Matheson of Bennetsfield

For family tree see Charles Matheson on Ancestry (Subscription required)

Charles Mackenzie Matheson [1793-1863] was the third child of Colin Matheson of Bennetsfield in the Black Isle. He trained in a London merchant house and then established a successful business in Berbice.  His sister, Martha Matheson, married Hugh Junor, from Rosemarkie, who owned an Essequibo plantation and, after his death, married Rev Archibald Browne, the first Church of Scotland minister in Demerara. Another sister, Elizabeth, married Donald Charles Cameron, owner of a number of plantations in Guyana.

In 1822 Charles Matheson was a partner with Donald Cameron in D C Cameron & Co, who owned 13 slaves; and Matheson, in his own name, owned a further 16.

In 1826 at plantation Palmyra, Berbice, Charles married Margaret Fraser, daughter of Simon Fraser and Maria Barclay, and they had six sons and a daughter.

After emancipation in 1834, Charles Matheson received £868 as compensation for his 16 slaves.

In 1814 [Scots Magazine] Charles had been joined in Berbice by his younger brother Archibald, who died there in 1821 [Blackwoods Magazine]; and in 1819 the youngest son of the family, Alexander Gordon Matheson, died in Berbice [Edinburgh Monthly Magazine]

London Gazette 1847
Plantation Lochaber, a 750-acre sugar plantation on Canje Creek sold at auction at the instance of Charles Matheson and Archibald McLachlan, acting against Donald Charles Cameron snr as proprietor.