While I'm on the trail of finding out, but not being very successful at discovering, who is Colonel James R Gordon who once owned Gordon Lake in Creighton where he managed the nearby Creighton Gold Mining Company I figure I might as well try to answer " What's a Gordon ? " .
Let's start out with some juicy stuff.
King Richard of England was succeeded by his brother John who pretty much took the crown of England out of the hands of his nephew Arthur. Arthur was imprisoned at the Rouen castle and put under the watchful guard of the Baron of Braose. Arthur disappeared and was never seen or heard of again. At least one legend as it that he was murdered by Braose. The House of Braose had come about from a forefather of his who had started out as Baron of Briouze - lord of the mud patch in Normandy.
My suspicious mind tells me that this Braose, the latin form sounding almost like brasso is probably ancestral to the clans in America with similar names. It is just a suspicion.
What's a story without a map....
Back to King Richard meanwhile...
He died in 1199 at Chalons near Limousin in France after being shot by, I believe a friendly fire arrow while besieging the castle. The archer responsible for the misfire was Bertram de Gordon, aka Bertran de Gourdon. Bertram Gordon was a knight living in France. This line of Gourdon or Gordon had lived on the mainland of Europe for many centuries.
Gourdon in France is near to where the Vaudreuil castle was erected. That Chateau de Vaudreuil is where Philippe de Rigaud was born. The castle Vaudreuil was not built anywhere near Le Vaudreuil in Normandy where the archers of Vaudreuil who follow William the Conqueror into the Battle of Hastings came from ( at least that is how I understand it ). Vaudreuil in Normandy is near to Briouze where House of Braose began to take form.
Bertram de Gordon was not living in Scotland or anywhere else on the islands of Europe. However there were plenty of Gordon's who were. They were definitely in England and in Scotland and maybe in Wales and Ireland. Did they cross over in 1066 with Duke William of Normandy and the archers of Vaudreuil and the troops of the lord of Briouze ? William won the war that started at the Battle of Hastings. While he was conquering England and censuring
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| Clan Swinton source Wikipedia motto Je pense, J'espere I think, I hope A boar chained to a tree proper Every node of a tree proper has two nodes but the leaves themselves have none The family tree maybe. But what is the boar ? |
Interestingly enough Berwickshire is where most of the coal mines we talked about in a recent post are situated. Those coal mines were labored in by miners with names like Stobie, Bradley, Coyne, Hargreaves, Gordon, and such.
The Gordon Berwickshire story goes that a Knight named Sir Gordon came into the shire and met with the Prince of Swinton . Sir Gordon then went out on a mission and killed a boar threatening the borders of the Prince's lands. For his efforts Sir Gordon was made lord of his own territory within Mercia ( Berwickshire). On this land he lived with his father Adam I de Gordon and his son also named Adam II de Gordon. But that is legend.
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| Clan Gordon Crest Stand and Fight By Courage Not by Craft The Gordon Clan was a cadet family descended from the older Swinton clan. There were others like Arbuthnott Nisbet Elphinstone |
What or who was the boar ?
Adam II de Gordon was the father of Richard de Gordon. Richard Gordon was a philanthropist and donated some of his lands to monks who built an abbey and St Mary's Church at Kelso. ( there's that Kel again ). In the town of Gordon they built a church devoted to St Michael; St Michael church of Gordon.
Richard Gordon is the node above Knight Sir Thomas Gordon.
Sir Thomas Gordon and his father were contemporaries of the Gordon in France. But the tree proper has many branches and in the same era, in Scotland there was also another Adam Gordon alive. Adam owned part of the lordship of Gordon so he was either a direct family member of Thomas and Richard or a close relative.
Another Thomas is born to Thomas and he also has the title of Sir. He carries on the tradition of benevolence to the monks and the churches. Unlike his father however Knight Thomas Junior is a leaf and not a node. He is without male children when he dies around 1258 so his possessions are inherited by his daughter Alicia Gordon.
Richard Lion Heart and Saladin the Muslim
A movie about the third crusade
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Matters get even more complicated when Alicia marries the son of Adam Gordon. He is her cousin and also named Adam Gordon. By this marriage of blood the entire Gordon clan was once again reunited under a single lord and governor. Adam Gordon was a crusader Knight. Sir Adam and his soldiers were on assignment to the King of Scotland Alexander III who wanted to pilgrimage to the holy land in about 1270. The mission would prove fatal for Sir Adam Gordon. However he had left Alicia with a son also name Adam.
Adam the son married an English women and through her owned land both in England and in Scotland. However the barons were at odds with King Henry III of England and most barons ended up dead or in the prison towers of the English castles; not Adam Gordon. He survived even though he seems to have sided with the barons. He went on to pillage whatever was owned by the English Crown or their loyalists.
Then along came the English Prince Edward who took him on in a duel. The fight lasted long and Adam only lost because he slipped. Edward spared Adam's life in return for his loyalty and service. Adam accepted and became a vassal and supporter of England's cause.
The year is now 1285 or thereabouts and King Alexander of Scotland signs a decree naming Margaret has heir to the throne. He dies in 1286 and she dies in 1290. Then Robert Bruce ( grandfather of Robert de Bruce ) is competing against King John Belliol, aka Toom Tabard, for the Crown of Scotland. Toom Tabard wins out after seeking the council of Prince Edward, now King Edward I of England. ( This is loosely the basis of the movie Braveheart ). The story of Maid Margaret is told here.
Adam Gordon sided with Prince Belliol who became King John of Scotland. King John of Scotland insulted King Edward I of England who attacked him in retaliation. By 1296 King John had fled to France and King Edward fought with the Scots who tried to retain their sovereignty and freedom. People like William Wallace ( hero of Braveheart often used the name of King John in their rebellions against England ). By 1306 Robert de Bruce had become King of the Scots. He was also on the side of the rebels.
Robert the Bruce was from Scoto Norman ancestry so says wpedia. Who knows he may have been a descendant of the Briouze clans who surfaced sometime around 911 when the Normans gained their sovereignty from the Franks and the Holy Roman Emperors. Who knows ?
Adam Gordon fought alongside William Wallace says Collin's Peerage book of England, Volume 5.
In 1297 he was made Governor of Wigton Castle in Galloway after the Wallace rebels had taken over Wigton and Gallaway. Adam Gordon was also made Warden of the Marches of Scotland. ( Marches are almost always border counties so he was a border sheriff ). He was a liaison between the English King and the Scot King and or the rebels of Beliol. John Beliol died in 1313 or thereabouts so Sir Adam Gordon served King Robert the Bruce from that point forward.
Robert de Bruce had been excommunicated from the Catholic circles. He looked to Sir Adam Gordon for support when he wanted to go to Rome to fight this. For his reward Sir Adam Gordon was given the estates once belonging to the Earl of Atholl. Adam Gordon was now lord of Gordon and lord of Strabolgie at Aberdeenshire. He moved his home to the latter and renamed the estate Huntley. There he died in 1333. His heirs, thought to be children of Anna Bella ? Gordon, were Alexander, William, John, Thomas, and Mary.
Between them they ruled all types of estates. Mary became Mary Gordon Hamilton when she married Sir Walter Hamilton. John and Thomas became priests. Sir Alexander Gordon settled at Huntley. He was a patriot like his father and was on the battlefield at Hallidon Hill when his father died in battle. Sir Alexander Gordon survived Hallidon Hill but died later at Nevill's Cross near Durham while fighting the rebel cause in 1346.
By now Robert de Bruce had been succeeded by King David II de Bruce but when he was captured at Nevill's Cross the Scots crown went to Robert II Stewart. He was the son of Walter Stewart married to Marjorie Bruce, daughter of Robert Bruce.
And the story goes on.....
By 1378 another Sir Adam Gordon comes and married Elizabeth Keith, daughter of Sir William Keith. They have only a daughter, her name is Elizabeth Gordon. She becomes Elizabeth Gordon Seton. The Seton's are now lords of Gordon and Huntley.
And so on and so forth grew the clan Gordon as they spread throughout England and Scotland. The tree proper had seeded many nodes and leaves. Some nodes became giant branches while some expired.
They they came across the Atlantic.
And the story continued from there with Gordon's on both continents.
It is no surprise that James R Gordon, the manager of Creighton Gold Mines near Sudbury, was aka Colonel James R Gordon. The Gordon's are military people.
This perhaps less than accurate story only serves to show how determined people will go to the ends of the earth to secure their independence and maybe to build a world that revolves around them.
Yet this story brings me no closer to knowing who the heck was Colonel James R Gordon ?
I know he had a house built the size of a church on Gordon Lake in Fairbanks township around the year 1900. The guy who built that house was a lumberjack and carpenter named Ernest Gravelle. Most likely no relation to Mr Hargreaves or Mister Graverod.
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