Highland Scots - Inverness & area:
Gordon (Borlum and Drakies)

For family tree see Robert Gordon of Drakies on Ancestry (subscription required)

Mr. Robert Gordon had been in the West Indies, and making a fortune, came home and purchased the property of Drakies, near Inverness.

Donald Sage, Memorabilia Domestica

Robert and Peter Gordon were the sons of Peter Gordon of Borlum (Inverness). Robert owned plantation Borlum (No 37 on the East Sea Coast) in Berbice and plantation Huntly in Demerara. He returned to Inverness and in 1803 he was making plans for a large house at Drakies, although a fellow Invernessian in Guyana, Donald Mackay, thought that he would ‘do well to go on a more oeconomical plan – his West Indian estate can afford to contribute but little’. [GD23/6/391/4 Letters of Donald Mackay to James Grant]

He gifted a half share in plantation Borlum to his brother Peter, who died at sea on his way to Barbados on 25th November 1807 [Essequebo & Demerara Gazette, 26 Dec 1807]. He left £400 to purchase the freedom of 'a Mulattoe child' named in his will written in Demerara on 4 May 1807 [NAS GD23/7/39]

Robert Gordon returned to Demerara in August 1808 'to inspect and regulate his property . . . which had fallen into some derangement due to bad markets and unproductive crops' and died in the colony in August 1809. His affairs were left in the hands of his mother and his father’s sister Jane Gordon (wife of Rev Donald Fraser of Kirkhill, whose brother, Alexander, had died in Berbice). [NAS GD23/10/667]

Drakies was sold and a complex legal case followed to deal with his debts. [Colin Campbell v Alexander Anderson]