Ardchattan Parish Year of Homecoming - Memories of Campbell Cameron
The last five generations:
The Cameron Clan at Achnamoine, Dalintober, and Castle Farm.
Duncan Stuart Cameron of Achnamoine died on September 28th 2008. He was 88.
Dad had spent all his married life at the Achnamoine Croft and along with his wife, my mum, Mary he raised two sons - Stuart and myself. He always said that Stuart and I were the 5th generation of Camerons to live and croft on the land known as Barcaldine Plot No 8 and latterly, since 1871, as Achnamoine.
Duncan loved stories or folklore or as he referred to it - "old lore."
One of his favourite stories was that of a Cameron leaving Benderloch and joining a Carmichael of Lismore, a piper, at Appin to go north to Glenfinnan to join Locheil, the Cameron Clan chief, at the side of the young pretender - Bonnie Prince Charlie.
After the long march south and the successes on the way history records the turn at Derby and the ultimate defeat at Culloden and scattering of the survivors back to their lands. The family of both men were concerned as rumour of the defeat spread south from Inverness but the old blind father of the Carmichael man was able to rejoice at the return of his son to Lismore long before he arrived home. Sitting outside on a fine day he heard the pipes playing in the distance and knew from the sound that this was his son piping his way down the island and home to the croft.
Duncan was never sure if the Cameron returned.
Donald Black recorded this story in his splendid book about the Isle of Lismore.
Lismore and Benderloch feature well together having long associations and cultural and social links going back as long as recorded history. Lismore has little or no peat and few trees so voyages across to Benderloch became common as rights to peat cutting and wood felling were gained on the mainland.
Duncan's father Donald was born in 1882 and is recorded at Achnamoine in the 1891 and 1901 censuses. He married Reta on 20th December 1918 - the minister is recorded as Rev John MacCormick with Donald MacArthur and Jessie Massie as the witnesses to the occasion. Reta lived with her mother Mrs Campbell at the Black or Barcaldine Castle farm and Donald returned with her to take over the tenancy.
They had three sons, Duncan John and Hugh and in 1930 moved to Dalintober. John farmed there until his retirement to Port Selma with Anne, another Lismore girl, Mary's sister.
Hugh joined the police, married Nan Munro and moved ultimately to Mull to
Lettermore Farm and then to Salen to run the Post Office
My source speculates in his history of the Cameron and Liddell Families 1690 - 1999 that on Duncan's move to Achnamoine on his marriage to Mary Campbell from Ballygrundle, Lismore in 1958, he continued a line of Camerons, "that maybe goes back to 1657!"
by Campbell Cameron
(please share your memories of the parish, each one is SO special)
