool.  That was just as well because there was a market.  We had a good crew.  We had big strapping men from Point.  I remember that ‘Isean’ would cook the herring for twenty minutes.  Everyone would tell him he was cooking them for too long, and he got fed up of their moaning.  He appeared one day with the herring and said, “ There’s your herring and I only cooked it for five minutes, and if it kills you – tough”.  He never heard another complaint about his cooking of the herring.

I was on the first boat that went out with a trawl.  Alastair Macfarlane had a trawl on the ‘Evening Star’.  I don’t know where he got it, but anyway we joined forces and caught seven crans.  A lot of people made a fuss over the trawls, saying it would empty the sea of herring.  The fish was plentiful, but didn’t fetch a good price.  I remember buying a box of eels from ‘Bucach’s boat and it cost me two shillings per eel.  I took them over to Lochs and sold them for half a crown each.  I stopped at the Kershader School and the headmaster thought they were very expensive.

We also got prawns.  One day I asked the boys to leave me a bag of prawns so I could use them as fertiliser.  When I got home there was a big block amongst the prawns.  Anyway, I put what I had on the potatoes, and what a difference it made.  I got really good potatoes.  I don’t plant potatoes any more.  I am nearly ninety but still doing quite well.  I certainly am.

Even now, more than a century after the event, the people of Lochs still talk about the body that was discovered in Southern Park on 2nd August 1887. The body, and his grave, are normally referred to as that of “the stowaway” or “the fireman” to this day, and there are only a few people still left in Lochs who know the story of the stowaway.

However, his death is registered and there is no doubt that such a person existed, even though the details of who he was or where he came from is not known. His death is noted in the register on January 1888 as an unnamed man about 30 years old whose body was found at “Colbal Hill” in Southern Park on 2nd August 1887. He is referred to as “the fireman”.

At that time people were under the impression, rightly or wrongly, that the law of the land required that human remains be buried near where they were found. Probably that is why there are single graves to be found here and there. There is a grave on the writer’s croft called “Donald’s grave” and no one knows who Donald was.

It is said that Joseph Platt who took over the tenancy of the sporting estate of Pairc in 1886 when the Park Sheep farm was converted into a Deer Park, made enquires with a view to identify the remains. He approached the Federation of Shipping to see if they knew of any ship that might have been in the vicinity of Pairc at that time.

They were not aware of any ships being there and in the circumstances Mr Platt provided a coffin for the remains and gave it a decent burial where he was found, not far from Buthinish/Gearraidh-Riaghsaigh near the southern shore of Loch Shell, not far from the Black Burn. The grave is marked with two cairns of loose stones, one at each end of the grave. The place is well known to gamekeepers and others who move about that district.

Once again we proved the value of duly noting oral tradition in our search to record as much as possible of the fast disappearing local history of Lochs. We approached four well informed local people in Park and Balallan, who were not only informed of this event but their oral tradition agreed substantially except that some thought that it was during the summer season that “the stowaway” was seen and spoken to by gamekeepers while others maintained that it was the winter with snow on the ground and the man was leaving footprints in the snow as he walked.

The Brollam gamekeeper at that time, whose name was thought to be Mr Munro, came upon the stowaway sleeping under the one of the Estate boats at the freshwater Loch Lacasdale. The man explained that he was a stowaway who came from a ship in the area of Loch Claidh at the southern tip of the Park Peninsula and that he was making his way to Stornoway in order to get another ship. Mr Munro and his game keeping party noted that the man had food and advised him to follow the estate workers who were visible in the distance walking northwards towards Loch Shell and the Eishken Shooting Lodge.  When these Estate workers reached Eishken Lodge they reported that they saw a man walking alone well behind them but they had no idea who he was.

Apparently the management of the Estate did not seem to do anything about the stranger walking on the hill, and the matter was forgotten until a body was discovered the following year in an advanced state of decomposition. Everyone then recalled the story of the stowaway.  It is not clear how the man came to be called “a fireman” unless he referred to himself as a fireman. This raises the question of whether the so-called ship was a sailing ship or a steamship. No reference is made to language and presumably he was an English speaking person.

The gamekeeper stationed at Valamus maintained that there was a ship at anchor at the time in his area, and that he thought that it might be a foreign ship. A glance at the map indicated that if a man came ashore from a ship somewhere in the Valamus/ Brollum area and set course for the head of Loch Shell, he would very likely pass near Loch Lacasdal.

The body was said to have been found by Douglas Thorneycroft, a brother of Mrs Jessie Platt, when he was out shooting with a party not far from Buthinish.  Whether it was summer or winter when the man was seen walking towards Loch Shell and Eishken Lodge, it is a puzzle why a young man of about 30 years of age would perish so near to human habitation.

Also, although he could not see Eishken Lodge from where he died, he could see the Eishkin Estate yacht “Transit” moored near Eishken Lodge and therefore local people were wondering why he did not try and attract attention by lighting a fire or something.

The year 1887 was the year of the famous Park Deer Raid but that was in November so there is no question of the two events being related in any way.