Summer Vacation - Day 8

Today was devoted to the Nisbet Family and our first stop was the town of Biggar hoping to meet with Brian Lambie, the local expert at the Albion archives. Unfortunately, Mr. Lambie was out of town and visual inspection of the archive itself quickly revealed that any time spent within would have been fruitless as it was a jumble of filing cabinets and storage boxes without any clear guide to navigate their contents. The elderly woman on duty clearly could not help us so we quickly departed.
We headed to the village of Culter [or Coulter] (pronounced Cooter) and a mile or so out of town arrived at Nisbet Farm, ancestral home of the Laird Bertram. The laird was not at home but we had tea with the laird’s wife (she insisted) and we were treated to a demonstration of sheep shearing.
The farmhouse known as Coulter-Shaw was visible across the pasture and we obtained permission to explore from the laird’s wife as the present owner was not home. Our emigrating Nisbet ancestor, Robert Nisbet, was born and raised there according to his own admission [info found in historical biographical data published in the States]. We climbed over the locked gate and spent a very pleasant hour exploring. An old stone barn lay perpendicular to the main house and a trap door was located partially covered by grass in the front yard. I persuaded Dale to lift the door so we could see what lay below – and were rewarded by his effort. The trap door opened up to a underground root cellar (?) which was a remarkable 2 stories deep! As we had no flashlight to illuminate the darkness, I laid down on my belly in the tall grass and lowered my camera into the darkness to take pictures. The pictures revealed an interesting space – quite deep and long – with a vaulted roof.
Dale and I returned to Culter for lunch at the old Culter Mill and explored the town Kirk (what the Scottish call their churches) looking for Nisbet grave stones. Our cousin, Jim Gilchrist, had completed a detailed search of the gravestones years earlier, failing to locate any Nisbets and we were equally as unlucky. We did find a couple of gravestones for later residents of the Coulter-Shaw Farm: The surname White in 1855/1865 and the surname Somerville in 1895. As our ancestor, Robert Nisbet, emigrated in 1765, they were of no real interest and provided no clues as what happened to our Nisbet family of Coulter-Shaw Farm. Did the family support the Stewart rising in 1745? [Robert Nisbet was born in 1744.] Had the family been displaced during the Lowland Clearances in 1760? We have no way of knowing why Robert Nisbet emigrated to America as an indentured servant. Surely the land could provide a living – as a tenant of the Bertram lairds of Nisbet Farm. Did young Robert get into some kind of trouble and was force to emigrate as an indentured servant as was often the punishment of criminals during that period? We do know that he became a Quaker minister after serving his period of indenture – so did he emigrate for religious or political reasons? Unfortunately his reasons are not to be located in the historical record. We will probably never know and speculation will have to satisfy us.
After a complete inspection of the Culter Kirkyard, Dale suggested we drive over to the ruins of the Kilbucho church. Here I was treated to another adventure in genealogical trespass! The location of Kilbucho church is quite remote and I marveled that Dale had even managed to locate it on his previous exploration of the area. We had to open a closed gate and then climb over a locked gate to gain entry into a private, secluded residence to get to the ruins. This time it was not my father-in-law’s reluctance of trepass I was hearing but the words of my husband who had wisely but jokenly instructed me before I left for Scotland…”Stay out of trouble and please, don’t end up in jail!” I imagined that he would not be too sympathetic or pleased to have to wire be money to make bail!
Dale was not deterred, however, but he did knock on the door at the main house. No cars were in the yard so we walked through their private garden to get to the church. An interesting site and its proximity down the valley from Coulter-Shaw did raise the possibility that our ancestors had frequented this rustic little church. The churchyard was overgrown with summer vegetation and while we able to locate only a couple grave markers, it was obvious that there were probably plenty more hidden beneath the tall grass.
From Kilbucho were traveled to BowHill – the immense estate of the Dukes of Bucclegh – where were knew that James Vair, the gardener of Greenwells and father of our ancestress Betty Vair Hart, had lived and worked. The farmhouse and residence of the chief gardener, James Vair, was called Carterhough, and still existed. We knew roughly the timeframe of the family’s existence there based upon christening records of his children and with the help of estate information were able to connect the Vair employment with a period of expansion of the Bowhill estate at the turn of the 19th century. Unfortunately, a fire at the farm office had destroyed most of the records so it was another dead end in our search for documentary evidence of the family. Carterhough has a delightful walled garden which we sneaked a peak at – and I thought: “what a lovely place for our ancestress to play in with her brothers and sisters”. Shades of the literary classic “The Secret Garden” – one of my favorite books.