This webpage has hot links to many documents written about and describing Auchindrain.

If you are a descendant of Auchindrain -- or think you may be -- or if you have any questions, comments, or additional information about Auchindrain, please send e-mail to GeoVis@erols.com. Thank you very much.

• Folk Museums in Scotland (plus two in the US and Canada). This webpage lists more than twenty historic preservations, reconstructions, and folk museums. It shows how Auchindrain is the largest and most authentic old rural village in Scotland today.

• Where to "See" the Highland Clearances and Diaspora. This webpage lists monuments and other places to "see" the clearances and the resulting diaspora (the massive flight of Scots to other countries). Auchindrain is the best such place, simply because it is the only old farming village never cleared or deserted.

• Circa 3000 BC - Auchindrain in Prehistory. Auchindrain's buildings surround a mound which might well be a round cairn perhaps 3,000 years old, and there's a long cairn of Clyde/Solway type likely to be some 5,000 years old just across the A83 highway. Neither has been excavated. (This information is from the 1978 article by Marion Campbell of Kilberry.) A nearby state-of-the-art museum, Kilmartin House, complements the Auchindrain Museum by interpreting the prehistory of Mid-Argyll.

• 1457 - Sir Colin Campbell is named First Earl of Argyll.

• 1470's - How old is Auchindrain? Perhaps thousands of years. The oldest written evidence is a legal document from the 1470's which refers to Achadh an Droighinn -- The Field of the Thorn Trees -- as a going concern.

• 1600's Several years of near-starvation especially when an army of occupation came in -- Montrose in 1643, the Marquis of Atholl in 1685 -- and left "not a fishingnet nor a fruit-tree along Loch Fyne"; years when the precious seed-corn had to be eaten, leaving not enough to sow for the next year's harvest - years when a drover brought back the seeds of plague from Carlisle Market, or years when the men had all to go to the wars and leave "the harvest of the while coifs" when the women worked alone, not knowing if they were wife or widow.

• 1685 - Archibald, 9th Earl of Argyll invades Scotland as part of Monmouth's attempt to overthrow the Catholic King James II of England and VII of Scotland. Argyll is executed in Edinburgh. Some seventeen leading men of the Clan Campbell are hanged without trial in Inveraray. Many Campbells escape to Ulster and later move on to North America.

• 1701 - Tenth Earl of Argyll is made First Duke of Argyll.

• 1710 (11 February) - "Charter of Confirmation" from the Duke of Argyll grants Clunaray and Auchendrain to Niall Campbell, Principal of Glasgow University (1728-1761).

• 1740's - Cheese making at Auchindrain. According to the Scottish Dairy Association (SDA), "a supply of 'vells' was part of the [Auchindrain] tenancy, clearly implying that cheese could have been made by the landlord [the 3rd Duke of Argyll]."

• 1745 - Jacobite Uprising of 1745, during which the Third Duke of Argyll supports the government against Charles Edward Stuart, aka The Young Pretender and Bonnie Prince Charlie.

• Circa 1750 - Duncan CAMPBELL and Mary McINTYRE -- my 4x great grandparents -- move to Auchindrain from Bridgend, Inveraray, about the time that the New Town of Inveraray is constructed by the 5th Duke of Argyll. Extracts from research by Duncan Beaton of Huston, Renfrewshire, in 1985. (Beaton is now Scottish Contributing Editor for the Journal of the Clan Campbell Society North America.)

• 1773 - "We found an old woman boiling goats-flesh in a kettle." Samuel Johnson and James Boswell tour the Highlands and Islands. This is Johnson's description of a "Highland Hut" very similar to those of Auchidrain which they visited on September 6 -- six weeks before reaching Inveraray on October 23.

• 1780's - Clearance of Killean Township. The 5th Duke of Argyll sold the neighboring township of Killean. Twelve tenants were dispossessed and accomodated by the people of Auchindrain until they could find employment elsewhere. See the 1978 article by Marion Campbell of Kilberry.

• 1788 - Plan for Modernizing Auchindrain by George Langland for the 5th Duke of Argyll would have rearranged Auchindrain's buildings in rows something like nearby Kenmore on Loch Fyne, but the plan was never realized.

• Circa 1800 - "That Much Frequented Path". A network of busy drove roads once converged at Auchindrain and the neighboring township of Braleckan from Kilmichael Glassary, Loch Awe, the Isle of Mull, and the Isle of Islay. These were used by cattle drovers enroute to lowland markets and by charcoal traders enroute to Furnace on Loch Fyne only two miles from Auchindrain. Chick here for a description of two former drove roads (now poorly maintained hill paths) from Kilneuair (11 miles) and from Durran (7 miles) to Auchindrain. And click here for an interesting article on all of drove roads which converged at Inveraray.

• Circa 1805 - Departure of Two Sons of Auchindrain. This is the approximate year in which my 2x great grandfather Malcolm CAMPBELL [1787-1862] and his older brother Peter CAMPBELL [1775-1842] moved from Auchindrain to Loch Caolisport in Knapdale (now Ellary and Castle Sween Estates). Their departure may have been linked to the opening of the new Crinan Canal in 1801. They and their families subsequently emigrated in 1821 to join Smith relatives already farming in the Town of Russia, Herkimer County, New York, USA, and in 1830 via the new Erie Canal to Howard Township, Kent County, Ontario, Canada.

• 1847 - Potato famine strikes Scotland, and Scots join the tide of emigrants already flowing from Ireland.

• 1848 - Clearance of Arichonan Township. According to the Mid Argyll Gaelic Partnership (Coroinn Ghaidhlig Meadhan Earra Ghaidheal), about forty residents were evicted from Arichonan in Knapdale, and five of them were eventually convicted of rioting at the Courthouse in Inveraray (now a museum).

• 1851 - Clearances Elsewhere. Auchindrain was never cleared or deserted. This webpage describes clearances elsewhere on the estate of the 8th Duke of Argyll who wrote in 1851: "I wish to send out those whom we would be obliged to feed if they stayed at home. To get rid of that class is the object." Ironically, the only references to the clearances and to the "diminishing rural populace" in today's official history of Argyll and Bute are found under the heading "Improvement".

• 1856 - Harriet Beecher Stowe (the famous American abolitionist and author of Uncle Tom's Cabin) visits Inveraray to gather information about the Highland Clearances.

• 1875 - "Achindrain [is an] old Highland village, where a common old practice, now fallen into disuse, continues." - No less an observer than Queen Victoria drives past Auchindrain with the 8th Duke of Argyll who tells her that it retains "the old system of village communities [that] once prevailed all over Europe, and does still actually prevail over the greater part of India."

• 1883 - Closing of the powder mill at Furnace. For much of the 19th century one of Argyll's four manufactuaries for high grade black powder was on Loch Fyne only two miles from Auchindrain.

• 1884 - "Auchindrain: The place where the real nest of the Campbells was." Our cousin Dugald CAMPBELL [1809-1887] in nearby Kenmore comments on Auchindrain, the 8th Duke of Argyll, the Marquess of Lorne, and family matters to my great grandfather and great uncle in Portage-La-Prairie, Manitoba, Canada. Here are two of several letters exchanged in 1884 which "bridged" the 104-year gap between 1821 (when my Campbell ancestors left Scotland) and 1925 (when my grandparents became the first descendants to "return" to Scotland -- and visit Auchindrain).

• 1925 - First Family Visit to Auchindrain & Vicinity - Extracts from writings by my grandfather George Alexander CAMPBELL [1869-1943] -- who arrived at Inveraray by ship -- including photo of my grandfather with Auchindrain tenant "Stoner" MUNRO and cousin John CAMPBELL [1860-1947] of Furnace (coming soon).

• 1926 - Second Family Visit to Auchindrain & Vicinity - Extracts from writings by my mother Georgia May CAMPBELL Lollis [1901-1991], including visit at "Top House" in Kenmore with cousin Margaret CAMPBELL MacLachlan [1847-1928], neice of Dugald CAMPBELL [1809-1887] (coming soon).

• 1930 - Third Family Visit to Auchindrain & Vicinity - Extracts from writings by my grandmother Luna May JAMESON Campbell [1869-1940], including visits in Furnace with cousins John CAMPBELL [1860-1947] of "Crystal Palace" and Archibald SINCLAIR [1866->1930] of "Fasgaidh" and meeting with the 10th Duke of Argyll and his sister at Inveraray Castle (coming soon).

• 1931 (age 30) - Emily Helen (Lee) CAMPBELL Price [1901-1982] of Edmonton, Alberta, visits Scotland and has lunch at Inveraray Castle with the 10th Duke of Argyll and his sister on 29 January 1931. In 1970, she will write The Campbells from Auchindrain; see below.

• 1935 - End of Communal Tenancy. Auchindrain is the very last township to give up communal tenancy, once the most common way of holding and working land in Scotland. The last three tenants assign their shares to Edward (Eddie) McCallum. "Hippie" communes will be recreated in the 1960's, and one of the most famous is the Findhorn Foundation in Findhorn, Moray.

• 1953 - Inveraray Castle is opened to the public by the 10th Duke of Argyll (22 years before Auchindrain is opened to the public).

• 1963 - Auchindrain's Last Tenant. Retirement of Edward (Eddie) McCALLUM who cultivated Auchindrain's fields up to the mid-1950's.
  NE OBLIVICARIS
  
• 1970 - "I want the old pioneers remembered, even those who aren't kin to me." Emily Helen (Lee) CAMPBELL Price [1901-1982] of Vancouver, British Columbia, publishes The Campbells from Auchindrain (TCFA), a 69-page "manuscript, gigantic letter, or whatever you want to call it." NB: The complete text of this document is available from any Family History Center (FHC) of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormon Church).

• 1972 - Fourth Family Visit to Auchindrain & Vicinity - Extracts from writings by cousin Jean WALLBRIDGE [1912-c1990] from Edmonton, Alberta, who, guided by Emily CAMPBELL Price, also visited family sites on Loch Caolisport (coming soon).

• 1975 - Auchindrain as a Museum. The present Visitor Center was opened in May 1975 by writer and TV personality Magnus Magnusson (22 years after Inveraray Castle was opened to the public).

• 1978 - "A Fresh Look at Auchindrain (Site of the Museum of Farming Life)." - Article based on a lecture by Miss Marion CAMPBELL of Kilberry, FSA, FSAScot, Argyll historian whose leadership preserved Auchindrain and turned it into a museum. This is the single best article about Auchindrian.

• 1979 - "A Farming Township: Auchindrain, Argyll." - Text of a booklet by Alexander Fenton, Keeper, National Museum of Antiquities of Scotland (coming soon).

• 1982 - "This was the actual shed that the beasts stayed in." - Transcript of an interview with Auchindrain Museum curator Robert W. Smith and my 4th cousin Margaret URQUHART [c1904-1987] of Furnace during my first visit to Auchindrain 06 Sep 1982 (coming soon).