Last Clansman Memorial

Sep 19th, 2022

used to look in on this spot quite often--one little part of the area's rich clan history.
Oct 26th, 2021

On this rocky knoll above the loch an innocent man was hanged for a famous crime. Known as the Appin Murder, it intrigued Robert Louis Stevenson and inspired him to write Kidnapped. Known as Red Fox, Colin Campbell of Glenure had, following the defeat at Culloden, been appointed factor of the forfeited estates of the Appin Stewarts. On the morning of 14 May 1752, he had crossed the narrows at Ballachulish by ferry. With Campbell were a man servant, a sheriff officer, and an Edinburgh lawyer. When they reached the woods at Lettermore, a shot rang out. Hit in the back, perhaps through the heart, Campbell fell to the ground fatally wounded. Despite being able to convincingly show he had been nowhere near the woods that day, James Stewart's alibi was dismissed. On the 8th November 1752, on this knoll known as Cnoc Chaolais Mhic Phadraig, James Stewart was hung and his body left to hang there for eighteen months, a blunt warning against sedition and armed rebellion that no traveller across the narrows at Ballachulish would miss.
Jul 3rd, 2019