I took a little walk round the old St Peter’s Kirkyard in Peterhead on Saturday morning. It was a spur of the moment thing. I have been wondering for a while if any traces of the old Peterhead Manse could still  be seen on the ground. The Manse was built just over the wall of the Kirkyard, behind the old church tower. It seems to have been demolished to make way for the woollen mill which once stood beside the Kirk Burn. This all came about because of the visit to Peterhead of the great-granddaughter of Dr James Stewart, the Minister of Peterhead from 1864 until his death in 1917. Her visit sent me looking up records, pictures and old maps. This was when I came across a picture of the old Manse in the Old Parish Church vestry.
Peeping over the wall at the edge of the Links, I could see a level piece of ground, before the sudden drop to the site of the old woollen mill. It looks as if this may have been the site of the manse, or at least the manse grounds.

My curiosity settled, I went for a walk round the kirkyard, looking at some of the old stones, and the remains of the mediaeval St Peter’s church there. It was then that I was accosted by the retired cemetery superintendent who once had charge of the burial ground.  He delighted in regaling me with stores of the place, the unmarked ground where Peterhead prisoners were buried, the Eskimo brought back to Peterhead by the captain of a whaling ship, only to die of pneumonia in the inclement Buchan climate:  he was buried in the captains grave. I noticed a slab on the wall of the old church in memory of a Bishop of the Scottish Episcopal Church. I am sure there is a story there.

On my way back to the car I stopped beside a stone in quite poor condition and my eye caught the place name, Buchanness Lighthouse. I see the lighthouse at Boddam every time I drive to Peterhead, and I love taking pictures there. I thought this inscription could sit well besdie some of my lighthouse pictures.

But who was the Elizabeth Grierson who was buried here? The date of her death is quite legible, 1869,  but there was nothing more about her; even her age inscribed on the stone had crumbled away. I decided to find out what I could, and became quite fascinated, after this chance encounter with Elizabeth’s gravestone.

Elizabeth was just ten years old when she died of enteric fever (typhoid) in September 1869. her father, John Grierson, was one of the lighthouse keepers at Buchanness. Thanks to Census information, and other records I have found on the internet, I have been able to piece together just a little bit about this family.  Thank goodness they had a less common surname. What problems I had in tracing my own family tree because my grandfather was called Smith.

John was born in Leith about 1823, and in 1846 married Janet Morrison from near Haddington in East Lothian. At that time John was a blacksmith. John’s father at some stage became a lighthouse keeper, and his son decided to follow that career too. John and his family served in different lighthouses, first in Tarbat in Easter Ross, then at Lossiemouth, just across the Moray Firth. From there the family moved to Islay where Elizabeth was born at Rhuvaal Lighthouse on the northernmost tip of the island. The growing family (I have identified nine children) then moved to Buchanness sometime between 1865 and 1869 when little Elizabeth died. The next place I have found the family is in 1881 at the lighthouse at Arnish Point in Lewis where John was the principal keeper. By 1891 John had retired and was living in Kinghorn in Fife. He died there in 1904.

I wonder if it was the young James Stuart, recently appointed minister at Peterhead who conducted this little girl’s funeral in 1869? We will never know. I also wonder if there is anyone else buried in this grave, or any other name had been inscribed on the stone, but there seem to be no burial records recording Elizabeth’s grave.

It must have been hard for the family to move away from Buchan and leave the grave of little Elizabeth, with no family in the area to visit and remember her. Their stay at Buchanness had been comparatively short, and the next posting to Lewis was so far away. Now all that remains to mark her life is the crumbling inscription on a Peterhead gravestone.

I have been quite moved by the bare bones of this family’s story which I have uncovered.  I plan to gather some wild flowers from Buchanness and lay then on Elizabeth’s grave. She is not forgotten.