This posting is in response to a request for information on JOHN MACKAY of Melness. "Captain KENNETH MACKAY was in the prime of life. He was the lineal descendant of Col. ENEAS MACKAY, second son of DONALD, First LORD REAY, and grandson of the redoubted WILLIAM of Melness. He was, therefore – failing the present family of Reay, descendants of the laird of Skibo, and after the Holland MACKAYS, descendants of General MACKAY, second son of JOHN, second LORD REAY – the next heir to the titles and estate of Reay. His father, JOHN MACKAY of Melness, married ESTHER, daughter and heiress of KENNETH SUTHERLAND of Meikle-Torboll, in Strathfleet, parish of Dornoch, a small property which for generations was possessed by a family of the name of SUTHERLAND, cadets of the noble family of DUFFUS, whose ruined castle at Skelbo we had passed on our way from the Little Ferry to Embo. Capt. MACKAY's father, I believe, sold the property, and the family was, at his death, reduced to the greatest extremities. His eldest son, Kenneth, born in 1756, entered the army, where he never rose higher than the rank of lieutenant, and was under the necessity of retiring on half-pay, at his father's death, in order to take charge of his affairs. And never, indeed, it is probable, were affairs so involved more judiciously managed, or more successfully retrieved. With only his lieutenant's half-pay, the landless heir of Meikle-Torboll took his quondam property as a farm at a moderate rent, and at a time when agriculture was but little understood, and its produce turned to small account, he so successfully laboured that, in a very few years, he snatched his family from starvation, and for himself acquired a comfortable independence. At the time I first saw him he had the farms at Torboll, Embo, and Pronsy, in the parish of Dornoch, was factor for the estates of Reay and Skibo, and collector of the county revenue. His children at that time amounted to six – HARRIET, ESTHER, JEAN, LEXY, GEORGE and JOHN; they were afterwards increased to fourteen." Mem. Dom. (1889), pp 148-149.