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William Patton -
unconfirmed
Abt. 1720 - 17??
The name of Calum's and Jamie's great great great great great great
great grandfather has as yet to be discovered, though it will almost certainly be recorded as Patton
in the early 18th Century. It is believed that he was either from the Perthshire parish of Dunbarney, or at least resident
there for a time, and circumstantial evidence would seem to suggest that he was called William.
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| The location of Rimalton, from Stobie's 1783 map (click to enlarge) |
The first clue of a connection to Dunbarney came from the birth records of John Patton's children
Agnes in 1772 and John in 1778. Both were recorded as being from 'Rimbletown', with subsequent
research establishing that this was in fact Rimalton, beside Craigend, which is located to the west of Moncrieffe
Hill about two miles south of Perth, as depicted on Stobie's map of Perthshire in 1783 (see right).
The initial pattern established was that John had been resident in Rimalton from at least
1772 to 1778, and that in the following year of 1779 he had moved to another cottage just slightly north at Sconieburn. By
the early 1790s he had then found his way to the Craigie district of Perth, where in addtion to working as a salmon fisherman,
he had earned an income as a handloom weaver in the cottages at Carr's Croft (with salmon fishing being a seasonal activity).
Upon examining the kirk session records for Dunbarney parish, within which both Rimalton and Craigend
were just located, a strong candidate has now emerged for a brother to John, in the form of a mason called James Patton.
He had at least four children between 1764 and 1772 at the Boat of Dunbarney, situated on the River Earn within Dunbarney
parish, before moving to Craigend, where between 1777 and 1783 he had three further children. James worked as a mason,
as did two of John's grandsons; and John worked as a salmon fisherman, as did at least one of James' grandsons, who also settled
in Craigie.
James' first son was named William, and if the Scottish naming pattern holds firm, then that would
make James' father also a William. John's first child Agnes was born shortly after his marriage, in 1773, but it
is not until five years later that we find a record for a son, called John, immediately followed by a William the year after.
It may well therefore be that John in fact had a prior son called William between 1773 and 1778, who died in infancy.
There is only one more Paton family listed in Dunbarney in the same timeframe, and that is of a William
Paton, based in Kintillo village, who worked as a handloom weaver. As with James, William named his eldest son William
in 1770, and then his second son James in 1771. The first son called William died, and so a third son was
given the name when born in 1773.
It is clear that the name of William was important, and it is my belief that William, James and our
John were in fact all brothers. With the records as poor as they are in Dunbarney for this period, the research route will
now rely on trying to trace any records regarding James apprenticeship as a mason, and/or through any records that can be
found pertaining to the salmon fishing industry at this time, the weaving records for Perth having already been analysed.
There is, however, another new and exciting option, and that is to test any male descendants from
these Dunbarney Patons for a Y-chromosome DNA sample. Each male passes on his Y-chromosome to his sons virtually
unchanged for generations. This means that any male descendant of James or William will share the same Y-chromosome as any
male descendant of John - if they are indeed related.
Work is currently underway to trace these descendants to ask whether they would be willing to participate
in a DNA test through the New DNA Ancestry service offered by Ancestry.co.uk. I have already taken a free 37 marker DNA
test through the Sorenson Molecular Genealogy Foundation, which offers free tests as part of a research programme, but the
downside is that it takes at least a year before any results are made available. So far, 13 markers out of 37 have been analysed
and made available on the website, and can be viewed by clicking on Y-DNA database on SMGF - type in Paton, and then search, then the top line is our Y-DNA profile as worked out so far (11 out of 13 matches).
The DNA Ancestry service can examine a higher number of markers and will therfore provide a more
accurate match. So if you are a male directly descended from the Dunbarney Patons, please do get in touch!
The PATONs of DUNBARNEY - Presumed CHILDREN of William
(?) PATON:
1) John Paton
b: 1745 d: 1820
Calum's and Jamie's six times great grandfather - see
below.
2) James Paton -
unconfirmed brother
b: abt 1745
James was a mason who came from Dunbarney and migrated his way north out
of the parish through the Boat of Dunbarney to Craigend in Perth. The
move to Craigend was likely to be because of the quarry established there.
Although a marriage record has not been found, it is believed that James' wife was called Janet
MacGregor, as noted in the death certificate for his son Joseph in 1862 (a record within which James is mistakenly
recorded as a mason called John - however, as there was only one Joseph born in 1783, or within that decade at all in
Dunbarney, it is obviously him).
Children of James PATON and Janet MacGREGOR:
Ann Paton
b. 29/11/1764 d.1???
Ann was born in Dunbarney in 1764 (OPR: 347/00):
Ann Daughter to James Paton mason at the Boat of Dunbarney Novembr
29th
Catharine Paton
b. 21/7/1765 d. 1???
Catharine was born in Dunbarney in 1764 (OPR: 347/00):
Catharine
daur to James Paton at Dunbarne Boat bap Jul 21st
William Paton
b. 28/1/1770 d. 1???
William was born in Dunbarney in 1764 (OPR: 347/00):
William son
to James Patton at Boat of Dunbarney Janr 28th
James Paton
b. 19/4/1772 d. 1???
James was born in Dunbarney in 1764 (OPR: 347/00):
James son to James
Patton at Boat of Dunbarney Apr 19th 1772
Janet Paton
b. 14/9/1777 d. 1???
Janet was born in Dunbarney in 1764 (OPR: 347/00):
James Paton in Craigend had a Daughter
baptized September 14th named Janet
Alexander Paton
b. 25/7/1779 d. 1???
Alexander was born in Dunbarney in 1764 (OPR: 347/00):
James Paton Mason in Craigend had
a son Baptized July 25th named _____ Alexander
Joseph Paton
b. 29/6/1783 d. 15/12/1862
Joseph was born in Dunbarney in 1764 (OPR: 347/00):
James Paton mason in Craigend had a son Baptized
June 29th named Joseph.
3) William Paton - unconfirmed
brother
b: about 1745
William lived within the small Dunbarney village of Kintillo, where he worked as a handloom
weaver.
At some stage in his early life, William borrowed money from the Kirk Session in Dunbarney,
and the session minutes record interest payments that he subsequently made in return:
1771 April
21st
Received
from William and James Paton six shillings sterling as two years interest preceeding the 6 of December 1770 years.
January 1st 1776
The Minister
reported that he had received Twelve shillings sterling from William Paton in Kintullloh as four years Interest due on his
Bill preceeding the twenty third of December 1774.
This would seem to reinforce the suggestion that William and James were brothers, or at least
related in some way.
William married and had at least eight children.
Children of William PATON and (UNKNOWN):
Margaret
Paton
b. 14/2/1768
Margaret was christened in February 1768 (OPR 347/00):
Margaret
dau: to William Paton in Kintullo ffebry 14th
William Paton
b. 17/1/1770
William was christened in January 1770 (OPR 347/00):
William son to William Patton in Kintullo January 17th
William
appears to have died in infancy.
James Paton
c. 20/10/1771
James was baptised in October 1771 (OPR 347/00):
James son
to William Paton in Kintullo October 20th 1771
William
Paton
c. 26/9/1773
William was
baptised in September 1773 (OPR 347/00):
William son to William Patton in Kintullo Septr 26th
Thomas
Paton
c. 3/9/1775
Thomas was
baptised in September 1775 (OPR 347/00):
Thomas son
to William Paton in Kintulloh Baptized September 3d
Janet Paton
c. 3/5/1778
Janet was baptised in May 1778 (OPR 347/00):
William Paton
weaver in Kintullo had a Daughter Baptized May 3th named Janet
David Paton
c. 7/5/1780
David was christened in May 1780 (OPR 347/00):
William Paton
weaver in Kintulloh had a son Baptized May 7th called David
Ann Paton
c. 14/12/1783
Ann was christened
in December 1783 (OPR 347/00):
William Paton
in Kintullo had a Daughter Baptized and named Ann
 John Paton
Abt. 1745 - 4/5/1820
John is confirmed as Calum's and Jamie's
great great great great great great grandfather.
The possibility of John Paton being our earliest confirmed
Paton ancestor was first raised in March 2002 by distant cousin Pamela McLennan.
Follow up research at our end has since confirmed this possibility as fact, so many thanks to Pamela for the tip
off!
John was born into a Scotland in approximately 1745,
as noted from the newsaper account of his death in 1820 (see below) which described him as a 75 year old man. This means that
he would have been born at the time when Scotland was making its last throw of the dice in an attempt to restore the
deposed Stuart royal family to the country's throne. The dream ended on the fields of Drummossie Moor, with
Bonnie Prince Charlie's defeat at the Battle of Culloden, the last battle to be fought on mainland Britain, and which
cemented the position of the House of Hanover as the new British monarchic line. In the aftermath of the failed Jacobite rebellion,
a series of punitive laws were decreed, banning any sense of Gaelic Highland identity - Gaelic was banned as the Highland
language, the wearing of tartan was forbidden and the carrying of arms made illegal. Whilst it is known that a few of Calum's
and Jamie's ancestors in Perth had Jacobite sympathies, it is not known where the loyalty of the Patons lay...
Little is known of John's early history, but it seems
now that he was indeed from the parish of Dunbarney, though working just over the parish border in Perth. What is known
is that he earned a living as both a hand loom weaver and a salmon fisherman, and that he married Agnes
Watson in Perth in May 1772 (OPR: 387/19):
Perth May 8th One thousand seven hundred & seventy
two contracted John Paton weaver and Agnes Watson both in this parish, Alex Tod Elder, Married May 28th by Mr James Scott
minr.
The kirk session minutes also record that John and Ann (noted as Ann and not Agnes) had previously
paid three shillings and fourpence as contract money for the marriage on April 23rd 1772 (CH2/521/21/439). This was a payment
paid in advance as a surety that the marriage would happen, and which would be returned if all had gone well. If they
decided to have a right old celebration after, they will not have bothered to ask for their money back! The following
comes from Dunbarney: A Parish with a Past (p.44):
A useful source of income to the kirk was the 'pledges' demanded
from couples who were being 'proclaimed' with a view to marriage, the pledge being returned if the wedding took place, but
retained if it did not. In 1728 an edict was read forbidding 'penny weddings', so-called because each person attending handed
over a small sum to help pay for the liquid refreshment. Penny weddings tended to become over-convivial, at least in the eyes
of the kirk, so it was decreed that if a penny wedding took place the pledge would not be returned. At Dunbarney most people
preferred to forfeit the pledge and enjoy the conviviality, so the session's finances benefited considerably...
By the end of 1772, the couple were probably in trouble with regard to obtaining food. Wet weather
and a poor harvest led to the people of Perth enduring a desperate shortage of grain towards the end of the year, a situation
which led to a great deal of unrest. When word reached the citizens of Perth that a foreign ship was loading grain in the
town's harbour, the townsfolk made their way purposefully towards the harbour, boarded the ship and retrieved the grain, throwing
it from the ship back onto the dock. By the time that the magistrate had oredred a detatchment of redcoats to the dock,
the townsfolk and forty sacks of grain had disappeared. Two stragglers were caught and sent to the town gaol, and on the following
day, the town's citizens marched onto the prison, demanding the release of the two. With several soldiers to back him up,
Provost Stewart read the Riot Act to the citizens, but soon capitulated and released the two prisoners, diffusing the situation.
Emboldened by their success, the mob soon marched on to Elcho Castle, where rumour had it that a huge store of grain was being
kept by a corn factor named Donaldson. Donaldson's troops fled at the site of the mob, and when the Perth folk discovered
the grain, he was forced to deliver it to the markets in Perth. After several more such excursions, the magistrates of
Perth soon restored control to the city with the aid of a detachment of dragoons, hastily brought to the city
from Linlithgow.Whether John was involved with the mob is not known, but he and his family
would almost certainly have had sympathies with them, suffering the same food shortage.
In the following year, Perth's citizens had another situation to face when the River Tay froze
after a frost set in on January 1st, lasting until February 11th. When the thaw set in, the ice blocked the flow of the water
being released, causing Perth to be inundated with a flood that covered several of the town's streets and the whole of the
North Inch, with five ships berthed in the harbour thrown ashore as well. The situation would undoubtedly have
disrupted John's ability to visit the Perth markets to sell his woven cloth and to pick up new materials for his
trade at his cottage.
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| 'Rimalton' and 'Scoonyburn' in 1783 (Stobie, NLS) |
John and Agnes (also referred to as Ann)
may have had more than three children, but at the moment only three are known of. The earliest child was their daughter
Agnes baptised in the parish of Dunbarney in May 1773. In the old parochial register,
John is listed as being resident in Rimbltown. For a while this caused considerable confusion, as the
only Rimbltown that could be found was a Rimbleton located about ten miles away in neighbouring Fife, situated in the
Markinch area of modern Glenrothes. In fact, it now transpires that Rimbltown was in fact Rimalton,
located to the west of Moncrieffe Hill, beside Craigend, and about two miles south of Perth.
By 1777, John's son John was also baptised in Rimalton ('Rimbletown'),
Dunbarney, as well, and by March 7th 1779 the
family had moved a few hundred yards further north, with their son William recorded as being born
at the edge of the town in Sconieburn, near the Craigie district, which was home to the town’s rapidly growing
weaving community. The placename of Sconieburn Hill still exists, and is just off the A912 into Perth, where the current
prison in Perth stands today.
It is not known how long the family lived at Sconieburn,
but by 1795 John had moved about a mile away to a weaver’s cottage at Carr's Croft, at the foot of Craigie Hill. The
cottage, one of ten, was to become home to four generations of Patons. Although the street name of Carr's Croft
remains in Perth to this day, only one of the original cottages remains, the rest having been demolished in the 1930s.
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| Carr's Croft, pictured in 1904 prior to its demolition, once home to four generations of Patons |
There is a distinct possibility that John's wife Agnes may have died at a fairly young age whilst
living in Perth. The last child born to her that is known to us was Calum's and Jamie's great great great great great grandfather
William, born in 1779. However, there is record of a weaver called John Paton having married
a woman called Ann Gardiner in Perth in 1780. If this is our John, then he had a further two children, Christian
and Margaret. Certainly there is no mention of an Agnes Paton in the Perth burial registers after 1794.
If John did remarry in 1780, then he would eventually have to bear more grief with the death of this second wife Ann on 7/8/1794,
after her death during childbirth, which may explain the move to Carr's Croft. The OPR record has still to be checked.
For John and family, work as a weaver at
this period was low paid, but there was plenty of it, and the industry was on the increase. In 1689, there were 34 hand loom
weavers recorded as working in Perth. But in 1758, two textile factories had been built by the New Row Company and the Mill
Wynd Company to create fine sheeting, resulting in plenty of work for hand loom weavers, and by the mid-1770s, there was such
a high boom in the trade of woven products that a vast trade existed between Perth and the West Indies, as well as Danzig,
the Netherlands and Glasgow. By 1794, there were some 1500 hand loom weavers in Perth.
On a daily basis, John and his family would have worked
as unit. John would have operated the loom, a complicated array of shuttles, pedals, warps and frame, whilst his wife, along
with their children, would have helped to keep the weaving operation going by preparing the pirns, or bobbins, from which
the threads were woven, an essential part of the process.
George Penny's "Traditions of Perth", published
in 1836, gives a description on the state of the Perth weaving trade:
The Weavers were once a numerous and ancient body; but the act of
Parliament for the encouragement of manufactures, which gave liberty of trade to all engaged in any of its branches, rendered
the corporation of little value. They had a considerable property in South Street. At one time they held a seat in the council,
but they have long been deprived of it; they still, however, retain a vote in the convener court. About the time of Queen
Mary, they had been esteemed an important body, as we find that she presented them with a flag of fine silk, on which
the figures were wrought with needle-work of the richest pattern, by her Majesty's own hand.
This corporation was for many years very unfortunate in the management
of their business. Their deacons and boxmasters came out every year defalcators, frequently to a considerable extent, until
their funds dwindled to nothing; ultimately a heavy load of debt was incurred, which was followed by bankruptcy, and the breaking
up of the corporation. The consequence was, their whole property was put ot the hammer; even their seats in the churches,
and their ancient flag, were disposed of.
Besides their annual election dinner, the members met frequently in
their tenant's house, then a respectable brew-seat, where they guzzled away their funds. They had an ancient custom of meeting
there annually on Fasten's Eve, and having fortified themselves with fat brose in the morning, the rest of the day was devoted
to tippling. Since their bankruptcy, a new body has been formed, rather on the principle of a friendly society than a privileged
order; they, however, still retain their seat in the convener court, and elect their deacon annually.
As well as being a handloom weaver, John also worked in his later years as
a salmon fisherman on the River Tay. When his son John died in 1861, this was in fact listed as John senior's sole occupation,
and it was an industry into which John junior followed, as well as continuing his father's work as a weaver.
The reason for the change of job is unclear, although it may be that either William or John
had taken over operating his handloom, as both had become weavers in their own right.
Salmon fishing in 18th Century Perth was a huge business. The following from an internet article
entitled The Scots Centuries-Old Way to Conserve Salmon Privately by Iain A. Robertson describes the industry at that time:
Evidence strongly suggests that during the 18th century conservation of salmon
was not a matter of concern among those connected with the fisheries. Salmon were commonly seen as a plentiful resource. Thus,
above the netted portion of the Tay River (which forms the basis of this study) and throughout the year, the local population
helped themselves to salmon at will.
The general lack of concern must be put into context. By the 18th century, very
few fishing proprietors worked their own fishings. Instead, the tack (lease) of the fishing was auctioned annually to one
of a number of professional tacksmen (netsmen), seldom for a period of more than one fishing season. Clearly the price they
were prepared to bid was crucial, and an important element in calculating this was the catches likely to be realized. Catch
data were thus very valuable and no tacksman was willing to make known any catch information he might have, either to proprietors
or other tacksmen. In such a situation, no one was in a position to know whether total catches were rising or falling.
During
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