John McPhee Family - Blue Vapours

MacArthur of Penola was quite closely
related to Charlotte MacArthur McPhee.
One suspects that John McPhee’s mother
(Ann Cameron) and John Corriechoille
Cameron were connected by some affinity
and relationship too. By this time in 1850,
John Corriechoille’s own fortunes were not as
great for the man who was once the greatest
cattle dealer in Europe, they said. A further
relational thread is established when we see
that an Alexander McPhee was best man at the
wedding of Ewan Cameron of the Inch farm
and neighbour to Corriechoille farm, when
Ewan married Katherine McPhee. Ewan was a
cousin of both John ‘Corriechoille’ Cameron
and of King Cameron of Penola. Ewan came
to Australia in the early 1850’s. The late Alan
MacArthur of Mont Albert Rd, Canterbury,
Victoria, had made a good study of the
MacArthurs in Lochaber and in Australia.
The outline, which remains of O’Brien’s Cottage
in Glen Roy
O’Brien’s Cottage. Remember how John
McPhee said that he passed by the remnants
of O’Brien’s Cottage, and he said of that
house that is was: “well known in Scottish
history”. You can still see the remnants of
that house. Both Ronnie Campbell and the
late Ann Macdonell had directed me to this
treasure. I said to Ann: “Why is it famous
in Scottish history?” She told me that it
went back to the time of the First Battle of
Inverlochy in 1431 when the Earl of Mar lost
the battle against the Keppoch MacDonalds,
John McPhee Family
and in piteous flight stumbled upon the poor
cottage of O’Brien, who was a Cameron, of
Braegach in Glen Roy. O’Brien (or O’Byrne,
sometimes) saved him, fed him, all that, and
set him on the shortest road through the Glen
towards Aberdeen Shire. The Earl of Mar left
O’Brien his ring. “Come to me if you ever
need help.” Well, one day, he did need help,
naturally enough, because he had befriended
the enemy of the local heavies, so he fled to
Aberdeen Shire to the Earl’s Castle, and the
ring identified him, and
saved him.
The stone of Montrose and Alisdair MacDonald
Sharpening stone. A little off the beaten
track, one can see a large stone, with a
very regular rectangular cut in the side and
top. This is another of those relics, which
connect Glen Roy with the very history of the
Highlands. It is said that, on the eve of the
surprise 1645 attack upon the old Inverlochy
Castle, the forces of Montrose used this
stone to sharpen their swords. It seemed to
work. They thrashed the defenders of old
Inverlochy. Three hundred Camerons were
with the Marquis of Montrose in this crucial
battle in the Wars of the Covenant. It is with
some misgiving as a McPhee that one reads
of this because Montrose’s great soldier and
charismatic leader of his forces, was none
other than Alisdair MacDonald, son of Kol
Kitto MacDonald the slayer of the last chief
of the McPhee (Macfie, MacDuffie) Clan on
Page 5