McGillivray and McIntosh Traders, The: On the Old Southwest Frontier, 1716-1815 by Amos J. Wright Jr.


McGillivray and McIntosh Traders, The: On the Old Southwest Frontier, 1716-1815
Title : McGillivray and McIntosh Traders, The: On the Old Southwest Frontier, 1716-1815
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 1603060146
ISBN-10 : 9781603060141
Language : English
Format Type : Paperback
Number of Pages : 330
Publication : First published October 1, 2000

In this volume, Amos J. Wright Jr. compiles and presents the source materials relating to the lives and careers of Laughlin McGillivray and Alexander McGillivray. The volume represents tweny years of meticulous detective work, during which the author has ferreted out details previously unknown, has clarified some of the problems raised by previous research, and has righted several current misconceptions. There is much here that is of genealogical interest, bearing on such matters as the relationship between the McGillivray and McIntosh clans in Scotland, and the fate of Alexander McGillivray’s son who was sent to Scotland after the death of his father. Among the many conclusions and carefully weighed opinions offered in these pages, the author has included a consideration of Alexander’s cause of death, as he was rumored to have been poisoned by a Spaniard. Publication of these source materials is sure to further our scholarly understanding of these fascinating individuals who were born into fascinating times.

McGillivray and McIntosh Traders, The: On the Old Southwest Frontier, 1716-1815 Reviews

  • Neil

    It’s not easy to review a book that the author has poured his life’s interest into and devoted 20 years of their life into. It’s difficult to critique, when so much of the author is in the book.

    It feels unfair and unjust. Regardless of the book’s merits and failings.

    It’s a great resource, it’s well researched.

    Regardless of the title this is a book about Alexander McGillivray, there is background, especially his father and therefore the Scottish Highland connection,

    There isn’t so much about the other MacGillivray traders, but that is not Wright’s fault. Anglicised records of Scots Gaelic names, that the distinctions and obvious relationships between all the Farquhars, Lachlans, Johns, Alexanders etc are lost.

    There also isn’t very much about the Mackintoshs. The Mackintosh and MacGillivray were intermarried and tightly linked in Strathnairn, allied together within Clan Chattan. There is likely a whole unresolved well of connection within the core research.

    The book isn’t particularly easy to read and because of that not very easy to absorb.

    I ended up re-buying this an an e-book, so that I could annotate and reference. Then there was extra reading required around it.

    This is a niche topic, however it is a rewarding book, if not a casual read.

  • Sarah Shaw

    This book is both invaluable and infuriating. The author goes to great lengths to find and verify information but is utterly incapable of organizing it into any kind of coherent whole. Admittedly, covering the great number of families and traders active over a hundred year period in a vast section of the old and new world is an all but impossible task, but surely some method other than the almost random wanderings between territories, times and family connections could have been found. At very least the author might have refrained from such wild digressions as the whole two hundred and fifty year history of the school in Banff, Scotland to which young Aleck McGillivray, the third generation of this family, was sent- particularly since we have virtually no information about the young man himself. At very least such information could have been put in a footnote. I know I can't expect every historian or biographer to be a Caroline Morehead or a William Dalrymple, but surely some vestige of order- a few genealogical charts or time lines, for instance- isn't too much to ask.