James McIntosh

Came with his family (wife Sarah and children James, Donald, Mary, and George) on the S.S. St. Andrew, leaving Glasgow on the 16th of April 1866.

Between them, the 1861 census and the immigrant passenger list tell an interesting tale about the young McIntosh family. James was born in the little village of Ardersier (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ardersier), near Inverness, in 1929; this was the heart of the old Clan Mackintosh domain. He was actually three years younger than his wife Sarah (née Smith), who was born in the even tinier village of Dores (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dores) on the banks of Loch Ness; both villages are about five miles from Inverness, though in opposite directions.

Well, obviously they somehow met -- perhaps in equidistant Inverness. Their first son, James, was born about 1850, when his father was 20 and his mother 23. James and his next brother, Donald, were both born in Auldearn (spelt "Auldern" on the census), a village some miles further down the coast from Ardersier, just past Nairn; so the young couple evidently lived there from 1850 to 1852, if not from before that (though surely not much before that, given James Sr.'s age) and after that.

They are next seen in Greenock, where Mary was born in about 1857. The five-year gap between children must be significant and perhaps reflects a period of poverty related to their move to Greenock and the south -- doubtless a big step for these two Highlanders. As of 1861, James's profession is still listed as "Sawyer," however, so they cannot have been destitute; the census notes that they live in a house featuring two rooms with windows at #7 Broad Close (a street which may have disappeared along with its two-room housing, as it is not Googleable in 2009). James, now aged 11, is working as a grocer's assistant; Donald is going to school (his "profession" is listed as "Scholar"); and apparently Mary is also going to school, as the census notes that James and Sarah have two school-aged children, James Jr. having passed the leaving age. George, my ancestor, is not yet born.

Evidently James continued to work as a sawyer (= carpenter) up until the family emigrated, as that is his profession on the immigrant passenger list; or did he hope to take up sawyering again in the New World, even if circumstances had forced him to emigrate? The decision to pick up and leave Scotland behind forever can never have been an easy one for any emigrant family; but it is poignant to think that James and Sarah had only been living in the lowlands for some ten years when they chose to depart: clearly the opportunities they hoped to find in Glasgow had not arisen. That Sarah managed the long crossing not only with three children (James was by now 16, Donald 14, and Mary 9) but with the infant George goes to show that Highland mothers were made of stern stuff.

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Transcription of his birth record from Ardersier:

McINTOSH. 24th Oct'r 1829. James Lawful son of Jas [=James] McIntosh in [i.e. of] Carse & Christan Ross was born this day and bapt'd 7th Nov'r Inst. Wit. Alex'r McEwan and Alex'r Allan both in [i.e. of] Carse.