According to the pedigree chart accompanying Captain Douglas Wimberley’s Notes On the Family of Gordon of Terpersie with a Table of Their Descent, Charles, VI of Terpersie married ‘A dau. of Adam Gordon, at the Mill of Ardclach or Artlach’; The House of Gordon, edited by John Malcolm Bulloch, (1886, digitized by the Internet Archive 2013), Volume II (p. 130), gives the lady’s Christian name as Margaret, referring in this connection to ‘Adam Gordon “at the mill of Artloch (Balbithan MS.)”’.

Her husband Charles’s letter, dated 14^th November 1746 and written on the eve of his execution, was eventually forwarded to his relict on 26^th January 1747, by way of the gentlewoman of Carlisle who had befriended him and the Rev. Patrick Gordon of Rhynie.

Bulloch (again p. 130) states that she ‘was admitted a creditor on the forfeited Terpersie estate’. Specifically, it is stated elsewhere on the same page, in connection with Charles’s will, that:

The widow claims £105 14s. Scots as the value of the share of Terpersie’s utensils and domicile, under her marriage contract.

Margaret is apparently the same ‘Mrs Gordon of Terpersie’ who appears as a witness in the entry relating to the christening of her granddaughter, Margaret Cattanach, in 1758. She performed the same office for another granddaughter, Margaret Lindsay, in 1765, on which occasion she is rendered ‘Mrs Marg^t Gordon of Terperfy’.

Again according to Bulloch, at p. 130, she was resident at Collithie in 1761. The provisions of the marriage contract entered into between her daughter, Mary, and prospective husband, Patrick Wemyss, at Collithie on 1^st December 1761, make extensive reference to ‘Mrs. Margaret Gordon of Torpery’, with whose ‘special concurrence, advice, assent and consent’ the agreement was made.

As regards the ultimate fate of the Lady of Terpersie, Wimberley offers a conjecture (Notes on the Family of Gordon of Terpersie, at p. 15):

There is still a tradition (1899) in Strathbogie that a lady, known as “Lady Terperse,” perished in a fire at the Farm-house of Collithie, situate between the Bogie and the Ness Bogie, about a century ago : possibly she was the widow of poor Charles Gordon, or of one of his sons.

Forebears

Bulloch surmises that Margaret’s father, Adam at the Mill of Ardclach / Artlach / Artloch, ‘may have been a descendant of the Gordons of Cairnburrow’.