Highlands Background
In 1751, Simon McTavish was born at Stratherrick in the Scottish Highlands, the son of John McTavish (1701–1774), tacksman of Garthbeg, who bore the arms of the McTavishes of Garthbeg. His mother, Mary Fraser (1716–1770) of Garthmore, was descended through Simon Fraser of Dunchea and the Frasers of Foyers, from an illegitimate son of the 1st Lord Lovat. McTavish's father had fought as an officer with the Jacobite armies at the Battles of Culloden and Falkirk Muir, and he was one of the few who were specifically named as to not receive a pardon from George II after the Scots were defeated.
In 1757, General Simon Fraser of Lovat appointed John McTavish a Lieutenant in his newly raised 78th Fraser Highlanders. Apparently changing his name to 'Fraser' so as to escape the authorities, Simon's father went with the regiment to Canada and fought for the British at the Battle of Louisburg, where he was severely wounded and left. Unable to fight at the Battle of Quebec, he was only well enough to be sent home "as an act of charity to him and his family" in 1761.
Simon's two elder brothers were taken into the care of their father's friend, Dugald MacTavish of Dunardry, Chief of the Clan MacTavish, and in 1764, at the age of thirteen, young Simon was sent to New York with his sister and her husband, Hugh Fraser (1730-1814) of Brightmoney, Captain in the 78th Fraser Highlanders.
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“Ye Highlands and ye Lawlands.
Oh! where hae ye been?
They hae slain the Earl of Murray,
And hae laid him on the green.”
—Unknown. The Bonny Earl of Murray (l. 1–4)
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
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