Letters written by Agnes Macfie (née Fairrie) 1813-1900 to her nephew James Fairrie (1832-1918)
Steam Yacht
MONA
9th Octr
1888.
Dear James,
When Mrs. Ewing of Canada was here she and the London Fairries were speaking a great deal about our ancestors in Irvine. I showed her your letter to me about the James C. Fairrie in Liverpool. She said she had heard of an Alexander Farrie, merchant in Kilbride, subscribing to a book in Glasgow in 1739. This may be the family referred to in Sheriff Blair's record where there were eight children. J. C. Farrie's father or grandfather may have been one of the eight. Mrs. Ewing wonders if the Register books in Irvine coud give some particuars of the Farrie family - I have so many present things to engage my attention that I cannot feel any or much interest in the past.
Eliza Fairrie said her father told her that it was my father who changed the spelling of the name while at school - his Master said that if the word was to be pronounced long there shoud be an 'i' in the first syllable, so it was your grandfather who began to spell the name as we now do, and your Liverpool friend's spelling is the original.
Andrew has gone to Beach and may have little time here on his return, so I thought it better to write this than to explain it to him.
I am your affectionate Aunt
Agnes Macfie
Miss Dumas gave me a note about a Spanish Galleon 'Florencia' which was wrecked off the coast of Scotland after the invasion of the Spanish Armada. The Galleon was commanded by one Fereira, a Spanish Grandee of the first class who is supposed to be an ancestor of the Fairrie family. Edward Fairrie has in his possession an old Armada Medal.
Airds
Appin, Argyllshire
28th January 1892
My Dear James
Yours of the 21st came opportunely when our cousin Mrs Ewing, who is much interested in our ancestors, was here. We did not learn anything new from the papers except the doubt thrown upon the idea that the Fairries came to Scotland in the Spanish Armada. Mrs Ewing remembers Aunty Nan saying that she had in her youth waded out to a gun which lay on the shore between Kilbride and Fairlie, said to have belonged to the Spanish Armada. Now Mrs. Ewing suggests that if anyone was at leisure in London and cared to go to the British Museum, they might look at the Record of the Armada to see whether any of the vessels were wrecked on the Firth of Clyde.