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Donald Macleod
was born in Rossal, Strathnaver, where he lived until he was turned
out during the clearance of that township which began in 1814. Donald
was about twenty years of age when Rossal was cleared. At 11 o'clock
that night he climbed a hill and counted:
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blazing houses. Many of the owners were my relatives and all of
whom I personally knew; but whose present condition, whether in
or out of the flames, I could not tell. The fire lasted six days,
till the whole of the dwellings were reduced to ashes or smoking
ruins. During one of those days a boat lost her way in the dense
smoke as she approached the shore; but at night she was enabled
to reach a landing place by the light of the flames. |
He was evicted
on two further occasions before working as a stone mason in Wick. However,
he continued to be harassed for his open hostility to the Sutherland
estate clearances.
He moved to Edinburgh,
where he wrote a series of letters to the Weekly Chronicle publicising
the actions of the Sutherland estate management and the quiet assent
of the established clergy during the period of the Clearances.
Macleod emigrated
in the 1850s to Woodstock in Ontario, Canada, where, in 1856, he published
his letters and pamphlets in ‘Gloomy Memories’.
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