] and there appears to be no
doubt about it. But it is not at all clear whether he or his
brother Kenneth bought the estate from the Mackenzies of Coul,
who then owned it. Mr John H. Dixon, in his interesting book on
Gairloch, says that Roderick had a son Kenneth, born about 1703,
by a sister of the Laird of Knockbain, but if there was such a son,
which is highly improbable, he could not have been the purchaser
of any property during his father's lifetime, who died seven
years after Kenneth's alleged birth, when the father must have
been very advanced in years - close upon eighty. The probability
therefore is that Roderick's brother Kenneth - who, like himself,
during a portion of his ministry was an Episcopalian clergyman - was
the purchaser and that he died, without issue, before his brother,
and left the estate to Roderick, who died in 1710, or perhaps
to his eldest son Murdoch, who, in his marriage contract, dated
1708, two years before his father's death, is designated "of
Kernsary." Mr Dixon has several references to these men, but
being traditional they are more or less unreliable; and as yet no
papers have been discovered which throw any light on the original
purchase by this family.
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