Lewis Hoyes

Probably Lewis Hoyes, merchant of Grenada and of Forres, Scotland, who married Janet, daughter of Angus Fraser of Dornoch and his wife Elizabeth Sutherland. In Grenada for the births of his children Lewis junior (1841) and Elizabeth (1843). The death of Lewis Hoyes in his 58th year, a native of Forres, but in Grenada for 34 years, was shown in 1843.

1. Angus Fraser of Dornoch, born 1773 married in 1800 Elizabeth, daughter of William Sutherland of Scriberscross. One of their children was Janet, born in 1806. Janet married Lewis Hoyes of Grenada and Forres, in the county of Moray, Scotland, in 1838 and they had 2 children: Lewis, SSC, born 1841 and died unmarried in Dornoch in 1888; Elizabeth, born 1843, married Donald Taylor, Sheriff Clerk of Sutherlandshire, 1879.

2. Janet Hoyes and her two children are living with her brother, her mother and other family members in Dornoch, Sutherland, in the census of 1851. Janet's occupation is given as Annuitant. Both children were born in Grenada. In 1861 the three of them are lodgers at 47 Great King Street, Edinburgh. No sign of Lewis senior in the censuses for Scotland. The death certificate of his son Lewis age 46 in 1888 gives Lewis senior's occupation as merchant.

3. Named in the "About us" section of the Grenada Yellow Pages, entry for Westerhall Estate Ltd as a former owner of Westerhall: "Westerhall Estate Ltd is a private limited liability company, registered in 1966. Its shareholders are all related. Prior to its formal registration it operated as an agricultural estate which consisted of 951 acres planted in Sugar Cane, Bananas, Coconuts Cocoa and Limes. The estate always had a small distillery on its premises and some of the sugar cane crushing equipment dates back to the 1700’s. The property was originally called Grand Bacaye Estate and it is believed that the name was changed to Westerhall after it was purchased by Sir William John Stone of Dumfrieshire, Scotland in the early 1700’s, after the name of his ancestral family home. Westerhall was then sold on 21st November, 1836 by the heir of Sir William, Sir Frederick George Johnstone to “Mr. John Allan Powell of Lincolns Inn, Middlesex, Lewis Hoyes Esquire of the Island of Grenada, one of His Majesty’s West Indian or Caribe Islands in America, and Thomas Browne of Snell Hall in the said Island”.

4. Brother of John Hoyes (q.v.), also of Forres and Grenada. Both brothers were likely to be the children of Baillie William Hoyes and his wife Margaret Logan. In this case, Lewis was born 28/04/1784 and baptised 04/05/1785 in Forres.

5. An entry in a history website seems to refer to Lewis Hoyes and Janet Fraser: 'An Old Love Story? Who were L.M. and J.M.? Can you help solve the mystery? A friend of Dr. Robertson found this note while looking through old furniture in a Glasgow sale-room. “Happy, peaceful Dornoch / Home of my youthful days / Farewell a while” Found in Janet’s desk 16/2/1836. This shell was picked up by me Isle de Rhonde, Granada [sic], 1837, and kept in memory of a morning walk with L.M.” J.M. (or J.H.)'

6. Lewis Hoyes of Grenada was listed as a subscriber to Charles Shepherd's An Historical Account of the Island of Saint Vincent, published in 1832.

Inverness Courier Feb. 1st 1843: 'The death is announced of Mr Lewis Hoyes, merchant in the island of Grenada and Speaker of the House of Assembly, in his 58th year. Mr Hoyes was a native of Forres, but had been a resident of Grenada for about thirty-four years', http://www.electricscotland.com/history/highlands/3no2.htm [accessed 11/07/2017].

1. Alexander Mackenzie, History of the Frasers of Lovat (Inverness, A. and W. Mackenzie, 1896) p. 739.

2. 1851 and 1861 censuses online; General Register Office for Scotland deaths 1888 047 008 Dornoch.

3. Grenada Yellow Pages, available at http://s2.grenadayp.com/Grenada/Westerhall-Estate-Ltd/profile [accessed 20/02/2013].

4. See separate entry for John Hoyes. Familysearch.org batch no. C11137-2.

5. See http://www.historylinksarchive.org.uk/picture/number2411.asp [accessed 20/02/2013].

6. Charles Shepherd, An Historical Account of the Island of Saint Vincent (1832) pp. vii-xii.

We are grateful to Jim Brennan for his assistance with compiling this entry.

Notes on the Hoyes Family in Forres, by Jim Brennan, following the Aberdeen Journal Notes and Queries

The main relevant figures are three of the sons of John Hoyes at Knockomie, east of Forres and Beatrice Watson:

I James Hoyes in Balnaferry, likely to have been the James Hoyes in Forres who married Margaret Adam in Rafford in 1747. His youngest son, John (q.v., as John Hoyes) married Mary Riviere Cuming, nee McGlashan, a carpenter’s widow, in Jamaica, where he died in 1808. John Hoyes was in turn the father of a son named John (1806-1885, q.v. as John Hoyes of Prospect).

II James in Balnaferry’s younger brother, William, merchant and Baillie of Forres, who married Margaret Logan and whose sons John and Lewis (both q.v, as John Hoyes of Grenada and Lewis Hoyes) made careers in Grenada

III John, the third brother, who according to Fasti Ecclesiae began as schoolmaster in Alves, was ordained there, assisted in the parish, and under the patronage of Francis Earl of Moray, was installed minister of Dalgety in Fife, and later, on the appointment of James Gillan, minister of Kinloss, to Speymouth was moved by the Earl to Kinloss, Morayshire. His wife, Janet Reid, was the daughter of the minister of Beath, in Fife, and her mother, Ann Dott, whose father had been convener of the shoemakers in Cupar, may possibly have been of Huguenot descent. Fasti Ecclesiae gives his birth year as 1744 – the OPR as 1739, and the Edinburgh Magazine report of his 1818 death gives his age as 74.

Rev John Hoyes’s eldest son, born in 1788, was also a John, also in Jamaica, and married in Kingston in 1816, Helen Petrie (q.v.), daughter of Ninian Petrie in St Thomas in the East dying in 1818, the year of his father’s death. In 1844 Helen Hoyes (nee Petrie) registered, and had accepted, an assertion in the Kingston register that her late husband had been of white origin entirely. Rev. John Hoyes’s youngest child was Alexander Hoyes (q.v.), born in 1800.