Earls Of Aberdeen, viscounts of Formartin and barons of Haddo, Methlic, Tarvis, and Kel-lie in the Scottish peerage, and Viscounts Gordon in that of the United Kingdom. The family is an offshoot of the ancient Scotch family of the Gordons. - Sir John Gordon of Haddo was created a baronet in 1642 by Charles I., as a reward for his services in the battle of Turriff between that monarch and the parliamentary forces. Being taken prisoner after a desperate defence of the house of Kellie, he was long imprisoned in the nave of the ancient cathedral of St. Giles at Edinburgh, which from him took the familiar name of "Haddo's Hole," and was at length beheaded in 1645. His estates remained under sequestration till the restoration of Charles II., when they were restored to his eldest son, Sir John Gordon, who died in 1665. - Sir George Gordon of Haddo, lord high chancellor of Scotland, was in 1682 elevated to the Scottish peerage, by the titles above mentioned. On the revolution the new earl resigned office, and declined taking the oaths of allegiance to William of Orange, but he appeared again at court in the reign of Queen Anne. He opposed the union of Scotland and England from his seat in parliament, and died in 1720, aged 83. - George Hamilton Gordon, 4th earl, born in Edinburgh, Jan. 28, 1784, died Dec. 14, 1860. He was educated at Harrow, and at St. John's college, Cambridge, where he graduated in 1804. While still a young man he founded a club, the members of which must have made a journey to Greece. In 1806, though only 22, he was elected as one of the 16 Scottish representative peers, and so remained until he was created a peer of the realm in his own right in 1814, as Viscount Gordon of Aberdeen. In 1813 he was sent to the court of Vienna as a secret envoy to detach Austria from her enforced alliance with Napoleon. He succeeded, and was soon afterward again sent to Vienna, and arranged the preliminaries between the emperor Francis and Joachim Murat, king of Naples, for the restoration of the Bourbons to the throne of Naples. During Canning's ministry he was in opposition.

In 1828, the duke of Wellington having formed a ministry on high tory principles, Aberdeen became secretary of state for foreign affairs, remaining in office till November, 1830, and opposing the Greek war of independence, but favoring the abolition of the test and corporation acts, and the Catholic emancipation act, while resisting the movement for parliamentary reform. On the death of George IV. Aberdeen resigned with his colleagues. He afterward took a conspicuous part in endeavoring to reunite the Scottish national church. From 1841 to 1846 he was again secretary for foreign affairs, in the ministry of Sir Robert Peel, and participated in settling the northeastern and Oregon boundary questions with the United States. On Dec. 28, 1852, he became prime minister, but was compromised in public opinion by his attempt to evade the Crimean war, and by its blunders after it was begun, and was compelled to resign Oct. 7, 1855, when he was made a knight of the Garter. He had been president of the society of antiquaries, and in 1822 published "An Inquiry into the Principles of Beauty in Grecian Architecture." - George Hamilton Gordon, 6th earl, born Dec. 10, 1841, lost at sea Jan. 27, 1870. He succeeded to the title in 1864. In 1866 he embarked in a sailing vessel from Aberdeen for St. Johns, N. B., and during the voyage volunteered to fill the place of a disabled seaman.

This occupation he resumed after some time spent in travel, made several short voyages under the name of George Henry Osborne, acted as a commercial agent at Pensacola, and was licensed as a mate in New York in 1867, and as a captain in 1868. In January, 1870, he shipped as mate of the three-masted schooner Hera, bound from Boston to Melbourne, and on the fourth day out was swept overboard in a storm. He had for some time kept his family advised of his wanderings, but as all replies to his letters miscarried, he ceased writing. An agent sent out in search of him succeeded with great difficulty in tracing his subsequent career.