Alexander Fraser of Ballindoun

For family tree see Alexander Fraser on Ancestry (subscription required). This may be the same person as Alexander Fraser of Clunes.

Alexander Fraser was the nephew of James Fraser, master of the slaving ship Pilgrim. Alexander acquired the estate of Ballindoun, in the parish of Kiltarlity (Inverness-shire), in 1824 [NAS GD23/10/713] having made money in Essequibo. He died in Scotland in 1829 at Phoineas, near Ballindoun.

In his will, written in Essequibo in 1818 [NAS SC29/44/2], he bequeathed to his ‘coloured children Margaret, Marjory, Hannah, John & Isobel the sum of ten thousand pounds sterling . . . share and share alike including the child with which their mother is now pregnant’. Their mother was named Peggy and he stated that if she, and the children, should be in Guyana at the time of his death, then ‘it is my earnest wish and desire that they and their mother should be sent immediately to Scotland and that none of them ever return to this colony or the West Indies’.

Alexander had no legitimate children and, at his death, Ballindoun passsed to his brother James Fraser (1788-1849), a captain in the 79th Regiment.

His daughter Hannah Fraser returned to Britain and died in Holloway, London in 1831. By 1839 there were four other surviving brothers and sisters: Marjory Fraser, residing at Frome, Somerset; Alexander Fraser, residing in Whitechapel, London; Isobel Fraser, spouse of Angus Fraser of the colony of Demerara; and Elizabeth Fraser, spouse of Edward Thorpe of Demerara [NAS GD23/10/732]. Two of these, Elizabeth and Alexander, are not mentioned in his will of 1818 and were presumably born after this date.

By 1818 Fraser has sold his estate in Essequibo to a James Macdonald and the value of his property at his death in 1829 does not appear to have allowed for the legacy of £10,000 to his children, since Hannah’s claim was for a mere £158.