James Macpherson - Death

Death

In his later years he bought an estate, to which he gave the name of Belville, in his native Invernessshire, where he died at the age of 59. Macpherson's remains were carried from Scotland and interred in the Abbey Church of Westminster.

The Highland MP and antiquarian, Charles Fraser-Mackintosh, comments on late eighteenth century evictions in the area of Kingussie, in his second series of "Antiquarian Notes" (Inverness 1897, pp 369 et seq, public domain) as follows: "Mr James MacPherson of Ossianic fame, who acquired Phoiness, Etterish, and Invernahaven, began this wretched business and did it so thoroughly that not much remained for his successors.......Every place James MacPherson acquired was cleared, and he also had a craze for changing and obliterating the old names......{including}......Raitts into Belville. Upon this point it may be noticed that Mac Ossian, in making an entail and calling four of his numerous bastards in the first instance to the succession, declares an irritancy if any of the heirs uses any other designation than that of MacPherson of Belville". Fraser-Mackintosh also asserts that MacPherson bought the right to be buried in Westminster Abbey.