History of Donald Mackay of Clashcreggan, (1767-1848) a Crofter

Ministers and Men in the Far North

by Rev. Alexander Auld (available on the Internet)

(This is an account of an extraordinarily devoted Highland crofter, who lived his life strictly according to his religious convictions. He was not an educated man but a force to be dealt with in his community, both in church and at large. I cannot imagine how his wife and children dealt with him. Elizabeth M. Balderston)

Donald Mackay, Clashchreggan, was one of whom it might truly be said that his “conversation was in heaven.” One thing was needful to him and all else was counted comparatively less. From his outset in the Divine life he was remarkable for sensitiveness of conscience and carefulness in keeping his garments unspotted; and as the eye can never rest as long as the mote in it is unremoved, Donald’s conscience could not rest under sin in himself, or sin unreproved in others. He kept close sentry on the workings of his own heart, and when corrupt affection lifted its head, the sin of it he confessed to God — the Tempter he would anathematize in a peculiar Gaelic phrase, which his friends well remember — and on the flesh he took revenge by rigorous self-denial. In the room where he slept one night, in the house of the late Mr James Sinclair, corn merchant, Wick (a large-hearted and liberal-handed friend of Christ’s cause and people, and who sought not to let his right hand know what his left hand did), some refreshment was left for Donald’s use before his early start homewards in the morning. The thought was suggested to him that he might partake of a double quantity, as there was plenty of it and no onlooker. The temptation, however, he soon detected, and, without tasting the refreshment, he hurried out of the house — some of the family overhearing him as he did so in predicating his usual curse on the Tempter. With this enemy Donald had many a hand to hand conflict and carried the war into his territory more than most professors of religion. The battles were more frequent and fierce in his experience because the enemy was met at more points. Donald’s great weapon was “all prayer;” and the place of his retirement, chiefly the heather hills around his own dwelling, whence his “strong crying” might often be heard.

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This photo is of the gravestone marker of Donald Mackay (1767-1848) of Caithness who died at 81 and his wife, Isabella Forbes, who died at fifty years, grandparents of our Reverend Donald Sage Mackay and his brother, the Reverend William MacIntosh Mackay.


A friend who slept in the same apartment with him at a Communion Season in Thurso was startled at midnight by the Voice of Donald, on the floor, ejaculating his usual anathema against Satan, and saying in Gaelic — the only language he knew — "Stop, stop, till I get to the hillocks with you." A member of his family expostulated with him for rising one cold night and keeping out of bed praying till morning; his vindication was, “Did not the enemy think he would take James Elder from me?" i. e., cause him to entertain unfriendly feelings to the person named — an intelligent and judicious Christian in the same parish. Indeed, he was extremely averse to anything that savoured of discord among the brethren, which he felt so keenly, that he remarked it almost affected his reason when he heard of variance among them. He deplored how little long-suffering, lowliness, and forbearance was manifested by many professors of religion and said that the most satisfying evidence he himself enjoyed, of being in the spirit of unity with the brethren, was found by him on occasions on which some of them found fault with him.

In prayer in public, Donald’s brevity was singular. He would often be on his seat again before others had got well into the bodily attitude of prayer. But his words, if few, were pregnant; and, moreover, it is not to be inferred that this brevity extended itself to his secret exercises. Far otherwise. He exhorted others to what he himself practiced — a continuing “instant in prayer.” A man whom he asked to pray at family worship in his own dwelling, having continued long and to little purpose, Donald, who was naturally of an ardent temperament, which, by grace, he was enabled in general to keep well in hand — seized him when he was done and put him out of the house plainly expressing his abhorrence at such an improper mode of worship.

Like Sandy Gair, he broke off from public ordinances for many years, but returned to them at the Disruption. He frequented the sacramental occasions in various parishes, and when prevented at length by the infirmities of age from being present, he set apart the usual days for religious exercises as carefully as if the communion was being observed in his own parish. A small rivulet ran through or alongside his farm, and being in flood on one occasion, it threw up some refuse on the border of a piece of grass land, which, when Donald saw, he removed. The day happened to be the fast day of the Reay communion — nearly thirty miles distant. Donald’s conscience smote him, and he went and restored the refuse to the place he found it on the land.

By prayer and supplication in all things he made his requests known unto God. His pony, with a load on its back, sank deep in the moss as Donald was leading it across the hill. Such an occurrence often took place when good roads were fewer than now. Donald seeing that 'vain was the help' of a single man, at once retired to a recess in a peat bank, to ask the Lord to send another. While thus engaged, a voice shouts over his head, "What is the man doing here, praying, and his horse smothering in the mire?" "Oh," exclaimed Donald, "you have come already, have you? Well, we will go and take him out."

His antipathy to the varying and vain fashions of the day in dress and adornment was strong and sometimes practically expressed. One of his daughters had begun to his grief to imitate a prevailing mode of dressing the hair. While she was sleeping one night, Donald stole softly to her bedside, and with a scissors mulcted her of a particularly offensive ringlet. The girl, on awaking and discovering her loss, was not a little indignant. Shortly afterward, being seized with fever, her head had to be shaved. Donald standing by her, after this had been done, lifted up his hands and said, “Glory to Thee I only took a little, but Thou hast taken the whole.”

Donald was a native of Sutherlandshire. He appears to have been taught of the Lord from his youth. He was employed when a lad in keeping the young cattle on hill pasture; and when the sacrament was dispensed in the parish of Reay, about twelve miles distant, concluded on Sabbath morning that it was his duty to go to the feast, although he had not taken the precaution of providing another keeper for his charge. Accordingly, Donald repaired to the public ordinance, and finding it good to be there, he remained till the conclusion of the service (Monday), and then returned to look for his charge. On obtaining the first sight of the ground on which he had left the herd, he saw that not one of his cattle was there. In this difficulty Donald had immediate recourse to prayer; after which he again looked, and saw one of the cattle approach across the edge of the hill, and on his proceeding in that direction, he found all his cattle safe, in which he acknowledged the Preserver of man and beast. In after years he made it his practice, whenever he had occasion to travel the same ground, to kneel in prayer on the spot in which he had that day cast all his cares upon Him who cared for him.

When Donald married, he built a thatched house of the kind then in use — the wood which served for a roof, having been dug by himself out of the neighbouring moss on the estate. It was customary then for proprietors to require a certain number of days’ work as part of the rent paid by the tenants, and Donald was called to this service. Being late in arriving, the proprietor made use of an oath in finding fault with him, whereupon Donald immediately reproved him for profane swearing and the proprietor, who had been a military man, and not accustomed to being so freely dealt with, struck him on the side of the head and threw him down As soon as Donald could rise, he stood up and presented the other side of his head, inviting the proprietor who had smitten him on the one cheek to smite the other also. This was, of course, not done, but Donald was summarily dismissed and that day went to Mr Cordon of Swiney, and got leave to build at Clashchreggan and occupy a plot of ground there, which he held till his death.

On proceeding to build his new dwelling Donald considered himself entitled to take away such of the timber of the former house as he himself had dug out of the moor; but this being contrary to the regulations of the estate, the proprietor caused him to be arrested, and marched to jail at Wick. After being brought to Wick, he was allowed to return home without further molestation. Donald was spoken to about this encounter with the laird several years after it had taken place, and he remarked, “That blow was better to me than twenty pounds.” “How so?” said the person to whom this remark was made. “Because whenever I felt the least rising of anger at the recollection of it I was compelled to go and pray for the proprietor, and I could not get peace until I had done so.” This was overcoming evil with good.

Donald was married to a true yoke fellow, and left sons and daughters. On the occasion of his partner’s death, Donald, in a brief address to the Hearer of prayer, noticed a distinction with a difference which Christians under bereavement would do well to observe — "Lord, thou knowest I am grieved, but not angry."

Notwithstanding his straitened means, Donald was always a cheerful giver. When the Free Church Congregation at Lybster was deprived of the Quoad Sacra Church, by decree of the Court of Session, the congregation met to take steps to erect another building. Donald was among the first to appear, and when a subscription was commenced, he wished his name put down for one pound. After the meeting the minister told him that he thought his subscription too much for a man in his circumstances. Donald immediately replied, “My dear, I’ll get it.” Very soon thereafter the minister received £ I. for Donald from a friend in the south, and on handing the same to him, he immediately referred to their former conversation, and said, “Did not I tell you that I should get it-’ So, without further delay, Donald went to the treasurer for the congregation, and handed him the £1, which was one of the first subscriptions paid and that out of the abundance of his joy in believing that freely having received it, be should freely give, “for all things come of Thee, and of Thine own have we given Thee.”

Every returning Saturday was chiefly occupied by him in prayer for preparation for the Sabbath, and few walked more closely according to the rule of the Word; “calling the Sabbath a delight, the holy of the Lord and honourable.”

He died in 1848 at the age of 81. The stone over his grave has the epitaph that he was “an example of the believers in word, in conversation, in charity, in spirit, in faith, and in purity.”

(Fiona Mackay Skinner says that he was the grandfather of Rev. Donald Sage Mackay and Rev William Mackintosh Mackay, two brothers. The older migrated to America, while the younger remained in Edinburgh.)

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