Magnus Eunson
The northernmost whisky distillery in the world, Highland Park is situated on the island of Orkney to the west of Kirkwall. The name ‘Highland Park’ originates from the rise of hills above Kirkwall, Orkneys capital, which were known as High Park. It is in these hills, in 1798, that Magnus Eunson first started distilling whisky albeit illegally.
http://www.uisge.com/ud/highlandpark.html
The people of Orkney have been shaped by influences from all directions; as with any distinctive community, they are aware of their rich history and it is never a chore for them to talk about the uniqueness of their islands. Norse influences abound in islands that have been settled since 6000 BC; Orcadians went to Canada to work in the Hudson’s Bay Company and married into the Cree Indian tribes there; certain residents of Westray are called Dons, descending, as they do, from a boatload of survivors from the Spanish Armada who were shipwrecked on its rocks.
Highland Park, the most Northern of all Scottish distilleries dominates
both the city of Kirkwall and the famous Scapa Flow. At the end of the 18th
century, preacher Magnus Eunson who was a famous smuggler, is supposed to have
distilled spirit on the place of the current distillery. He was hiding stocks
of illegal spirit under the pulpit in the church. This preacher who was a
native of Orkney has been canonized here later, and the church of Kirkwall has been named after him.
The current distillery has been built in 1825 by Robert Borwick, but is became
soon the property of John Robertson who was the excise man who jailed Magnus
Eunson for moonshine distilling. Later on the ownership of the distillery has
been shared between Borwick and Robertson, until the last retired. After the
death of Robert Borwick, his son George became manager of the business until
1860.
Illicit distilling in Orkney was difficult to contain because of its remoteness. There was no stigma whatsoever associated with smuggling in the late 18th century because people were fed up with the extent to which the government heaped duty on to a wide range of goods to pay for the war with France. Tea, sugar and salt, in addition to whisky, were dutiable and the gin producers of the south were shamelessly protected by Parliament against prospective inroads by Scotch whisky. As a result, respectable people had no compunction about distillation on the quiet; indeed the provost (mayor) of Kirkwall and the government’s own resident naval commander were among the leading smugglers in Orkney.
At the tail-end of the 18th century, none of the Orcadian distillers was permitted to export beyond the islands but extensive smuggling networks made it available in the Lowlands. Orkney whisky was of very high quality and Kirkwall provost, Thomas Traill, must have had excellent connections to enable him to transport his product. In 1805, the Excise blitzed the outer Orkney islands and seized many illicit stills so Traill played safe and opened a licensed brewery and distillery in Mill Street in Kirkwall. He worked with Magnus Eunson who had run an illicit still since 1798 on Kirkwall common land and it is thought that this was the original distillery on the Highland Park site. Eunson was said to have stored his full casks under the pulpit of a local church, away from the attention of the Excise officers. It must have been a fragrant atmosphere in which to sing hymns.
On one famous occasion, Eunson got wind of an impending raid. When the officers burst in, a funeral service was under way, with the coffin resting on supports covered with a white cloth. In case the covering might be raised to reveal the casks on which the coffin lay, the word, ‘smallpox’, whispered in an officer’s ear, sent the party hurrying off without any further examination.
Two years after the new law of 1823 at last made distilling a viable business proposition, Robert Borwick set up his Highland Park operation. Ironically, the buildings were owned by John Robertson, the Excise officer who had finally arrested Magnus Eunson a decade earlier.
William Traill, finding it harder to obtain illicit whiskies and contraband foreign spirits, decided to open a licensed brewery and distillery in Mill Street, Papdale, Kirkwall. This was not an unusual turn of events; many Highland distilleries that can trace their origins back to the early nineteenth century were established by poachers who had turned gamekeeper.
He continued to use his smuggling friends to distribute whisky, one of them being Magnus Eunson of Gallowhill. Like William Traill, Magnus Eunson had been in regular trouble with the Excise. He worked a small illicit distillery from 1798 near to the Parks of Rosebank, part of the Kirkwall Hill common land, where the Highland Park distillery now stands and he is reputed to have been helped by a relative, David Eunson, in hiding his smuggled goods in a local church.
MAGNUS EUNSON AND THE BIRTH OF
HIGHLAND PARK
Highland Park will forever be associated with Magnus “Mansie”
Eunson, the founder of the distillery at the end of the 18th
century. Eunson was a beadle (or verger) by day and a smuggler
by night, the latter operation based from his bothy on the High
Park above Kirkwall where Highland Park distillery now stands.
Stories of smugglers are forever imbued with romance and
poetic licence, the canny happy-go-lucky local outwitting the
cowardly, corrupt and doltish representatives of the
establishment; Eunson was no exception.
The best-known Eunson anecdote is recounted by Alfred
Barnard in his seminal Whisky Distilleries of the United
Kingdom (1887); “Hearing that the Church was to be searched
for whisky by a new party of excisemen, Eunson had all the kegs
removed to his house, placed in the middle of an empty room
and covered with a clean white cloth. As the officers
approached after their unsuccessful search in the church,
Eunson gathered all his people round the whisky, which, with
its covering of white, under which a coffin lid had been placed,
looked like a bier. Eunson knelt at the head with the Bible in
his hand and the others with their psalm books. As the door
opened they set up a wail for the dead, and Eunson made a sign
to the officers that it was a death and one of the attendants
whispered “smallpox”. Immediately the officer and his men
made off as fast as they could and left the smuggler for some
time in peace.”
Smuggling on Orkney had become so prevalent that one
Sunday Mansie’s minister denounced the activity as being
iniquitous and un-Christian.When the sermon was over,
Mansie was asked what he thought of the minister’s
pronouncements; “I think that oor minister is no’ very
consistent, for at the very time he was preaching, he had six
kegs o’ as guid brandy under his pulpit as was ever smuggled.”
Clearly, Mansie was confident that his preferred hiding place
for the contraband, under the floor of the church pulpit, was
well-placed.
In Eunson’s day smuggling was virtually a synonym for illicit
distilling. He smuggled gin and brandy principally but remains
most closely associated with the origins of Highland Park
distillery. By 1798 Highland Park had been founded; later a
syndicate, which, somewhat ironically, included Eunson’s
arresting officer, John Robertson, and his fellow exciseman,
Robert Pringle, purchased the High Park estate, including the
distillery in April 1813.
As with all folk heroes, there are stories of Eunson’s charm too;
he employed his quick wits to engage a party of guagers
(taxmen) in banter and humour after they caught him with kegs
of smuggled spirit in a cart and insisted he accompanied them
to Kirkwall to deal with the matter. So entertaining was Mansie
that the guagers failed to notice a number of his accomplices
creep behind the cart and remove the kegs one by one as the
party made its way towards town. By the time they reached
Kirkwall there was no evidence left so no charges could be
brought against the smuggler.
Magnus Eunson chose the High Park site because of the
outstanding water source. There may be little evidence of him
being an illicit distiller but, over 200 years of distilling history
on the same site – resulting in Highland Park arguably
becoming the most respected single malt in the world – is
evidence enough that he knew whisky.
For more information on the history of Highland Park visit
.. the site whereon the Distillery now stands was the place where the famous Magnus Eunson, carried on his operations. This man was the greatest and most accomplished smuggler in Orkney. By profession he was a United Presbyterian Church Officer, and kept a stock of illicit whisky under the pulpit, but in reality he was a "1tOn Professing" distiller.
Magnus Eunson
And The Dead Man
The Highland Park distillery in Kirkwall is founded on the site of a bothie
once worked by Magnus Eunson, a famous smuggler, and a church officer by
profession.
It is said that Eunson used to keep his whisky beneath the pulpit in the local church. On one occasion, the gaugers came to search the church. Eunson had the ten kegs quickly removed to the manse, set in an empty room, and covered with a white cloth.
When the gaugers, after an unsuccessful search in the church, approached the house, Eunson called all his people, including the maidservants, and set them kneeling around the kegs, which with the cloth covering, under which a coffin lid had been placed, looked like a bier. He himself knelt at the head of the ‘coffin’, bible in hand, the others with psalm-books; when the officers entered, the attendants set up a wail for the dead. One of them whispered’ smallpox ‘ to the officers, who promptly fled, leaving Eunson alone for quite some time.