Highland Scots - Inverness & area:
John Haywood

John Haywood (d1820) was referred to as both ‘of Inverness’ and ‘of Demerara’. He held the Government position of Store Keeper and Paymaster in Demerara in 1804 [E&DRG] and was, from at least 1808, in partnership with John and Alexander Fraser in the ownership of plantation Good Intent on the west bank of the Demerara River [E&DRG 23 Apr 1808, 26 Jan 1811]. He had previously been in partnership with them in St Kitts.

The plantation was supplied with ‘negroe clothing’ by the Inverness wool mill in both 1809 (paying £220-17s-7d) and 1811 (paying £269-17s-9d ). [NAS CS96/743]

John Geddes and David Findlater, from Inverness, were indentured as apprentices to the plantation c1809. [NAS CS96/743]

In 1807 Haywood’s daughter Catherine married Robert Patterson (of Inverness and Demerara) in Edinburgh. In January 1808 Edward Fraser wrote from Berbice to his mother that ‘Alex Fraser is mad about Miss Heywood’s marriage – she has jilted two or three gentlemen in the country’. Catherine died in Demerara on 29 September 1824 (Inverness Courier, 23 December 1824).

In 1808 a second daughter, Hannah, married Lewis Grant, bookseller in Inverness. In his will he left Hannah £5000 but the legacy was never realised:

[John Haywood’s] affairs . . . were found to be much involved and expensive and tedious lawsuits ensued between the representatives and his partners in the Plantation . . . in which Mr Haywood’s fortune was entirely vested . These proceedings conjoined with the depreciation of colonial produce and the general distress of that particular settlement has hitherto prevented any part of the legacy being recovered . . . Good Intent Plantation is preferably encumbered to the extent of £30,000 and . . . Mr Haywood’s other debts still unextinguished amount to £20,000 and further that the last valuation of the property did not exceed these two sums. [NAS CS96/743]