John McCourtie or Macourtie

Scottish absentee slave-owner in Jamaica. Described as "of Great Britain" in the Accounts Produce for 1788.

1. Will of John Macourtie of [Formiston now residing at Nunwood in the parish of Terregles] Kircudbright Kincardineshire [made in 1804] proved 25/06/1814. In the will he left Formiston and the Mavis Bank coffee estate and the enslaved people attached to it in Jamaica to his nephew John Grierson, subject to annuities of £25 p.a. each to his sisters Mary Macourtie mother of John Grierson and Elizabeth Macourtie 'spouse to James Gordon innkeeper at Dumfries'. He left his other nephew James Grierson (q.v.), then in Jamaica, the Nunwood estate in Scotland, and gave him the option to buy the Mavis Bank estate at valuation, recommending that he take up the option. In a codicil Memorandum of 1809 he left an annuity of £50 p.a. to Elizabeth Macourtie, the natural daughter of his deceased brother Alexander Macourtie, and since her infancy under the care of Henry Shirley of Jamaica and London, if Shirley himself failed to provide for her.

1816 Jamaica Almanac available online http://jamaicanfamilysearch.com/Samples/Almanacs.htm. John Macourtie was Executor to Mrs Elizabeth Rutherford, in which role he filed Crop Accounts for Spring Garden estate in 1767, 1768, 1769 & 1772. On each occasion Macourtie was listed as executor and Planter. IB/11/4/5 Crop Account 1767-72 Jamaica Archive p. 137, 140, 200.

1. PROB 11/1557/441.