Gordons in Sutherland, including the Embo family

92
family of Gordon who migrated into Sutherland.
Indeed, many of them are probably descended
from the followers of Adam, Lord Gordon, and
started out in the world without a pedigree of
their own. In Sutherland itself, as I have shown,
the whole tendency of the Earls of Sutherland was
to remain cocks of the walk in a way that the
Earls and Marquises of Huntly never achieved,
and they dominated the County, reinforcing the
instinct for chieftainship by the possession of
wealth which enabled them to buy out the small
man, and to accomplish the terrible Sutherland
"clearances" of 1813-5 and 1819, which Sage
describes with the pathos of poignant brevity.
Achnamoine (Kildonan).
The farm of Achnamoine is on the south side of
Loch Achnamoine (or " peat field"), which is con-
nected with the Loch of Badenloch by the Helms-
dale. Sage says (p. ISO) that Thomas Gordon of
Achnamoine held office as a justice of the peace
and " was moreover a perfect enthusiast as a
magistrate." He continues : — ■
He imagined that the cause of justice depended
on his personal exertions. If the people of Kil-
donan did not furnish him with weekly opportuni-
ties of deciding in his worshipful capacity then-
various cases of dispute, Thomas Gordon put them
in mind that justice was to be had for the asking.
Quartering himself at the Manse, he directed all
disputants to xepair to Donald Gunn's house to
have their disputes finally settled by his arbitra-
tion. I recollect, on one of these occasions, hav-
ing had the special honour conferred upon me of
being chosen clerk to his worship, and of having
received his fee, the sum of one shilling. Of the
farm of Achnamoine, Gordon was tacksman, hold-
ing it in lease from the family of Sutherland. To
his wife, who was a sister of Rev. George Gordon
of Loth, he was devotedly attached, and he never
wearied of talking about her. She was a pious
amiable person, but she was always in bad health,
and died many years before her husband. They
had a large family of sons and daughters —
1 Robert Gordon, the eldest, emigrated to
America.
2 Charles Gordon, the second son, held the farm
after his father's death, but previous to