Gilbert Gordon

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

Gilbert Gordon, the second son of Alexander Gordon, tacksman of Dalchairn (Tongue, Sutherland), was a non-commissioned officer in the 93rd Highlanders who later went to Berbice, where he made some money as a planter, and subsequently settled at Woodlands, Ross-shire, before emigrating to Canada in 1842. He married on 30 Jan 1818 [The Scots Magazine - Sunday 01 March 1818] Margaret Sutherland, daughter of John Sutherland Esq, Commissary and JP for the County of Sutherland, and had a large family including:

• John Sutherland Gordon of plantation Greenfield, Demerara, who died at Edinburgh 19 Aug 1880, aged 59 (gravestone in Kirkton Old Churchyard, Burntisland - see right);
• George Gordon, who died in Berbice.

 Gilbert's sister, Barbara Gordon married John Macdonald, a farmer in Caithness (died 1840); after his death she and her family went to Canada, and their sons went from there to Surinam. The sons were: Alexander Macdonald, died 1870 and Gordon Macdonald, died in Scotland in 1859.

Gordon Macdonald (above) bought plantation Moy on the Coronie coast of Surinam, in 1853, from the heirs of Alexander Ferrier (Cardross). [The Anti-Slavery Reporter, 1861]

In 1863 Alexander Macdonald received compensation from the Dutch government on the emancipation of 229 slaves on plantations John and Bellevue on the Coronie coast.

Below: gravestone of Gordon McDonald of Plantation Moy, Coronie, Surinam (Kirkton Old Church, Burntisland, Fife).

Source: JM Bulloch, The Gordons in Sutherland, including the Embo family (Dingwall: Ross-shore Journal, 1908)