Climbing our Family Tree

Ewan / Evander McMillan was already over 30 years old when his name was written as Eivar McMillan in the August, 1810, Durness Militia list in the county of Sutherland, Scotland. He was a fox hunter from Shininish. Eivar is the phonetic form of the Gaelic Iomhar, usually anglicised to Ivor or Evander, but in this case wrongly translated to Ewan, by which he then became known.

Sixteen months later Ewan is recorded as the father at the baptism of Mary McMillan, an illegitimate daughter born to Anne Sutherland (alias = daughter of David). He is described as a fox hunter to Mr Dunlop. John Dunlop was brought in by Lord Reay to help reorganise the Balnakeil estate. He was a sheep farmer from Ayrshire, and it is possible that Ewan came with him to Sutherland.

Flory McKay was baptized 15th February 1790 at Durness, the daughter of John MacKay, and Mary Campbell. The family moved around prior to Flory's birth, and at the time of her marriage her father was a miller at Durin.

Ewan and Flory married on the 3rd February, 1815, at the Manse in Durness. The priest, undecided as to the correct English form, recorded both Ewan and Evander, fox hunter and shepherd from Shinness. A year later, a son, John McMillan, was baptized on the 11th February, 1816. Ewan was now a shepherd at Arnaboll, on the west side of Loch Hope, not far from Durness.

From the information supplied on both John and his half-sister Mary's death certificates, Ewan became a gamekeeper. We do not know if John had other siblings, or if Ewan and Flory emigrated from Scotland. In the 1851 census, Mary is the only McMillan in the Durness area.

John McMillan was in Australia by 1842 where he became a publican.

Nothing else is known about Ewan or Flory.

Rob's 3rd Great Grand Aunt Mary

Mary McMillan remained in Sutherland and never married.

When she was about 35 years old, Mary had a son christened in the Free Church. The parish record reads "1846, Nov 14 Ewan to Donald McLeod, Balvolic & Mary MacMillan, there but not in lawful wedlock. The mother being sponsor" I believe that Donald McLeod went on the marry someone else and emigrated from Sutherland.

In the 1851 census Mary and her son are the only ones with the McMillan surname in Durness. In the index, Mary is shown as age 40, and Ewan aged 4, both born Durness.

In both the 1881 and 1891 census, Mary lived alone, a pauper.

Mary made her living as a general servant and lived for eighty-two years. After being ill for seven days, she succumbed to old age at 11:30 am, 14th February, 1893. She did not have a medical attendant. David Sutherland, her cousin, was present in the house when she died, and he registered her death at Durine two days later. He was able to tell the registrar that Mary's parents were Ewan MacMillan, a Game Keeper, and Anne Sutherland, a Domestic Servant, both deceased. It was noted on her death registration that she was illegitimate and a pauper.

It should be noted here that, for this particular family, the forename of Ewan and Evander seemed to be interchangeable. The IGI does have an 1872 marriage for an Evander McLeod in Eddrachillis, Sutherland to Christina Ross. A red herring perhaps! [edit March 2007 - contact from Sandy, descends from this couple so I can now discount it. This Evander's father was John McLeod, water bailiff and mother Ann, also born a McLeod. They ended up on the Isle of Lewis, possibly from where they originally came.]

I do not know if Mary's mother married or had a family.

John Evander McMillan & Mary Ann Hunt

John Evander McMillan was born at Arnaboll, on the west side of Loch Hope, not far from Durness, the County of Sutherland, Scotland, the only known child of Ewan McMillan and Flory McKay. John was baptised at Durness on the 11th February, 1816.

1842 - Twenty-six years later and over ten and a half thousand miles on the other side of the world - John McMillan is now in Australia. Of his life in those intervening years, we have no knowledge. Melbourne had been previously known as Port Phillip and was still part of New South Wales. It wasn't the lure of gold that attracted John to this land, as the gold rush was yet to happen in Victoria. But when it did, John was well placed to take advantage of it, as by then he was a well established hotel keeper.

His first application for a general publican's license to operate the Bird-in-Hand Hotel was refused on the 19th April, 1842. No reasons were given in the newspaper report, in fact quite often the reason wasn't even told to the publican themselves; the subject of some irate letters to the editor about the powers of the licensing magistrates. One had to be of good character, and it is possible that John had not been in the colony for sufficient time to establish his credentials. The buildings and their contents had to be of a decent standard, and the character of the customers also taken in to consideration.

On 25th January, 1844, John was successful in having a license transferred from Robert Omond, from whom he leased the Caledonian Hotel, the business having recently been relocated to Lonsdale Street. The following April, at the Annual Licensing Day, his license was renewed for the ensuing year. The Port Phillip Herald reported that the Bench said to John "There are some unfavourable rumours afloat about your house; of course we cannot act upon mere rumour, and, therefore your application being most unexceptionably recommended, we shall grant you a certificate." It seemed that John had very respectable references. I believe one had to collect signatures from residents in the area in support of your application, and it helped to have a few landed gentry and profession people on your petition. It was further reported that the Applicant replied "I should be glad if any person came forward and stated those charges, as then I should be able to refute them." Two months later, John was charged with 'suffering ale to be drank on his premises after nine o'clock' on Saturday, 22nd June. He was fined forty shillings and costs. He had promptly applied for a night licence which was granted three days after his court appearance. In 1847, after 20th April and before the 7th September, John transferred the publican's license of the Caledonian Hotel to George Swanston.

Mary Ann Hunt was born about 1827, give or take a few years, in Belfast, Northern Ireland - the daughter of James Hunt and Ann Welsh and one of eleven children. [Mary Ann is Christine's first cousin five times removed.]

Early in 1845, Mary became pregnant. A son, Evander Cameron McMillan was born on New Year's Day, 1846. A year later, on the 7th January, 1847, Mary Anna McMillan, was born.

John and Mary married by licence on the 15th February, 1849, at the St James Church. The marriage record indicated that John was of a different parish to Mary, the meaning of this is not yet understood. It appears that he may have been living in the Parish of Ballan at this time. They both signed their names - John using the abbreviation Jno. The witnesses were 'illegible first name' Rutherford of The Avoca, and Mary's sister Margaret Hunt of Melbourne.

Several months later, from 1st July 1849, John leased the Crown Hotel from William Mortimer. He obtained the license for this in April at the Annual Licensing Day. The business was situated on the corner of Queen and Lonsdale Street, Melbourne, and included stables and bullock yards.

On the 19th October, 1849, Flora McKay McMillan was born, named after John's mother.

In June, 1850, the family returned to St. James Church to baptise Evander and young Mary Anna. Flora was baptised four weeks later. Sadly, just short of her first birthday, Flora died and was buried on the 14th October of that same year. Five months later, another daughter was born and, following the custom of reusing a dead child's name, was also baptised Flora McKay McMillan. The baptism took place at St James when Flora was four months old. Mary did not have any more children after the second Flora.

John remained at the Crown Hotel for only a few more years until mid-September 1852 when the license was transferred to William Johnson. In March 1853, Melbourne was booming, gold-fever and immigration had swelled the population considerably. However, the sanitary conditions hadn't kept pace with the population explosion and this caused health problems to the residents. It was reported that one in three children died because of this - particularly worse during the hot weather. John decided to built a hotel in a newer part of town. He engaged James & Charles Webb, architects, and they called for tenders to build a two-storied bluestone hotel in Franklin Street, North Melbourne.

Mac's Hotel opened about the 19th December, 1853. For one month, John placed an advertisement in the Melbourne Morning Herald, soliciting a continuance of the patronage that had been bestowed upon him in his previous public business. He describes Mac's Hotel as having been erected regardless of cost; with a view to 'afford the utmost possible accommodation to all classes'. Spacious sitting rooms, well-aired bedrooms and ample conveniences for public and private dinner and supper parties are mentioned, as is the unexceptionable wine and spirits list and the attached extensive superior stabling. Mac's Hotel is still standing, dwarfed by the TAA building beside it, and is classified by the National Trust. It is the oldest surviving purpose-built hotel within the city. It has been trading continuously since opening under the same name, though John spent only a short time there. The main building and a rear wing still stand, but the remainder of the original complex is gone. There was stabling for about one hundred horses, accommodation for the gold escort, and a lock-up and yards. The rear wing was probably the laundry and kitchen. There have been many changes over the years, reflecting the different licensing requirements and the needs of the owners, but one can still see where the original four rooms and the central passageway once stood. After April, 1855, John transferred the license to Matthew Muir. He had already handed over the stabling section to a Mr Tracey, but we don't know if he had sold or leased the entire business. Business was poor for publicans at this time; being caused by the cessation of Sunday trading and increased duties on wines and spirits, as well as a new duty on ale. Insolvency statistics, released on 1st January 1856, stated that in the last quarter of the previous year, out of 68 sequesions of estate, 18 were publicans. This was compared to 9 over all occupations, in total, at the same time in 1855. It seems likely that John had sold the hotel, as two years later, in April 1857, John was licensee at The Carrier's Arms in Elizabeth Street. On this Annual Licensing Day, the license was renewed on the condition that the premises were improved, relocation to new premises were recommended.

In October, the same year, The Herald reported the theft of a gold watch and chain, from a chest of drawers, from a bedroom in the hotel. The culprits hadn't been seen and the watch hadn't been missed. It belonged to Miss Frances Brewer, who resided at The Carrier's Arms. The two men had acted suspiciously when attempting to sell the watch to an honest pawnbroker who kept the watch and called a constable. The men were charged, even though at that time the owner of the watch wasn't known. Details at the trial were brief, the men were found guilty and sentenced to hard labour on the roads. Frances Brewer, a young Cornish woman, became the mother of John's child in a later year but, for the moment, we don't know the marital situation between John and his wife Mary.

At the Annual Licensing Day, April 1859, the renewal was refused, the building probably still in need of refurbishment to satisfy the licensing magistrates. Matthew Muir had just renewed his license at Mac's Hotel, but it was transferred back to John at the September Quarterly Meeting. After a little over a year spent in Mac's, on the 4th December, 1860, the license was transferred to Thomas Willis. This seems to mark the end of John's hotel keeping career. If the building had not already been sold, then it probably was now.

In 1861 Francis Brewer became pregnant. At this time John was about forty-five years old, Frances about twenty-three. Civil registration had been introduced in 1853, but John didn't register the birth for seven months. John gave his full name as John Evander McMillan, born Sutherland, Scotland, and shaved some years off his age. We are grateful to John for this information, a grain of truth among an otherwise dishonest registration! He had brought forward his wedding year so Evander and Mary Ann were not obviously born out of wedlock. He did not mention his two daughters named Flora, one living, one dead. He registered his new son as issue of his marriage to Mary Hunt. Also surprising was that John did not know in which county, Ireland, that his wife was born. John registered his son's name as Gillespie Rankin McMillan. In Sutherland, there was a Gillespie Rankin was about the same age as John. The significance of using this name for his child is unknown.

John gave his occupation at this time as a commission agent, however we don't know if we should believe this in light of an interesting occurrence reported in The Herald, July 1864. A John McMillan was charged with carrying illicit spirits. He claimed that he was a reduced man, and would do any work, no questions asked, thus didn't hesitate to accept 2 shillings from an unknown man in Collingwood to carry a small bag into town and leave in a lane. A constable noticed him in the street, and when John turned quickly into the lane, he saw that he was trying to conceal something in a bag. The constable touched him as he placed it on the back step of the Buck's Head Hotel and asked him what he had. John refused to tell, saying he was not a robber. He ended up at the lock-up, with the bag which contained a cask of whisky. All that was found on him was 2 shillings. Being a public holiday, John had to spend the weekend in jail, attending court on Monday, when he was further remanded for a week to gather evidence to support his story. This he was unable to do, and despite legal representation, was fined 50 pounds, or in default, three months imprisonment. The fact that he had a lawyer, and wasn't placed immediately into custody at the conclusion of his court case could indicate that he wasn't as 'reduced' as he claimed, but a cover for his real occupation of selling illicit spirits! In this case, he could only be charged with carrying spirits on which duty hadn't been paid. (I have not yet followed up on looking for actual police or court documentation of this case to confirm that it is our John McMillan)

This could also account for the occupation of draper appearing on his death certificate, Barely three years later, in the September of 1867, John became ill with a 'chronic stricture'. He died within three months on the 5th December at Matlock. Matlock is above the snow line in the mountains north-easterly from Melbourne. The area was opened up by rough roads blazed a year or two beforehand, by Angus McMillan, the then elderly Gippsland explorer. It would have been a tortuous journey from Melbourne. In 1867, Matlock was a busy gold-mining town and the highest settled area in the State. Today it is bare ridge except for a couple of permanent residences. There can be several reasons why John went to Matlock. When he became ill, being a Highlander from Scotland, he sought the highest place in Victoria that he could. Not Scotland, but the best he could do; this has a nice romantic feel to it! Or his illicit spirit handling necessitated him to leave the city. The occupation given on his death certificate was that of a draper - in those days meaning a seller of dry goods.

It is believed that daughters Flora and Mary Ann were also in Matlock when John died, as well as his partner Frances and son, now known as Oscar, then six years old. Francis went on to marry twice more, but Oscar retained his McMillan surname; and appeared on his mother's death certificate as Rankin - his officially registered middle name. Frances Connell / Cornell died from lung and heart problems in the Alfred Hospital, Melbourne, on the 6th September, 1888 and was buried a few days later in the St. Kilda Cemetery.

John's first wife, Mary, nee Hunt, also remarried a few years after his death On the 22nd March, 1869, she married John Thomas Charnock Light, a widowed carpenter. Mary's occupation was given as a needlewoman. They didn't have any children together. Mary died at Upper Templestowe, Victoria, 1899, where she lodged with her sister's family. Her death certificate confirmed that Gillespie / Oscar was not her child, as had the number of children given on her second marriage record. No indication was given as to her marital status at time of death, and I have not located the death of her second husband.

Evander Cameron McMillan died 24th September, 1917, in an Old Man's Home at Claremont, Western Australia. It was reported on his death certificate that he had been living in Western Australia for only nineteen years. He was 72 years old and died from old age. Nothing further is known about his life.

Mary Anna McMillan married at Matlock in 1867, but it's not known if it was before or after her father's death, as there isn't a surviving marriage record. In all the registration documents, Mary Ann has been consistent with a marriage in this year and place.. She 'married' John Cole Randall, gold miner, a native of Harwich, Essex.

Flora Mackay McMillan, now calling herself Florence, was just sixteen when her father died. She married Simon Alexander Fraser in 1872. She was a servant at Benalla at the time, and Simon was a stockman at Mt Battery, Mansfield. Simon was born in Hobart, Van Dieman's Land, apparently his father, Hugh, was the overseer at Port Arthur before moving to the Mansfield/Benalla area for his health. Simon was an expert stockrider, bagpiper and whip maker. He once challenged any man in the world to compete with him in a triple event, playing the pipes, riding a buck jumper and plaiting the longest whip. Florence and Simon had eight children. Simon and five of the children formed a band which toured the country. Florence was reputedly a fine Scottish dancer. Simon's mother, Mary Anderson, claimed descent from the MacCrimmons, traditional hereditary pipers to the Clan MacLeod. She taught him the piobaireachd (pibroch) vocables, secretly handed down by word of mouth and by lilting from mother to eldest son. These vocables are known as 'canntaireachd'. About 1816, Simon's father had written down the canntaireachd direct from Iain Dubh MacCrimmon and these he handed down to his son. Simon sent many of these tunes to Scotland in response to folklorists seeking lost piobaireachd vocables; letters and manuscripts are in the National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh. On 13th July 1928, Florence died from heart failure, aged 73, in a private hospital in the city and is buried alone in the Fawkner cemetery. Simon died six years later and is buried in Mansfield.

Oscar, son of John McMillan and Frances Brewer, became a gold-miner. He married Agnes Williams on the 15th October, 1884. They had fifteen children: Richard (died as an infant), Agnes, Oscar, Arthur, Albert, Frances (died as an infant), Henry (killed in France, 1917), Ellen, Leslie, Mary, Myrtle, Reuban, Angus, Allan and Sylvia. Oscar was buried in Creswick on the 13th October, 1923. Agnes lived until 1934.

The McMillan name has been carried on within our Randall family since Mary Ann's eldest son, Robert McMillan Randall. It has then appeared in every second generation to honour a loved grandfather.

12 March 2007