Memorabilia Domestica 

There are some errors in Sage’s account of Donald Gunn’s Family. These inaccuracies are probably due to the fact that Sage wrote his memoirs in 1840, at least 30 years after he lived at the Kildonan Kirk near Donald Gunn and also, that the final version of “Memorabilia” was edited by his son and published in 1889, 20 years after Donald Sage’s death. Because Sage mentions many of the inhabitants by name and recounts some of the histories of the various families and this book remains, in spite of the errors,  a valuable resource for researchers looking at this part of Scotland in the early 19th century. This book has been digitized and is available on line.

Close by John Meadhonach's house stood that of Donald Gunn, one of the tightest and most active of Highlanders. Indeed, every possible element which entered into the structure of this man's mind, as well as into the size and make of his body, combined to constitute him the very model of a Highland peasant. He was exactly of the middle size, and well made, with just as much flesh on his bones as simply served to cover them, and no more. He had a face full of expression, which conveyed most unequivocally the shrewdness, cunning, acuteness, and caustic humour so strongly characteristic of his race. Donald Gunn surpassed his whole neighbourhood and, perhaps, the whole parish, in all rustic and athletic exercises. At a brawl, in which, however, he but seldom engaged, none could exceed him in the dexterity and rapidity with which he brandished his cudgel; and though many might exceed him in physical strength, his address and alert activity often proved him more than a match for an assailant of much greater weight and size. Then in dancing he was without a rival. With inimitable ease and natural grace he kept time, with eye and foot and fingers, to all the minute modulations of a Highland reel or Strathspey. He was also a good shot, a successful deer stalker, angler, smuggler, and poacher. Donald, however, with all these secular and peculiarly Highland recommendations was little better than a heathen. He was always under suspicion, and latterly made some hair-breadth escapes from the gallows, for he was, by habit and repute, a most notorious thief. His wife, Esther Sutherland, was a native of Caithness, and a very handsome woman. His daughter Janet married a man Bruce from Loist, and Jane married a Malcolm Fraser, who was afterwards drowned at Helmsdale. His son Robert went to America with Lord Selkirk's colony, and in an affray between these settlers and those of the North-West Company poor Robert Gunn was killed.