Clan MacBean badges
Crest of Clansfolk of Clan MacBean
PLANT BADGE----Red Whortleberry, Cranberry, Boxwood
CREST BADGE----A gray demi cata-mountain,salient,on his sinister
                                 foreleg, a Highland targe, gules
CLAN MOTTO:  Touch not a cat bot a targe
BATTLE CRY:   Kinchyle!!!
TARTAN:  The ancient MacBean tartan is considered by experts to be
curiously elaborate for what was only a minoe sept of the Clan Chattan.
Septs include Binni, MacBeath, MacVain and MacVean.

An American businessman, Hughston McBain of McBain, was recognized as chief of the clan by the Lord Lyon King of Arms in 1959.  Since then the chiefhas established a memorial park near the clan heartland at Kinchyle, Does,Loch Ness, from where his own ancestors came.

Three different Gaelic names are suggested as the origin of the clan name, since corrupted into English, and giving various forms of MacBean, MacBain and even MacVean.  Mac A'Ghille Bhain means  "the  son  of  the  fair  lad", Mac Mool Bheatha is "the son of the servant lad" whilst the third alternative is Mac Beathain, "the son of Beathan."

The MacBeans were traditionally said to be among the most loyal supporters of the clan Chattan, with lands in Lochabar.  According to legends  of  theMacKintoshes, a father and his four MacBean sons placed themselves under MacKintosh protection after slaying the steward of the Red Comyn.

MacBean chiefs can be traced from the 14th century down to 1609, when Angus MacBean, the chief, received the charter of Kinchyle from Campbell of Cawder, which they held until the 18th century.  The MacBeans were warriors and one of the most famous was Gillies MacBean, who filled a breach in the lines at Culloden, killing 14 Hanoverians before he fell.  The next chief who was in financial difficulties, joined one of  the first Highland  regiments  and served in North America.  In his absence, Kinchyle and other lands had to be sold in 1760.

The main clan line had by then moved overseas to Saskatchewan, represented by MacBean of Glen Bean, who in 1958 resigned his chiefship in favour of his American cousin.  Other branches of the clan were the MacBeans of  Drummond in the parish of Dores, MacBean of Faillie in Strathnairmn and MacBean of Tomatin in Strathdearn.

Beaton, a distinguished Highland name, is another anglicized form of the Gaelic MacBeatha.  This family, said to come originally from Ireland after Margaret, daughter of O'Cathain married Angus, Lord of the Isles, had the most advanced European medical knowledge in the 13th century.  They were physicians and scholars in the Isles, but the last scholar fled back to Northern Ireland in the 17th century, taking his great manuscript library with him, when he was asked to conform to Presbyterian faith.
 

{From: "Clans, septs and Regiments of the Scottish Highlands." Frank Adams, 1908}