In The Plantation Of
Scottish Settlers In The North It Seems That Either For Company Or
Mutual Protection Against The Dispossessed Children Of The Soil, The
Farmhouses Are Built Together In Clachans Or Little Groups.
After a
lapse of years these clachans in some cases expanded into small towns.
The people built houses and
Made improvements on their holdings, paying
their rent punctually, but holding the right to their own money's worth,
the result of years of toil and stern economy under the Ulster custom.
In this way the greater part of the town of Milford sprung into
existence.
One John Buchanan, a Presbyterian of Scottish descent, son of
respectable people who had lived on this estate for generations, was
employed in the land office of the Earl of Leitrim over twenty years.
This man trusting to the Ulster custom, and the honest goodness of the
old Earl, grandfather of the present Earl, a good landlord and a just
man, by all accounts, invested his savings in building on the site of
the old farmhouse in Milford a block of buildings - quarrying the stone
for them - consisting of two large houses on Main street, and the rest
tenement houses on Buchanan street. He improved his farm by reclaiming
land, making nice fields out of bog.
When the good Earl died and the late Earl came into possession, he
immediately raised the rent to nearly double what was paid before,
making John Buchanan pay dearly for his improvements. John Buchanan died
rather suddenly, leaving a widow and five children. The widow in her
overwhelming grief was visited by Lord Leitrim personally. He told her
with great abuse and outrageous language, that she had no claim whatever
to a particle of the property, "she did not own a stone of it." The
widow, worn and nervous with the great trouble she had passed through,
was unable to bear this new trouble; his Lordship's violence gave her a
shock from which she never recovered. He then sent his bailiffs and put
her and her children out; put out the fires, as taking possession, and
re-let the place to her, again doubling the rent. Her eldest son, a
young lad, boiling with wrath over the wrong done and the language used
to his mother, went to his aunt, living at some distance, and besought
her to send him out of the country, lest he should be tempted to take
vengeance in his own hand. His aunt seeing this danger, fitted him out
from her own pocket, and the poor lad, his mother consenting, was
expatriated out of harm's way to far Australia.
The widow never recovered the shock which Lord Leitrim had given her. It
was aggravated by despair at seeing all the savings of her husband's
lifetime appropriated by the strong hand, and her children left
destitute. She was also in debt to the value of L600 for building
material for an addition built to the house and some office houses,
built later on, some time after the rest of the property.
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