Drums of Autumn/Minor characters

A list of minor characters in Drums of Autumn. These include characters that were only mentioned, or played some insignificant role.

(m) = mentioned only

‡ = based on someone Diana Gabaldon knows

† = based on real historical figure

Contents: Top - 0–9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

A

• Judge Alderdyce – a prominent Justice, a friend of Jocasta Cameron’s, and (Jocasta thinks) a good potential husband for Brianna.
• Mrs. Alderdyce – the widowed mother of Judge Alderdyce, eager to see her son wed to Brianna, in hopes of obtaining a grandchild.
• Uncle Angus – a stuffed Aberdeen terrier, companion of Roger’s youth.

B

• Hugh Berowne – a tax collector who, at the instigation of Sergeant Murchison, falsely accuses Fergus of nonpayment of tax, and confiscates his horse, saddle, and bridle in payment.
• Berthe – Gabrielle’s daughter by her first husband, a French trapper.
• Betty – one of Jocasta Cameron’s house-slaves.
• Gayle Bosworthy – Brianna’s best friend in college. A great admirer of men in kilts.
• Edwina Briggs – dean of the college at Oxford where Roger Wakefield is employed.
• bridie seller – old woman who sells Brianna hot pasties (“bridies”) at the hiring-hall in Inverness.
• Brutus – the horse Brianna acquires after traveling through the stones, to carry her to Lallybroch.
• Maisri Buchanan. – A mother whom Claire counsels on nutrition, at the Gathering.
• Mr. Buchanan – a Scottish plantation owner in North Carolina, a social acquaintance of Jocasta Cameron.
• Davie Byrnes – the incompetent and drunken overseer of the timber camp and sawmill operations at River Run. Responsible for the gruesome lynching death of a slave at the sawmill, Byrnes dies himself of tetanus as a result of wounds sustained in the precipitating incident.

C

• Ronnie Campbell – one of Farquard Campbell’s numerous offspring, who comes to inform Jamie of Byrnes’s death.
• Geordie Chisholm (m) – an ex-prisoner from Ardsmuir, desiring to take up residence at Fraser’s Ridge. Jamie and Duncan Innes discuss whether to accept Geordie Chisholm or Ronnie Sinclair.
• Clarence – Jamie’s mule; a sociable creature, given to loud greetings.
• Mr. Justice Conant – magistrate of the court where a tax collector brings false suit against Fergus for nonpayment of tax.

D

• Danu (m) – the Celtic goddess of luck.
• Mr. Justice Dodgson (m) – a corrupt justice, the victim of violence imposed by a gang of Regulators.
• Drusus – one of Jocasta’s slaves.
• Duff – a hand on the Gloriana.
• Mrs. Dunvegan (m) – wife of the minister of the Old Church in Inverness; an acquaintance of Roger Wakefield.

E

• Eutroclus – a black freeman, serving as hand on the riverboat Sally Ann.

F

• Miss Forbes – the sister of Lawyer Gerald Forbes, who praises her brother’s accomplishments to Brianna.
• Annie Fraser (m) – a young inhabitant of the village of Broch Mordha, whose death of the bloody flux is reported by the elder Ian Murray in one of his letters to Jamie.
• Captain Freeman – captain of the Sally Ann, the riverboat that carried the Frasers up the Cape Fear River from Wilmington to Cross Creek.

G

• Gabrielle – second wife to Nacognaweto, a woman of mixed blood, earlier married to a French trapper. Fluent in French, she translates for Claire and for her grandmother-in-law, Nayawenne.
• Lissa Garver – the pregnant girl whom Jamie and Claire finding bleeding to death in the sawmill, the apparent victim of a botched abortion – in truth, murdered by her erstwhile lover, Sergeant Murchison.
• Gilbert (Gibbie) – a small boy aboard the Gloriana, one of the victims of the smallpox outbreak.
• Jonathan Gillette (m) – proprietor of the Wilmington Gazette, in which the death notice for Jamie and Claire Fraser appears.
• Pastor Gottfried – pastor of a small group of German Lutherans, settled in North Carolina. He comes to Fraser’s Ridge to tell Claire of the deaths of Petronella Mueller and her baby, and to warn her that Gerhard Mueller is seeking vengeance upon the local Indians, whom he blames for the deaths.
• Griswald – a fourteen-year-old private in the English army, who stops the Frasers on the road from Charleston to Wilmington, as they aid Stephen Bonnet’s escape.

H

• Mrs. Hayes – one of Roger’s neighbors at Inverness.
• † Mr. Evan Hunter (m) – a well-known medical authority and researcher, who wrote extensively on medical topics in the eighteenth century.
• † James Hunter – one of the leaders of the Regulator movement in North Carolina.
• Hutchinson – first mate of the Gloriana.

I

• Indian in the corncrib – one of Ian’s Tuscarora hunting companions, whofalls ill of the measles. Despite Claire’s nursing, he dies in the corncrib, thus landing the Frasers with the difficult problem of how best to dispose of his remains, without either infecting his people or giving them the unfortunate notion that the Frasers had somehow caused his death.
• Isobeail – a small girl whom Roger befriends aboard the Gloriana

J

• Judas – Claire’s horse, who tosses her off a ledge during a thunderstorm, leaving her exposed to the elements and to Indian ghosts.

K

• Kennyanisi-t'ago (m) – a war chief of the Mohawk, converted by Father Ferigault.
• Alasdair Kirby (m) – a young inhabitant of the village of Broch Mordha, whose death of the bloody flux is reported by the elder Ian Murray in one of his letters to Jamie.

L

• † Mr. Lillington (m) – a prominent citizen of Wilmington, at whose house Jamie and Claire meet Governor Tryon.
• ‡ Bill Livingstone – Drum Major of the 78th Fraser Highlanders Pipes and Drums.
• Anthony Brian Montgomery Lyle (m) – son of Kitty Murray and Paul Lyle; grandson to Ian and Jenny Murray.

M

• MacBeth the postie – the Inverness postman who delivers a letter for Brianna, revealing to Roger her interest in tracing her parents’ life in the past.
• Tammas McDonald (m) – one of the Frasers’ neighbors in North Carolina; Jamie considers him as a prospective husband for Brianna.
• Mavis MacDowell (m) – the daughter of an Inverness tobacconist; one of Roger Wakefield’s early loves.
• Ambrose MacKenzie (m) – one of Roger MacKenzie’s distant ancestors, mentioned by the Reverend.
• Jeremiah MacKenzie (m) – husband to Mary Oliphant, great-great-grandfather to Roger Wakefield. Jeremiah is "an old family name," being borne also by Roger’s father and others in the MacKenzie family tree.
• Jeremiah Buccleigh MacKenzie (Jemmy) – son of William Buccleigh MacKenzie and Morag Gunn MacKenzie, five-times great-grandfather to Roger MacKenzie. Emigrating to the American Colonies with his parents as an infant, he narrowly escapes death from smallpox and drowning, on board the Gloriana.
• Barton MacLachlan (m) – an inhabitant of Cross Creek.
• MacLeod (on Naylor’s Creek) (m) – ex-Ardsmuir prisoner, come to settle on Frasers Ridge.
• John MacLeod (m) – a lobsterman found dead in one of the stone circles. Mentioned in the grimoire of Gillian Edgars.
• Andrew MacNeill – a plantation owner near the Cape Fear, and prominent member of the Scottish community. He leads Jamie and Claire to the sawmill where the lynching takes place, and later meets Lizzie in Wilmington, where he tells her the whereabouts of Jamie Fraser.
• Donald MacNeill – son of Andrew MacNeill. He comes to inform Farquard Campbell of the incident at the sawmill, and summon him to oversee execution of the slave Rufus.
• Nettie and Abby MacNeill – the two elderly, spinster sisters of Andrew MacNeill.
• Magdalen – the Frasers’ pregnant red cow, whose impending state gives Brianna fears for her own future.
• Martin the porter – porter and lodge-keeper at the Oxford college where Roger is employed as a history don.
• Mrs. McMurdo – one of Roger’s neighbors in Inverness.
• Mickey – one of Jocasta’s slaves.
• Freddy Mueller – Petronella’s young husband.
• Petronella Mueller – daughter-in-law of old Gerhard Mueller. Claire delivers Petronella’s first child, but both mother and child die shortly afterward, in a measles epidemic.
• Tommy Mueller – one of Gerhard Mueller’s sons.
• Munro – a clerk in the shipping office in Inverness, who advises Roger Wakefield how to sign on as a seaman.
• Benjamin Murray – Young Jamie’s fourth child.
• Edwin Murray – cousin to Ian Murray (the elder), and secretary to Mrs. Tryon, wife of the governor of North Carolina. Edwin Murray provided the invitation to dinner that allowed Jamie both to meet Governor Tryon (with consequent offer of a land grant), and to sell a ruby to Baron Penzler.
• Henry Murray (m) – eldest son of James Murray (Young Jamie) and his wife, Joan; grandson to Ian and Jenny Murray.

O

• Mary Oliphant (m) – Roger MacKenzie’s great-great-grandmother. Married six times, but bore children only with Jeremiah MacKenzie, her “bonny lad.”
• Onakara – one of Ian’s hunting companions, from the village of Anna Ooka. Entrusted by Jamie and Ian with the disposal of Roger Wakefield, he sells Roger to the Mohawk, and later leads Claire, Jamie, and Ian to Snake-town, where Roger is held.

P

• † Mrs. Pinckney (m) – a plantation owner in South Carolina, famed for her introduction of domestic silk production.
• Pompey – one of the slaves working at River Run’s turpentine camp; disfigured in a pitch explosion.

R

• Mr. Ransom – a broker who handles the sale of indentured servants in Inverness.
• Roberts – one of Stephen Bonnet’s associates, who with his companions, robs the Frasers on their way upriver to Cross Creek.
• Sister Marie Romaine – Brianna’s fifth-grade teacher. 13
• Rufus – an obstreperous slave, frequently in trouble, whose calamitous career ends with a fight with Byrnes, the overseer. By the law of bloodshed, the slave is condemned to death, but he is lynched by Byrnes and his companions before the law can deal with him. Arriving too late to prevent the incident, and unable to save the man, Claire administers atropine, a deadly poison, to hasten his death and cut short his suffering.

S

• a sempstress – makes a dress of cream-colored silk for Claire to wear to dinner with Baron Penzler; may then have told one of Stephen Bonnet’s associates about the jewels carried by the Frasers.
• Geordie Silvers (m) – husband to Katherine Murray; son-in-law to Ian and Jenny Murray; father of Josephine.
• Josephine Silvers – eldest daughter of Katherine Murray Silvers; granddaughter to Ian and Jenny Murray.
• Junior Smoots – son of the Blue Bull’s landlady; a lad with an eye for Lizzie.
• Mrs. Smoots – landlady of the Blue Bull Inn, where Brianna and Lizzie stay in Wilmington.
• Lloyd Stanhope – a landowner from Edenton, who is much taken by Claire at a dinner in Wilmington.
• Two Spears – war chief of the village where Roger is held captive.

U

• † Mr. Urmstone – a circuit-riding preacher, famous for his outdoor sermons preached on the Bluffs, near Cross Creek.

V

• Hanneke Viorst – sister of Hans Viorst; she offers temporary shelter and food to Brianna and Lizzie in Cross Creek.
• Hans Viorst – a resident of Cross Creek, who makes a living by transporting passengers and cargo by canoe on the Cape Fear River between Cross Creek and Wilmington. He agrees to carry Brianna and Lizzie upriver to Cross Creek, and takes them home with him when Lizzie falls ill en route.

W

• Wakatihsnore ("Acts Fast") – sachem of the Mohawk village where Roger is held captive.
• Felicia Woolam (m) – one of the daughters of John Woolam the miller. Felicia is involved in a confrontation with Gerhard Mueller, settled by Jamie Fraser.
• John Woolam (m) – Quaker owner of the flour-mill near Fraser’s Ridge.
• Sarah Woolam (m) – a Quaker, daughter of John Woolam, the mill owner.
• Judith Wylie – Phillip Wylie's sister. A guest at the Governor’s dinner, who makes no secret of her disdain for Claire’s sense of fashion.