Rev. Donald Sage, the missionary at Achness, lived across Loch Naver from Grummore. Even at this time, with ministers appointed to parishes by landlords, his personal sympathy lay with the people when they were evicted from their homes.

To my poor and defenceless flock the dark hour of trial came in right earnest. It was the month of April 1819 that they were all - man, woman and child - from the Heights of Farr to the mouth of the Naver, on one day to quit their tenements and go - many of them knew not whither. For a few, some miserable patches of ground along the shore were doled as lots without anything in the shape of the poorest hut to shelter them. Upon these lots it was decided that they should build houses at their own expense, and cultivate the ground, at the same time occupying themselves as fishermen, although the great majority of them had never set foot in a boat in their lives.

At an early hour on a Tuesday, Mr. Sellar, escorted by a large body of constables, sheriff-officers and others, commenced work at Grummore, the first inhabited township to the west. They gave the inmates half an hour to pack up and carry off their furniture, and then set the cottages on fire. To this plan they ruthlessly adhered. The roofs and rafters were lighted up into one red blaze.

I had occasion the next week to visit the manse of Tongue. On my way thither, I passed through the scene of the campaign of burning. Of all the houses, the thatched roofs were gone; but the walls remained. The flames of the preceeding week still slumbered in their ruins, and sent up into the air spiral columns of smoke. The sooty rafters of the cottages as they were being consumed, filled the air with a heavy and most offensive odour. Nothing could more vividly represent the horrors of grinding oppression.

Donald Sage
Memorabilia Domestica, p.215