4 HISTORY OF THE MACOUN FAMILY 



tance by the windows. The front door was double oak filled with 

 large nails that were clinched inside. This made it impossible to 

 cut it down. The key of the door was very large and as a boy I 

 was not able to turn it, and the bolt was nearly an inch and a half 

 across. 



Over the door there was a stone inserted, giving the date, 

 1708, so that we had no doubts as to the age of it. The walls 

 were so solidly built that I believe the people in the early times 

 understood how to make mortar very much like the concrete that 

 is used today. This is all the data I have of the erection of the 

 house. I might say that the garden as it was in my time, showed 

 that it was the same garden that had been established when the 

 house was built. Inside, the garden was surrounded by a bank 

 and outside, by a ditch of considerable depth so that the land was 

 well drained. In my father's time it had many rare shrubs of 

 great beauty, of which my mother took advantage in our youth 

 and sold to neighboring families to eke out her scanty means, due 

 to the fact that the property had been willed away from our 

 branch of the family. 



My grandfather was born in 1737 and his family consisted of 

 two sons and four daughters, my father being the younger son. 

 Our property, being entailed, always descended to the eldest son 

 and his heirs. On this account my father enlisted in the army 

 about 17% and joined a dragoon regiment named "The Black 

 Horse," being the Seventh Dragoon Guards, and were called the 

 "Princess Royal's Regiment." (That is, the regiment of King 

 George Third's eldest daughter.) Its commander for a long time 

 was the Duke of York and my mother said that my father looked 

 upon him as an exceptionally good commanding officer, so good 

 that he called his eldest son Frederick instead of calling him after 

 himself. Two years after my father joined, the Rebellion of 1798 

 broke out in Ireland and his regiment was ordered there. This 

 led my father to take part in all the engagements that took place 

 in the south of Ireland and I heard my mother say that he was 

 wounded at the battle of New Ross, where his horse was shot from 

 under him and that he took off the saddle and put it around his 

 shoulders when making his escape from the battle. Except for 



