Amy Louisa (Hutcheon) Wighton, circa 1920 when she was living in the Isle of Man.

The barque Amy Louisa as painted by Alexander Hutcheon

Amy Louisa's Name

As you're going to find out, the name Amy is going to apply to three different women in the Wighton/Hutcheon lineage - starting with Amy Louisa (Hutcheon) Wighton, John Murray Wighton's wife. She named her daughter Amy Louisa Hutcheon Wighton. There was also a niece - Amy Campbell Hutcheon. In this and subsequent biographies, I will frequently be referring to John Murray's wife as AL(H)W as short hand for Amy Louisa (Hutcheon) Wighton. AL(H)W's parents named her after the barque (the Amy Louisa) (see above) that her father captained on his trading voyages. AL(H)W's mother accompanied her husband on some of these trading excursions and, who knows, perhaps the ship figured prominently in AL(H)W being brought into this world.

Thanks to Margaret Serzan's discovery of a ship's log of a trip that the Amy Louisa made from London to Cronstadt in 1864, we know a little bit about her. She was a barque of 282 tons. (So, you know that I'm referring to the ship here, right?) It was built in 1853 in Montrose and registered there as well. The ship number was 24974 and the owner in 1864 was David Walker, Bridge Street, Montrose. The ship held a crew of 11 and desertion apparently was a common problem for the ship owner since two of Amy Louisa's crew deserted in London. Prior to the 19th century, a barque was considered a small vessel plying coastal or inland waters. The name later became associated with a sailing vessel with a distinctive three-mast sailing system (see picture above). Barques were the trading workhorse of the Golden Age of Sail in the mid-19th century as they could sail almost as quickly as full rigged ships, but their operating expenses were less due to the smaller crew and a cheaper sailing rig.

Amy Louisa's Family

Amy Louisa Hutcheon with her brother William, circa 1865 in Montrose.

We're fortunate to have a wealth of information on the Hutcheon side of the family. Ella Peterson and John Wighton (Gen. 8) asked AL(H)W (their grandmother) for family background and her 1939 letters to them have been saved. We have a similar background letter from AL(H)W's sister, Margaret Herrald to her nephew, Harry Latta Wighton. More recently, Margaret Serzans used the Internet and more letter writing to find many genealogical records of the direct line, as well as various cousins. We also have a 1993 letter from an offshoot of the Hutcheons which emigrated to Australia. It all means that there's far too much information to boil down into a single biographical essay.

Below, you'll find a summary of AL(H)W's ancestry along with links to essays on her great-grandparents, her paternal grandparents, her maternal grandparents, and her siblings. (Read the chart from left to right to follow the chronology.) Simply click on one of the links, and when you're finished reading the biography, you can return to this chart and select another link to a Hutcheon relative. For the best understanding, read all these essays before continuing to read about Amy Louisa.

Amy Louisa's Early Life

Amy Louisa was born August 23, 1860 in Montrose. Her father, Alexander, died when she was an infant and so Amy was raised by her mother, Margaret Burns who was assisted no doubt by her grandmother Catherine Blues who lived with them. In the 1871 census, 10-year old Amy Louisa was living at 50 St. John Place in Montrose. Interestingly, this location was half a mile away from where 13 year old John Murray Wighton was living with his parents at 60 India Street.

Amy Louisa Hutcheon at 19 (1879) in Montrose.

Take a close look at the necklace in the picture above, and then at the two pictures that follow. Below left, is a close up of the front; below right, is a close up of the back with the inscription AMY. We were fortunate that the person taking Amy's picture in 1879 took two closeup pictures of the jewelry for insurance purposes. Those pictures survived and are shown below. Or, you can believe that these are digital photographs that Margaret Serzans took of a piece of jewelry that was sitting in her jewelry box 132 years later in 2011. Nah. Who'd ever believe that? Incidentally, the cross is 2" wide and 3" long. There is evidence of some types of stone having been inlaid in the front. The chips that remain seem to be black (or very dark blue) and red. The cross is too light to be entirely of silver, although it does have a silver finish.

We don't know exactly when Amy Louisa came to meet John Murray Wighton, but she was certainly friends with the Wighton family by 1880, as revealed in the following excerpt from one of her letters where she described going on an outing to Alyth with the Wighton family (without John Murray). I saw the graves of some of [the Wighton] kin when I visited Alyth about 1880. There was a chemist & druggist business there and my brother mentioned his intention to go and see it, and [John Baxter Wighton] then said he would like to go too, so he, his wife and daughter [Fanny], my brother and I all took the train one day from Montrose to Alyth and spent a very nice day there, having dinner at the hotel in the main street. With the Wighton family I visited the spots Mr. Wighton remembered so well, whilst my brother had a look into the business for sale. (By 1881, William, Amy Louisa's brother, was living in Bonnyrigg and working as a chemist.)

Amy Louisa Hutcheon at 21 (1881) in Edinburgh.

According to Ella Peterson, Amy Louisa met Fanny Wighton when she was studying to be a teacher at the Moray House Training College in Edinburgh and it was through Fanny that Amy Louisa met our John Wighton. The 1881 census showed Amy Louisa living in a women's student dormitory in Edinburgh - presumably that of the Moray House. So, those of you who are detailed-oriented might be wondering - How could Amy Louisa be attending the same teacher training institution as Fanny who was 5-years younger than her? For the answer to that question, you'll have to read the essay on the Moray House Training College.

Given what we now know about the Moray House program, we might speculate that Amy Louisa entered this program when she was as young as 14 years old, apprenticed there for five year, and then completed her two year program when she was 20 or 21 years old. Thus, in March of 1882, when she acted as a witness to her sister Catherine's marriage in Bonnyrigg, she might have already been living in Bonnyrigg. We know that her brother William was working as a chemist in the village, and her sister and mother were living there, it would be entirely natural for AL(H)W to have moved to Bonnyrigg immediately after getting her Leaving Certificate. Meanwhile, in 1882, John Murray Wighton was living in Edinburgh just 7 miles away.

Marriage to John Murray Wighton

Amy Louisa Hutcheon married John Murray Wighton on June 15th, 1885 at St. Mary's Chapel, Dalkeith - a few miles east of Bonnyrigg. Amy Louisa was 24 years old on her wedding date and John Murray was 27. John was employed as a civil service clerk; the space on the marriage certificate for Amy Louisa's profession was left blank. That might mean that she hadn't found employment in Bonnyrigg as a teacher, or it might mean that this space on the certificate was routinely left blank for women. The couple was wed at St. Mary's Church in Dalkeith which is 2 miles north-east of Bonnyrigg. Google research revealed that this was the private chapel of the Duke of Buccleuch. Hmmm.... private chapel. Royalty.... Might the Duke of Buccleuch be a member of the Murray clan? Was this payback for a Murray ancestor defiling a poor Wighton woman generations before? To find out, you'll have to read the essay on the Duke of Buccleuch.

Amy Louisa's Children

After the wedding, John and Amy Louisa settled in Perth and had 3 children there within 5 years.

• Harry Latta Wighton was born on March 22, 1886, at 5 Priory Place, Perth. The name Harry came from his uncle who died as an infant in India. The Latta name of course came from his paternal grandmother, Catherine Latta.
• Ella Burns Wighton was born on March 13, 1887, also at 5 Priory Place. I found no ancestor in the Wighton or Hutcheon line with the name of Ella, but the middle name Burns was, of course, a reference to the child's maternal grandmother, Margaret (Burns) Hutcheon.
• Amy Louisa Hutcheon Wighton was born September 26, 1891 at The Village, General Prison, Perth.

Life after Perth

As you probably have read, Amy Louisa and John Murray moved to various prison locations during his career. From Perth, they went to Peterhead (Aberdeen) and then to Milngavie (near Glasgow). The picture below shows the full family in what may be the back yard of their residence in Milngavie. From left to right: Ella Burns, John Murray, Amy Louisa, Harry Latta and AL(H)W. My best guess is that this picture was taken in 1906 or 1907. (Harry left Scotland April/May, 1907.

It was during their stay in Glasgow that Ella Burns Wighton died of Tuberculosis in 1908. John Murray retired in 1919 and he and AL(H)W moved to the Isle of Man where Amy Louisa's brother, William, and his family were living. William died in 1913, and JMW died in 1924. Afterwards AL(H)W left the Isle of Man and moved to Massachusetts to be near her daughter and her family. Below is the image of a spoon that AL(H)W brought with her when she moved to the USA. You might be able to see the initials ALH on the handle. Monogrammed cutlery was not something that John Wighton the cottar (1708-1758) would have envisioned for any of his descendants. Margaret Serzans has a spoon as well, but our spoon is better because it has DNA remants left on the tip of the spoon where an unknown ancestor was a little too anxious to get to the ice cream.

Amy Louisa (Hutcheon) Wighton, August, 1934

Amy Louisa (Hutcheon) Wighton passed away from a pulmonary embolism on October 26, 1946 at the age of 86 years. At the time of her death, she was living at 68 Pierrepont Street, in Newton, Mass. She was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Wellesley, Mass. Below is a January 26, 1936 letter to her granddaughter Ella that you might find interesting. Ella would have been about 23. There are two references in her letter to Florence, her granddaughter. She also refers to Harold who was her son-in-law.

Dear Ella,

I was very glad to get your long newsy letter. It came when I was not very well. I must have eaten not wisely but too well, so I was upset for two days and kept to my room. This was my first day out since. We have had a heavy fall of snow Saturday and Sunday last; the first heavy fall this winter. Today was just right for walking down to church - it is just a ten minutes walk from our house to Church. I was very interested in your church Xmas services. I hope you get a chance of showing off your abilities in acting. As you say, it is too bad when you have all the work for just one performance.

Last Monday the schools had to keep shut here on account of the heavy fall of snow. You see it is a very wide district and the busses could not run to time. The consequence was Florence whilst out snowballing got one on the left-eye which made an ugly cut which had to get 2 stitches, so she was at home all the week. She is going to school tomorrow.

I had a letter on Thursday from I. O. M. telling me of the death of my sister-in-law, Mrs. Hutcheon. She had another shock after Xmas. Then on the 10th Jan she was very sick and from then on got worse and worse. She passed away quickly at 4:15 A.M. on the 13th. She was 80 years of age last April. She has had lots of slight shocks since the first one in Sept 1923 but the care she has got all that time has aided her strong heart to rally.

Well, I hope the snow will soon disappear and we may soon have springtime upon us. I shall certainly try to get to Vancouver about June should I be able to get west. Of course, the cost of the trip may be too much for my pocket, but I am hoping I may manage. It won't be for lack of trying. As soon as the weather is favourable, I shall go into Boston and make all inquiries. At my age one can never say what may happen, but I think the change of scene and new faces, as well as the old ones would stimulate me.

Well, I hope you may soon find a more likely job than you have had yet. Things are improving in spite of all the wild cat schemes one reads about in the papers. If I get to Vancouver, I'll give you the job of cutting and trimming my greying locks. I have never felt like spending money on my hair but if you care for the job, you are duly appointed hairdresser pro tem to your granny.

I hope you are able to read my scribble, my nerves are a little out of order after being sick.

I am considered here to be a wonder for my age. I go out a great deal, so a day or two indoors makes me feel bored. I have been crocheting collar and cuff sets but am needing a fresh pattern. I had not done any crochet for years but Florence had a pattern book with a collar in it which she thought she would like to have to wear with a sweater so I agreed to attempt it. The outcome was I also did cuffs to match and then her mother thought she would like a set [indecipherable] colour to wear with a brown dress. She wore it one afternoon at one of our Church Service League meetings and an English lady whom I have known asked me if I would make her a set. I made two sets for her before Xmas and I have made two sets for myself.

We have two meetings of the Church Service League a month throughout the winter but I do not go to all of them and I do not go to many of their evening socials. Harold has been doing quite a lot of decorating for the Church this year. By the way, I don't think any of us has written since he had erysipelas, a mild case the doctor said, but all the same it cost him six visits from the doctor and a good deal of discomfort. However, he is all right again.

I must say I was surprised to find U.S.A. officialdom paying such marked respect and sympathy for the death of King George. We are all mourning his passing and I hope his son may make a good successor. I think he will. This week will see the end of the obsequies. I'll probably get lots of pictures sent from Britain.

Yes, we had a Xmas tree as usual but like you, we had a quiet Xmas. Harold lying in bed, but he got his share of the Xmas dinner all right. Well, I think that is about all my news now, so au revoir till the next time.

Your loving Granny

A.L. Wighton

Amy Louisa (Hutcheon) Wighton, circa 1943

Sources

Serzans, Margaret (generation 9)

Letters from Amy Louisa Hutcheon Wighton to John Latta Wighton and Ella Peterson around 1939

Letter from Margaret Herald to Harry Latta Wighton in 1953

Letter from Amy C. Hutcheon, AL(H)W's niece, to Margaret Serzans in 1968

Various websites, including:

ScotlandsPeople Database (http://www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk/)

The Latter-Day Saints website: http://www.familysearch.org/

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barque

Where to now? To read more about Generation 6 Amy Louisa (Hutcheon) Wighton's immediate family, just click top to make a selection from Generation 6's genealogical table at the top of this page. The navigation buttons just below will give you quick access to biographies in other generations.