Threads Make Up the Weave

Hard Honesty, as a blog, was initially created as a digital beacon: I'm signalling to other researchers that I want to know as much as possible about 'Uncle' Monk (died 1835), slave-named Estill. (See the tab above.) He saved the life of my 4x great-grand-father, and became the first slave freed in what is now Kentucky.

Over time, another character in my family tree, Squire Turner (1793-1871) became a subject of deep research. Think of him as a protégé of Kentucky Senator Henry Clay (1777-1852): a fellow Whig jurist with superior legislative talent. Ardently pro-slavery, Turner fades from history to waver, mainly, as a foil in one of the manic excesses perpetuated by Clay's pro-emancipation cousin, Cassius Marcellus Clay (1810-1903). 'Cash' Clay interrupted an 1849 campaign speech to disembowel Turner's son, Cyrus.

Another cousin, Antonia Ford (1838-1871) has my attention as well. She was implicated in the 1863 capture of a sleeping Union General by Confederate partisan raider, Lt. John S. Mosby. Ford was deemed a spy and imprisoned. The story pivots when a Union captor fell in love with Ford, left the army, and married her. (Antonia and I descend from Randolphs and Fords, occasionally depicted here.) Ford and her husband, Major Joseph Clapp Willard (Ret.), adjourned to his civilian role; as a wealthy proprietor of the Willard Hotel, premises of such profound influence in the nation's capital, it's as if the term 'lobbyist' would have originated there.

I'm currently unpacking the military exploits of Jeremiah Turner (1840-1917). Slave to Squire Turner, Jeremiah gained his freedom by enlisting in the United States Colored Troops in 1864. One of his descendants makes a compelling case that Jeremiah and I are related: Jeremiah is to have been the product of a slave rape by Squire or his father (my 3x great-grandfather, 'Ol' Marsh' Thomas Turner (1764-1847). In September, re-creators will gather at Camp Nelson, Kentucky - where Jeremiah enlisted - 150 years to the day of that enlistment. I want Jeremiah's great-great-grandsons to know of their ancestor's sacrifices for a re-configured Union.

I've been documenting the tortuous path the Lincoln administration took, in giving legal cover to drafting/ recruiting/ impressing slaves in the loyal state of Kentucky during the Civil War.

It's really just a small observation ... amidst huge reams of data that seem to clamor for my attention.

"After the fall of Fort Sumter and before Lincoln's call for troops could be met, Washington appeared to be defenseless." A "semblance of order" was created by Cassius M. Clay of Kentucky who, while negotiating with Lincoln for appointment as his Minister to Russia, "hastily organized" a small command: the 'Clay Battalion.'

"With three pistols strapped to his waist and carrying both a sword and his favorite knife, [Clay] was an inspiring sight at his headquarters in Willard's Hotel."

- pp. 131-132,  Lincoln of Kentucky,  by Lowell Harrison (2000)

Long enamored by Jungian synchronicity, I was momentarily stupefied as the tangled weave of three story lines manifest itself as a trio of overlapping threads.

Setting the stage for Jeremiah's eventual call to arms, I had uncovered a word portrait of not only the man ... but perhaps the very Bowie knife ... that had taken Cyrus Turner's life a dozen years earlier. (Jeremiah - and Cyrus' orphaned son, Charles - were nearly the same age & stayed in life-long relationship.) It takes but little imagination to see Antonia Ford's future husband in the background: as proprietor of the Willard Hotel, he was undoubtedly seeing to the flamboyant Clay's every need. It would be the following April before Joseph Willard would secure a position as Aide-de-camp on Brigadier General Irvin McDowell's staff.

I'm willing to give Google some of the credit. Algorithms have long been tracking my search predilections; they know of my hunt for Squire Turner and Cassius Clay, and may well have ranked results so that I'd come across Harrison's work.

Written Words For You All to Read

Running family lines feels, at times, like fishing. Occasionally, I land a catch that haunts me. A long-concluded life demands I consider our present circumstances.

I spend hours trolling databases, message boards and digitized documents. Sometimes I'll net evidence of further relationships. It’s usually gratifying. Given a seeming plethora of available data, and my low threshold of interest, I've disciplined myself – generally – to confine research to first cousins, and forgo crawling out far distant limbs in my family tree.

I was diverted from entering Turner family deed records from 19^th century Madison County, Kentucky. A probate sale involving the estate of one Creed Turner caught my attention.

One of my skill sets seems to be name retention. Immediately the name ‘Creed’ evoked ‘Curd’ Turner: a first cousin, 4-times removed, of whom I’d learned very little. My heart raced when I discovered Turner’s executors had distributed Missouri lands to Curd’s siblings. I'd cracked a nut! ‘Curd’ and Creed Turner were one and the same.

This, however, was only the first of several excitements.

We both descend from Turner's grandfather (my 4-times great-grandfather), John Turner, Jr. (c1738-1813). Technically, Creed and I are ‘half-cousins.’ John had perhaps 19 children by two wives. I am from John's union with Rebeckah Smith (1743-1774), Creed by two generations from second wife Jane Barnett Cooper (c1755-1816).

In 1814, Creed’s father, Barnett ‘Barney’ Turner (1790-1836), posted bond in Madison County for his half-brother, Thomas ‘Trading Tom’ Turner (1764-1847). This enabled widower Thomas, my 3-times great grandfather, to marry (second) my 3-times great grandmother, Annah Berry (c1785-1833). Ten months later, Methodist Deacon John Pace would also unite Barnett to Creed's mother, Nancy Durret Taylor (1795-1836). Nephew Squire Turner (1793-1871) posted bond for this pair. Squire and his uncle Barnett had seen battle together, both serving as Privates in Capt. Robert Sturges' company of Kentucky Mounted Volunteer Militia in the War of 1812.

Nancy was a teen when her Revolutionary-era father died. Peter Taylor (c1750-1812) succumbed to a ‘stroke of apoplexy’ while overseeing some of his two dozen slaves in a garden. His estate, arising out of a land grant of 1,000 acres when Kentucky was yet an extension of Virginia, was considerable. It included fine pewter, a library and chaise carriage. Taylor's 1807 will provided for children “yet to be reared.”

Barnett, with Annah’s father, James Berry (1752-1822), were among executors of John Turner’s will when Barnett’s and Thomas' father died the following year. Barnett’s inheritance was trifling, when compared to Taylor's estate: John Turner left him perhaps a sixth of his 200-acre tract. John had in 1811 been exempted from paying the county levy on half of his slaves, to wit “two old negroes Karon and Pender.” (See Meet Monk Estill for more on James Berry.)

On 30 December 1822, Creed Turner became the third son and fourth child born to Barnett and Nancy. He was likely named for his maternal uncle, Creed Haskins Taylor (1808-1832). The Turners could be considered clannish. They kept in touch. "Barnett Turner and his family is in common health," wrote Barnett's uncle Philip to son Talton, in Missouri by 1825. More importantly, these Turners could be migratory. Philip Turner (1762-1852), born with his brother John (above) in North Carolina, had westward momentum. Settled in Madison County, Kentucky, his name is found on an 1819 petition from the Louisiana-Missouri territory. Philip joined others in asking the President to appoint someone whereby they can register land titles. At the penning of the 1825 letter, in which he writes, "Our children is much annimated with the prospects of coming to your cuntry," Philip is poised to leapfrog his siblings. Like Daniel and his brother Squire Boone, he'll move from North Carolina, to Kentucky, and on to Missouri. Unlike the Boones, Philip will bring eight slaves. (For more on Talton and Squire Turner, see To Write on Ends As Was at Hand.)

The 1830 census shows Creed’s Madison County household to contain his parents, 7 siblings and 17 slaves. Neither Barnett nor Nancy would be reflected in the 1840 census. Nancy died in March 1831. Creed was but several weeks beyond his 14^th birthday when his father died ... in February 1836.

In ten years, Creed was to mimic the western migration of his grandfathers. He had sufficient resources to purchase 160 acres in Atchison County, Missouri in May 1846. Surprisingly, a year later – on 27 May 1847 – the Oregon Spectator published Creed Turner’s name beneath a resolution of pioneers vowing to “not give their vote to any man for A public office who is in any manner, shape or form connected with claim jumping." Turner was in Oregon City, the administrative hub of a self-organized, provisional government that had proclaimed authority in the Pacific Northwest. The following year, part of this amorphous area would be partitioned and called The Oregon Territory.

1818-1846

I had to pause. Within an hour of discovering Creed Turner is kin to me, I must reckon with the idea that – a few weeks shy of 167 years ago – my subject was fifteen miles from where I sat, pecking away at a computer.

You see, I cast my net from Portland, Oregon.

It may have been the U.S. Senate’s June 1846 ratification of a treaty with Great Britain, finally delineating a northern border of the United States of America, that spurred my cousin to navigate the Oregon Trail.

1846-1849

State archives indicate Turner had been busy. He filed two land claims in September 1846: the first in Champoeg District, a second in Yamhill. In November of the same year, Turner filed yet another Champoeg claim. [See image.] Turner may have been speculating a pioneer settlement in Champoeg would, with territorial recognition, supplant Oregon City as the seat of government.

Creed Turner was certainly not without resources.

Goeres-Gardner, in her 2005 book, Necktie Parties, locates Creed Turner in Clackamas District (think of Washington State). On 24 May 1847, only days before publicly committing to the set of resolutions on claim jumping, Turner had “signed ownership of fifty head of American cattle over to Thomas [McCutcheon] Chambers while Turner was traveling back to the eastern states.”* It's more likely Turner had driven stock before him in the trek from Missouri - animals that subsequently required fattening up - than it is he paid inflated, frontier prices for them. Perhaps Turner intended to breed a larger herd of cattle.

Irish and a Presbyterian minister, Chambers and his sons left Oregon City in the fall of 1847 to lay claim to land owned by the Hudson Bay Company. I don't know what happened to Turner's cattle. If the men stayed in relationship, Turner would have known of Chamber's response to those sent to evict the (perhaps former) cleric, soon after his arrival in environs of present-day Olympia, Washington. Perez in the Steilacoom Historical Museum Quarterly, reports "After no reply from Chambers, officials of the Company visited him on [Steilacoom Creek] and made their demands. Chambers replied by resting a rifle on his fence and made it quite clear he was going to stay. The Hudson's Bay Company never bothered him again." Turner's known Oregon associate was bold in his gesture.

Creed Turner ‘sold up.’ He was likely in Kentucky at the death of half-uncle Thomas Turner (above) on 17 November 1847. Madison County deeds dated 29 November 1847 reveal Cyrus and Thomas Turner – 'Trading Tom's' grandsons by Squire Turner – bought from Creed 420 acres he held on Tates Creek in Bluegrass Country. Not only that, the sale included Creed's personalty; "all goods, chattels, articles and movable property located thereon." It may be interesting to note that Cyrus Turner, a member of Kentucky's lower house, would be dead in 18 months ... publicly disemboweled by an unstable political aspirant, Cassius Marcellus Clay.

John Bonser and his party of immigrants arrived in Linnton, Oregon in December 1847. According to Thompson, in Oregon Pioneer Biographies, Ohioan Bonsers “were not shy in their hospitality.”

John Bonser & home, c1880 or later.

The following year, the Bonsers settled a piece of land on the south bank of the Columbia River, at Sauvie Island. “In the spring of 1850 a large cabin was built on a knoll to avoid the annual floods, and added to for the next several years. It was to become a rambling structure capable of housing both a large family and guests,” says Thompson. The Bonser home was “a popular gathering place on the river.”

“The Bonsers had taken in several young women of the Lee family who had been orphaned, and with John's own marriageable daughters, the Sauvies Island homestead drew a swarm of men from throughout the area.” The U.S. Congress had prompted a marriage market in far-off Oregon with passage of the Oregon Donation Land Act: the 1850 legislation provided 320 acres to wives of white male citizens. (American, half-breed Indians with at least intent to obtain citizenship could claim land: language explicitly excluded African Americans and Hawaiians.) “No young girl over the age of twelve was safe from the stampede of young farmers wanting to add another half section to their land,” Thompson observes, ominously.

Creed Turner, 29, was boarding with the Bonsers by 19 October 1851. Newspaper accounts have him romantically invested in the Bonsers’ daughter Martha Jane. Attractive by many accounts, Martha had just turned 14 in the month prior.

Following Turner, another, younger boarder took up residency in the Bonser’s ‘popular gathering place.’ Edward Augustus Bradbury (1827-1851) arrived. Son of Cornelius Saunders Bradbury (1799-1871), operator of Cincinnati’s most productive seed oil gristmills, Edward was likely scouting frontier opportunities.

“Turner had been attracted to Martha for some time but when Bradbury arrived they seemed to have eyes only for each other. Turner became jealous and was determined to see an end to their attraction for one another, so on October 19, 1851, as the family gathered for a quiet [Sunday morning], Turner entered the room and walked up beside Bradbury. Without comment or provocation he pulled a dirk, a dagger-like knife usually used for stabbing, and slashed at the young man,” reports Wilson, in Legal Executions in the Western Territories 1847-1911. “He gutted Bradbury with five deep gashes to his stomach, and then inflicted more deep cuts to his left side, chest, and arms.” Like the above Cyrus Turner, “the stomach wound … resulted in a terrible infection.” Like Cyrus, “Bradbury lingered for a day in excruciating pain and fever before he died.”

Horrid Murder, 1851

Turner did not flee the scene, nor did he deny his involvement.

Newly appointed Portland Marshal William L. Higgins investigated, even though the crime occurred outside his jurisdiction. “Higgins’s arrest of the killer, Creed Turner, was the first extension of the city’s authority,” declares the Portland Police Museum. Having no deputies, Higgins alone is to have conducted Turner to the county seat at Hillsboro. It’s not known where Turner was secured: Washington County would build their first jail two years later.

The following day, when Bradbury was interred, a grand jury was convened. In short order, Turner was indicted for first degree murder. Witnesses testified the homicide “was unjustified and the jealous survivor a cowardly criminal.” Goeres-Gardner also states, “Turner was neither repentant nor dismayed at his action. He told the authorities that his only regret was that he was unable to kill himself.”

It was an unfortunate time to commit murder in the Territory. Attention was sharply focused on such transgression. Weeks before, on 9 September, the Oregon Spectator carried a story about a vigilance committee battering jail doors down in Alta, California. “The excitement was intense,” it was reported. “Only 17 minutes were occupied in rescuing [an incarcerated pair] and arranging the preliminaries for the execution of the culprits.” Nothing short of an immediate execution could have appeased the excited crowd. No crime was identified. “The bodies, after hanging for 40 minutes, were cut down.” Whittaker, a ‘hardened villain,’ “evinced some signs of life. He was swung up a second time, and was suspended for 20 minutes longer.” 'Hanging,' in this sense, was likely to be 'strung up' and strangled.

Justice was makeshift on the frontier. William Kendall, convicted of homicide, had been hung in Marion County, Oregon in April. Shortly thereafter, gambler William Keene was convicted of manslaughter in the death of a sailor named Cook – arising from a game of ten-pins – and sentenced to six years in the penitentiary. “As the jury had decided that he ought not to hang, and he could not be confined in an imaginary penitentiary, he was pardoned by the governor,” relay Bancroft and Victor in their 1888 History of Oregon.

Joseph L. Meek

In addition to the absence of a penitentiary or court­house of any kind, a territorial judiciary had yet to stabilize. Justices elected and appointed by the provisional government had resigned, declined their appointment, or simply never shown up for trial. With the creation of an Oregon Territory, President James Knox Polk obtained the power of appointment. His nominee as Chief Justice to the Territory's Supreme Court, William P. Bryant, had resigned in 1850 ... but not before ordering U.S. Marshal Joseph Lafayette Meek (right) to hang Kussus and Quallalwowt. The pair had been surrendered by Snoqualmie and Skewahamish people for a tribute of 80 blankets. They'd been executed following trial for the 1849 death of Leander Wallace in an 'affray' at Fort Nisqually ... in which a Native man had also been killed. Polk’s appointment for Associate Supreme Court Justice, Orville Charles Pratt, was busying himself in San Francisco, far beyond his jurisdiction.

Bancroft and Victor report, “At a meeting held in Portland April 1^st [1851], it was resolved that the president of the United States should be informed of the neglect of the judges of the first and second districts, no court having been held in Wash­ington county since the previous spring …” Obviously en route, Polk’s appointment, Chief Justice Thomas Nelson, arrived by sea at the end of the month. “The arrival of the new chief justice, and [return of] Pratt, brought a temporary quiet.”

Three days after his indictment, Turner was brought to trial. Attorney of the Territorial Supreme Court, Alexander Campbell, was responsible for prosecuting him. According to Scott, in his 1890 History of Portland, Oregon, Campbell “was particularly well drilled in the principles of common law. He placed great dependence upon his books, carefully preparing his cases, and appearing in Court with an armful of authorities on every occasion.”

Turner came before Campbell’s future millionaire, San Francisco law partner - Judge Pratt - on 24 October. Pratt had begun a law practice ten years earlier. In May of the previous year, he had presided in an Oregon City tavern, conducting a partisan trial for murders that occurred outside his jurisdiction. Tiloukaikt, Tomahas, Kiamsumpkin, Iaiachalakis, Endoklamin, and Klokomas were hung for the murders of missionary Dr. Marcus Whitman, his wife Narcissa, and eleven others. In addition to a dozen troubling rulings, Pratt had quashed an acting governor’s pardon of the Cayuse nationals. Clatsop County Court historians reflect on Pratt: “During his term, Judge Pratt was embroiled in controversy. He frequently traveled out of the territory to further his political and business interests, and he took advantage of opportunities to increase his personal fortune.” Likely a fellow speculator, Pratt had thrown his political weight into having Congress declare Salem (not Champoeg) the capital of Oregon Territory.

Turner was represented by Matthew Paul Deady, who had been admitted to the Ohio bar four years earlier.** At age 27, Deady had just been elected to represent Yamhill County in the territorial legislature. In two years he too would become an Associate Supreme Court Justice in Oregon. After President James Buchanan appointed him to the bench, the Oregon Encyclopedia reports Deady “showed an inclination toward ‘natural justice.’”

The rule of law was as fluid as territorial boundaries and vacancies in administration. A provisional government had self-organized as an association, primarily as a means of assuring valid land titles. Perhaps not even a majority of white men in these western hinterlands acquiesced to the formation of this government. Justice Peter Hardeman Burnett recalled veiled threats which showed the pernicious role of claim jumping in his memoirs, Recollections And Opinions Of An Old Pioneer: "The friends of the organization were active, kind, and wise in their course toward those opposed. When one opposed to the government would state that fact, some friend would kindly remind him that his claim was liable to be 'jumped,' and that he could not alone defend his rights against the violent and unprincipled; and that it was a desolate and painful condition for a citizen, in a civilized community, to be an outlaw." It was perhaps to organized, intrinsically political coercion that Creed Turner had stood opposed in 1847.

The question of what laws were in effect "arose and vexed the country," declared Evans in his 1889 History of the Pacific Northwest Oregon and Washington. Oregon's Organic Law of 1845, nominally in effect at Turner's trial, drew largely from British common law and the coincidence that someone had brought a copy of Iowa statutes to the frontier. "In the spring of 1850, the newly arrived United States District Attorney had pronounced the act making the selections from the Iowa statutes void," says Evans. No codified, written law was in effect at the time of Turner's 1851 trial. Technically, the death penalty for first degree murder would not become law until passed by statute thirteen years later. The Oregon Constitution, adopted in 1857, would make no provision for it.

Congregational Church Deacon Thomas George Naylor, who’d come overland with Burnett, was foreman to a 12-man jury. Campbell subpoenaed eleven witnesses. Turner apparently watched his coveted Martha (right), her father, and two Bonser brothers take the stand. Two neighbors Johnson (also Johnston) were called. It is not known how long the jury deliberated, but Turner was found ‘guilty as charged in the indictment’ at the conclusion of a one-day trial. On 4 November 1851, Pratt sentenced him to hang one month following. Turner’s death sentence was reported in San Francisco’ Daily Union eleven days later. [See note, below.]

My heart raced, with my next discovery. Creed Turner began his autobiography! “As the days passed he became more frantic and dedicated to penning the story of his life,” relates Wilson. Goeres-Gardner has him ‘writing madly’ during the last week of his life: "Visitors to the jail heard him mumbling, “I’m coming to myself now, and life is getting sweeter and sweeter to me. Some have taken me for a grand scoundrel of the first water, and that I aimed to get a big name. I wasn’t smart enough to act insane.”"

Goeres-Gardner reports Turner “savoring the last few hours of his remaining days.” He ate a large meal on the evening of 3 December. The following morning he had a shave. “He requested to be baptized, but it was too late to make arrangements.” The Oregon Statesman would report Turner “was equipped in his shroud” before being taken to his place of execution. Goeres-Gardner observes: “Perhaps the word is simply used to mean the garments he wore were the ones he was to be buried in.”

Smith tells us, “He was marched to the gallows, climbed the steps with a firm gait, and took his place upon the trapdoor.”

Although they’d been unable to baptize him, Reverend John Smith Griffin and political aspirant/circuit-riding Church Elder, Dr. James McBride both sermonized from the scaffold. Says Smith, “The sun broke through the clouds shortly before the execution and the reporter from the Statesman felt it was an omen of God’s pleasure” at the impending killing.

Several accounts note the absence of any blindfold, in Washington County’s first and last hanging. Turner was allowed to ‘scrutinize’ a crowd of perhaps 250 as he awaited the drop. (One contemporary account has numbers representing half the state's population in attendance.) Occurring well beyond harvest, remote farmers could behold the proceeding without substantial cost to themselves.

Creed Turner's final moments have been memorialized in several texts.

Much press attention was given County Sheriff William Hardin Bennett, a 25-year-old Kentuckian, executing Turner at precisely 11am, as ordered by Judge Pratt’s death warrant.

“Turner broke his neck in the fall and after he was pronounced dead the body was allowed to hang a sufficient time to ensure that he could not be revived,” relates Wilson. With Deady now likely in charge of his estate, Creed Turner’s body was placed in a pine coffin provided by the county. He was that afternoon one of the first interred, likely in what is now called the Hillsboro Pioneer Cemetery, then on the western edge of town. No marker exists for either Turner or Bradbury.

Creed Turner was not yet thirty. Death Penalty USA lists him, behind Kendal, as the second white executed in Oregon.

Seeking to separate state executions from public spectacle, the Oregon legislature later ordered they be screened by fences.

Perhaps you can imagine my excitement, at the discovery that Creed Turner and I - in proximity and separated only by time - have both committed to publishing family histories. Testimony regarding the Revolutionary-era exploits of John Turner is disappointingly scant. I crave to learn more about Thomas Turner (whom son Squire referred to as 'Old Marse' in correspondence). Thomas, if not Squire, is likely to have fathered Jeremiah 'Jery' Turner (1840-1917), by one their enslaved women.

Sadly, Goeres-Gardner reports in a footnote to her well-researched Necktie Parties that, while such texts were common in that era, "Turner's manuscript has been lost over time." When one considers crude, log structures were then contending with natives' cedar-plank longhouses as the ultimate in shelter, it would be extraordinary for Turner's work to have survived. I blame Deady, however. Judges Campbell, Pratt and Deady all left their papers. The latter can be found among collections housed in the Oregon Historical Society Research Library. Deady is said to have acknowledged his role in Turner's defense.

There are no references to Oregon land among Creed Turner’s deeds settled in Madison County. It’s quite likely his attorney relied on the same strategy of collecting payment that he employed the following year. Judge Nelson appointed Deady to represent Adam E. Wimple, for killing his 13-year-old bride, Mary. In Nimrod: Courts, Claims, and Killing On The Oregon Frontier, Lansing has the ‘capable’ Deady receiving Wimple’s land claim to settle their account … via Wimple's will, likely drafted by Deady. ‘Crazy Wimple,’ who’d harvested $10,000 from California gold fields, was hung on 8 October 1852.

Marcus, William and Mary Jane; siblings and "heirs and legatees of Creed Turner, deceased," sold 3/4 of the Missouri lands for $375. Title went to one Littleton West Turner. Of this Turner's father, one researcher speculates, “This John is probably a grandson of John and Rebeckah Turner (above), but it is not known for sure through which son." Such speculation places Littleton beyond my 'first cousin prohibition,' and the story settles.

It transpires Creed Turner's estate was estimable. He had bright prospects. In March 1752, his heirs sold another 352 acres along Tates Creek to a Samuel Phelps, likely first cousin Samuel Brockman Phelps (1828-1909), another of Peter Taylor's grandsons. Turner's siblings sold another 95 acres on Tates Creek to Samuel Clifton Stone (1822-1901). Nephew to Squire Turner (above), it's difficult to justify having Stone, the nephew of the wife of my half-2nd great grand uncle, already in my tree ... but there you are.

*‘Back to the United States’ was a phrase employed in the era of Creed Turner's grandfather John. Adventurers associated with the Transylvania Company; Judge Richard Henderson’s speculative colonization of uncharted territory ... under fellow North Carolinian Daniel Boone’s leadership. To them, 'the States' were both geographically distant and politically distinct. Land we now know of as Kentucky was initially being organized as Transylvania Colony.

**Squire Turner (1793-1871), neared his peak of legal prominence as Creed Turner prepared for trial. In its 1850 session, the Kentucky General Assembly had adopted codification of all Kentucky law into a single document for the first time: of the trio involved, Squire Turner is seen as the project's leading light. Outcome for Creed might have improved, had first cousin Squire been present to represent him.

Back to Top

NOTES ~
Bold face indicates the author's probable direct ancestor.

Elder, in Last Words of the Executed, indicates Turner’s death was reported in the New York Times. It’s unlikely folks in Madison County heard of their kinsman’s plight prior to his execution. The New York Daily Tribune only reported the “wanton murder” on 2 December. Story of the crime broke in the Indiana State Sentinel a week after Turner’s execution. It formed part of a cautionary tale: “Emigration this year has been large, but too many of them have gone to sow their "wild oats" among the mines instead of the fertile plains, where it would certainly yield an hundred fold.” [sic]

Family members may have learned Creed Turner would “doubtless be executed” nearer Christmas, when the murder was reported in an Ohio newspaper, the Gallipolis Journal (right). Turner was dead three weeks by then.

--30--

UPDATE:

April, 2023 - I above referenced Turner's legal counsel Matthew Paul Deady (1824-1893) ... and his papers in Oregon Historical Society Research Library collection. The magnificent Multnomah County Library sent compilation, as Pharisee Among Philistines: The Diary of Judge Matthew P. Deady, 1871-1892 (1975), to my local branch. From vol. 1, p. 255 came minor reminiscence: "Have not given any thought to [Medical Jurisprudence] since I defended Creed Turner for murder at Hillboro in the fall of 1851." Entry was dated 2 February 1878 ... a full 26 years later. Image (left) was from nearer nine years following Turner's execution.

Lat Thame Say

It was for partisan reasons that Patrick Gordon, alive in 1649, depicted George Keith, Scotland's 5th Earl Marischal (1553-1622), as "a learned, wyse, and upright good man." In his Short Abridgement of Britane's Distemper (published 1844) Gordon - like Keith - took the side of his sovereign, James VI and I, under whom the Scots and English Crowns had been united in 1603. To do so had religious implications. Gordon, like Keith and King James (of the King James Bible), opposed the agendas of both Scottish Coventars and English Puritans. Protestants, they feared machinations by expatriate Scots, in foreign, Catholic courts.

Gordon conveyed Lady Keith's presentient dream (described in While She Was Laughing). It had followed James' transfer of Abbey of Deer holdings to the Keith family. Perhaps as a precursor to being stripped of title to those lands, Gordon cites a clause in what appears to be the Abbey's 13th-century charter:

Cursed be those that taketh this away from the holy use whereunto it is now dedicat.

It is apparent that the 5th Earl Marischal did not confine his scorn to wifely premonitions ... that upsetting Monks would lead to dire consequences. In 1593 George Keith founded Marischal College. He did so on the site of a former monastery. 

Marischal College was created as a Protestant alternative to the Earl's nearby alma mater, the extant King's College (purged of its Catholic staff in 1560). “This resulted in Aberdeen having two Universities … at a time when there were only two such institutions (Oxford and Cambridge) in the whole of England.”
[See Eddie Fowler’s post in Doric Columns.]

"There would seem to be no particular reason for two academies so near together," relates Hutton, in his Literary Landmarks of the Scottish Universities (1904). "Perhaps, the New Town, then more important and more populous than the Old, was a little jealous that a poor village, consisting of a single street, should be the municipal seat of learning. But, more probably, there was a feeling that King's College leaned too much towards the old order of things religious; that particular Earl Marischal, the founder, being a zealous member of the Reformed Church. The earliest home of Marischal College was in the old monastery of the Grey Friars." Simmons, in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, details an endowment that further converted monastic land as Keith founded the college, "... for the maintenance of which he granted the properties formerly belonging to the Grey, the Black, and the White friars of Aberdeen, and to the chaplainries of Bervie and Cowie."

There is, in the literature, much scorn for the Keith family aggregating Abbey lands, as kingly reward after the Earl Marischal stood as proxy groom in James' 1589 Cophenhagen marriage to 14-year-old Anne of Denmark. Eight years prior, George Keith had inherited an annual income of 270,000 merks, "regarded as ‘the revenue greatest of any earl of Scotland,’" reports Simmons. "It was commonly said," relates Taylor, in his Great Historic Families of Scotland (1889), that this Earl Marischal "could enter Scotland at Berwick, and travel through the country to its northern extremity without requiring ever to take a meal or a night’s rest off his own lands." A trek of 300 miles, George Keith was exceedingly wealthy before the noble reward. Says Gordon of the transfer, " it hath bein observed by sundrie that the earles of that house befor wer the richest in the kingdom, having treasure and store besyde them."

"When it was about a century old," imparts Hutton, of the college, "somewhat better quarters, on the same site, were built for it. But neither its first nor its second shell was considered worthy of the spirit and the soul within it, and in 1841, the central block of the still existing buildings was finished and occupied. On a carefully preserved stone from the older structure is cut, in relief, and in very ancient style of lettering, the family motto of the Keiths, Earls Marischal:"

Thay Haif Said: Quhat Say Thay? Lat Thame Say.

I must interject that the Keith Clan motto has been 'Veritas Vincit,' for "Truth Shews It" or   - formally - 'Truth Conquers,' since at least the 1513 Battle of Flodden Field.

The Marischal's shield was to have born the phrase, "Thay say: quhat they say: thay haif sayed: let thame say."

To me, the second variation ... sans question mark ... seems more in character with what I've learned of George Keith. It's unlikely Hutton ever saw the inscription. Ferguson, in his Great North of Scotland Railway Guide (1881), reports "the inscription in large letters remained on the buildings till 1836, when they were taken down."

I most appreciate the declarative expression advanced in Proceedings of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland (1859):

THAI HAIF SAID : QUHAT SAY THAY : LAT THAME SAY  

I'd like to imagine the 5th Marischal sufficiently staunch that he made no inquiry of others' positions. Taylor relies on the interestingly named Dr. Pratt to tie the expression to Lady Keith's dream: "It is thought to have been in reference to this legend or to some reproaches of a similar nature, which were heaped on the Marischal family at the time, in consequence of their sacrilegious appropriation of the Abbey and its possessions, that they inscribed the unavailing defiance." Clark, who, in his Spell of Scotland (1916),  reported seeing a question mark, felt the phrase described "a certain ancestral right of hauteur."

The question mark survives

Ferguson’s Guide relates a similar motto was affixed to a home in Peterhead, the burgh about Inverugie Castle: "It ran thus:

They saye–they saye. What saye they? Do you well, and lat them saye, saye.”

The sans-query messaging also spread. Hutton avers, "There still exists in the town of St. Andrews, near the Old Abbey wall, an aged stone lintel upon which, according to tradition, the subject of a good deal of malicious gossip carved with his own hand, and in rude letters, the sentences:

They Have Said. And They Will Say. Let Them Be Saying."

Bulloch, in Vol. III of Scottish Notes and Queries (1890) employs the query, but says cryptically his phrasing differs from that in the Marischal College gateway. "Almost the same words as above are still in common use in Buchan:

Lat them say, say, as thae like, I carena what thae say." 

But Bulloch seems to give the motto the most thought. "The common use of this phrase shows there is little respect paid to conventionalism, or it may be the outcome of true independence of character."

"Such inscriptions must have had some effect in moulding the character of past generations, when books were scarce, and the rudimental part of education confined to a few. By the prominence given to selected adages, and popular sayings, they became impressed upon the minds of those able to read them, and by this means became a source of knowledge to the community, by being often repeated and referred to as good authority or wise sayings on many subjects. The originality of some of them, and the intelligent selection of others, is evidence an advancing spirit of enquiry among the more intelligent classes. Many of them show evidence of individuality of character more common and characteristic than now to be met with."

Henderson, in a volume of the Dictionary of National Biography, describes George Keith as "one of the few thoroughly cultured Scottish noblemen of his time." A sympathetic biographer claims "at eighteen he was an adept in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, "and in the studies of antiquities, history, and literature when, discontented with the scope allowed in his own country, he resolved to study in France." Simmons, in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, reports Keith was educated with his younger brother William in Paris "and at the academy in Geneva, where he studied under the Calvinist theologian Theodore Beza, who held his pupil in high regard." After his younger brother was killed in a brawl, Keith "abandoned his studies to tour the courts of Italy and Germany." Continues Simmons: "It has been argued that the earl's decision to establish the college as a firmly protestant institution, teaching along humanist lines and using a professorial system, arose from his dissatisfaction at the failure of King's College in Old Aberdeen to reform itself thus."

It is interesting to observe that the brilliant Irish wit George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) had "They say. What do they say? Let them say." carved into his own livingroom mantelpiece.

H. L. Menken, whom I hold priestly in American letters, employed the phrasing “They haif said. Quhat say they? Lat thame say.” as the motto in the masthead of a journal on language he inspired in 1925. Author John Alego explains its use: "The form American Speech adopted is from an inscription over a doorway at Aberdeen's Marischal College, founded in 1593. It is likely that the motto's original import was a disregard for the opinions of the world. I have suspected, however, that the founders of American Speech took it instead as a statement of their editorial policy, which was to inquire into the actual usage of [language by] Americans and report it, but not to attempt to 'improve' or 'correct' it (and perhaps also not to worry about those who thought they should)." [Parentheses in the original.]

We have no evidence that George Keith coined the phrase, but it is demonstrable that - by inscribing this motto on the wall of an institution of learning - his sentiments have inspired intellectuals passionate about language and thought. It may be that such 'cavalier' reasoning influenced the House of Keith in succeeding generations ... and could lead to controversial mating choices made by Parson James Keith (1696-c1752) and depicted in the post Clishmaclaver.

While She Was Laughing Them To Scorn

In Another Tongue o' Clishmaclaver I proffer contention that maternal, 5x great-grandfather James Keith (1696-c1752) came of age under the direct influence of a pair of Scotland’s Earls Marischal. The following tales pertain to my noble Keith 'kith and kin' ... phrasing that my family employs to depict 'native land and people.’ I find them enchanting.

Beginning with the earliest:

Thomas the Rhymer (also Thomas of Erceldoune, c1220 – 1298) made 13th century predictions. Two perhaps pertinent foretellings center on enduring stones near mainland Scotland's easternmost settlement. In environs of what is today the coastal port of Peterhead, at Aberdeenshire.

“Ugie, Ugie, by the sea,
Lordless shall thy lands be,
And beneath thy ha’ hearth stane
The Tod shall bring her bairns hame.”
[See Collections for a History of the Shires of Aberdeen and Banff, Vol. 1, by Joseph Robertson; pp. 420-421.]

My translation: “Where River Ugie approaches the North (then 'German') Sea, there will be no lord over these lands; and beneath the stone undergirding a raised fireplace, the fox shall bring home her pups.” The portent seems coldly ominous for substantial estates at this estuary. Wild animals will occupy a once-impressive family hearth ... after title passes from the landowner.

The name of Keith was not likely associated with the nearby village of Inverugie until about 1369, when Mariot le Cheyne (c1335-c1391) took John de Keith (1336-1420) as her second husband. Cheyne’s Tower (below) was, c1380, integrated into Keith’s subsequent Inverugie Castle (right) ... four generations following The Rhymer’s death.

Another of the Rhymer's mystical pronouncements makes Clan Keith its subject:

“As lang’s this stane stands on this craft.
The name o’ Keith shall be alaft,
But when this stane begins to fa’
The name o’ Keith shall wear awa’.”
[See Annals of Peterhead, by Peter Buchan; pg. 64.]

My translation: “As long as this stone remains upright within this tenant farmer's land enclosure, the name of Keith shall be aloft; but when the stone begins to fall, the Keith name shall wear away.”

Popular culture reinforced an inevitability of the family's demise by venerating the site where Thomas is to have revealed this forewarning. William Ferguson, in his 1881 guide, The Great North of Scotland Railway, identified a field as ‘Thamas’ Stane’ (Thomas’ Stone) when depicting Inverugie village. It is from this spot, with “many curiously sculptured stones still to be seen,” that Thomas the Rhymer was to have manifest prophetic vision. [See pg. 115.]

Thomas would have evidenced incredible foresight, to link the Keith family with this place. If this is the case, subsequent chroniclers showed tenacity … retaining a name association whose relevance would not become apparent for a century or so.

If Thomas did make any pronouncement in these environs, it is not inconceivable that English overlords later tailored it ... to dominate in subsequent culture wars. “During the 14th, 15th, and 16th centuries,’ says Chambers, ‘to fabricate a prophecy in the name of Thomas the Rhymer appears to have been found a good stroke of policy on many occasions.” Scots’ aspirations were intended to be afflicted by attributing false assertions to the mystical poet and seer. Hence the alternate appellation, ‘Thomas the Lyar.’*
[See Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900, Vol. 17, entry for Thomas Erceldoune, pg. 212; citing Popular Rhymes of Scotland, by R. Chambers.]

The name of Keith has yet to fully wear away, but Inverugie Castle is admittedly now in ruins.

As happened periodically after the hereditary office was founded in the 12th century, Scotland's Earl Marischal ran afoul of the Crown. George Keith (1692-1778, left) was likely born at Inverugie Castle. He was four years older than my ancestor James (above), and from 1712 the 10th Earl Marischal of Scotland. The young peer of the realm, at age twenty-four in 1716, had his titles and prerogatives attainted by England's George I. George Keith also forfeited his estates ... for battling on behalf of the House of Stuart in the First Jacobite Rebellion a year earlier.

Landless George Keith entered service to Frederick the Great of Prussia. After some time roaming Scottish highlands following the Battle of Sheriffmuir, 'my' James Keith fled to the New World, entering Anglican service as Rector of Henrico Parish in Virginia.

I've found no evidence that 18th century Keith kin were aware of Thomas the Rhymer’s foreboding nearly five hundred years earlier. The fall of the House of Keith (which I describe here) without doubt made a deep, psychic impression on some remaining in Aberdeenshire (on lands which did not become ‘Lordless,’ but where title was merely re-conveyed by the royal House of Hanover).

Perhaps Keith names did wear away, in a technical sense: both the 10th Earl Marischal and his younger brother died childless. Exiled George Keith did not remain forever 'away,' however. For diplomatic services rendered Prime Minister William Pitt (the Elder), England's King George II pardoned Keith in 1759. Burke's Peerage has Keith rejecting language in a concomitant Act of Parliament that would have restored his hereditary titles and honors. The Crown in 1761 repaid takings of £3,618: Keith committed £12,620 to repurchasing former family holdings at the place of his nativity.

"He resolved to visit Inverugie, and formally take possession," says William Anderson, in Howes o' Buchan. Keith contemplated offering castle lodgings to Enlightenment philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, who had been driven from France ... and Geneva and Bern in Switzerland ... before befriending Keith, then serving as Frederick's Governor at Neuchâtel on the continent. "But, before any arrangements were made, Rousseau had changed his mind."† [See pp. 29-30.]

The erstwhile Earl "proceeded no further than the Bridge of Ugie, however — being completely overcome by the sight of his home in ruins." He was, according to Anderson, "moved to tears" by the "sad spectacle" of his deteriorated birthplace.

MacGibbon and Ross, in Castellated and Domestic Architecture of Scotland, Vol. 2, one hundred and twenty years later preserved an image of an Inverugie Castle hearth. Intriguingly, in the foreground of the 1887 woodcut (right), the artist prominently featured a block of stone: it is labeled "Jamb of Fireplace."

The property did not leave the Keith Family in this declined condition, however.

It is time to introduce the Dowager Countess, widow of the 9th Earl Marischal and mother of George Keith the attainted. Mary, Countess Marischal (1675–1729) "was no ordinary woman" according to Robert Anderson in Transactions of the Buchan Field Club, Vol. 10. A staunch Jacobite like her father, fate did not require her to forfeit her properties ... as had been required of her father and sons. "She retained until her death in 1729 the occupancy of lnverugie, then 'a great castle and court.'" [Italics mine; see pg. 34.]

George Keith purchased a dilapidated estate from Trustees of the York Building Company. At auction, which may indicate failed enterprise. William Anderson has the still-popular Keith declaring "There was no bidder against me, and great applause of the spectators." Several archaeologists comment on castular building materials found in nearby fabrications: I suspect the firm was piecing out stonework as if from a quarry.

It is likely that, had Inverugie Castle remained part of an Earl's vast landholdings, it may not have fallen prey to deconstruction.

Cheyne’s Tower, Inverugie Castle, c1961

Before we pass this scene, I'll observe a final, turbulent period: "The late James Ferguson, Esq. repaired and roofed in the main building of the castle, floored it, and erected an observatory on the top of it at considerable expense," observed the New Statistical Account of Scotland, Vol. 12 in 1845. "But the present proprietor, with a greater regard to taste than utility, has dismantled it of these modernizings, and allowed ruin to reassume her empire." Perhaps as a matter of public safety, the structure was blown up in 1899.

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The following portent is to have arrived from Lady Margaret Keith (1565-1598), first wife of Scotland's 5th Earl Marischal:

"In her sleepe she saw a great number of religious men in ther habit com forth of that abbey to the stronge craige of Dunnotture, which is the principall residence of that familie. She saw them also sett themselves round about the rock to gett it down and demolishe it, having no instruments nor toilles wherwith to perform this work, but only penknives, wherwith they follishly (as it seemed to her) begane to pyk at the craige. She smyled to sie them intende so fruitles ane interpryse, and went to call her husband to scuffe and geyre them out of it. When she had fund him and brought him to sie these sillie religious monckes at ther foolish work, behold, the wholl craige, with all his stronge and stately buildinges, was by ther pyn knyves wndermynded and fallen in the sea, so as ther remained nothing but the wrack of ther riche furnitore and stufe flotting on the waves of a rageing and tempestous sea."
[See Short Abridgement of Britane's Distemper, citing Patrick Gordon of Cluny; pg. 113 (written mid 17th century, published 1844).]

It's challenging to acknowledge the vastness of the 5th Earl Marischal's landholdings. It is reputed in Chambers' Encyclopædia, Vol. 5 that George Keith (c1553-1623) could travel from River Tweed to the Pentland Firth – a stretch, at a minimum, of more than three hundred miles among Scotland's northeastern provinces – "eating every meal and sleeping every night on his lands." I suspect he lodged in a progression of his own manor houses, when affairs of state took him to London.

Before Inverugie, the Keith family seat perched at Dunnottar Castle, atop a headland fifty miles south. I leave it to William and Robert Chambers to anglicize presentiment attributed to Lady Keith:

“Hereupon, it is said, she dreamed a dream, which was thought to portend the downfall of the House of Keith. She saw the monks of Deer set themselves to work to hew down the crag of Dunnottar with their penknives and, while she was laughing them to scorn, Behold! the whole crag, with all its strong and stately buildings, was undermined and fallen in the sea.” [From Chambers' Encyclopædia, Vol. 4, pg. 750.]

Cistercian monks founded the Abbey of Deer in 1219. In the course of three centuries the monastery became possessed of considerable income, based on extensive, Aberdeenshire farmholdings. "In 1543 the charge of the abbey [of Deer] came into the hands of the great Keith family."
[See Makers of the Scottish Church, by William Beveridge, pg. 69.]

The Keiths were already doing quite well. The 4th Earl Marischal, 'William who Kept the Tower' at Dunnottar Castle (1506-1581), had married his cousin and "nearly doubled the family domains, which now included lands in seven shires: Haddington, Linlithgow, Kincardine, Aberdeen, Banff, Elgin, and Caithness."
[See Chambers’ Encyclopædia, Vol. 5, pg. 778.]

William in 1552 got regents for Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, to appoint second son Robert Keith (1533- bef 1592) – then a teen – Abbot 'in commendam,' at the Abbey Of Deer. It was in that time within "the gift of the Crown" to bestow standing, as absentee landlords, on persons "who were not churchmen in any real sense, but mere laymen of mark or of important family connexions." Particularly among Scots royals in this era, commendatory abbots drew from a monastery's revenue ... without fulfilling ecclesiastical duties, or even residing in the religious community. [See The Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, Series 2, Vol. 1, pg. cxv.]

Deer Abbey’s annual income was valued at £2300 in 1561. Revenue was – in part – to fund a glebe, sustain several churches, and their ministers. Robert Keith was “by no means liberal or regular in his payments,” according to Beveridge. Eight years later, Scotland’s General Assembly refused his petition to be relieved of paying stipends to clergy from these revenues. The Catholic Encyclopedia reports "The flourishing monastery soon fell prey to the Scottish [Calvinist] Reformers."

In 1587 Mary Stuart's son, then Scotland's King James VI, erected Abbey lands into a lordship, under a peerage styled Altrie. Historians might shudder at Robert Keith's petition. It begins with declaration “that the monastical superstition for which the said abbey of Deer was of auld erectit and foundit is now, by the laws of this realme, utterly abolished … so that na memories thereof shall be heirafter.” [Italics mine.] Robert Keith, as Lord Altrie, pensioned off the white-robed monks … and drew the income to himself. [See Beveridge, pp 69-70.]

These former monastic properties passed to George Keith, the 5th Earl Marischal (1553-1622). Beveridge informs that adherents of the old faith begrudged seeing this Church property remaining in the Keith family’s “already overgrown estates.” Public animosity passed as well … as land and income accrued to George Keith.

“The story ran that his wife earnestly entreated him to forego the spoil [of the lands of Deer]. But ‘fourteen score chalders of meal and bear was a sore temptation,' says Patrick Gordon of Cluny.”‡ Chambers also informs us “The earl was deaf to her entreaties.”§

Dunnottar Castle

Dunnottar (Dùn Fhoithear) Castle (right) was reduced by Oliver Cromwell’s Puritan forces a generation later, in May 1652. Chambers alleges Lady Keith's account was to have been committed to writing before 1660, when the Keiths re-seated themselves at Inverugie Castle near Peterhead.
[More at post 'Clishmaclaver'.]

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Mid-17th century apparitions are to have prompted presentiment. This in the wake of the 7th Earl Marischal’s decision to set up operations at Inverugie. Phantasms apparently visited the place over time.

“About the 5th of November, in ane seamanis house of Peterheid there was hard, upone the night, beating of drums, uther tymes sounding of trumpetis, playing on pifferis, and ringing of bellis, to the astoneishment of the heireris. Trubles follouit.” [See The Gazetteer for Scotland.]

My translation: “Drums were heard in a mariner's house at the port at Peterhead on 5 November 1642. At other times, trumpets, pifferis [See image, below.] and bells astonished listeners.”

“Troubles followed.”

The account evokes an apprehensive, populist foreboding ... to choices made by William Keith (1610-1670/71), to whom local, able-bodied men owed their fealty. The 'First Bishop's War' had broken out in 1639. This conflict may have seemed a prelude to a series of civil wars which embroiled Scotland and Ireland ... and then blazed into an English Civil War.

‘Troublous times’ ensued after the general population dutifully followed the 7th Earl Marischal's decision to draw an army from his clan levies. And support Covenanters, a Presbyterian movement militantly opposing the established Episcopal Church … and changes to religious practice (including introduction of a Book of Common Prayer) that English King Charles I was attempting to impose. Troubles likely did not recede when the Earl later made a pact with Charles … supporting him militarily ... until the King was executed in 1649.

The piffero or piffaro is a double reed musical instrument of the oboe family.

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"A white hind should come from afar, and give three roars at the gate," contends William Anderson, 19th century propagator of several prophetic stories pertinent to the Marischals. He here references a female deer without pigment ... that Celtic people considered a messenger from the otherworld ... and the Keith's Inverugie Castle. Following the interloping animal's trumpeting, "the keystone should fall from its socket, and break the threshold in three." [See Howes o' Buchan, pp.34-35.]

"Whether or not the white hind ever appeared we are not informed – but one thing is certain, that the threshold was broken in three, and that the keystone has been out of its place," observes Anderson.

Diverting our attention to Deer Abbey, by the undated photo (right) we can ascertain that a keystone remained intact above the doorway to the abbot's lodging for some time.

RETURN TO TOP

NOTES:
* Robertson reports ‘Thamas’ Stane’ was incorporated into the nearby parish church in 1763. This would have coincided with George Keith's repurchase of ancestral lands in the area. It's inviting to speculate that Keith was aware of The Rhymer's prognostication and, finding the folklore disagreeable, ordered the signifying stone sequestered.

† Rousseau was prolific in this period. It is stimulating to consider whether Keith declined restoration of hereditary titles as result of having been won over in discussions leading to philosoph Rousseau's Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men. The progressive argued differences in "wealth, nobility or rank, power and personal merit" formed groundwork for moral inequality.

‡ Having discovered Gordon's original phrasing to be "fourtein scoir chalderes of meill and beir," I'm no closer to understanding the term 'beir.' The World Sense Dictionary allows for a translation which depicts the mammal 'bear.' The Scottish Archive Network includes beir among terms of dry measurement. I conclude from Cullen's glossary that bier references barley; also styled 'bere' and a linguistic precursor to beer.

§ Gordon, in his Short Abridgement of Britane's Distemper, makes the case that accounts of Lady Keith's dream were very likely in circulation before Dunnottar's reduction by the New Model Army. "A woman both of a high spirit and of a tender conscience," Gordon continued with an 'eating away' metaphor. He contends Margaret forbid her husband to "leave such a consuming moth in his house as was the sacrilegious meddling with the Abbacie of Deir."

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