Maclennan (Killilan)

For family tree see Roderick Maclennan on Ancestry (subscription required)

Roderick Maclennan (1765-1855) died at the age of 90 at the Sligachan Inn on Skye, which was run by his son Alexander. Roderick had been tacksman of Killilan in Glenshiel and later innkeeper at Shiel House, where Alexander was born in 1822. Roderick and his wife Charlotte Stewart has eight sons and two daughters.

At least three sons went to Demerara. The oldest, Ewen Maclennan (1802-1850), returned c.1846 and died at Sligachan in 1850. Newspapers notices describe him as 'late of Demerara' (Inverness Courier, 28 November 1850). The following year the census recorded a 13-year old boy in the household, born in Demerara. He is only named as 'A Maclennan' and is described as a 'student'. Oddly a memorial at Ewen's grave in Clachan Duich burial ground describes him as 'Planter, Jamaica'.

Roderick's second son, also Alexander (1805-38), died in Demerara in 1838. While it might seem odd to have two sons of teh same name, this is confirmed by Roderick's death certificate. (GROS 109/7: in 1855 death certificates listed all children, with their age or their age at death.) The death notice for Alexander provides further detail:

In the Colony of Demerara, on the 5th of May 1838, Alexander Stewart MacLennan, Esq., second son of R. MacLennan, Esq., Pollewe, Ross-shire. .... Mr. MacLennan, though though acclimated by a long residence in the settlement, fell victim to the malignant Colony fever, which, insidious in its approaches, at last swept him off, in the thirty-fourth year of his age, when in a fair way of realising an ample fortune. (Caledonian Mercury, 19 July 1838)

His compensation - for two enslaved people - suggests that he was a merchant or professional rather than a large-scale plantation owner, at least in 1834.

Roderick's fourth son, Duncan Maclennan (1811-1831), had already died in Demerara on 5 October 1831 [Inverness Courier, 18 April 1832]. At that point Roderick was decribed as 'of Poolewe'.