Family Tree (Bruce, Denison, Douglas, Harvey, Helmcken, Mackenzie, Maclean, Maclennan, McTavish, Stewart)

Hector (Eachain Mor, or ‘Big Hector’) Maclean was born in December 1792 and baptised 6 January 1793 at the Parish of Urquhart and Logie Wester.

Hector married Isabella Mackenzie on 13 June 1828, also at the Parish of Urquhart and Logie Wester. Their first child, Roderick, was born in 1829. And the second and only other known son was Andrew Maclean, born at Brae Findon in Ferintosh on 21 July 1840.

On the marriage record Hector is listed as a labourer from Culbokie.(1) But it appears he was much more than that word indicates. According to the following note by Alan Toft, Hector was a whisky distiller and also helped finance the famous Dalmore distillery:

William Revington wrote to me, from Vernon, British Columbia, on July 12 1993. He wrote, “I see you have Hector Maclean listed as a labourer. My father told me that Hector had a special license to distill whisky. The license was then renaged on by whom soever issued it. He then arranged to run the produce from the Black Isle to Edinburgh, and prospered. He gave his offspring a good education. This is a matter of interest and no doubt true because my father told me about it years ago.”

A further note by Alan Toft:

Dittie Lumsden had told me that Hector had financed the Dalmore Distillery in Evanton. Hector is merely listed as a labourer on his son’s birth certificate!

Hector was also seen as something of a poet and singer.

In August 1993 William Revington Maclean told me that Hector’s children were well, and expensively, educated – Aberdeen Grammar School and Edinburgh University.

The Dalmore distillery story is very interesting. Dalmore – now a world class distillery that bears the iconic image of the 12 pointed Royal stag and emblem of the Clan Mackenzie since 1263 – was founded in 1839 by Sir Alexander Matheson, but in 1867 Matheson awarded the lease to 24 year-old Andrew Mackenzie and his younger brother Charles. On taking over the distillery in November of that year, the brothers began a programme of investment in what had become a dilapidated distillery including repairing the stills and building a new filling store.1 It is quite certain that Hector – who knew the whisky business and earned a good living – was an investor in Dalmore. And his wife, Isabella, was the aunt of Andrew and Charles, sister to their father, William, whose parents were named Andrew McKenzie and Mary Forbes. There is no reason to doubt that Hector would have helped finance his wife’s nephew’s business venture.

Hector passed away in Rosskeen at the age of 83 on 19 July 1875. Isabella passed away the following year, in Rosskeen, 4 April 1876 at the age of 72.

Notes:

1. Culbokie (An Cùil Bhàicidh in Gaelic, meaning ‘the haunted nook’) is a small village in the Black Isle.
2. https://scotchwhisky.com/whiskypedia/3230/mackenzie-brothers/
3. https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Mackenzie-4940
4. Brae Findon is a locality located about seven miles north-east of Inverness, next to Culbokie.