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CONTENTS
Electric Scotland News
Electric Canadian
The United Empire Loyalist Settlement at Long Point, Lake Erie
Making Good in Canada
Canadian Monthly Magazine
Explore Canada Via Interactive PDF!
A Farm Home in Ontario
The Flag in the Wind
Electric Scotland
The Bards of Bon Accord 1375 - 1860
Northern Notes and Queries
Kirkintilloch Town and Parish
The History of Kilmarnock
Shetland: Descriptive and Historical
Robert Burns Lives!
Waddell’s Life And Works Of Robert Burns
Reminiscences of the Royal Burgh of Haddington
Campbell in the Scottish Nation
The Working Life of Christina McKelvie MSP
Electric Scotland News
We've now got the RSS Feeds working.
The first feed is for our What's New page. As we're an educational and research site I thought other web sites might like to carry the feed on their own web sites as it would add some dynamic content and once installed no additional work needs to be done to keep it updated. To that end I've made available a text file giving anyone interested a wee bit of java code that they can embed in a web page on their own site. See http://www.electricscotland.com/whatsnew.htm
The second feed is our ScotNews feed which is now placed on our site index page. The intention of this feed, which I have talked about before, is to provide news from Scotland and the Scots Diaspora. This is mainly targeted at the Scots Diaspora but hopefully also of interest to local Scots as well. I am now getting onto lists that provide Scottish news and when anything I deem is of general interest I am adding this to the feed. The format is very simple in that each news story has a Title, a short description and then a link to the news story. The link will often be to a page on another web site but can also be to an article on our own web site. Again I have provided a text file providing java code so that any other web site can embed this feed onto their own site. This feed has been configured to always display the last 30 stories. See http://www.electricscotland.com
This project was actually started by a conversation with Duncan MacDonald as she was saying she wished there was some central place she could go to catch up on news from Scotland and the Scots Diaspora as she really didn't have the time to visit all the various sites that carry news. So this is by way of me trying to help but of course I can't do it alone. I am dependant on folk sending me in news stories which includes all Scottish organisations in the world as well as clan societies, Highland games and of course organisations in Scotland. Of course I hope folk like Scottish Development Overseas will help as well as Visit Scotland and other Scottish companies and organisations at home and abroad by either sending me stories direct or put me on their mailing lists for press releases.
Also the more popular this gets the more news I should be able to provide so hopefully Scottish organisations will take the time to embed this feed on their own web sites. And if you are a member of any clan or Scottish society perhaps you might tell them about this?
I might add that against both these feeds I have provided a wee RSS logo and if clicked on most browsers will be able to subscribe to the feed so you can view it your own web browser.
And so now that this has been done that leaves just the comment system to develop and that will be us bang up to date with the main things we aimed at providing on the site. We do of course have another to do list but this comment system was the final item on our old to do list :-)
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 in our site menu and at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/whatsnew.htm and also http://www.electriccanadian.com/whatsnew.htm
We try not to point to a pdf file and instead send you to page where the pdf can be downloaded.
Electric Canadian
-----------------
The United Empire Loyalist Settlement at Long Point, Lake Erie
We continue to add more chapters from this book and in the past week we've added...
Chapter XLIII. Berdan.
Chapter XLIV. Cope.
Chapter XLV. Ryerson (Lieutenant Joseph).
Chapter XLVI. Anderson.
Chapter XLVII. Gilbert.
Chapter XLVIII. Johnson.
Chapter XLIX. Montross.
Chapter L. Millard.
Chapter LI. Matthews.
Chapter LII. Powell.
Chapter LIII. Foster.
Chapter LIV. Williams.
Chapter LV. Brown.
These are all pages providing information on these families. Here is the complete chapter on Johnson to give you a flavour.
Many Loyalists of this name distinguished themselves in the war of American Independence. George and James Johnson served as junior officers in the Royal Regiment, New York. Sir John Johnson was Lieutenant-Colonel, and William, a captain in the King’s Loyal Regiment. Jonas Johnson was a soldier in the noted Butler’s Rangers, and another, James, a trooper in Jessup’s Brigade.
But one only of the name settled in Norfolk County, to wit, Lawrence Johnson. He had served as a corporal in Colonel Robinson’s regiment. When taken prisoner in one of the countless skirmishes of the war, Colonel Livingstone, the Commander of the American squadron, sent the prisoner to the President of Pennsylvania with the message: “Lawrence Johnson is an impudent, determined villain, undoubtedly in the service of the enemy. If you examine him, you will find him to be one of the greatest liars you have ever met.”
With such a testimonial as this, the governor was graciously pleased to entertain the unfortunate Johnson in one of the strongholds of the capital, and the loyalist remained the guest of the governor till the end of the war.
At the conclusion of hostilities, Johnson was told to leave the country, and, glad enough to be out of prison, promptly went to New Brunswick in the spring of 1784. For fifteen years he remained in that province, that is, until 1799, when he removed to Long Point.
He is described as a tall, spare man, of considerable physical strength and great powers of endurance, sharp-witted, clever with his tongue, and of remarkable power of rapid decision in emergencies. He was a “pioneer” Baptist, and one of the original members of Titus Finch’s church.
You can read the other chapters at http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...oint/index.htm
Making Good in Canada
By Frederick A. Talbot (1912)
This week we've added the following chapters...
Chapter XIII - Prospecting for Minerals
Chapter XIV - Prospecting the Minerals (continued)
Chapter XV - With his Majesty’s Mails
Chapter XVI - Where and How to Farm in a New Country
Chapter XVII - Chances for the Young Engineer
Chapter XVIII - Openings for the Professions
Chapter XIX - Lumbering, Logging and Timber Cutting
Here is a bit from Chapter XV...
The Royal Mail Service, like time and tide, waits for no man, and will brook no interference with its ordained movements. No matter whether the round is along city pavements, across sweltering deserts, through cavernous forests, over frozen snow bound wastes, or by miasmic swamps, if the fiat has gore forth that letters are to be delivered to, and collected from, the spot beyond, the mail service must be maintained at all hazards. He who enlists in the service, and undertakes to get the bag of correspondence through, must be prepared to face any contingency; to surmount any obstacle. The postman must complete his round.
It is one of the outstanding features of British colonization or settlement and developing work, that those engaged in pioneering shall not be denied the postal privileges of civilization. The delivery and collection may be erratic from causes over which man has no possible control, but the frontier town accepts the inevitable without a murmur. Directly a little settlement springs up in the remote wilderness the threads of the postal service of the country are rewoven, so as to bring the new arrival within the meshes of the net by means of which letters are swung to and fro.
You can read the rest of this chapter at http://www.electriccanadian.com/pion.../chapter15.htm
You can read this book at http://www.electriccanadian.com/pion...king/index.htm
Canadian Monthly Magazine
Published by the Vanderhoof-Gunn Publishing Company
I've now added Volume 13 and this is the first full version of the magazine. While still somewhat faint it is certainly readable.
This can be found at http://www.electriccanadian.com/life...zine/index.htm
Explore Canada Via Interactive PDF!
This is a pdf file you can purchase for $7.99 but they do offer you a free download of a chapter. it includes links to videos and also has many pictures. You can read this and download the sample chapter at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/life...ual_canada.htm
A Farm Home in Ontario
A publication of the Minister of Agriculture of Ontario. This publication has a ton of old back and white pictures and shows just how rich Ontario is in agricultural land and how wide the crops that can be grown. You can get to this book at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/tran...e/farmhome.htm
The Flag in the Wind
This issue was Compiled by Fraser Hudghton. A good range of articles this week and a rather neat summary of what is ahead.
Well worth a read... and there are also some excellent articles in the Synopsis.
You can read this issue at http://www.scotsindependent.org
Electric Scotland
The Bards of Bon Accord 1375 - 1860
By William Walker
Added William Cadenhead, Peter Still, Junior and William Forsyth.
You can read these chapters at http://www.electricscotland.com/poet...cord/index.htm
Northern Notes and Queries
Note: In the pdf version of this newsletter I am placing a graphic of the Contents page so you can see what is included in each issue. Note that from the 1894 edition we are using a new source to bring you other issues of this quarterly magazine. Each issue continues to bring information on different families such that this current issue includes information on Sir James Macdonell, Sir John Lyell, Fordoun, Stirling, Murray, Drummond of Hawthornden, names of Scots guards in France, Grant, Campbell, Arnot, Law, Innes, Gibson and de Lardi, Bullock and Horne families, Drysdale, Ross, Forbes, Munro and Bethune.
1894 Articles 563 to 585
This issue can be viewed at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...hern/index.htm
Kirkintilloch Town and Parish
By Thomas Watson (1894)
This week we've added...
Resurrectionists
Cholera
Dennis Doolan and Patrick Redding
“Tis Sixty Years Since
Drives and Walks
Rev. Mr. Forman’s Report on Parish, 1845
Calico Printers and "Blue Pauls,”
Sketches of Kirkintilloch Men I have Met in the Army
Here is hoe the chapter on 'Tis Sixty Years Since starts...
If any person who knew Kirkintilloch fifty to sixty years ago and left it then, were to return to it now, he would scarcely know the ancient town. Some of the old familiar objects still remain, but very few. The old court-house and jail with the steeple and bell are still unchanged, and the Townhead “Brig” over the canal has not been dispensed with; the canal itself having still the old familiar aspect. Everything else, speaking generally, has been “transmogrified embellished, or replaced: even “Luggie Brig" he would find as an old friend with a new face.
Thatch roofs are now a thing of the past; only a few being left; and the old buildings are replaced by handsome houses and shops; few empty spaces next the streets being now unoccupied. Pavements are universal with well-made kerbs; and the sewerage of the town may be said to be perfect. Some handsome new churches have been erected, and many elegant villas at Bellfield and other suburbs. Water is brought in abundance from the Campsie hills by gravitation.
The rest of this chapter can be read at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist.../chapter35.htm
The other chapters can be read at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...loch/index.htm
The History of Kilmarnock
By Archibald M'Kay (1858)
We have now completed this book which can be read at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...ck/history.htm
Shetland: Descriptive and Historical
By Robert Cowie (1874)
We are now continuing with Part II of this publication which goes into detail on the various parts of Shetland and this week we've added...
Chapter XV. - The Skerries
Passage thither—Grief Skerry—East Linga —Seals—Cormorant—The Otter—Skerry Isles—Their Harbour—The Fishery—“The Skerry Fight”—Shipwreck of the Carmelan, and of a Russian Frigate—The Lighthouse —Lightkeeper’s Houses, &c.—Effects of the Sea—School— Shipwreck of the b.s. Pacific on East Linga, near Whalsey, in February 1871.
Chapter XVI. - The North Isles
Yell.—Its Extent—Character of the Soil —Harbours—Proposed Canal—Parochial Statistics—Manor Houses—Hascussey—Fishings, &c.—Peat-Moss.
Chapter XVII. - Fetlar
Its name—Fertility of the Soil—Geological Formation—Parochial Statistics—Antiquities—Brough Lodge— Fetlar Ponies—Shipwrecks—Supposed Submarine Volcano.
Chapter XVIII. - Unst
Hills — Lochs—Geological Formation — Harbours— History and Antiquities.
Chapter XIX. - Unst continued
Itinerary — Belmont — Uyea Sound — Muness Castle—Balta—Balta Sound—Buness—M. Biot— Some distinguished natives of Unst—Chromate Quarries— “Fenian Invasion*—Parochial Statistics—North Coast— Lighthouse.
Chapter XX. - Lunnasting
Doura Voe—West Sound of Whalsey—Vidlin Voe—Lunna—Parochial Statistics—Industries, &c.
Chapter XXI. - Yell Sound to Sulem Voe
Lunna Ness—Yell-Sound—Its Islands— Its Tideways— Coast of North Delting— Sulem Voe—Mavisgrind—The Road there.
You can read these chapters at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...land/index.htm
Robert Burns Lives!
Edited by Frank Shaw
One of the movers and shakers in the Burns community goes quietly and happily about his work with great distinction. He has planned and coordinated as many conferences on Burns as anyone I know, and he did it with much style and grace. He does not seek attention. He is a behind-the-scenes fellow who helps advance the cause of 18th century literature and who is a strong proponent of Robert Burns. He is diligent in his research; his footnotes are impressive and clearly give credence to his research. His writing skills exhibit clarity that few possess. Say hello again to Professor Patrick Scott.
I have written so much about Patrick in previous pages of Robert Burns Lives! that it would be very easy to simply quote from those articles. But instead I ask you to read “A Tribute to Patrick Scott” in Chapter 135 of our Index. This accolade was written on the occasion earlier this year of his well-attended retirement celebration hosted by his colleagues at the University of South Carolina. Welcome home, Patrick! (FRS: 9.6.12)
You can read this article "Robert Burns’s First Printer: John Wilson of Kilmarnock. Part 1: The Book Market in Burns’s Ayrshire" by Patrick Scott at: http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...s_lives151.htm
Other articles in this series can be read at http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...rank/burns.htm
Waddell’s Life And Works Of Robert Burns
We already have a huge amount up about Robert Burns but we acquired this 2 volume publication and consulted with Frank Shaw and so we decided to serialise this on the site. It also has a number of excellent illustrations and some colour plates.
This week we added the balance of the chapters from Volume 1. I would also like to recognise the efforts of John Henderson for splitting up this book for us.
You can read this book as we get it up at http://www.electricscotland.com/burns/lifeandworks.htm
Reminiscences of the Royal Burgh of Haddington
And Old East Lothian Agriculturists by John Martine (1883). This is a new book we're starting on and I must say it makes a most enjoyable read. Here is a wee bit from the Introduction...
THE town of Haddington is of a very ancient date, having been created a royal burgh by King David I. of Scotland in the twelfth century. It appears, however, from history and tradition, to have been a place of importance some centuries before that.
Chalmers, the learned author of “Caledonia,” affirms that it was originally a hamlet of one Haden, a Saxon settler, and that in the Anglo-Saxon practice of the time, tun was affixed, and hence his territory got the name of “Hadentun.” It is also historically written, that the territory was given as a marriage dowry, in the year 1139, to Ada or Hadina, daughter of the Earl of Warren and Surrey, on her marriage with Prince Henry, the son of King David I., hence she named her burgh Adington, or Hadington, “the dwelling of the Princess Ada.” Certain it is, she was attentive to the interests of her burgh, and endowed a nunnery at the Abbey village near Haddington. She died in the year 1178. Miller, in a note in his “History of Haddington,” gives another definition, traditionally handed down, and which he had got from an old inhabitant, that the name waS derived from the circumstance of old Scottish guides calling to the English during an invasion to “Had-doon-Tyne.”
Old country people even as late as fifty to sixty years ago (and perhaps yet), used to speak of “ganging to Herrington". This is certainly a corruption of the name, and far away from the probable and true derivation of it It is not easy now to say what is the true interpretation and derivation of the name. This must be left much to the conjectures of antiquaries. Haddington is certainly a very pretty name, and well worthy of being adopted as the title of a Scotch earldom. It is not stretching traditionary history perhaps too far, to say that the rich valley of the Tyne was known to the Romans, and that their legions were fed from the crops which, even at that early period, grew abundantly on the fertile soils around Haddington. The late Sir George and Baron Hepburn of Smeaton remarks, in one of his articles on the old Corn Laws, that Suetonius, an old Roman historian, affirms that “Britannia Romana, or the Roman province in Great Britain, was considered to be one of the corn countries from whence the Romans drew a regular supply of bread corn for their armies, and occasionally to Rome itself, when the crops of Sicily and Africa failed to yield their regular supplies.”
You can read this book as we get it up at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...gton/intro.htm
Campbell in the Scottish Nation
I got in a scan of two biographies of prominent Campbells and have added them to our page at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...n/campbell.htm
Just scroll down the page and you'll find the scanned images.
The Working Life of Christina McKelvie MSP
As the Scottish Parliament has now gone back after the Summer break Christina sent us in a wee report. You can read this at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...vie/120906.htm
And finally...
Emergency
In America the emergency number is 911. An Irish-American phoned the normal operator to say he wanted to phone the emergency number, but his phone didn't have a number eleven on it!
-----
Great Place New York.
A Scots tourist taking the train from New Jersey to Penn station hears the conductor announce: "For those of you who are interested, Penn Station is next."
then he went on ... "For those who aren't, it still is."
And that's all for now and hope you all have a great weekend.
Alastair
Electric Scotland News
Electric Canadian
The United Empire Loyalist Settlement at Long Point, Lake Erie
Making Good in Canada
Canadian Monthly Magazine
Explore Canada Via Interactive PDF!
A Farm Home in Ontario
The Flag in the Wind
Electric Scotland
The Bards of Bon Accord 1375 - 1860
Northern Notes and Queries
Kirkintilloch Town and Parish
The History of Kilmarnock
Shetland: Descriptive and Historical
Robert Burns Lives!
Waddell’s Life And Works Of Robert Burns
Reminiscences of the Royal Burgh of Haddington
Campbell in the Scottish Nation
The Working Life of Christina McKelvie MSP
Electric Scotland News
We've now got the RSS Feeds working.
The first feed is for our What's New page. As we're an educational and research site I thought other web sites might like to carry the feed on their own web sites as it would add some dynamic content and once installed no additional work needs to be done to keep it updated. To that end I've made available a text file giving anyone interested a wee bit of java code that they can embed in a web page on their own site. See http://www.electricscotland.com/whatsnew.htm
The second feed is our ScotNews feed which is now placed on our site index page. The intention of this feed, which I have talked about before, is to provide news from Scotland and the Scots Diaspora. This is mainly targeted at the Scots Diaspora but hopefully also of interest to local Scots as well. I am now getting onto lists that provide Scottish news and when anything I deem is of general interest I am adding this to the feed. The format is very simple in that each news story has a Title, a short description and then a link to the news story. The link will often be to a page on another web site but can also be to an article on our own web site. Again I have provided a text file providing java code so that any other web site can embed this feed onto their own site. This feed has been configured to always display the last 30 stories. See http://www.electricscotland.com
This project was actually started by a conversation with Duncan MacDonald as she was saying she wished there was some central place she could go to catch up on news from Scotland and the Scots Diaspora as she really didn't have the time to visit all the various sites that carry news. So this is by way of me trying to help but of course I can't do it alone. I am dependant on folk sending me in news stories which includes all Scottish organisations in the world as well as clan societies, Highland games and of course organisations in Scotland. Of course I hope folk like Scottish Development Overseas will help as well as Visit Scotland and other Scottish companies and organisations at home and abroad by either sending me stories direct or put me on their mailing lists for press releases.
Also the more popular this gets the more news I should be able to provide so hopefully Scottish organisations will take the time to embed this feed on their own web sites. And if you are a member of any clan or Scottish society perhaps you might tell them about this?
I might add that against both these feeds I have provided a wee RSS logo and if clicked on most browsers will be able to subscribe to the feed so you can view it your own web browser.
And so now that this has been done that leaves just the comment system to develop and that will be us bang up to date with the main things we aimed at providing on the site. We do of course have another to do list but this comment system was the final item on our old to do list :-)
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 in our site menu and at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/whatsnew.htm and also http://www.electriccanadian.com/whatsnew.htm
We try not to point to a pdf file and instead send you to page where the pdf can be downloaded.
Electric Canadian
-----------------
The United Empire Loyalist Settlement at Long Point, Lake Erie
We continue to add more chapters from this book and in the past week we've added...
Chapter XLIII. Berdan.
Chapter XLIV. Cope.
Chapter XLV. Ryerson (Lieutenant Joseph).
Chapter XLVI. Anderson.
Chapter XLVII. Gilbert.
Chapter XLVIII. Johnson.
Chapter XLIX. Montross.
Chapter L. Millard.
Chapter LI. Matthews.
Chapter LII. Powell.
Chapter LIII. Foster.
Chapter LIV. Williams.
Chapter LV. Brown.
These are all pages providing information on these families. Here is the complete chapter on Johnson to give you a flavour.
Many Loyalists of this name distinguished themselves in the war of American Independence. George and James Johnson served as junior officers in the Royal Regiment, New York. Sir John Johnson was Lieutenant-Colonel, and William, a captain in the King’s Loyal Regiment. Jonas Johnson was a soldier in the noted Butler’s Rangers, and another, James, a trooper in Jessup’s Brigade.
But one only of the name settled in Norfolk County, to wit, Lawrence Johnson. He had served as a corporal in Colonel Robinson’s regiment. When taken prisoner in one of the countless skirmishes of the war, Colonel Livingstone, the Commander of the American squadron, sent the prisoner to the President of Pennsylvania with the message: “Lawrence Johnson is an impudent, determined villain, undoubtedly in the service of the enemy. If you examine him, you will find him to be one of the greatest liars you have ever met.”
With such a testimonial as this, the governor was graciously pleased to entertain the unfortunate Johnson in one of the strongholds of the capital, and the loyalist remained the guest of the governor till the end of the war.
At the conclusion of hostilities, Johnson was told to leave the country, and, glad enough to be out of prison, promptly went to New Brunswick in the spring of 1784. For fifteen years he remained in that province, that is, until 1799, when he removed to Long Point.
He is described as a tall, spare man, of considerable physical strength and great powers of endurance, sharp-witted, clever with his tongue, and of remarkable power of rapid decision in emergencies. He was a “pioneer” Baptist, and one of the original members of Titus Finch’s church.
You can read the other chapters at http://www.electriccanadian.com/hist...oint/index.htm
Making Good in Canada
By Frederick A. Talbot (1912)
This week we've added the following chapters...
Chapter XIII - Prospecting for Minerals
Chapter XIV - Prospecting the Minerals (continued)
Chapter XV - With his Majesty’s Mails
Chapter XVI - Where and How to Farm in a New Country
Chapter XVII - Chances for the Young Engineer
Chapter XVIII - Openings for the Professions
Chapter XIX - Lumbering, Logging and Timber Cutting
Here is a bit from Chapter XV...
The Royal Mail Service, like time and tide, waits for no man, and will brook no interference with its ordained movements. No matter whether the round is along city pavements, across sweltering deserts, through cavernous forests, over frozen snow bound wastes, or by miasmic swamps, if the fiat has gore forth that letters are to be delivered to, and collected from, the spot beyond, the mail service must be maintained at all hazards. He who enlists in the service, and undertakes to get the bag of correspondence through, must be prepared to face any contingency; to surmount any obstacle. The postman must complete his round.
It is one of the outstanding features of British colonization or settlement and developing work, that those engaged in pioneering shall not be denied the postal privileges of civilization. The delivery and collection may be erratic from causes over which man has no possible control, but the frontier town accepts the inevitable without a murmur. Directly a little settlement springs up in the remote wilderness the threads of the postal service of the country are rewoven, so as to bring the new arrival within the meshes of the net by means of which letters are swung to and fro.
You can read the rest of this chapter at http://www.electriccanadian.com/pion.../chapter15.htm
You can read this book at http://www.electriccanadian.com/pion...king/index.htm
Canadian Monthly Magazine
Published by the Vanderhoof-Gunn Publishing Company
I've now added Volume 13 and this is the first full version of the magazine. While still somewhat faint it is certainly readable.
This can be found at http://www.electriccanadian.com/life...zine/index.htm
Explore Canada Via Interactive PDF!
This is a pdf file you can purchase for $7.99 but they do offer you a free download of a chapter. it includes links to videos and also has many pictures. You can read this and download the sample chapter at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/life...ual_canada.htm
A Farm Home in Ontario
A publication of the Minister of Agriculture of Ontario. This publication has a ton of old back and white pictures and shows just how rich Ontario is in agricultural land and how wide the crops that can be grown. You can get to this book at:
http://www.electriccanadian.com/tran...e/farmhome.htm
The Flag in the Wind
This issue was Compiled by Fraser Hudghton. A good range of articles this week and a rather neat summary of what is ahead.
Well worth a read... and there are also some excellent articles in the Synopsis.
You can read this issue at http://www.scotsindependent.org
Electric Scotland
The Bards of Bon Accord 1375 - 1860
By William Walker
Added William Cadenhead, Peter Still, Junior and William Forsyth.
You can read these chapters at http://www.electricscotland.com/poet...cord/index.htm
Northern Notes and Queries
Note: In the pdf version of this newsletter I am placing a graphic of the Contents page so you can see what is included in each issue. Note that from the 1894 edition we are using a new source to bring you other issues of this quarterly magazine. Each issue continues to bring information on different families such that this current issue includes information on Sir James Macdonell, Sir John Lyell, Fordoun, Stirling, Murray, Drummond of Hawthornden, names of Scots guards in France, Grant, Campbell, Arnot, Law, Innes, Gibson and de Lardi, Bullock and Horne families, Drysdale, Ross, Forbes, Munro and Bethune.
1894 Articles 563 to 585
This issue can be viewed at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...hern/index.htm
Kirkintilloch Town and Parish
By Thomas Watson (1894)
This week we've added...
Resurrectionists
Cholera
Dennis Doolan and Patrick Redding
“Tis Sixty Years Since
Drives and Walks
Rev. Mr. Forman’s Report on Parish, 1845
Calico Printers and "Blue Pauls,”
Sketches of Kirkintilloch Men I have Met in the Army
Here is hoe the chapter on 'Tis Sixty Years Since starts...
If any person who knew Kirkintilloch fifty to sixty years ago and left it then, were to return to it now, he would scarcely know the ancient town. Some of the old familiar objects still remain, but very few. The old court-house and jail with the steeple and bell are still unchanged, and the Townhead “Brig” over the canal has not been dispensed with; the canal itself having still the old familiar aspect. Everything else, speaking generally, has been “transmogrified embellished, or replaced: even “Luggie Brig" he would find as an old friend with a new face.
Thatch roofs are now a thing of the past; only a few being left; and the old buildings are replaced by handsome houses and shops; few empty spaces next the streets being now unoccupied. Pavements are universal with well-made kerbs; and the sewerage of the town may be said to be perfect. Some handsome new churches have been erected, and many elegant villas at Bellfield and other suburbs. Water is brought in abundance from the Campsie hills by gravitation.
The rest of this chapter can be read at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist.../chapter35.htm
The other chapters can be read at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...loch/index.htm
The History of Kilmarnock
By Archibald M'Kay (1858)
We have now completed this book which can be read at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...ck/history.htm
Shetland: Descriptive and Historical
By Robert Cowie (1874)
We are now continuing with Part II of this publication which goes into detail on the various parts of Shetland and this week we've added...
Chapter XV. - The Skerries
Passage thither—Grief Skerry—East Linga —Seals—Cormorant—The Otter—Skerry Isles—Their Harbour—The Fishery—“The Skerry Fight”—Shipwreck of the Carmelan, and of a Russian Frigate—The Lighthouse —Lightkeeper’s Houses, &c.—Effects of the Sea—School— Shipwreck of the b.s. Pacific on East Linga, near Whalsey, in February 1871.
Chapter XVI. - The North Isles
Yell.—Its Extent—Character of the Soil —Harbours—Proposed Canal—Parochial Statistics—Manor Houses—Hascussey—Fishings, &c.—Peat-Moss.
Chapter XVII. - Fetlar
Its name—Fertility of the Soil—Geological Formation—Parochial Statistics—Antiquities—Brough Lodge— Fetlar Ponies—Shipwrecks—Supposed Submarine Volcano.
Chapter XVIII. - Unst
Hills — Lochs—Geological Formation — Harbours— History and Antiquities.
Chapter XIX. - Unst continued
Itinerary — Belmont — Uyea Sound — Muness Castle—Balta—Balta Sound—Buness—M. Biot— Some distinguished natives of Unst—Chromate Quarries— “Fenian Invasion*—Parochial Statistics—North Coast— Lighthouse.
Chapter XX. - Lunnasting
Doura Voe—West Sound of Whalsey—Vidlin Voe—Lunna—Parochial Statistics—Industries, &c.
Chapter XXI. - Yell Sound to Sulem Voe
Lunna Ness—Yell-Sound—Its Islands— Its Tideways— Coast of North Delting— Sulem Voe—Mavisgrind—The Road there.
You can read these chapters at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...land/index.htm
Robert Burns Lives!
Edited by Frank Shaw
One of the movers and shakers in the Burns community goes quietly and happily about his work with great distinction. He has planned and coordinated as many conferences on Burns as anyone I know, and he did it with much style and grace. He does not seek attention. He is a behind-the-scenes fellow who helps advance the cause of 18th century literature and who is a strong proponent of Robert Burns. He is diligent in his research; his footnotes are impressive and clearly give credence to his research. His writing skills exhibit clarity that few possess. Say hello again to Professor Patrick Scott.
I have written so much about Patrick in previous pages of Robert Burns Lives! that it would be very easy to simply quote from those articles. But instead I ask you to read “A Tribute to Patrick Scott” in Chapter 135 of our Index. This accolade was written on the occasion earlier this year of his well-attended retirement celebration hosted by his colleagues at the University of South Carolina. Welcome home, Patrick! (FRS: 9.6.12)
You can read this article "Robert Burns’s First Printer: John Wilson of Kilmarnock. Part 1: The Book Market in Burns’s Ayrshire" by Patrick Scott at: http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...s_lives151.htm
Other articles in this series can be read at http://www.electricscotland.com/fami...rank/burns.htm
Waddell’s Life And Works Of Robert Burns
We already have a huge amount up about Robert Burns but we acquired this 2 volume publication and consulted with Frank Shaw and so we decided to serialise this on the site. It also has a number of excellent illustrations and some colour plates.
This week we added the balance of the chapters from Volume 1. I would also like to recognise the efforts of John Henderson for splitting up this book for us.
You can read this book as we get it up at http://www.electricscotland.com/burns/lifeandworks.htm
Reminiscences of the Royal Burgh of Haddington
And Old East Lothian Agriculturists by John Martine (1883). This is a new book we're starting on and I must say it makes a most enjoyable read. Here is a wee bit from the Introduction...
THE town of Haddington is of a very ancient date, having been created a royal burgh by King David I. of Scotland in the twelfth century. It appears, however, from history and tradition, to have been a place of importance some centuries before that.
Chalmers, the learned author of “Caledonia,” affirms that it was originally a hamlet of one Haden, a Saxon settler, and that in the Anglo-Saxon practice of the time, tun was affixed, and hence his territory got the name of “Hadentun.” It is also historically written, that the territory was given as a marriage dowry, in the year 1139, to Ada or Hadina, daughter of the Earl of Warren and Surrey, on her marriage with Prince Henry, the son of King David I., hence she named her burgh Adington, or Hadington, “the dwelling of the Princess Ada.” Certain it is, she was attentive to the interests of her burgh, and endowed a nunnery at the Abbey village near Haddington. She died in the year 1178. Miller, in a note in his “History of Haddington,” gives another definition, traditionally handed down, and which he had got from an old inhabitant, that the name waS derived from the circumstance of old Scottish guides calling to the English during an invasion to “Had-doon-Tyne.”
Old country people even as late as fifty to sixty years ago (and perhaps yet), used to speak of “ganging to Herrington". This is certainly a corruption of the name, and far away from the probable and true derivation of it It is not easy now to say what is the true interpretation and derivation of the name. This must be left much to the conjectures of antiquaries. Haddington is certainly a very pretty name, and well worthy of being adopted as the title of a Scotch earldom. It is not stretching traditionary history perhaps too far, to say that the rich valley of the Tyne was known to the Romans, and that their legions were fed from the crops which, even at that early period, grew abundantly on the fertile soils around Haddington. The late Sir George and Baron Hepburn of Smeaton remarks, in one of his articles on the old Corn Laws, that Suetonius, an old Roman historian, affirms that “Britannia Romana, or the Roman province in Great Britain, was considered to be one of the corn countries from whence the Romans drew a regular supply of bread corn for their armies, and occasionally to Rome itself, when the crops of Sicily and Africa failed to yield their regular supplies.”
You can read this book as we get it up at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...gton/intro.htm
Campbell in the Scottish Nation
I got in a scan of two biographies of prominent Campbells and have added them to our page at http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...n/campbell.htm
Just scroll down the page and you'll find the scanned images.
The Working Life of Christina McKelvie MSP
As the Scottish Parliament has now gone back after the Summer break Christina sent us in a wee report. You can read this at:
http://www.electricscotland.com/hist...vie/120906.htm
And finally...
Emergency
In America the emergency number is 911. An Irish-American phoned the normal operator to say he wanted to phone the emergency number, but his phone didn't have a number eleven on it!
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Great Place New York.
A Scots tourist taking the train from New Jersey to Penn station hears the conductor announce: "For those of you who are interested, Penn Station is next."
then he went on ... "For those who aren't, it still is."
And that's all for now and hope you all have a great weekend.
Alastair