Quote Originally Posted by freddie View Post
According to at least one old book I have: Although some Camerons wear it as a hunting tartan the Cameron of Eracht was never regarded as a clan tartan...
Yes as our own Peter MacDonald writes in his work The 1819 Key Pattern Book:

"Tradition has it that this tartan (Cameron of Erracht) was devised in 1793 when the regiment (the 79th Foot) was raised... given the lack of earlier portrait evidence to support these patterns (Cameron of Erracht and MacDonald) as family tartans, and also their basic colours and military connections, it is probable that both were designed for military units (the 79th Foot and the Glengarry Fencibles) in the latter part of the 18th century."

However, Donald C Stewart, in his The Setts Of The Scottish Tartans, has the following:

"The Erracht Cameron is the only Cameron tartan recorded by Logan (The Scottish Gael, 1831)... the Erracht Cameron was for long treated as a Hunting tartan..."

The tartan used as the Cameron clan tartan in modern times appears to have been invented by the Allen brothers in the 1840s (red with four equal green bands, one of a number of Allen brothers tartans using the same pattern).