Chapter I: ALEXANDER MACKENZIE, the first of this remarkable family prominently

known in the engineering world, was born at Wester Fairburn, in the county of Ross, on the 5th of June, 1769, and educated at the Grammar School, Inverness. He joined an old school-fellow, David Mackintosh, a native of Cawdor, Nairnshire, as a firm of contractors and engineers. They constructed several canals in England, and were very successful. He married Mary, daughter of William Austin, from her great beauty known as one of the "Lancashire Witches," with issue -

1. William, of whom presently.

2. Alexander, C.E., who was born at Hollinwood, Lancashire, in 1796. He married, with issue - (1) William Seager, who married, first, a daughter of Thomas Woodhouse, C.E., with issue; and secondly, a daughter of George Woodhouse, C.E. William was for many years a civil engineer in the employment of the Russian Government, and lived for some time at Nyksa in that country. He afterwards went to Canada, and died in London on the 26th of February, 1887; (2) Kenneth, C.E., killed in a railway accident near Bordeaux, in France, unmarried; (3) Richard, C.E., who married his cousin, Eliza, daughter of John Griffith, and died at Montreal on the 16th of February, 1887; (4) Alexander, CE., who was killed in a railway accident in Canada, without issue; (5) Mary, who married Mr Scott, in Canada.

3. Daniel, who was born in 1799, and died in 1802.

4. John, who was born on the 1st of November, 1804 went to Virginia as a planter, and died there, unmarried.

5. David, born in 1807, and died in 1811.

6. Thomas, who was born in 1808, and died in 1811, the same day as his brother, both being buried in the same grave.

7. Edward, from whom the Mackenzies of Fawley Court, Farr, etc.

8. Sarah, born in 1797, and died unmarried.

9. Margaret, who married John Griffith, with issue - (1) Edward Mackenzie, who settled in the United States, and married a daughter of Colonel Campbell; (2) William Alexander, who settled in Canada and married a daughter of Mr Baldwin, Baldwin House, Boston, United States, without issue. He lives in Quebec. (3) Mary, who married Slack Davis, MA., of Oxford, barrister-at-law, a well-known writer and poet in America, where he died on the 31st of March, 1889; (4) Alice, who married Thomas Musgrave, with issue; (5) Emily Mackenzie, who married Joseph William Painter, barrister, deceased, with issue - several sons, ranching near Denver, Colorado; (6) Harriet, who married William Johnson Shaw, of Buenos Ayres, with issue; and (7) Eliza Ann, who married her cousin, Richard Mackenzie, C.E., Montreal, above mentioned.

10. Mary, born in 1814, and married James Barnard, shipowner, Greenock, without issue. She died in 1875.

11. Eliza, who married Alexander Duckworth, with issue.

Alexander died on the 23rd of February, 1836, aged 66 years, his wife having predeceased him on the 8th of June, 1828. They were both buried at Blackburn, Lancashire. He was succeeded as representative of the family by his eldest son,