HomePort is pleased to provide information related to the descendants of Kenneth MacKenzie (1799-1849) and Eliza Macrae (1801-1885). The ancestors of Kenneth MacKenzie originated in Applecross, in Ross & Cromarty County, Scotland, and in 1820 he travelled to visit Matheson relatives on Prince Edward Island. He met Eliza and decided to settle down in Wheatley River.

The Mackenzies of Applecross, by Rev. A. Maclean Sinclair was published in 1901 in Charlottetown, and tells of the ancestry of Kenneth going back to his GGGGGG grandfather Colin Cam Mackenzie of Kintail. Colin Cam Mackenzie was the XI Baron of Kintail and his ancestry has been traced in The History of the Mackenzies by Alexander Mackenzie published in 1879. The lineage is traced to the year 1078.

Applecross was one of the earliest Christian settlements in Scotland, second only to Iona.  In the year 673 AD the Irish Monk Maelrubha founded this Christian settlement declaring the surrounding area a sanctuary.

In 1970, just a few miles from where Kenneth MacKenzie settled on PEI, a great granddaughter of Elizabeth and Kenneth, established a family summer home, and named it after the ancestral Scottish village of Applecross. Like the namesake hamlet both are situated on isolated peninsulas. A property remote enough to be bypassed during rural electrification, Betty and Bob Large brought electricity to the house.  Applecross, Scotland likewise was known as the most isolated place in western Scotland, prior to the building of a road to the village in the 18th Century.

For Bob and Betty Large, modern technology was not foreign, as they established television broadcasting on PEI. CFCY-TV which now operates as CBC-TV Charlottetown was launched on July 1, 1956. Betty's father, Col. Keith Rogers pioneering radio station, had established radio broadcasting through CFCY Radio in the 1920's.

Applecross now serves as a summer retreat for the Large family, their children and grandchildren - all descendants of Kenneth MacKenzie and Eliza Macrae - just a few miles from the Wheatley River homestead.