Ross (Cadboll)

For family tree see Ross (Cadboll & Berbice) on Ancestry (subscription required)

Donald Ross [d 26 Oct 1838] was the third son of John Ross, farmer, Cadboll (Ross-shire, Scotland) and Janet Robertson (of Balcony, Kiltearn, Ross-shire) [The families of Douglas of Mulderg and Robertson of Kindeace, p17]. When he wrote his will in 1836 he had been 30 years in Berbice and had become the owner of plantation Port Mourant & Ankerville on the Corentyne coast. At emancipation he had claimed £12083 14s 9d compensation for 231 enslaved persons.

The executors of his estate in Berbice [London Gazette, 1841] were Baillie Chisholm and Alexander Baillie Ross, the son of his older brother Hugh Ross, sheriff-depute of Ross-shire. Alexander Baillie Ross died in the West Indies, presumably in Berbice, as did another son, John Ross (Families of Douglas of Mulderg etc). Another brother, Crawford Ross, was a prominent farmer in Easter Ross in the mid-nineteenth century.

In his will he left money to his children by two women in Guyana:

The colored girl Lucy 'supposed to be my daughter' by the free woman Elizabeth Meredith of New Amsterdam, one thousand pounds to be given to her at the age of 25 on 3 September 1842

Betty (or Bessy) Ross and George Millar Ross (former born 18th December 1832 and latter on 24 May 1835), children of the 'mulatto girl or woman Nanette', two-thirds of his estate

He also bequeathed legacies to Nanette and to his former housekeeper in New Amsterdam, the free black woman Ann Bone.

Source: will of Donald Ross, lodged in the Archives of Nova Scotia, transcript kindly provided by Edward Day, Ottowa.