Captain Bie's Animal Story

This is Captain Bie's monkey and dog.

His animals were always interesting, especially to Rockcliffe visitors. His animals were a horse, a donkey, a dog, and this monkey.  The dog and monkey were great companions and the monkey generally travelled on the back of the dog. The faithfulness of these two to their kind hearted master may be illustrated by the following incident. Captain Bie had been away for a cargo and the dog must have seen the vessel enter the river, for it ran from Rockcliffe to Kippford with the monkey on its back and swam across the river to where the vessel was moored. Expecting to be welcomed by it's master unfortunately the vessel was a stranger and the animals had their journey in vain.

An artist painted the monkey but he monkey licked the paint off the canvas and thus brought about its death. This brought great sadness as the dog mourned its friend for a long time afterwards.

Captain Bie and other Colvend families had several representatives in the seafaring line. Hailing from the Boreland Farm, Captain Charles Bie owned the fine schooner “William Thompson” and sailed her for many years. His son, Captain John Bie succeeded him as skipper on this vessel and afterwards owned and commanded different vessels including the "Annie Heron", Annie B Smith and the “Bee”. The "Annie Heron" was later sold into Wales