CONTENTS. By the EDITOR. VIII. THE PARISH AND MINISTERS OF DEIR, FROM THE REVOLUTION SETTLE- MENT TO THE DEATH OF THE REV. JAMES PETER, - IX. EDUCATION AND RELIEF OF THE POOR, By ROBERT WILSON, Esq., and the EDITOR. A BOOK OF THE PARISH OF DEIR. THE CHAPTER I. Introductory The Parish: Its Mame and Limits. HE name of the parish is spelt with even more than the common variation characteristic of all old Scottish records in dealing with places. It is given Dear, Deare, Deer, Deir, Dere, Deyre, Dier, and Diere. DEER has for long been the common spelling, but DEIR prevails in the oldest writings, and it indicates the derivation. Yet derivations have varied almost as much as spelling. The Celtic monk, who wrote the legend of the planting of Christianity in the province, derives it from deara, tears. The writer of the "View of the Diocese of Aberdeen" says that the inhabitants connected the name with deer, while Mr. George Cruden, schoolmaster of the parish, in the Old Statistical Account, makes it De a'r', à contraction for De adhra -the worship of God, and thinks the name may be due to the fact that the first church in the district was planted here. DEIR is really OAKWOOD -old Gaelic, or Irish, dair or daire, an oak-and one naturally concludes that there were oak forests in the neighbourhood, and that they were not so common elsewhere in the region, although abundant in this nook of it. Tears and oak were not unconnected in the Celtic idea of the House of God. "The earliest Irish words for a church," says Dr. Skene," are duirthech -the house made of oak, and deirthech-the house where tears are shed." Durrow and Derry, the two great Columban monasteries in Ireland, were in districts rich in oak, and, according to the same authority, had their names from this fact. Derry in Irish is Daire, which seems but an earlier Deir, and Durrow is Dearmach-the field of the oaks. Dryburgh is darach bruach-the oak-bank. One wonders if we have in these many localities named from the oak a corroboration of the tradition that many Christian sanctuaries were built on the sites of earlier Pagan holy places. There was wisdom in it, if it were so, and right feeling, too, for it allowed the sacredness of the past, always. If Saint Columba indeed gave the town its name, the beautiful situation, recalling muchloved spots in his native Ireland, not less than the tears of Drostan, would impel him to say, "Let Dear be its name!" The Saint had a keen love of nature, and the cluster of rude huts round the Mormaer Bede's stronghold on the bend of the Ugie, where the Church of Deir now stands, could not hide the meadows by the stream, the woods on the surrounding heights, and the sweep of the river itself, as it wound through Aluinn Alden, even then the bonnie braes, or burn. The sight, after many changes, will still touch a spirit less susceptible than that of the great Celtic apostle. Deir was thus, at first, "this town," and the Celtic monastery to which the town was gifted. It would have a group of monks' cottages of wattles and clay, and there would be the wooden church where the Northern Picts first received the Sacraments and heard the Word of God. If, as is probable, the earliest church was built where the small fragment of the pre-Reformation Parish Church yet stands, there has been a HOUSE OF GOD upon the same spot for thirteen hundred years. When parishes were defined, and territory took the place of clan in ecclesiastical organisation, the Parish of Deir embraced within its borders the monastic possessions in the immediate neighbourhood of the Abbey, as well as other lands adjoining. It practically covered the present parishes of Old and New Deer, as they are called. This large area extends to more than 50,000 acres. When one remembers the great care of the old Church for everything pertaining to religion, it comes as a surprise that the only places of worship were at Deir itself, at the Abbey of Deir, possibly also at the southern extremity of Stuartfield, where there is a chapel well, and certainly at the Chapel of Auchreddie. The statement of Alexander Keith that there was a chapel at Knaven is probably a slip for Auchreddie. No trace of a chapel remains at Knaven. The probability is that the people preferred to worship on the spot specially sacred in their eyes and hallowed by old associations. After the Reformation, Deir was early named the seat of a Presbytery; and in 1581, along with the Presbyteries of Bamfe and Kildrinnie, it formed the Synod of Bamfe. The parish was immediately after 1560 conjoined with Foveran, Peterugie, and Langley, and one pastor had thus something like an archdeaconry rather than a parish. As the Reformed Church developed her organisation it was evident that, even without these temporary additions, the parish was much too large, and arrangements were made to divide it into an "Old Paroche of Deir " and a "New Paroche of Deir." Preparatory to this, however, the Parish of Fetterangus was formally separated from Saint Fergus. These had been vicar ages of the great Abbey of Aberbrothock, and had been given to the monks of S. Thomas at the beginning of the thirteenth century by Ralph le Neym, the head of a family" which had possessions on the eastern marches between England and Scotland and in Tweeddale." Fetterangus was definitely united to Deir by an Act of the Presbytery: "The Presbyterie haulden at the Kirk of Deire, 12th November, 1618:Inter alia: The said day the Brethering of the Presbyterie of Deir being convenit at the said Kirk considerin the decreit of the Lordes of the Plat haldin at Edinburgh in [ ] last bypast, in the quhilk it is ordenit that the paroche and parochineres of Fetterangus in all tyme coming sall be unitit and annexit unto the Kirk of Deir as thair ordinar paroch kirk and parochineres thairoff, thair to resaive the comfort of the Word and benefit of the sacraments with other privileges belonging thairunto, and haivan received commission and commandment from the Bischop of Aberdein [Patrick Forbes of Corse] to see that decreit put in execution, compearit before them the eldership and greyttest part of the housholders of that paroch, being chargit to that effect, wha having the tenour of that Act and decreit intimat unto them, and knowing how they had been servit of befoir, and how impossible it was unto them, being but of ane mein number to interteine ane resident pastour among them, as lykwayes, considerin how commodious they were to the Kirk of Deir, willingly consentit to submit themselves to the obedience of the decreit of the Lords of the Plataccording to the will of the Presbyterie-promising faithfully in all time coming to frequent the Kirk of Deir as thair onlie paroch kirk for the comfort of the Word and benefit of the sacraments, and to submit themselves to all manner of ordinance for maintenance of doctrin and disciplin as the rest of the parochineres of the congregation of Deir. To the quhilk effect Mr. David Robertson, thair former pastour [minister of Langley, now Saint Fergus], delyverit to Mr. Abraham Sibbald, now thair present minister, the names of the eldership |
