Person:Quentin McIlvane (2)

At home in Thomaston, Quinton had had at least four children, John and Gilbert by his first wife, and Anna and James by his second wife. There are Testaments at Register House left by Quinton in 1694 and 1699, and by Gilbert, his brother in 1688. In 1694 John is designated Quinton's ‘air’, and in 1699 John was to make a bond with one, Andrew Kerr over debts. So Quinton's first son, John, inherited Thomaston in 1699. This John had an only son, also John, and at the same period, there was a third John, probably the son of the second Gilbert. One of these is briefly referred to in Kirkoswald Session records as having had an affair with Elizabeth Cumming in 1701.
These Kirk Session records report a saga which led to the excommunication of the only son John. Evidently this spoilt young man became a real thorn in the flesh to the elders. In the Spring of 1723 he was enjoying himself with his father's maidservant, Joan Semple. He invited her up to his room in the castle and evidently provoked a quarrel. Joan Semple got so angry that she threatened to report him to the Kirk Session. John retaliated by storming out of the room, locking the door, and taking away the key. Some time later the old Laird discovered that Joan Semple was locked in his son’s room on her own, but the doting father blamed her for the misbehaviour. He wrote a letter to the Maybole magistrates and had her put in goal in the cellars of Maybole town house, on the charge of the scandal of uncleanness. Joan Semple must have had some influential friends because on June 25th she was allowed to appear before the Kirkoswald Session to plead her case, and she accused young John of seducing her. When John discovered what had happened he got some friends to smuggle Joan Semple out of goal and arranged for her to go into hiding. Meantime the Kirkoswald minister believed Joan Semple story, and at the meeting on July 5th minuted that Joan Semple must appear before him. From that time on there is a note in the margin of the minute book every time ‘Young Grimmat’ was discussed. John did not answer the first summons so on September 15th he was given fifteen days to appear. On October 6th he pleaded innocence, whereupon the minister retorted that, if he was innocent, why did he go to all the trouble to organise Joan Semple escape from goal? He refused to confess so was given, so was given thirty days to reconsider his statement. The matter was reported at the meetings of December 15th, January 12th, 1724, January 14th, and July 19th but John never came back. Therefore on July 31st he was reported to Presbytery. At subsequent meetings on October 25th, November 8th, December 6th, January 16th, 1725, and April 12th the case was raised with no developments. On May 2nd John was threatened with excommunication and, in the margin of the minutes of December 29th 1725, there is the terse heading ‘Grimmat excommunicated’. But the story did not end there. On February 20th 1728, John and Joan Semple had the nerve to appear before the Session to explain that they were in fact living together and were married, when asked ‘how?’ they replied it was before a justice of the peace, about three years earlier. They had decided to confess because they were finding it embarrassing to be considered to be cohabiting! The last entry in the minutes is in shaky handwriting, the writer obviously having aged considerably, but in 1730 the matter was still being considered. What exactly happened we will never know. One record says John went off to America; but he left a will when he died childless and without a legal wife in 1739, and with colossal debts. His father did not die until 1740.
SOURCE:

John MCILVANE Sr., was served heir to his father Quentin 1699-1739. He lived at Thomaston until his death July 1739. On September 23, 1694, a son John Jr., was born. John MCILVANE Sr., was listed as a weaver of Ayr and spouse Janet. John Sr., and Janet also had a daughter, Ann MCILVANE who married William Cunningham. Ann MCILVANE and William Cunningham had one son and two daughters.

QUINTIN M’ILVANE, of Grimmet, was served as heir of his father, John M’Ilvane, of Grimmet, in the lands of Thomaston, October 8, 1669. Thomaston descended through the eldest male line of the McIlvane family to John McIlvane, of Grimmet, whose will was recorded January 15, 1741, and from him to his son John McIlvane, the younger, of Grimmet, merchant, whose will is dated May 20, 1747, and was given up in 1748, by James Ferguson, writer, in Ayr, as creditor upon a bill signed by the deceased. This latter John McIlvaine was probably the last of the family who possessed Thomaston.