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 Electric
Scotland's Weekly Email Newsletter
   
  
Dear
Friend
It's your
Electric Scotland newsletter meaning the weekend is nearly here :-)
You can view what's new this week on Electric Scotland at
http://www.electricscotland.com/rss/whatsnew.php and you
can unsubscribe to this newsletter by clicking on the link at the
foot of this newsletter. In the event the link is not clickable
simply copy and paste the link into your browser.
See our Calendar of Scottish Events around the world and add your
own at
http://www.electricscotland.com/familytree/calendar_help.htm
CONTENTS
--------
Electric Scotland
News
The Flag in the Wind
Poetry and Stories
The Writings of
John Muir
Book of Scottish
Story
The Bark Covered House
Fraser's Scottish
Annual
Biographical Record of the
County of Kent, Ontario
The Sailor Whom
England Feared
Recollections of a
Long Life 1829 - 1915
Robert Burns Lives!
Oor Mither Tongue
John's Scottish
Sing-Along
John Ramsay of
Kildalton (New Book)
Blackfriars of
Stirling (Report)
Songs of Lowland
Scotland (New Book)
Clan Chiefs at the
Scottish Parliament
Scotland's National
Borders
ELECTRIC SCOTLAND NEWS
----------------------
No real news this
week although I did spend several hours watching the videos of the
events at the Scottish Parliament to do with the Standing Council of
Scottish Chiefs and also an event on the Scottish Diaspora.
There does seem to be a disconect between the Diaspora and local
Scots in that the Diaspora see a need to be educated about the
Scotland of Today whereas the local Scots don't seem to think this
is needed.
In any event you can make up your own mind by watching these events
but be warned you'll need to organise a drink and a wee snack as
there are hours of viewing! :-)
See below for the links and a summary of each session.
-----
As you'll note below we've completed the 10 volumes of the Writings
of John Muir. I personally really enjoyed reading these volumes and
am pleased to now have them all available on the site.
I now propose to do another multi volume set starting next week and
these are the stories of John McDougall growing up in what is now
known as the Province of Alberta in Canada. These are stories of his
life before roads and railways when you had to get around by foot,
dog sleigh, horse and canoe. Each chapter is quite small and so
would be easy to read in your lunch break or at any time you have a
few minutes to spare. I intend posting up a chapter a day until
complete.
In his later years, John McDougall, wrote his memoirs in six
volumes. His popular style and romantic imagery fed the imagination
of his readers. As controversial as some of his writings may appear
today, they describe the environment and people of Western Canada in
luscious detail and discuss many of the debates that occurred during
that turbulent period. They help to create a picture of a generation
of Albertans and, consequently, remain a source of information for
historians.
And so I hope you'll enjoy reading his books as I get them up.
-----
I might also add that Steve has found himself a job renovating a
house and so getting some much needed extra cash. He hopes to have
this complete by next weekend and will then return to working on our
Aois Community. He's still approving members and we're now up to 375
members last time I looked.
ABOUT THE STORIES
-----------------
Some of the stories
in here are just parts of a larger story so do check out the site
for the full versions. You can always find the link in our "What's
New" section at the link at the top of this newsletter or on our
site menu.
THE FLAG IN THE WIND
--------------------
This weeks Flag is
compiled by Jim Lynch where he covers a wide range of subjects. I
found the article on the whisky industry to be very informative,
You can read the Flag at
http://www.scotsindependent.org
Christina McKelvie MSP's
Weekly diary is not available as the Parliament are now on the
Summer recess.
Clans and Families
------------------
Got in the
newsletter for the Clan Munro of Australia at
http://www.electricscotland.com/familytree/newsletters/munro/Clan%20Munro%20Newsletter%2021.pdf
Got in information about the Clan Leslie Commissioner for North
America which you can read at
http://www.electricscotland.com/webclans/htol/leslie4.html
Got in some pictures of the MacIntyre's at the Clan Gathering in
Edinburgh at
http://www.electricscotland.com/webclans/m/macintyre/edinburgh2009.htm
Poetry and Stories
------------------
We got in an
article about "The Heir of Linne", a Scottish Balad in our Article
service which you might enjoy.
You can read other stories in our Article Service and even add your
own at http://www.electricscotland.com/article
The Writings of John Muir
-------------------------
We've now completed
these 10 volumes with...
Chapter XVII. Unto the Last
I. 1897-1905
II. 1905-1914
Chapter XVIII. His Public
Service
Chapter XVII starts..
1897-1905
THOUGH little evidence of the fact appears in extant letters, the
year 1897 was one of great importance in Muir's career. So
significant, indeed, was his work in defending [This service was
specially recognized in 1897 by the University of Wisconsin, his
alma mater, in the bestowal of an LL.D. degree.] the recommendations
of the National Forest Commission of 1896 that we must reserve
fuller discussion of it for a chapter on Muir's service to the
nation. With the exception of his story of the dog Stickeen and a
vivid description of an Alaska trip, appearing respectively in the
August and September numbers of the "Century," nearly the entire
output of his pen that year was devoted to the saving of the
thirteen forest reservations proclaimed by President Cleveland on
the basis of the Forest Commission's Report.
During the month of August he joined Professor C. S. Sargent and Mr.
William M. Canby on an expedition to study forest trees in the Rocky
Mountains and in Alaska. To this and other matters allusion is made
in the following excerpt from a November letter to Professor Henry
Fairfield Osborn.
I spent a short time [he writes] in the Rocky Mountain forests
between Banff and Glacier with Professor Sargent and Mr. Canby, and
then we went to Alaska, mostly by the same route you traveled. We
were on the Queen and had your staterooms. The weather was not so
fine as during your trip. The glorious color we so enjoyed on the
upper deck was wanting, but the views of the noble peaks of the
Fairweather Range were sublime. They were perfectly clear, and
loomed in the azure, ice-laden and white, like very gods. Canby and
Sargent were lost in admiration as if they had got into a perfectly
new world, and so they had, old travelers though they are.
I've been writing about the forests, mostly, doing what little I can
to save them. "Harper's Weekly" ["Forest Reservations and National
Parks," June 5, 1897.] and the "Atlantic Monthly" have published
something; the latter published an article ["American Forests."]
last August. I sent another two weeks ago and am pegging away on
three others for the same magazine on the national parks -
Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Sequoia - and I want this winter to try
some more Alaska. But I make slow, hard work of it - slow and hard
as glaciers. . . . When are you coming again to our wild side of the
continent and how goes your big book? I suppose it will be about as
huge as Sargent's "Silva." One of the pleasant by-products of Muir's
spirited defense of the reservations was the beginning of a warm
friendship with the late Walter Hines Page, then editor of the
"Atlantic." The latter, like Robert Underwood Johnson, stimulated
his literary productiveness and was largely responsible for his
final choice of Houghton, Muffin & Company as his publishers. Some
years later, in 1905, Mr. and Mrs. Page paid a visit to Muir at his
home in the Alhambra Valley. The articles contributed to the
"Atlantic" during the nineties were in 1901 brought out in book form
under the title of "Our National Parks."
Apropos of Muir's apologetic references to the fact that he found
writing a slow, hard task, Page remarked: "I thank God that you do
not write in glib, acrobatic fashion: anybody can do that. Half the
people in the world are doing it all the time, to my infinite regret
and confusion.... The two books on the Parks and on Alaska will not
need any special season's sales, nor other accidental circumstances:
they'll be Literature!" On another occasion, in October, 1897, Page
writes: "Mr. John Burroughs has been spending a little while with
me, and he talks about nothing else so earnestly as about you and
your work. He declares in the most emphatic fashion that it will be
a misfortune too great to estimate if you do not write up all those
bags of notes which you have gathered. He encourages me, to put it
in his own words, to 'keep firing at him, keep firing at him."
You can read the rest of this chapter at
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/muir/vol10_chapter7.htm
The rest of the chapters can be read at
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/muir/index.htm
Book of Scottish Story
----------------------
Thanks to John
Henderson for sending this book into us.
This week he's sent in chapter 2 of "Basil Rolland" which starts...
We shall now conduct the reader to a shop in the Broadgate, over
which appeared in ancient characters,-
PATRICK LESLIE AND SAMUEL FAIRTEXT
It is not to be supposed that the street had the same appearance
which it now exhibits ; neither are the unsophisticated to imagine
that the shops resembled those of our own times, with lofty roofs,
gigantic windows, mahogany counters, splendid chandeliers, and
elegant gas burners. The windows were not much larger than the
loop-holes of a modern prison; the roof was low and covered with
cobwebs, and the goods exposed for sale were all lying at sixes and
sevens. The forepart of the shop extended about ten feet forward
into the street, and was decorated on the outside with swatches of
the various commodities that were to be sold within. In the back
shop, which was nearly as dark as midnight, were deposited the whole
of the goods, except the specimens just mentioned. In the inmost
recess of these penetralia, was Provost Leslie, with three or four
stout fellows, removing, under his command, the goods in the back
shop or warehouse.
"Saunders,” said the provost, "ye’ll tak awa yon silks an’ velvets,
and put them into the vault i’ the dryest—ay, that’s anither flask
broken, ye careless gowk! I’ll set ye about your business gin ye
wunna tak mair tent. As soon’s you get that barrel awa, ye’ll tak
down the Prayer-Books from that shelf, and put up twa or three dozen
o’ Confessions o’ Faith. An’, my little man, ye’ll run up to my
lasses, and tell them to leave a’ their wark an’ come down to grease
the sword blades, for fear that they rust in the cellar, an’ syne
tell the same to Sammy Fairtext’s maidens, an' bring them a’ wi’ you
as fast’s ye can.—Ay, Basil, are ye there? Troth, gentle or semple,
ye maun help’s the day. You are a canny lad, sae try if ye can
collect a’ the trinkets and the siller cups and spoons, and take
them up by to my chamber.—Ye ne’er-do-weel ! ye haverel, Sandie
Hackit, what garred you spill the wine on that web? Ye needna mind
it now, ye sorrow ; it’s nae worth puttin’ out o’ Montrose’s way."
When Basil Rolland returned from executing his commission, the
stranger whom he had seen on the former day was in the shop, engaged
in conversation with Fairtext. The latter bade Basil conduct him to
his house, whether he himself would follow when he had dispatched
some necessary business. When they were seated, the stranger began--
"Thou hast seen, youth, that the things which I hinted to thee are
in part come to pass. The city is in confusion, the men of war are
discouraged, so that they will assuredly be a prey, and a spoil, and
a derision to their adversaries. What dost thou now intend?”
"What but to join the army of Aboyne, and do battle with my best
blood against these murdering rebels."
The rest of this chapter can be read at
http://www.electricscotland.com/books/story/story92b.htm
All the other
stories can be read at
http://www.electricscotland.com/books/story/
The Bark Covered House
----------------------
We have several new
chapters up for you to read...
Chapter 20. Drawing Cord-wood—How the Railroad Was Built—The Steam
Whistle
Chapter 21. How I Hunted
and We Paid the Mortgage
Chapter 22. Bear
Hunt of 1842
Chapter 23.
Grandfather's Powder Horn—War with Pirates
Chapter 24. Light
Begins to Dawn
Chapter 25. Making
a Bargain
Chapter 26. How I
Commenced for Myself—Father's old Farm in 1843
Here is how "How I Hunted and We Paid the Mortgage" starts...
THE mortgage which had hung so long over us, like a dark cloud
obscuring our temporal horizon and chilling our hopes, was at last
removed, May first, 1841. After the mortgage was on the place it
hardly seemed to me as if it were ours. It was becoming more and
more valuable all the time, and I thought it was dangerous to let
the mortgage run, as the old lady might foreclose at any time and
make us trouble and expense. The mortgage was like a cancer eating
up our substance, gnawing day and night as it had for years. I made
up my mind it must be paid. I knew it caused mother much trouble
and, although father said very little about it, I knew that he would
be over-joyed to have it settled up. I told him I thought I had
better hunt during one fall and winter and that I thought I could,
in that way, help him raise money to pay the mortgage. I was about
twenty years old at that time and thought I had a very good rifle
and knew how to use it.
I went to my friend William Beal, and told him I had concluded to
hunt through the winter. I asked him if he didn't want to join with
me and we would hunt together, at least some of the time. He said he
would. I told him I thought we could make more money by hunting than
we could in any other way as deer were worth, on an average, from
two and a half to five dollars apiece at Detroit, and we could take
them in very handily on the cars.
We found the deer very numerous in the town of Taylor, next south of
the town of Dearborn. Sometimes we went and stayed a week. We
stopped nights with an old gentleman whose name was Hodge. He always
appeared very glad to see us and gave us a hearty welcome. As he and
his old lady (at that time) lived alone, no doubt they were glad of
our company. They must have felt lonesome and they knew they would
be well rewarded with venison and money for the trouble we made
them. Mrs. Hodge took as much pains for us and used us as well as
mother could have done. We carried our provisions there on our
backs, flour, potatoes, pork and whatever we needed. We carried pork
for the reason we relished it better a part of the time than we did
venison. Mrs. Hodge prepared our meals at any time we wanted them.
Sometimes we ate our breakfast before daylight and were a mile or
two on the runway of the deer when it became light. The woods and
oak openings abounded in deer and we had very good luck as a general
thing. We made it a rule to stay and not go home until we had killed
a load, which was not less than six. Then we went and got father's
oxen and sled to go after and bring them home. After we brought them
home we took the hind quarters, the hide, and sometimes the whole
deer, to Detroit and sold them. In this way we got considerable
money. In fact my pocketbook began to pod out a little. Of course,
we saved enough, of the fore-quarters for our family use and for our
old friends, Mr. and Mrs. Hodge. But we couldn't afford to let them
have the saddles; we wanted them to sell as we were going in for
making money.
You can read the rest of this chapter at
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/bark/chapter21.htm
You can read the other chapters at
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/bark/
Fraser's Scottish Annual
------------------------
We have now
completed this publication with...
Ontario's Great Heritage
Book Reviews
In Lighter Vain
Here is the entire "In lighter vain" article...
TOUCHING GRATITUDE.
There is a good story told of a golfer. He was playing when he
noticed the ragged condition of his caddie.
Rather touched by this, he gave the boy something to get some food
with, and promised him a suit of old clothes. Later, hearing about a
dependent mother, he dispatched a load of coal and a round of beef.
The lad was very grateful indeed for all this kindness, and, with
his eyes brimming with tears, he tried to say something befitting
the occasion. "Please, sir "he began, and then he halted, "Oh,
that's all right, my boy," said the benefactor, cheerily; "say
nothing: be a good lad, that's all." Then the caddie could no longer
restrain himself. The kindly thought which lay at the bottom of his
heart broke through. "Please, sir," he cried; "I'm sorry you're such
a bad player!"
TRY THIS ON YOUR FRIENDS.—
"Are you good at solving riddles?" inquired Ross of Reid the other
day.
"What have you got?"
replied Reid.
"Well, supposing a
train leaves London for Edinburgh and travels sixty miles an hour,
and another train leaves Edinburgh for London at the same time and
travels fifty miles an hour, which will be the farthest from London
when they meet?
Reid pondered a
moment, and then confidently replied—"I should say the train which
left London, seeing that it travelled ten miles an hour faster than
the other."
Ross laughed, and
told Reid to try again, but the latter maintained that he was right.
"Umph!" remarked
Ross, preparing to mount an approaching tramcar, "now, don't you
think both trains would be the same distance from London when they
met?
And when Reid thought a
moment and saw through the puzzle Ross was several hundred yards
away.
A WIT AND A MAGISTRATE.
An Irish witness was being examined as to his knowledge of a
shooting affair.
"Did you see the
shot fired?" asked the magistrate.
"No, sorr, I only
heard it," was the evasive answer.
"That evidence is
not satisfactory," replied the magistrate, sternly, "stand down!"
The witness
proceeded to leave the box, and directly his back was turned he
laughed derisively.
The magistrate,
indignant at this contempt of court, called him back, and asked him
how he dared to laugh in court.
"Did you see me
laugh, yer honor?" queried the offender.
"No, sir, but I
heard you," was irate reply.
"That evidence is
not satisfactory," said Pat quietly, with a twinkle in his eye.
This time everybody
laughed except the magistrate.
The other articles can be read at
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/canada/annual/index.htm
Biographical Record of the County of Kent,
Ontario
--------------------------------------------------
Our thanks to Nola
Crewe for sending these into us.
This week we've added the mini bio of Thomas Brown, a prosperous
farmer and influential citizen of Raleigh township, is a son of
Jonathan and Isabella (Stephenson) Brown, both natives of Scotland,
and was but a babe when the family crossed the ocean, from Penicuick,
Scotland, where he had been born April 25, 1848.
He was but two and a half
years old when his father brought him to Raleigh township, and left
him with an uncle, Charles Clark, of the County of Leeds, Scotland,
who died in Chatham, Ontario, in April 1898. The vessel on which Mr.
and Mrs. Brown crossed the ocean was shipwrecked on the banks of
Newfoundland, and Mrs. Brown was drowned. The father for his second
wife, married Mary Ferguson, by whom he had four children, namely:
Alexander, who is an attorney of Detroit, Michigan; Charles, a
farmer in Howard township, County of Kent; James, a hardware
merchant of Thamesville, Ontario; and John, a farmer of Howard
township. The father now lives retired on a farm in Howard township,
and though past eighty, having been born December 25th, 1821, enjoys
good health and is quite active.
You can read the bio at
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/canada/kent/brown_thomas.htm
The Sailor Whom England Feared
------------------------------
Being the Story of
John Paul Jones, Scotch Naval Adventurer and Admiral in the American
and Russian Fleets By M. Mac Dermot Crawford.
We now have up the following chapters...
Chapter I - 1747-1773
Chapter II - 1773 -
1775
Chapter III - 1775 - 1777
Chapter IV - 1777
Chapter V - 1777
Chapter VI - 1777
Chapter VII - 1777
Chapter VIII - 1777
Chapter IX - 1777 -
1778
Chapter X - 1778
Chapter XI - 1778
Chapter XII - 1778
Chapter XIII - 1778
Chapter XIV - 1778
Here is how Chapter X starts...
PAUL JONES was once again at sea, with the salt spray stinging his
lips; living, as he had lived for so many years, between sea and
sky, with every sense on the alert for adventure. The seductions of
the court were forgotten, the fair women who flattered and caressed,
wraiths of his dreams, to fade vaguely into nothingness before the
cold light of reality.
Jones sailed on the Ranger from Brest on April 10th, his course was
shaped for the west coast of Ireland, but the terrific gales
encountered the second day out forced him to change the plans of his
cruise and run up St. George's Channel to the Irish Sea. His own
letter is the best description of the cruise—
"I sailed from Brest on the 10th April; my plan was extensive, I
therefore did not at the beginning wish to encumber myself with
prisoners. On the 14th I took a brigantine between Scilly and Cape
Clear, bound for Ostend, with a cargo of flax-seed for Ireland, sunk
her, and proceeded into St. George's Channel.
"On the 17th I took the ship Lord Chatham, bound from London to
Dublin, with a cargo consisting of porter, and a variety of
merchandise, and almost within sight of her port; this ship I manned
and ordered into Brest."
The following night he planned a descent on White- haven, which the
wind obliged him to abandon. On the 18th in Glentinc Bay, on the
south coast of Scotland, he "met with a revenue-wherry"; it being
the common practice of these vessels to board merchant ships, the
Ranger then having no external appearance of war, it was expected
that this rover would have come alongside, "which, however, to his
surprise, she did not, though the men were at their quarters"; but
sailed away despite a severe cannonade.
"The next morning off the Mull of Galloway I found myself so near a
Scotch coasting schooner loaded with barley that I could not avoid
sinking her." The letter goes on with much similar detail; then, on
the 21st, he saw the Dia/e of twenty guns, which he determined to
attack in the night. "My plan was to overlay her cable, and to fall
upon her bow, so as to have all her decks open and exposed to our
musketry, etc.; at the same time it was my intention to have secured
the enemy by grapplings, so that, had they cut their cables, they
would not thereby have attained an advantage. The wind was high, and
unfortunately the anchor was not let go as soon as the order was
given, so that the Ranger was brought to upon the enemy's quarter at
the distance of half a cable's length. We had made no warlike
appearance, of course had given no alarm; this determined me to cut
immediately, which might appear as if the cable had parted, and at
the same time enable me, after making a tack out of the loch, to
return to the same prospect of advantage which I had at the first."
This he was unable to do, as the weather grew very stormy, and
forced him "to shelter under the south shore of Scotland."
These gales, which first caused Jones to alter his cruise, equally
upset the arrangements of his foes. When the first "provisional
plan" had been made, Lee's secretary, Thornton, lost no time in
sending all details to the Admiralty, and two heavy sloops of war
and a thirty-two gun frigate were ordered to the west coast of
Ireland. They left Plymouth on the 12th, two days after the Ranger
sailed, but the same gale which affected Jones drove them into
Falmouth for shelter. When the three ships arrived at their
destination they could, naturally enough, find no trace of the
Ranger. Until the news sent by Thornton reached the Admiralty, there
was no idea of Jones being in the vicinity, much less cruising in
home waters.
Paul Jones had planned this cruise with the hope of crippling
English shipping. With this in view, he intended to make a descent
on Whitehaven, a "considerable port," where he had the advantage of
knowing every foot of the ground from his boyhood. He has been the
victim of abuse from all sorts of writers for attacking a town where
he had associations, perhaps even friends. But in war there is no
sentiment, and it is open to question whether little Johnnie Paul
was much spoiled or fêted when he returned from his voyages in his
poor and unknown days. He intended on such destruction of life and
property as King George's brutal Hessian soldiers inflicted on the
Americans, and who had spared his plantation and slaves when Lord
Dunmore made that devastating raid? The age was more rugged than the
one we live in, and conflicting parties did not go to war for the
sake of exchanging civilities.
You can read the rest of this chapter at
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/jpj10.htm
The other chapters can be
read at
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/jpjndx.htm
Recollections of a Long Life 1829 - 1915
----------------------------------------
By Isaac Stephenson
(1915)
This week we've added the following chapters...
Chapter V
Mr. Sinclair takes
up lumbering and farming in Wisconsin - School in Milwaukee -
Plowing on the prairie - The Lovejoys -Traffic on the Janesville
road-Lodging houses - Lead wagons from Galena fields - Hauling flour
- "Ague and chill fever" epidemics - Logging at Escanaba - Lumbering
north of Green Bay - Conditions on the northern peninsula of
Michigan - Carrying mails in the wilderness - Timber cruising
Chapter VI
Early lumbering
methods in vogue along Green Bay - Invasion of the Maine lumbermen -
Introduction of sawed shingles - Marketing lumber at Chicago and
Milwaukee - Masting on the Great Lakes - Life in the logging camps -
Tea drinking - Log driving on the Escanaba - Locating timber lands -
Offering of public lands for sale in 1848 - Trip to the "Soo" -First
entry of pine lands on the Menominee River - Meager returns for
lumbering
Chapter VII
The problem of
transporting lumber - Great Lakes neglected by federal government -
Dangerous voyages - Inaccessibility of Green Bay region -
Experiences as a sailor before the mast - I ship as mate - I
purchase interest in schooner Cleopatra and become captain -
Development of shipping on the lakes - Early trips up Green Bay
rivers - Introduction of tugs
Chapter VIII
Lack of efficient
lumbermen and migration from East - I take charge of logging camps -
Logging by contract- Offer of half interest in Ford River
property-Trip to Maine in 1851 - Camps on the Marquette trail -
Development of northern peninsula of Michigan and discovery of mines
- Lack of doctors, lawyers, and preachers - Travel through my canips
Plank road projected from Negaunee to Marquette - Pinch of famine at
Marquette in 1852
Chapter IX
Prosperity of the
early fifties - High cost of living - Beginning of work on the canal
at the "Soo" -"King" Strang and the Mormon colony on Beaver Island -
Production of timber for breakwater at Chicago - Establishment of
camps on the Menominee River - Cholera epidemic in the Middle West -
Narrow escape from the disease - Extensive logging operations at
Masonville
Chapter X
Responsibilities of
camp management - Experiences in medicine and surgery - Adjusting
disputes - Lack of machinists - I leave Mr. Sinclair - Negotiations
for purchase of interest in Masonville property - Changes in
Sinclair and Wells company - Death of Mr. Sinclair - Panic of 1857 -
Purchase of interest in N. Ludington Company at Marinette
Chapter XI
Marinette in the
early fifties—Queen Marinette—Menomninec River becomes greatest
timber producing center in time world - Difficulties due to panic of
1857 - Disappearance of forests and growth of farms - Vicissitudes
of travel on Green Bay - Diversions of early lumbering villages
Here is how Chapter VI starts...
THE methods of lumber manufacturing in vogue at this time in the
pine districts along Green Bay in Wisconsin and Michigan were crude
compared to the elaborate system which has since been perfected. The
mills, during the decade between 1840 and 1850, were small
establishments operated by water power, making approximately one
million feet of lumber a year. The type of saw known as the "mulay"
had just come in and not a few of the mills were still equipped with
the old-fashioned sash saws. The circular saw and the band saw,
together with most of the mechanical apparatus now in use for
handling logs, had not then been perfected.
In logging, driving and sawing the lumbermen of Maine and New
Brunswick were the most expert of their time, and it was largely
under their direction and through the introduction of the methods
which prevailed along the St. John and Penobscot rivers that
lumbering in Wisconsin and on the northern peninsula of Michigan, of
the West generally, was brought to the point of its greatest
development.
In this respect the firm of Sinclair and Wells enjoyed a decided
advantage over their competitors. As I have said Mr. Sinclair was
probably the greatest practical lumberman hi the country and had not
only acquired a large experience but had directed operations of
magnitude in Maine. In addition he had brought to Wisconsin men who
were schooled in lumbering methods in the Pine Tree State. Among
them were David Langley, who came west with us in 1845; Silas
Howard, who went oil from Milwaukee to Flat Rock the same year, and
others. For some time afterward his forces were constantly being
recruited from Name. Some of the men I brought out with me when I
returned from my trips to the East. When the forests in this
territory were cut and opportunities for employment became
restricted, thousands of the men who had grown up in them went still
farther West to the Pacific coast where they are at work to-day. In
this way has time enterprise of Maine exerted a marked influence
upon the entire lumber industry of the United States.
It was not long before members of my own family, attracted by the
prospects which I unfolded in my letters to them, decided to follow
in my footsteps. Two of my brothers, Robert and Samuel, came to
Escanaba from their home in Maine in 1849 but remained for only one
winter. Perhaps they regarded my enthusiasm over the growing West as
unfounded. In June, 1852, however, they made a second venture and
this time remained permanently. Both of them took up logging by
contract near Masonville, Michigan, and afterward occupied
conspicuous places in the lumbering industry on Menominee River,
whither I had preceded them, taking charge of and becoming the
owners of some of the important mills on the river at that time.
About 1850 the moving stream from the eastern pineries to the West
attained large proportions, the result, very largely, of a business
depression which left many of the lumbermen in the older region
without occupation. Many also were attracted to the newer field by
Mr. Sinclair, and following their example still more responded to
the growing demand for experienced men. There were no less than
thirty of them one winter at Escanaba who had been camp "bosses" or
logging contractors in Maine.
These men were very different from the workmen of the present day, a
fact due to some extent, possibly, to the environment in which they
lived. In the absence of a highly organized system of industrial
interchange they were obliged to depend upon their own resources to
supply their needs and their capacity for doing things was developed
accordingly. They could erect camps, make axe handles and sleighs
and many of them were blacksmiths, sawyers and carpenters capable of
undertaking almost any variety of work. Two-thirds of the men in
logging crews I have had could do these things and, in addition,
were excellent boatmen. At present in a crew of fifty men there is
rarely one man who can do any of them, even the "boss" himself. To
supply the deficiency it is necessary to send blacksmith and a
mechanic into the woods and the axe helves and other tools are made
in factories and included in the list of supplies. It is said, in
explanation, that it is cheaper to buy articles of this sort than to
make them. But they cost us very little sacrifice of time as we did
most of these tasks at night or on Sundays. The same rule of conduct
applied to the women in the mill settlements who devoted their
evenings and spare moments to knitting instead of occupying
themselves with the diversions of the present day which were, as a
matter of fact, unknown.
You can read the rest of this chapter at
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/stephenson/chapter6.htm
We now have several chapters up which can be read at
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/stephenson/index.htm
Robert Burns Lives!
-------------------
By Frank Shaw
'To Mr Robert Burns’: Verse Epistles from an Irish Poetic Circle by
Jennifer Orr
Let me introduce you to Jennifer Orr whom I met while attending the
excellent international conference on Burns sponsored by the
University of South Carolina in April of this year. She was one of
three young ladies from the University of Glasgow speaking at the
conference. Jennifer is currently a doctoral candidate from that
outstanding university and she also tutors at the university in the
Department of Scottish Literature. Her studies are supervised by
world renown Robert Burns scholar, Dr. Gerard Carruthers. Jennifer
is a recipient of the Faculty of Arts Scholarship and the Walter
Scott award for Scottish Literature. In 2006, she earned a BA in
English Language & Literature (Medieval) with Honours from the
University of Oxford in England. Her current research draws upon her
undergraduate thesis research into the ‘Rhyming Weaver’ poets of
Ulster, a group of largely labouring-class poets who wrote in both
English and vernacular Scots verse during the ‘long’ eighteenth
century.
Her doctoral thesis focuses on the life and works of the County
Antrim poet, Samuel Thomson, a Presbyterian schoolmaster who
produced three volumes of verse between 1790 and 1810 and was a
regular contributor to the Belfast press and periodicals, including
the politically-radical Northern Star newspaper. Thomson was a
correspondent of Robert Burns and, following the Bard’s gift to
Thomson of Fergusson’s poetic works, Thomson travelled to visit the
poet in Dumfries in 1794. Jennifer’s doctoral thesis revises the
reception of Samuel Thomson and seeks to establish him within an
important Romantic poetic circle operating out of Ulster in the
‘long’ Eighteenth century. The author should like to acknowledge the
Board of Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland for permission to cite the
correspondence of Samuel Thomson, MS 7257.
You can read this article
at
http://www.electricscotland.com/familytree/frank/burns_lives62.htm
You can get to all the articles at
http://www.electricscotland.com/familytree/frank/burns.htm
Oor Mither Tongue
-----------------
An Anthology of
Scots Vernacular Verse by Ninian Macwhannell (1938) and our thanks
to John Henderson for sending this into us.
We have the poems of ABEL GEORGE, AINSLIE, HEW and ANGUS, MARIAN up
now which you can read at
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/mither/
John's Scottish Sing-Along
--------------------------
Provided by John
Henderson
This week we've added...
Waggle O' The Kilt
Sailing Up the Clyde
You can find these songs at
http://www.electricscotland.com/poetry/henderson/singalong/index.htm
John Ramsay of Kildalton
------------------------
We posted up this
entire book this week.
This is what the Foreword has to say...
Rarely have I been privileged to read a story as impressive and
touching as that recorded in the diary of John Ramsay, Esq.,
depicting the incidents of his journeyings in Canada in the year
1870, at which time he visited the new homes of those who had been
his tenants on the Island of Islay, Argyllshire, and had later
emigrated to the Province of Ontario where they settled and
prospered in the counties of Ontario, Victoria, Simcoe, Grey and
Bruce.
Several years earlier Mr. Ramsay, realizing that the land on the
Island of Islay could not sustain its ever increasing population,
had the practical vision to see that those courageous and determined
Scots, if given an opportunity in the New World, had the capacity,
industry and determination for success to a degree which they
themselves did not visualize. In order to facilitate their
emigration he arranged with the steamship company for substantially
reduced fares and in some cases paid the fares himself. In the years
1862-63 about four hundred Islay people settled in Canada.
History does not record, to the best of my knowledge, any other
Scottish landlord who, in addition to following the course of
adventure of his tenants in the New World, actually crossed the
Atlantic to learn for himself the state of their progress. Happily
he found that they, as a result of their unfaltering faith,
invincible courage and unremitting toil, had built for themselves
pleasant and comfortable homes, cleared much land which yielded
bountiful crops, and were, on the whole, a happy and contented
people. The warm welcome cordially given him by those who at one
time were his tenants testifies to the ingratiating qualities which
characterized this intrepid humanitarian.
Mr. Ramsay's concern for the welfare of Scottish emigrants generally
is further evidenced in the early pages of his diary by his visit to
those Highlanders from the island of Lewis who had settled in the
vicinity of Stornoway and Lake Megantic in the Eastern Townships of
the Province of Quebec.
Mrs. lain Ramsay, whose late husband was a grandson of the author of
this diary, has written in concise and dignified style. With the
hand of a master she portrays the privations and hardships which the
tenants endured in Islay and the contribution made for their relief
and eventual prosperity by John Ramsay, a man who added to his
humanitarian interests those of an eminent scholar, a wise
counsellor, an outstanding parliamentarian and a successful
industrialist.
Mrs. Ramsay is now engaged in extensive historical research for the
University of Glasgow in relation to the worldwide emigration from
Scotland during the past centuries. Moreover, she is lending her
fine literary talent to the publication of a history of Islay during
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Mrs. Ramsay's daughter Janna, Mrs. Henry Best of Moffat, Ontario, is
the fifth generation of the Ramsay family to come to Canada.
Those of Scottish birth or extraction, indeed all who are interested
in Highland Scottish colonization in Canada, should be deeply
indebted to Mrs. Ramsay for making this record available.
J. Keiller Mackay
Toronto, Ontario,
December. 14, 1968
You can read this book at
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/ramsay/index.htm
Blackfriars of Stirling
-----------------------
Our thanks to John
Henderson for sending in this report
Here is a very revealing
research article about the history of land ownership in Stirling,
Scotland. The Notes and References at the end are also superb. You
can read this at
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/articles/blackfriars.htm
Songs of Lowland Scotland
-------------------------
From the times of
James V, King of Scots, A book of c. 600 pages of songs published in
Scotland in 1870, and arranged in episodic form by John Henderson.
Extract from the main Introduction to this book of c. 600 pages of
songs published in 1870 ....
“The songs of Scotland, so far as they are left to us, begin at the
period when the ancient minstrels, on whose social position so much
valuable time, paper, and temper has been wasted, had fallen into
the deepest disgrace, and were classed in Acts of Parliament along
with beggars, rogues, and vagabonds. The decline of their influence,
and in all likelihood the comparative worthlessness of their later
compositions, caused the people generally to cherish more fondly the
songs and ballads that had arisen amongst themselves, no one could
tell how, and which better assisted their varying mood than the long
rhymes of the strolling bard, and enabled them to keep men oft the
questionable character, which the representatives of the old
minstrels had won for themselves, away from their dwellings and
merry meetings.
The pastoral life which, in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
was followed by the majority ofthe people of the lowlands, would
also favour the growth of song; and in each little community one
man’s success doubtless excited the emulation of his neighbour, and
each would strive to be reckoned best at rhyming, particularly if
some rustic beauty were the prize to be won, However it may be,
there is new hardly a village, river, or glen without a song in its
honour; all the favourite names of the lassies, Mary, Kate, Jean,
Meg, or Annie, are duly enshrined: every battlefield has been
celebrated or wailed, while the popular enemies of the country,
whether internal or external, are bedecked in satire which, justly
or not, has sent them down to all posterity with an evil prominence
that can never be removed.
A collection like this can only deal with the songs of the Lowlands.
Could the Highland minstrelsy be collected and edited, it would be
seen that the north is not behind the south in little pieces that
touch the heart and fire the soul. Many of the Gaelic Airs
especially, convey the impressions of love, sorrow, grief, and
triumph in a manner at once beautiful, musical, and impressive.”
Aye
John
We're adding chapters each week and you can read the first chapter
and the full Introduction at
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/songs/index.htm
Clan Chiefs at the Scottish Parliament
--------------------------------------
I just found videos
of the conferences held at the Scottish Parliament over the Clan
Gathering period over 2 days and thought I'd make them available to
you in case you hadn't known about them.
Clan Convention (morning)
Clan Convention
(afternoon)
Part of the
Scottish Government’s Homecoming 2009 celebrations, the Convention,
was chaired by Alex Fergusson MSP, Presiding Officer, and brought
together Scotland’s clan chiefs and clan representatives from across
the world. Delegates explored tradition and culture and debated how
the kinship embodied by Scottish clans, names and families has a
relevance to 21st-century Scotland. Included an address by Jim
Mather MSP, Minister for Enterprise, Energy and Tourism.
Diaspora (morning)
Diaspora
(afternoon)
The event, entitled
‘A future for our past’, discussed and debated the heritage of the
Scottish diaspora; the values of Scottish identity; the links
between Scotland and its diaspora; and the ways to work better
together, to mutual advantage. The Presiding Officer chaired the
event, with contributions from former presiding officers Sir David
Steel and George Reid. The event featured a Dragon’s Den-style
debate and includes high-profile speakers such as Professor Tom
Devine, Jim Naughtie, Lesley Riddoch and Michael Russell MSP,
Minister for Culture, External Affairs and the Constitution.
I have made
available a link to the Scottish Parliament web side so you can
download those videos. They are several hours of viewing.
The "download" link is the one to use as they are streamed from the
Scottish Parliament site but as they state that they only keep these
for 30 days we have taken the precaution of saving them on Electric
Scotland in case they are removed.
You can get to these at
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/articles/scottish_chiefs.htm
Scotland's National Borders
---------------------------
Scotland's national
borders comprise one terrestrial border with England and sea
borders, two with England and several with other countries. The
western sea border with England extends seaward from the Solway
Firth.
The eastern border extends into the North Sea from the mouth of the
River Tweed.
The government of the United Kingdom has attempted to make
unwarranted changes to the east end of the terrestrial border and to
the entire North Sea border. The purpose of this paper is to expose
these cynical "stealth" maneuvers and to provide the Scottish people
with additional information on Scotland's borders.
You can read the report at
http://www.electricscotland.com/history/articles/national_borders.htm
And that's it for now and hope you all have a
good weekend :-)
Alastair
http://www.electricscotland.com
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-----------------------
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