Away to the East - Angus Connections in the Baltic, Scandinavia and Russia

   In a previous post (The Ogilvy Name, Near and Far) I skipped through a few instances of the descendants of one Angus  kindred appearing in eastern Europe and Scandinavia.  But the trade and contact between Scotland and this region was so longstanding that there is scope to have a look at the connection again.  In that previous post there was mention of a George Ogilvy who had a career as a military man in Scandinavia and then Russia. There is an intriguing record of him recruiting his fellow countrymen -   'ydlle and maisterlesse men' - in Dundee in 1627:  young adventurers who fancied making a go of it in far flung fields.

   There was another George Ogilvy active in the same region in the early 18th century.  He was the son of George Baron Ogilvy, Governor of Spielberg in Moravia (a son of Patrick Ogilvy of Muirtoun, and grandson of James, Lord Ogilvy of Airlie).  When the tsar Peter the Great visited Vienna in 1698 he was much struck by the young Ogilvy and took him into his service.  He later became Field Marshal and reorganised the Russian army according to German principals.  After being decorated by the King of Poland, he settled in the country, buying an estate at Sauershau.  He died at Danzig in 1710, aged 62.

The Paths of Trade, Places of Settlement

   James Mackinnon advises that there were between twenty and thirty Dundee trading vessels active in the Baltic Sea in the 16th century, importing commodities such as timber, flour, grain, wax, iron. The trade of Montrose with the Baltic is reckoned to have been insignificant in the same century, but it grew significantly in the 17th century. Incoming traders from Scandinavians came in significant numbers to Norway and Sweden in late spring and early summer.  According to James Low:

When a Swede arrived in the harbour, his first action was to seek out the dean of guild, who always was entitled to the first chance of the cargo. Should that official consider that the burgh had plenty of timber in store, it was then offered by public roup. The bellman was sent through the town intimating that  Osmond Haversons, skipper of Christiansand, would offer his loading of timber by public roup on the following terms :—1. The buyer should pay their Magistrates' custom duties and all charges. 2. The skipper obliges himself that if he buy any victual that he should buy it from the merchant that gets his loading of timber. 3.That he will freight with none but him, providing he gives him as much as he can get from any merchant in this place.  4. That he will have no goods but what is in this place.
   The privilege, of being allowed to buy the timber generally took place in the council house before the merchants and guildry; and on the occasion of one of their meetings in 1692, the sum of twenty-four dollars was accepted by the guildry from George Ouchterlony for the privilege of securing the cargo of wood. The. Norwegians not only brought wood, but many other items for domestic use, as appears by a note of hand, of date May 1693. James Peterson, master of a Norwegian vessel, offered for sale fourteen hundred skows, twelve hundred spoons, a hundred and twenty ladles, at six shillings per dozen. Upon this occasion, on the goods being offered for sale, no offers were forthcoming, and the dean of guild was instructed to make a bargain for them himself.

  Sea borne trade accessed to the lands near the Baltic doubtless originated at a very early date and went on at a relatively small scale for centuries.  Dundee (along with Leith and Aberdeen) is recorded as having a trade connection with Danzig in 1492.  Settlement by Scots in Poland and adjacent lands is a well-studied and fascinating social phenomenom and, here and there, Angus people and their descendants can be seen peeking out of the continental records.  I would like to know the background story behind the following record.  In 1475 there was a legal agreement recorded between Wylm (William) Watson and Zander (Alexander) Gustis 'on account of a wound given by Zander to the aforesaid Wylm'.  The dispute was settled by Zander having to make a pilgrimage in atonement to the Holy Blood (at Aix la Chapelle) and the give to the Altar of the Scots at the Schwarzmönchenkirche, Church of the Black Monks, at Danzig two marks, and likewise two marks to the Church of Our Lady in Dundee.  These actions would end the men's dispute forever and ever, geendet unde gelendet.

Danzig, where many Scots settled

  Scots in these territories often kept company together and certainly had an ongoing awareness of their heritage, which sometimes meant they were accepted by the local host communities, yet only to a certain extent.  Another Dundonian in Danzig, Thomas Smart, was legally accepted as a citizen of that place in 1639, 'but he is to refrain from buying up noblemen's estates'.  One tactic by incomers was changing their name to something more local.  This was done at Danzig by Thomas Gellatlay of Dundee (who was related to the notable Weddernburn family), who started to call himself Gellentin, possibly also because locals struggled with his Scots surname.  He soon integrated, marrying Christine, daughter of local town councillor Daniel Czierenberg.  One of his grandchildren, from a second marriage, became burgomaster of Danzig.  

   At Mecklenberg there was an immigrant family who came to be called the Gertners.  In origin they were Gardiners from Brechin.  John Gardiner from Brechin was made a burgess of Schwerin on 19 July 1623.  His son was elevated to the position of rathsherr, councillor, in the middle of the century.  Other families spread far and wide.  The Simpsons from Coupar Angus settled originally at Heiligen Aa and then lived at nearby Memel and all over Prussia in the 17th century.

  Fischer advises that there were two routes for a Scottish settler and others to access full rights in Prussian territories:

One was the birth-brief which was issued in the town of his birth, signed by one or more of the magistrates and duly sealed; another was the oral declaration of legitimate birth. It was accepted instead of a birth-brief.  Two friends of the person concerned had to declare on oath before the magistrates of the German town...that they knew him (or her)to be the legitimate son (or daughter)of so-and-so, and his wife in Scotland.  Either of tehse proofs was needed for the acquisition of civil rights and in cases of succession.

   From the state records of Danzig the following people of Angus origin can be identified:

Elisabeth and Agneta Blair, of Dundee, 1603.
David Demster, son of Geo. Demster and Isabella, from Brechin, 1631.
Thomas Smart, from Dundee.  Son of David Smart and Elizabeth Smith.  Witnesses:  Geo. Brown and Mallisson from Königsberg, 1639.
Jacob Smith, son of James Smith, at Dundee and of Marg. Gillin.  Witnesses:  Robert Lessli, burgess of Dundee, and John Cargill, clerk in D. 1664.

A number of Scots became burgesses at Danzig, including a notable number of Dundonians, who remarkable maintained influence there for well over a century:

1531.  Thomas Gilzet, from Dundee.1563.  -? Butchart, from Dundee.1567.  Andr. Bruin, from Dundee.1582.  Hans Gelletlie, from Dundee.1587.  Andr. Hardy from Dundee.1587.  James Gelletlie, from Dundee.1598.  Peter Blair, from Dundee.1598.  Thos. Blair, from Dundee.1616.  Alex. Demster, from Brechin.1632.  Jas. Man, from Dundee.1662.  Robt. Guthrie, from Minus (Momus), near Forfar.1668.  W. Brown, from Dundee.

   I have not come across any comparative evidence for the composition of Scots in various places in eastern Europe which would give us an idea where particular people from specific Scottish places ended up, but I would guess that Dundonians, at least, comprised a high percentage of those Scots resident and settled at Danzig.  This can be compared to Cracow, where Dundonians only accounted for 7.5% of the Scots there.

    Kowalski gives a list of Scots accepted into the Cracow Urban Community and there are noticably fewer people from our part of the world:

Hercules Renth, Arbroath, 24 Oct 1579.  John Morcha (? Letham), 30 April 1580.  John Sterlin, Dundee, 5 April 1591. David Ledel, Brechin, 21 February 1592.  James Morisson, Dundee, 1609. David Strachan, Dundee, 9 March 1624.  James Carmichael, Dundee, 10 December 1625.  James Carmichael, Dundee, 25 September, 1643.

Far Flung Sons

   To what extent the descendants of Scots overseas felt a connection to their ancestral homeland is debatable.  But some of them remembered the link certainly.  One of these was Robert Lichton (1631–1692), who was born in what is now Finland, but then under Swedish rule.  His father was Colonel John Lichton of Usan on the Angus coast, who emigrated to Sweden and served as a soldier.  The move abroad was motivated by family circumstances:  John Lichtoun had to sell his family's estate to the Carnegies to cover his own father's debt and may have had little option but to seek a better life for himself in Scandinavia.  Robert rose to the rank of colonel in the Swedish army and became a baron and governor of Estonia.  Later he was made a lietenant general and also appinted president of the Superior Court of Justice.  He was said to have been proud of his origins across the sea and petitioned the Lord Lyon in Edinburgh to recognise a change in his family's arms.

Robert Lichton

  Another native associated with high office in Sweden was Montrose man Richard Clark.  The church in Montrose used to have an ornate brass chandalier consisiting of a large globe and shaft surrounded by a moulding of an angel resting on a dolphin.  This object was gifted to the kirk in 1623 when Clark was Vice-Admiral to the King of Sweden.

    In the case of Major-General Ouchterlony of the Russian army, who fell at the battle of Inkermann on 5th November, 1854, there may have been very little residual Scottishness about him, barring his surname.  He was a descendant of Prince Rupert and also (more importantly for our purposes) John  Ouchterlony of Montrose.  The latter's father, settled in Russia in 1794, and he was the father of the great Russian hero.

Selected Sources Consulted

T. A. Fischer, The Scots in Eastern and Western Prussia (Edinburgh, 1903).

Waldemar Kowalski, The Great Immigration, Scots in Cracow and Little Poland, Circa 1500-1660 (Leiden, 2015).

James G. Low, Notes on the Coutts Family (Montrose, 1892).

James Mackinnon, The Social and Industrial History of Scotland (Glasgow, 1920).

Alexander McBain,  Eminent Arbroathians (Arbroath, 1897).

A. Francis Steuart, Scottish Influences in Russian History (Glasgow, 1913).