Dalmore. Clearance and Emigration.

Dalmore's fate was sealed by 1851,but three years earlier, what happened then did not auger well for Dalmore.A few years earlier,the villagers of Tolsta Chaolais asked Sir James Matheson(that's what you did) for permission to build a school/religious meeting house,and permission was granted.Matheson also granted them permission to remove the roof timbers from the old church in Dalmore that they might be used in the new building at Tolsta Chaolais.They carried the timbers on their backs from Dalmore,and the building was completed in 1848.Now,anyone who regularly accesses this blog(viz,Shelley from Boston,Mass,)will have noticed a discrepancy in dates referring to the church.In a blog earlier,the stripping of the roof was given as 1858 instead of the correct date of 1848.I don't even think that Sir James would see the church roof removed over the heads of its churchgoers.It was more likely that the church could no longer field a minister,such was the reputation of Dalmore.
The 1851 Census gives the population of Dalmore as 66 and already we see how Matheson's plan was biting.In that year,1851,26 people emigrated on a ship named the "Barlow" anchored in East Loch Roag.It was a June day when 400 Lewis people(mostly from Uig)bade farewell to their homeland on a ship of deaths bound for Quebec.In 1855 another emigrant ship with many more Leodhasich on board left from the same spot in the month of May(Aird na Moineach,Tolsta Chaolais).This boat too was going to Canada.
The people from Dalmore forced to emigrate( Sir James' 1st Class)
were :-
House No.2 Macdonalds. John(13years),Ann(10),Kirsty(8).
House No.3 Macdonalds. John(50),Jane(40),Bella(10),Catherine(10),Ann(5).
House No.4 Morrison. Donald(35),Kenny(13),Norman(10),Donald(5),Murdo(3)
Catherine(3).
House No.5 Macleod. Alex(60),Kirsty(65),Margaret(15),Calum(12)
House No.11 Morrisons. Donald(33),Ann(28),Catherine(2),John(25).
House No.16 Macdonalds.Donald(40),Angus(14),William(9),Neil(6),Jane(10).
House No.18 Maclean. John(64),Catherine(64).
House No.20 Macdonald. John(61),Mary(61)
House No.10 Maclean. Malcolm(?),Jane(22),Isabella(0).
Once again,planned(ie.forced)to emigrate from Dalmore(1851)were 26 persons. Others who did not need to emigrate but were cleared to make way for sheep moved to other parts of the island such as North and South Shawbost,Upper Carloway,Laxay(Lochs) and beside Sir James in the town of Stornoway.
At this time in Dalbeg,people here were being "moved".One of these was the oldest man in the village.His home was at Cuil a Mhullach(it lies between the present Dalbeg and the quarry) and he was being carried from his house by four men using a bed cover.When they were leaving the village,he asked the men to stop,and to turn him around to face the Cleit(Dalbeg's highest hill)where he had spent his youth.Looking at the Cleit,he addressed the hill thus.
"How I envy you.At least, they will never be able to remove you !).