Clan Fraser in Canada

46 IN THE LOWLANDS.
firmly established as a powerful Scottish noble, manifesting
the patriotism and national sentiment to be looked for in a
native born baron, as early as 1109.
His name was Gilbert de Fraser,w1io, in the year named,
witnessed a charter known as the Cospatrick Charter. It is
generally conceded that he is the first with whom documentary
history begins. That there were Frasers in Tweeddale and
Lothian before him is certain, and the names of some of them
have survived, but with this Gilbert begins the unbroken
record of lineage which comes down to our own day. The
lands possessed by the Frasers in the south of Scotland were
extensive, and the family power was great, as will be indicated
in the course of the brief reference to it which will be here
made. Gilbert had three sons, Oliver, Udard and another
whose name is not now known.
Oliver succeeded his father and built Oliver Castle,
by which his name survives. There are many interesting
descriptions of this old stronghold ; that in the Ordnance
Survey Report I quote on account of its brevity : " An
ancient baronial fortalice in Tweedsmuir parish, S. W.
Peeblesshire, on the left side of the river Tweed. . .Crowning
a rising ground which now is tufted with a clump of
trees, it was the original seat of the Frasers, ancestors of
the noble families of Lovat and Saltoun, and passed from
them to the Tweedies, who figure in the introduction to Sir
Walter Scott's Betrothed, and whose maternal descendant,
Thomas Tweedie-Stodart (b. 1S38 ; sue. 1869), of Oliver
House, a plain modern mansion hard by, holds 1 144 acres in
the shire. . .Oliver Castle was the remotest of a chain of strong
ancient towers, situated each within view of the next all down
the Tweed to Berwick, and serving both for defence and for