Rebecca Mackenzie (née Dow)

Rebecca Mackenzie, née Dow, unsuccessfully claimed compensation for enslaved persons inherited from her mother Martha Dow née Byam and her sister Grace Dow (both q.v.), the award being made instead to her sister's executor James Gilchrist (q.v.). Sister of Charles and William Dow (both q.v.).

1. Archibald Dow married Martha Byam in St Philip, Antigua, 05/09/1776. Only one child known to this marriage, Eliza Dow, born c. 1782, married Samuel Wickham Harman, 31/03/1803, buried in St John's, Antigua, 15/12/1817. However, the letters of Rebecca Mackenzie to the Compensation Commission indicate that herself and her two brothers Charles (deceased by 1836) and William inherited ownership of 11 enslaved persons from their mother Martha Dow and that Rebecca also inherited ownership of 6 enslaved persons from her sister Grace. James Gilchrist was awarded the compensation for both claims as the executor of Grace Dow. What ties their mother Martha Dow to the Dow-Byam marriage is the Privy Council judgement involving Grace Dow widow, James Gilchrist and the Reverend Samuel Wickham Harman as surviving executrix and executors of Archibald Dow.

2. Rebecca Mackenzie gave her address as 16 St Andrews Square, Edinburgh and Mount Lodge, Portobello in her correspondance with the Compensation Commission, but she was not at these addresses in the 1841 census. No death found for her in the Scottish statutory records, 1855-1900. Only one possibility in the Lothian area for her death in the Old Parish Records, 1837-1854, Rebecca McKenzie age 45, buried 31/06/1841 in Edinburgh, but this would put her birth twenty years after her parents' marriage.

T71/877 Antigua claim nos. 820 and 831.

1. Record submitted by member of the LDS Church, IGI film number 457909. Privy Council case number 1792_205, see http://www.privycouncilpapers.org/privy-council-papers/9296.

2. T71/1609 unnumbered bundle. General Register Office for Scotland, OPR Deaths, 685/01 1010 0048 EDINBURGH.