Farewell to Cromarty

Emigration Stone

“The Cleopatra, as she swept past the town of Cromarty, was greeted with three cheers by crowds of the inhabitants and the emigrants returned the salute, but mingled with the dash of the waves and the murmurs of the breeze, their faint huzzahs seemed rather sounds of wailing and lamentation than of a congratulatory farewell.”
 
The Emigration Stone was commissioned from the stone letter carver Richard Kindersley to commemorate Cromarty’s role as the principal point of embarkation for emigrants who left the Highlands for the New World in the 1830s and 1840s. A 4 metre high Caithness flagstone sited on the Cromarty Links, it is inscribed with the words that Hugh Miller used to describe the departure of the Cleopatra from Cromarty to the Inverness Courier in 1831 and the names of the 39 ships known to have left Cromarty for the New World in the 1830s and 1840s.