May

03

The Riot in Wick -1859

events / fishing / military

SABAID MOR WICK


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.

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Apr

04

Cromore School Early Teachers

children / church / education / people

The school in Cromore was opened on June 16, 1879, when John Cumming (Rogart) was appointed headmaster. He transferred to Fidigarry the following year.
Successive appointments were:
Alex M. Morrison (Barvas) 26th April 1880
Robert Carry (Midlothian) 1st July 1881
Isabella Campbell (Dunvegan) 1st November 1882
John Smith (Balallan) 1st August 1884
Johanna Macdonald (Barra) 2nd February 1887
William Bruce 1st September 1891
John Macdougall (Tiree) 1st November 1892
Catherine Sinclair (Glasgow) 1st August 1895
Catherine Flora Macdonald (Leurbost) 1st April 1896
Angus MacSween (Leurbost) 1st August 1896 – Died on January 23, 1897
Katie M. Pope Aberdeen Free Church Training College appointed June 1897 and commenced her duties on July 16, but left immediately without giving notice
Alexander Poison (Barra) 1st October 1897
J. Campbell (Point) 1st March 1899
Alex Falconer (Leurbost) 1st October 1900
Hector Bruce (Golspie) 1st July 1902 Retired on pension August 1918
The school closed in 1972 when the pupils transferred to the new Pairc Primary School at Gravir.

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Mar

29

The Royal Mail came by creel

communications / emigration / people / transport

From an article in Tional – May 1992
The history of the delivery of mail in Pairc is a story of considerable achievement by the handful of men and women whose determination, vigour and sense of purpose enabled their small, remote communities to receive the advances in communications offered by the Post Office in the second half of the last century.
The role of the redoubtable Ishbel Nicolson, Calbost, in pioneering the postal service in Lochs as it opened up new frontiers to reach more and more people stands out as a tribute to her resourcefulness, enterprise and ingenuity at a time when women were not generally expected or encouraged to play a prominent part in the day to day life of their communities.
Mail Deliveries in Pairc

Much more so than nowadays, women were left to tend to the family’s needs, rear children, manage livestock and perform some of the more burdensome and unpleasant tasks associated with the crofting way of life.
Ishbel, or Belle as she was known, was the daughter of Murdo Nicolson (Murchadh Dh’ol Thormoid), of Calbost, and she had gone over the Loch to Crossbost in the late eighteen sixties on her marriage to Kenneth MacKenzie (Coinneach Ledidh), 28 Crossbost, who had recently returned home from service with the Hudson Bay Company in Canada.  Over the Loch (null air a loch, or thall air a loch) were commonly used phrases of the day which have now fallen into disuse, signifying the close bond of friendship that existed between the inhabitants of the villages that existed on both sides of Loch Erisort and the harmonious social interchange that prevailed when only a short sea crossing separated them, compared with the long, winding stretch of road that served to isolate the communities from each other from the late nineteen twenties onwards.

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Mar

28

Roads in Pairc,1900

communications / transport

A report of a meeting about roads in the Pairc district, held 15 January 1900. From the Stornoway Gazette, 27 January 1900.
A large meeting of crofters, cottars and fishermen from the townships of Lemara, Gravir, Calbost, Marivig, and Cromore in the district of Park was held on the 15th inst. in the Cromore Schooolhouse. Captain Macfarlane, Marivig, was in the chair. The meeting was opened with prayer by the Rev. J. Macdougall. The Chairman, in an able and clear speech, stated that it was a well-known fact to them all that the Lewis District Committee have unanimously been of the opinion that the best way of making roads in the Park district was to construct a main road from Cromore to Gravir, with the intention of ultimately extending it to Lemara, with branches to Marivig on the left and Garyvard on the right. It was also stated that the District Committee were fully under the impression that they had the unanimous consent of the people in favour of the above route, until they heard from Colonel Gore-Booth recently that a numerously-signed petition had been sent out from certain townships against the route proposed by the Committee, and in favour of another route along the coast from Cromore and passing through Marivig and Calbost to the lower end of Gravir, and recommended by Captain Andrews as the result of his visit to the place last harvest. It was explained to the meeting that the main object of their being called there that day was to find out whether the petitions referred to by Colonel Gore-Booth were genuine or not.

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Mar

08

A Brief History of Donald Smith, Cromore

at home / fishing / military / people / transport

An extract from our ‘Aig an Obair’ series published in our newsletter,  Tional and based on an original recording in Donald’s own words.
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’.

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Feb

28

MacRath Mòr in Caversta

church

Caversta’s claim to fame centres round the Rev John Macrae, minister of Lochs from 1857-1866.
MacRath Mòr, ‘Big Macrae’, who was a physical and spiritual giant was a household name in Scotland in the latter half of the nineteenth century , having ministered at Cross (1833), Knockbain (1839), Greenock (1849), Lochs (1857) and Carloway (1866) before retiring to Stornoway in 1871 where he preached regularly after his retirement.
Lochs (Crossbost) at that time was a congregation of around 5000 people. There were no Free Church buildings at Kinloch or Pairc in these days and with roads being few and far between in what was a large and widely dispersed area. It was with this in mind that the people of Snizort in Skye presented Macrath Mór with a yacht, The Wild Duck which was sailed to Lewis by his good friend Rev Roderick Macleod of Snizort.
This is where Caversta comes to the fore. Because of its central location ‘Gob Chabharstaigh’ became a meeting place and whenever Rev Macrae was to preach there, people came by boat from Kinloch, North Lochs, Cromore and Marvig while those from Gravir, Lemreway and Orinsay came on foot.

Portable pulpit

It is very likely that the ‘tent’ or portable pulpit, at present in the museum at Gravir was used there and there is part of a wall at number 3 in an area known as ‘Tobair na Tent‘.
Macrath Mór’s wife was Penelope Mackenzie, daughter of Captain Thomas Mackenzie, tacksman at Bayble. She is buried in Eilean Chalum Chille where the inscription on her gravestone is still legible but Macrae himself was buried at Greenock.

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Jan

16

Fishing at Cromore

fishing

by Angus “Ease” Macleod, Calbost and Marybank.
Fish was the staple diet of Cromore people and this made the sea of prime importance. Inland lochs were used for trapping fish and it is believed that Lochs Beag and Mor nam Bodach were used for this purpose. Both lochs have stone dams and at high-water flood-tides, the sea brought fish into the lochs where they were trapped when the tide ebbed. On the seaward side (east) of Loch nam Bodach Beag, there is a stone wall built across that acts as a fish trap – known as a carraidh. You can wade in this loch at low tide and catch fish quite easily.With the introduction of nets, sailing boats fished the fertile waters of Loch Erisort for all types of fish. Herring was the most plentiful and easy to catch. Due to this, a herring curing station and salt house was set up on the foreshore. The men folk did the fishing and the women the gutting, salting and barrelling. The remains of the curing house at Buale Fhairinish can still be identified above the foreshore where there is a large and level area now covered in grass.


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The cairn in the Crossland Island was used as a marker for the sail boats tacking into the loch and the bay was used as an anchorage for boats waiting to discharge their catch. Local tradition suggests that the island originally had a cross mounted where the stone cairn is today and that it was thrown into the sea when the area moved away from the Catholic faith.
Cromore Bay itself is a very safe harbour with the encircling arms closing the bay off, except from the north at the mouth of the bay. Flat and white fish such as plaice, haddock and whiting were fished on small lines baited with mussels found in abundance on the shoreline. Cod, ling and eels were fished on great lines, salted and dried on the flat rocks on the shore. Marker cairns were built on other hilltops and islands to guide boats home and to act as markers for the fishing grounds.
Shipwrecks and drownings were sadly very common, bad weather and the numerous reefs on the coastline being the chief cause. Brothers’ Reef is named in memory of three local brothers after their boat was wrecked there and all drowned. This was one of the most dangerous, as it is covered from half to high tide. The brothers’ bodies were later recovered and are buried in the Temple graveyard. Between the 1st and 2nd World War, there were two trawlers and seven drift net fishing vessels operating out of Cromore.
Over the years, the following boats fished out of the village:
Safeguard, skipper Murchadh Dhomhnaill Ruaraidh, Murdo Macleod (Dick), 26 Cromore.
Thistle, Iain Beag Iain ‘an Oig, John Macleod, 24 Cromore.
Kilravock Castle, Seonaidh Ruadh, John Kennedy, 4 Cromore.
Cherry, Domhnall Alasdair Mhoir, Donald Macleod, 11 Cromore.
Spray, Fionnlagh Sheonaidh, Finlay Smith, 15 Cromore.
Aurora, Iain Mor Sheonaidh, John Smith, 16 Cromore.
Ebenezer, Murchadh Fhearghais, Murdo Macleod, 21Cromore.
True Love; Dochas; Columbine; Star of Hope; Cailleach; Oidche; Constant; Good Hope; Dove; Violet; Village Maid; Isa; Wood; Spray; Ripple; Willena.

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