8 April 1755
GOR00019
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William had by his wife thirteen
children, nine of whom died in infancy, as his tombstone attests. The four who reached maturity were John,
William, Margaret and Alexander.
The last, the youngest and consequently a spoiled child the marks of
which stuck to him while he breathed.
Alexander (my father) the youngest as I
have said, was born at Pitlurg, 8th April 1755.
(“The Gordon Victorian
Narrative, c 1850”)
Pitlurg Castle was a 16th-century keep, about 5
km south of Keith, Banffshire, Scotland, north of the Burn of Davidston, at Mains of Pitlurg.
The name Pitlurg, meaning the hillside
place, suggests there was an earlier Pictish
settlement on the site. A Gordon family, descended from Jock o’Scurdargue, owned the lands until 1724. It was partly
occupied until the 1760s. General Gordon, 1815, a descendant, took the name for
his estate of Leask and Birness, Formartine. When
James VI was at Aberdeen, on 4 August 1589 he wrote to John Gordon of Pitlurg asking him for a hackney horse for his use and the
use of his bride-to-be, Anne of Denmark. The Earl of Huntly and other Gordon
lairds sent him to Edinburgh to speak for them in 1593. In 1594 James VI
invited him to the baptism of Prince Henry to be a companion to the
ambassadors. In October 1594 James VI made him keeper of Huntly Castle.
Pitlurg
was associated with the Gordon family and is about 3 km south of Birkenburn.
We know
this family had an interest in Pitlurg since the time
of William Gordon the Younger (GOR00024).
1755
Alexander,
son of William Gordon and Isabel (nee Reid) Gordon, was born at Pitlurg on 8 April 1755 (“The
Gordon Victorian Narrative, c 1850”).
The Victorian
text says he was the youngest and therefore the spoiled child.
1780
He may have
married in about 1780 and his wife’s maiden name may have been Cooper.
1805
Alexander’s eighth child, James Alexander Gordon, the son of
Alexander Gordon (GOR00019) was
born on 22 June 1806 in Peterhead (Peterhead PR).
