John Macintosh (Cawdor & Nairn)

For family tree see John Macintosh on Ancestry (subscription required)

In 1808 a John Macintosh placed this advertisement in the Essequebo and Demerary Royal Gazette:

WANTED to Hire, Six Good Carpenter Negroes. Apply to John Macintosh.
Cumingsburg, 5th March 1808.

John McIntosh made a contribution of 110 guiders in response to the appeal, launched in 1808, for funds to build a church in Georgetown – St George’s. And in 1815 John Mackintosh announced his intention to leave the colony in May. These may all be the same person.

On 5 September 1815, at the manse in the parish of Cawdor, near Nairn, ‘John Macintosh Esq of Demerara’ married Grace Grant, daughter of the parish minister. They owned a farm at Torrich (Cawdor) but also had property in Nairn. He is commemorated by a gravestone at Cawdor.

Erected by Alexander Mackintosh Esqr. Calcutta in memory of his father John Mackintosh Esqr. who departed this life on the 21st October 1854 aged 81 years. And of his brother John who died June 1859, aged 22. “Requesciant in pace.” Also to the memory of his mother Mrs Grace Mackintosh who died on the 15th April 1858 aged 64 years. And of his sister Grace who died 10th March 1859 aged … years.

The family now consistently spelled their surname with a ‘K’ – Mackintosh.

In 1817 John McIntosh had made the required return of his slave-holding in Demerara, through his attorneys Henry Tulloh and William Mair. This return listed three enslaved boys George, William and Charles (described as a ‘cob’) and two enslaved African-born domestic servants, Harriet and Mary. In 1823, however, the same five enslaved people – along with two other man who had been purchased – were held by the guardians of the minor children of John McIntosh. The children were named as Kitty, Mary, Rosaline and Ann. The guardians were Donald Campbell, who signed the return, and Rosaline McLeod, a free Black woman who had been manumitted in 1806 and who herself held eight enslaved people.

A possible explanation is that Rosaline McLeod was the mother of John McIntosh’s four children – including one who bore her name. If so, then their father had severed his links with the colony – and with Rosaline – but had made provision for the children and appointed an additional guardian, Donald Campbell.

John Macintosh’s brother-in-law – his wife’s brother – was George Grant, a partner of John Gladstone, with significant interest in Demerara.