John MacTavish (British Consul)

John Lovet MacTavish (c. 1787 – June 21, 1852)[1] was a Scots-Canadian heir to the North West Company[2] and diplomat.[1]

John MacTavish
Born
John Lovet MacTavish

c. 1787
Stratherrick, Invernesshire, Scotland
DiedJune 21, 1852(1852-06-21) (aged 64–65)
Howard County, Maryland, U.S.
OccupationFur Trader, British Consul
Spouse(s)
Emily Caton
(
m. 1815)
Children4
RelativesSimon McTavish (uncle)

Early life

MacTavish was born around 1787 in Stratherrick, Invernesshire, Scotland into Clan MacTavish. He was the son of Alexander MacTavish (1853–1788) and Marjory (née Fraser) MacTavish (1758–1828), and a nephew of Scots-Quebecer entrepreneur Simon McTavish, who took him in to raise after his father's death.[3]

His paternal grandparents were John McTavish, tacksman of Garthbeg, and Mary (née Fraser) McTavish of Garthmore. His grandmother was descended, through Simon Fraser of Dunchea and the Frasers of Foyers, from an illegitimate son of the 1st Lord Lovat.[4]

Career

MacTavish served as the British Consul to the State of Maryland.[1][5]

After his wedding, they lived at Brooklandwood estate in the Green Spring Valley of Baltimore County, where Emily had been born,[6] before moving to 1,000 acres of the "finest farm land in Howard County,[7] given as a wedding gift from his wife's grandfather and named "Folly Quarter" after the MacTravish family estate in Scotland. Folly Quarter was built near her grandfather's estate and home Doughoregan.[8][9]

Personal life
Photograph of MacTavish's grave marker at Green Mount Cemetery (October 9, 2011)

On August 15, 1815, MacTavish was married to Emily Caton, the fourth daughter of Richard Caton and Mary (née Carroll) Caton.[8] Emily's maternal grandfather was Charles Carroll of Carrollton, the only Catholic and the longest-surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence.[10][11] They were staunch Roman Catholics, members of St. Paul's Catholic Church in Baltimore County.[12] John and Emily were the parents of four children:

  • Charles Carroll MacTavish (1818–1868), who married Marcella Scott, youngest daughter of Gen. Winfield Scott.[13]
  • Mary Wellesley MacTavish (1826–1850), who married the Hon. Henry George Howard, youngest son of George Howard, 6th Earl of Carlisle.[14][15]
  • Alexander Simon MacTavish (1829–1863), who married Ellen Gilmor (1835–1909), sister of Harry Gilmor, Confederate officer.[16]
  • Richard Caton MacTavish (1831–1841), who died young.

Emily's three sisters Marianne, Bess, and Louisa Caton, entered British society and married into British nobility. Marianne marrying first Robert Patterson (brother of Elizabeth Patterson, the first wife of Napoleon's younger brother Jérôme Bonaparte) and second Richard Wellesley 1st Marquess Wellesley and Lord Lieutenant of Ireland (older brother of the Duke of Wellington); Bess marrying Sir George Strafford, 8th Baron Strafford of Costessey Hall in Norfolk, England; and Louisa marrying first Sir Felton Hervey-Bathurst, 1st Baronet and second Francis D'Arcy Osborne, Marquess of Carmarthen (the future 7th Duke of Leeds).[11]

MacTavish died on June 21, 1852 at age 65. His widow died on January 26, 1867 at Folly Quarter and was interred with MacTavish at Green Mount Cemetery in Baltimore, Maryland.[16]

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References
  1. Sylvanus Urban: The Gentleman's Magazine, Volume XXXVIII, New Series, July to December 1852, John Bowyer Nichols and Son, London, p. 213.
  2. Jehanne Wake: Sisters of Fortune: America's Caton Sisters at Home and Abroad, Simon and Schuster, New York, 2011.
  3. Semmes, John Edward (1917). John H. B. Latrobe and His Times, 1803-1891. Norman, Remington Company. p. 220. Retrieved 27 August 2019.
  4. Articles by Marie Fraser of Canada The Fraser-McCord Connection
  5. Cynthia H. Requardt: Descriptive Summary, Register of the Carroll-McTavish Papers, MS 220, Maryland Historical Society, Baltimore, Md., http://www.mdhs.org/findingaid/carroll-mctavish-papers-1652-1867-ms-220, June 1979.
  6. Robert Erskine Lewis: "Brooklandwood, Baltimore County" in: Maryland Historical Magazine, Vol. XLIII, No. 4, December 1948, pp. 280-293,
  7. Warfield, Joshua Dorsey (1905). The Founders of Anne Arundel and Howard Counties, Maryland: A Genealogical and Biographical Review From Wills, Deeds and Church Records. Kohn & Pollock. p. 510. Retrieved 27 August 2019.
  8. John Martin Hammond: Colonial Mansions of Maryland and Delaware, J. B. Lippincott Company, Philadelphia & London, 1914, pp. 125-127.
  9. Maryland Historic Trust: Nomination Form for the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service, Folly Quarter Manor, Carrollton Hall, MacTavish House (including photos of the house), http://www.msa.md.gov/megafile/msa/stagsere/se1/se5/015000/015500/015589/pdf/msa_se5_15589.pdf, undated.
  10. Shrine of Saint Anthony: Faith at Folly Quarter, http://www.shrineofstanthony.org/history-declaration-independence.htm, http://www.shrineofstanthony.org/history-the-manor-house.htm Archived 2012-03-03 at the Wayback Machine, accessed 8 Sep 2011.
  11. Anne Sebba (reviewer): "They adore titles..." Sisters of Fortune: The First American Heiresses to Take Europe by Storm, by Jehanne Wake, "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2011-07-23. Retrieved 2010-08-13.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link), accessed 10 Oct 2011.
  12. Celia M. Holland: Ellicott City, Maryland, Mill Town, U.S.A., Printers II, Tuxedo, Md., 1970, p. 48.
  13. John O'Hart: Irish Pedigrees, or, The Origin and Stem of the Irish Nation, Third Edition, Edinburgh: M. H. Gill & Son, 1881, p. 109fn.
  14. Edmund Burke: The Annual Register, or a View of the History and Politics of the Year 1845, Vol. 87, London: F. & J. Rivington, 1846, p. 218.
  15. Thomas Allen Glenn: Some Colonial Mansions and Those Who Lived in Them, Philadelphia: Henry T. Coates & Company, 1899, p. 362.
  16. Green Mount Cemetery: Features, http://greenmountcemetery.com/greenmount-cemetery-features.html, accessed 10 Sep 2011.
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