For Halloween

I picked this brochure up a few years ago in Charleston.
I was pretty sure it was a reverse negative image of John C. Calhoun.

His photographs later in life were pretty...imposing? Well, scary, actually.



To be fair he was a pretty good looking fellow when younger (weren't we all?).

Stone Mountain GA 2010

Holding court with John Dahl.
We had a long line of members for the Parade of Tartans. I only made it half way round this year and ducked out the back gate!
Family of Nan Hunter who was Sharon's shortbread mentor. Nan passed away earlier this year. Her granddaughter, second from right, has taken over the shortbread tradition.
Hawk Talk.


John Colquhoun who taught school in Jonesboro.
The Hagar ring.
Clan Davidson was next to us again this year.



Rhonda who let us know about The Kandahar Reel.

Jim Kilpatrick, Julia Grant-Adams, Colin Grant-Adams, and myself.

The Kandahar Reel

This dance was written by two Colquhoun officers in the Black Watch. From the description on youtube:


"This is a demonstration of the Kandahar Reel, which took place In Aberdeen at the start of Dance Scottish Week. A Published Copy of the dance is available from www.rscds.org and www.soldierscharity.org priced £4. £2.00 goes to ABF The Soldiers Charity (Scotland).The Kandahar Reel is a new country dance devised by two serving army officers of The Black Watch as a tribute to their fallen comrades. They devised it in September 2009 while on active service in the Kandahar Region of Afghanistan. Elements of the dance to watch out for include the "hands across" which symbolise both the Chinook Helecopter and the single blades of a Black Hawk . These figures are normally done once round in four bars. As soldiers are constantly exhorted to give 150% these figures are done one and a half times in the same number of bars! Other elements to watch out for include; team work and offering a helping hand as they board the helecopter. It is a challenging dance. Enjoy!The Music Is Played By Colin Dewar and his Scottish Dance Band www.colindewar.com/ "

Old Rossdhu

From an 1891 engraving. Thanks to Rowangarth Greetings.

Corey Gilpatrick Launches New Website

Corey has a new web site address. It's http://clancolquhounofthenortheast.blogspot.com/

Thanks, Corey!

Vicki and Sam Overstreet at the New Hampshire Highland Games Sept.17-19, 2010

NEW HAMPSHIRE HIGHLAND GAMES
Loon Mountain
Lincoln , NH
Sept. 17-19, 2010

This year we rented a tent, already set up, so that we wouldn’t have to fight the wind. So naturally, we had no wind. Just a gentle breeze all weekend with a few gusts on Saturday. The only rain we had was a heavy downpour on Thursday night, so all in all, it was a perfect weekend to celebrate our 15th anniversary of hosting the Colquhoun tent. When we arrived home Monday afternoon, we checked weather.com for the Loon weather. It was a cool 56 and the wind was 15 with gusts to 29. So nice of it to hold off until after the Games.

Speaking of hosting a tent, we had several past and present Colquhoun tent representatives stop by: Chuck and Ann Stoodley from Florida , Rosalie and Lance Oliver from New York and Corey and Laura Gilpatrick from Maine . Corey would like us to pass on the word that he has relaunched his web site http://clancolquhounofthenortheast.blogspot.com/. He leads off with the story of the 3rd Gurkha Regiment, which was raised by Sir Robert Colquhoun in 1815 and who adopted the Colquhoun tartan.

We had many visitors stop by, including those we like to call ‘regulars’ and many for the first time, who we hope will become ‘regulars’. We also had the usual number of non-Colquhoun’s who were just looking for information and from whom we always learn something about other clans. It seems that hosting a tent is a never ending learning experience.

Dr. Curtis and Lynn Penney were in town from North Dakota for their annual visit. Curtis always competes in solo piping competition and this year he was pleased to win two 2nd place medals. Well done and congratulations.

Deborah Cahoon (Didick) and her daughter, Erika Brien, marched with us in the Parade of Clans. Deborah has done much research on William Cohoone of Block Island , RI , her 8ggrandfather. He was taken prisoner at the Battle of Dunbar in 1650 and sent to the colonies as an indentured servant. He is considered to have been the first Colquhoun in North America . Deborah very graciously presented us with a copy of her book, Famous and Infamous Cahoons. Many thanks, Deborah.

Ken Marsh returned after an absence of a couple of years. Ken has always been very helpful in assisting us in manning the tent and he also marched with us. Welcome back and thanks, Ken.

When you only see people once a year, and then only for a very short time, it’s hard for us to associate names and faces. Sam is very proud of himself for recognizing David and Jean O’Sullivan this year. Hang in there, Joe Kirkpatrick. Your time will come.

Kathy (Ingram) Byrne, whose husband John is the brother of Dave Byrne, 2nd Vice President and New England Commissioner of Clan Buchanan Society International and maker of Sam’s walking/leaning stick, stopped by. Her daughter was married in 2007 and since it was a Scottish wedding, Dave had borrowed some Colquhoun tartan from us to display.

Speaking of Clan Buchanan, they were Honored Clan this year and had their AGM here. Dave said that they had close to 300 members show up. It sure looked like it with Buchanan tartan and Black Lion T-shirts everywhere. Sam was able to talk a couple of times with Buck Buchanan, a Past President of the Society. We hadn’t seen Buck since our California days 6 years ago.

Thanks to all of the others, too numerous to mention, for stopping by and showing your support. We appreciate it and it makes hosting the tent worthwhile.

And last, but not least, a special welcome to new members Richard Rohla and Rick Tustin. Thank you for your interest in the Society.

Entertainment wise, Red Hot Chili Pipers and Albannach, both from Scotland , Brother (who we hadn’t seen in about 10 years), The Brigadoons, Alex Beaton (an old California favorite of ours) and Rathkeltair all provided us with good music.

Friday evening we went to dinner with our ‘adopted sons’, Ken Marsh for Vicki’s Colquhoun side and Doug Williams (Clan MacFarlane New England Commissioner) for Sam’s MacFarlane side. We had planned to go to Vita’s but it was closed, so we went to the one and only Mexican restaurant, which used to be our Thursday night stop after set up. It apparently has new owners (again) and while the food wasn’t bad, service was terrible. We will take that one off our list. We did, however, discover two new places that we highly recommend – The Common Man and Brittany ’s Café, both at the Kancamagus Motor Lodge, just down the hill from the Games.

That’s it for this year and we will see you all again at Loon Sept. 16-18, 2011, if not sooner.


Vicki and Sam Overstreet

New York/New England Representatives
Clan Colquhoun Society of the United Kingdom

US: http://www.colquhounclan.com/
UK : http://www.clancolquhounsociety.co.uk/

Dr. Abner Wellborn Calhoun

I couldn't figure out why I had some trouble finding this article in my own blog until I realized it was originally published within the first post where I reproduced the most recent newsletter of the time three years ago without its own heading. We'll fix that right here by reproducing Callie's article along with some pictures of Dr. Calhoun's mausoleum at historic Oakland Cemetery. There's a stain glass window in the mausoleum of Jesus healing the blind.

ABNER WELLBORN CALHOUN 1845-1910
FIRST OPTHAMOLOGIST IN THE SOUTH

by A. Calhoun Witham, Jr.

Abner Wellborn Calhoun was born in Newnan Georgia on April 16, 1845. He was the son of a prominent local physician Andrew B. Calhoun MD. During his formative years he was helped his father in his practice and was educated in the town of Newnan. His childhood was typical of a young person of that era until the war of Southern Secession broke out in the spring of 1861. Young Abner volunteered for duty in the Confederate army in that same year just before his sixteenth birthday. He served in the Army of Northern Virginia and fought in every major campaign for the entire four years of the war. He was wounded on four separate occasions and finally through the knee fighting in the trenches outside of Petersburg Virginia. He obviously had seen a great deal of field hospitals and physicians by the end of the war. Once Robert E. Lee surrendered at Appomattox Court House in 1865 he walked home with what remained of his company to Atlanta where began his studies under his father. Once his preliminary studies were completed, Abner left Georgia to study medicine in earnest at the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, PA. He graduated with his M.D. in March of 1869 and returned to Georgia to start his own practice. During his early days of practicing medicine he took a great interest in the plight of the blind and as well patients with various ailments of the eye. In early 1871 he traveled to Europe to study the diseases of the eye which was relatively specialized and new field of medicine. He learned fluent German and studied with the brightest medical minds of the age in Vienna, Berlin, Paris and London. He returned to Atlanta four years later and began to practice and teach his specialty. He was the first to perform cataract surgeries in the South which must have seemed miraculous to the hundreds of patients whom he returned sight.
Dr. Abner W. Calhoun, was the region’s first specialist of the eye and ear, first taught at the Atlanta Medical College, which was originally established by his father, Andrew B. Calhoun, in 1854. He founded the college’s medical library with his own volumes (most written in German). This college later became the Emory University School of Medicine in 1915.
As the only scientifically trained ophthalmologist south of Maryland, Dr. Abner Calhoun was the specialist of choice for many a Southerner who had a serious eye problem before the turn of the century. He served as faculty president from 1900 until 1910. He and industrialist Andrew Carnegie provided funds to construct a medical college building that later became part of Grady Memorial Hospital, still a training ground for Emory residents. Unfortunately the only physical memorial to this pioneering southern physician was the medical library that was originally named in honor of Dr. AW Calhoun’s contributions to medicine and ophthalmology. The library was renamed in the late 1970’s during one of Emory University’s quests for wealthier benefactors. Although the library no longer bears his name there is a small room named after Dr. Abner W. Calhoun where you can see an exhibit of his original text books and instruments which started a great medical tradition that carries on to this day.