The 1661 plan of central Kėdainiai recorded the property owner as Alexander Gordon. It is not known when he acquired the lot or when he built the brick house with its cellar. The collecta documents of the Evangelical Reformed Church mentioned his surname in 1637. He had probably been the owner of the lot and house at that time. Gordon's store and tavern operated from the ground floor; an apartment was on the second floor.
Gordon was a successful merchant. The timing of his arrival in Kėdainiai would suggest that he was the Alexander Gordon who had previously been a quartermaster in Leslie's contingent, fighting on the Muscovite side at the Siege of Smolensk. They were defeated in 1634 and the Scottish force was demobilised.
The Alexander Gordon house was destroyed during the fire of 1914. A one-storey store was built in its place during the interwar period. The only surviving part of the original building is a deep storage cellar built with red brick
From "Scottish Heritage in Kėdainiai" by Algirdas Juknevičius and "The Scottish Community in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania 1630–1750" by Michael Broun Ayre
Photo by Vaidas Špečkauskas
Address
Didžioji g. 12, Kėdainiai
