Andrew Vass [Jock] was, in July 1891, with the Seaboard fishing fleet in Burghead. According to newspaper articles of the time the night was dark and it was raining. Several fishermen, one of them was Andrew Vass, were standing on the railway line on the South pier between two railway wagons talking to each other and they never heard a third wagon approaching. When this third wagon collided with the wagons the men were standing between, Andrew Vass was caught between the buffers and crushed. He was taken to his boat ‘Brothers’ and a Dr. Soutar called, he was then moved to Shaws Hotel but at 9.00am the following morning, Friday, July 17th, he died of his injuries.

The newspapers go on to say that Andrew was a young man who leaves a wife and three young children in Shandwick. On Friday evening his body was taken aboard the Seaboard boat the ‘Brothers’ and returned to Shandwick. A sad procession of eighteen Shandwick and Balintore boats followed the body back to Shandwick, it was an impressive spectacle for those watching from vantage points in Burghead.

Andrew was the son of John Vass [born 1811] and Catherine Johnstone [born 1829] and had siblings, John [born 1846], Finlay [born 1861, died 1866], Nicholas [born 1864] and a sister Isabella [ born 1853]. Andrew married Catherine Hogg from Cromarty and had a son John in 1880. The newspaper article says Andrew had three children but I can’t find any record of his wife Catherine after 1891 but I have found a John Vass [born 1880 in Nigg], who is the right age, living in Cromarty with a Hogg family in 1891 and listed as a grandchild. In 1891 there is also a daughter Christina, [born 1884], who emigrated to Canada in1907 and married Joseph Moulton out there. I have found no record of a third child.