(Photo's are links to full size picture).
ABSTRACT OF MY OWN LIFE AND TIMES Continued
Commenced writing on the 25th of March 1885
By George Taylor
Page 13
While I resided in Kelso, I had sometimes occasion to call upon that wealthy and benevolent lady, Mrs. Roverson of Ednam House. When there was any charitable movement and subscription where being taken, I was always deputized to visit this lady. She was always so cheerful and seemed to have a pleasure in giving. It was about this time that she made a present to the town of that fine piece of ground known since as Spedden Park. I was deputized to lay out the ground with walks and shrubbery and I think I also planted a Beech Hedge all round it. The main entrance was by a high arched gate, and I suggested to the lady that some large trees planted on each side of this arch would be good accompaniment. And I mentioned that there were some in the Duke’s Park which required thinning out were the very thing for this purpose. In a day or two the Duke’s Forester called upon me and said I was to go with him and select whatever trees I wanted. This I did and then set about a plan to move and plant them, so they would grow. I had just been reading sometime before how a gentleman in the west of Scotland had moved a great many trees of 30 and 40 feet high with success. This was by digging a deep circle a good way from the center of the tree and then digging and working inwards, taking care as you proceed to tie up and preserve all the roots and fibers. Then having a large trunk or carriage with wheels to pull the tree down upon when it could be drawn to the plane wanted, where a suitable place had been prepared for planting. I went to this work in the way mentioned and it created quite a sensation to the people in the town in seeing such large trees drawn along their streets. I think we moved 6 trees in this way and they all grew and gave at once to the entrance a finished appearance.
In the time that I was in Kelso that connection of the railroad was made from Edinburgh by way of Galashiels, Melrose, St. Boswells, and Roxburgh. Here the most natural and easy way would have been to bring it down the side of the Teviot and crossing the Tweed above the Chalkheugh, cross over Roxburgh Street, and then leading by the way of the Inch Park to the north of Forrestfield. Here would have been brought direct into town instead of being carried round by the way of Maxweelheugh. Now why was this not done? The very simple reason was that it would have come to near the grounds and policy of the Duke of Roxburgh. Kelso was left in her beauty and gentility, while the neighboring towns got the business and wealth resulting from a direct rail connection.
I think it was about 1853 that I had a letter from my brother Andrew stating how he was getting on his business, also mentioning that he had bought 140 acres of land near the town and that he had been preparing to have some of it put into wheat, and that whenever I or any of the friends should come, we should have whatever we wanted for a nursery. I thought over the matter carefully. I was at present in a good situation for myself, but then I was getting into a family and what future prospect was there for them. I naturally thought as my brothers had done so well, I had surely as good if not a better chance than they. I therefore gave notice to Mr. Stuart as to what my intentions were and that my services would terminate on the 26th of May. He said he regretted very much that I should leave, but could not blame me for doing better. I thought I would arrange my affairs so as to sail sometime in the month of August. As Mr. Stuart had got no person to fill my place, I was in the way of doing some nursery work through the course of June and July and early August. I fixed on a day of sale for my books and household furniture. This came round in a favorable way; the various articles being sold for pretty fair prices.
A little previous to this, I had a tribute of respect and grateful remembrance paid me from two different bodies in which I had been much identified in Kelso. The first was from the church with which I was connected, and I shall here transcribe the report as it appeared in the Kelso Chronicle of August 3, 1855: “At the conclusion of the Services in the Evangelical Union Church, a special meeting was held, when the Rev. William Allan in a few appropriate remarks presented Mr. Taylor with a handsome Bible in name of the brethren bearing the following inscriptions, ‘Presented to George Taylor, Elder by the Evangelical Union Church of Kelso Scotland as a token of respect for his character, his attachment to Christ Cause and his zeal in advancing the interests of the Redeemer’s Kingdom in this place, Kelso 25 of July, 1855. It mentions that Mr. Taylor made a feeling and suitable reply.”
The other tribute that I received was from the Total Abstinence Society and appeared in the Kelso Chronicle in the same connection which is as follows: “Mr. George Taylor, Nurseryman, being about to leave this country for America, was entertained on Saturday Evening by the members of the Kelso Total Abstinence Society and other friends in Mr. Rutherford’s Temperance Hotel here. The company set down to tea about eight o’clock and spent a harmonious and happy evening. all present wishing Mr. Taylor health and happiness in the Country of his adoption. In the course of the evening testimony was borne to regard and esteem entertained by all for Mr. Taylor in the various efforts made by him for the advancement of the moral and social good of those around him, and a copy of Mr. Dawson’s Statistical History of Scotland was presented to Mr. Taylor, bearing the following inscription, ‘Presented to Mr. George Taylor on his leaving for America by P. Hooper Dawson, President of the Kelso Total Abstinence Society, Kelso 28 of July, 1855.’” This book I still have in my library and I find it of great use in reference to Statistics in Scottish History. The Bible, I’m sorry to say, was lost when the Presbyterian Church in Kalamazoo was burned in 1844.
I moved from Kelso on Saturday 19 of August. Besides myself and wife, I had 3 sons and 2 daughters. My eldest daughter, Isabella being nearly 13. We had also a good deal of boxes and baggage with us which altogether involved me a great deal of responsibility. We went to our friends at Bonjedward and remained until Monday morning. We started pretty early with our cart and baggage to catch the railway train at Clarilaw which goes to Edinburgh. There we spent the day, taking the evening train to Liverpool. I had a good deal of trouble in getting our baggage transferred from one train to another, as there was no checking as we have in America. We traveled all night and got into Liverpool about 8 o’clock in the morning. I had previously engaged my passage at Kelso. The agent was Mr. Andrew Murry Foreman in the Kelso Chronicle, with whom I was very intimate. The name of the vessel in which we were to sail was the John Bright, one of the best, having made some of the quickest runs across the Atlantic of any other sailing vessel. We were also recommended to a certain Lodging House by Mr. Murray, and so we found it out and had comfortable lodgings. I called on the agent and he said we must be all on board the next day. This was quite an easy matter with my family, but our baggage had not arrived and I had rather an anxious time till it came with the afternoon train. I engaged a Drayman to take it down to the dock and then it had to be carried into the ship. Both the Drayman and those carriers made extortionate charges but I had to submit. The ship was moved out to the harbor and loaded with iron and other goods. We set sail on Thursday evening the 23rd, being towed so far out by a steamer. We passed a pretty good night, and as soon as it was light in morning I was out on deck looking around. There was a fair sidewind and the ship was going a good pace. I could see the Welsh Coast away to the south on the left, and on the right and to the west was Ireland. I felt a good deal interested on looking at the Green Isle for the first time and some beautiful hills at a distance, which they said was the Wicklow Mountains. My family was feeling comfortable below in the berth, but I preferred to remain on deck. We seemed still to be coming nearer the Irish Coast and everything seemed pleasant, when all at once the ship gave an awful shake and lurch. I could not at first understand the cause of this, but the captain and the sailors knew. Our ship had grounded and there we stuck. The sailors were in an awful bustle but they were in hope that the ship would get off when the tide rose, about 11 or 12 o’clock. When there was no prospect of moving the commenced to lighten the ship by throwing out a great quantity of the iron bars they had taken on at Liverpool. They also let out the great casks of water but still no movement. I could now perceive by the way the captain and seamen were acting that some new effort was being made in the way of hoisting sails.
Meantime I took a walk up the hind part of the deck, and thinking and looking at our perilous position, I earnestly prayed that the Lord would look upon us in mercy and bless the means that were being used for our deliverance, and I had a most happy feeling that my prayer would be answered. It was now two o’clock. The wind seemed to increase and the ship began to be toped and swayed, when with a lurch it seemed as thrown over on one side. Then I noticed the prow went round then there was a cheer from the seamen and the vessel was turned with its prow to Liverpool. I felt truly thankful to God for this deliverance. But we were not yet out of danger for it was ascertained there was a great leak, there being 3 ¼ feet of water in the hold. The pumps were at once set. Alternating, one requiring 10 men to work it and we passengers had all to stand in and take our turn. Thus with the other pumps working brought out a stream of water that would have drove a mil. Yet with all this pumping effort the water had risen to 7 ¼ feet in the hold. We thus spent a day and a night in the deepest anxiety, but upon the whole had great reason to thank God for deliverance. There was no doubt but this disaster was caused by running too near the Irish Coast. This vessel having got a fame for making quick passage, the captain instead of tacking to the south, which would have caused delay, kept straight on, and hence the accident. A steam vessel met us with Mr. Gion the main agent on board. He expressed great sympathy for us passengers, assuring us that we would be kept free of all expenses till another ship was ready for sail. All our luggage was taken out and safely deposited at the dock. We were instructed to take lodgings till Monday morning, when another ship would be provided, when we would be supplied with rations the same as if we were sailing. We thus rested on the Sabbath and we really needed it. On the Monday morning Mr. Norris, one of the agents, took me down to their dock and showed me the vessel that was first to sail, the Oswego. This was an older vessel and comparatively small. Mr. Norris said as a friend he would advise me to wait till the Cattivator sailed on the first of September. This was in every way like the John Bright, being built in New York by the same parties. He then showed me through this vessel and the Berths, and I could now choose one for myself and party, get all our luggage in and wait till the ship sailed. This we did and spent a pleasant week looking round the great shipping docks and the city.
On Saturday the 1st of September, we were moved out into the river, while leading was being taken in. In this way we continued till Tuesday 4th, when we were taken out with a steamer for about 20 miles. We had here a fine view of the Welsh Coast, Hollyhead and hills alongside. That of Ireland could only be seen at a great distance. We had pretty fair sailing for 2 ½ days, when we got out the Irish Channel, pass Cape Clear and out into the main ocean. There was a certain amount of rations daily given out to us, and we had to see to the cooking and boiling ourselves. This gave us a good deal of trouble and some things not very pleasant. We ha good sailing till the 8th, when we were becalmed for 2 or 3 days. On the Sabbath 9th, there was an expression by several of the more devout for us to have some form of religious services. This wish was expressed to the captain, who was most willing that it should be so, but as there seemed to be no clergymen on board, we could arrange that I should conduct the meeting. The day was calm and pleasant and we met on the deck in front o the cabin about 11 o’clock. I commenced by giving out the 100 Psalm and it was well sung being aided by an Irish Protestant family who had learned music and took the different parts. After reading a portion of Scripture and prayer I addressed the audience from 1st Timothy, 2 Chapter and 5th verse. “For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus who gave himself a ransom for all.” There was a large attentive audience but a good many of the Roman Catholics kept at a distance. It is truly pitiful to see how these poor creatures are kept and enslaved in ignorance by their priests who have taught them a form of Godliness without the power.
Page 14
After the meeting an Englishman from Norfold came forward and shook me warmly by the hand as a Christian Brother. He then showed me a certificate from the religious body he had left. It bore that his name was Watson and that he was a local preacher in Wesleyan Methodist connection highly recommending him to any Christian Brethren in America. I found this man like all his brethren ready to go to work and it was agreed that he should address the meeting in the afternoon. This he did and after introducing the service by singing some of the Methodist hymns and prayer, he gave an address from the 9th chapter of St. Matthew, 6, and brought out some arousing thoughts which were calculated to arrest the careless and stir up the people of God to more zeal and devotion. This man was by trade a carpenter, and he had a very singular family connection on board, nothing less than 4 generations in a parental line. There was first the old great grandfather of 84 who looked stout and healthy, there was his son a stout man but beginning to grey, next the son of the above, then he had a young family on board. I do not know if ever such a family crossed the Atlantic in one vessel before. We had religious services every Sabbath on our voyage, alternately conducted by Mr. Watson and myself. When the weather would not permit on deck we had it in the first and second cabin.
I had a good deal of trouble with my wife, especially in the early part of our voyage, when the ship gave a great pitch and rolled over she got so excited. The girl Agnes Vier who was with us was very little better. All my reasoning had no effect. It hurt themselves and had also a bad effect on the children.
From the 9th till the 22nd, we were a good deal becalmed, and when there was wind it was often a head. The first severe storm we had was on the 19th. I noticed in the morning a circle round the sun, such as is sometimes seen on land about midday. The wind rose and for 5 or 6 hours blew very hard. It was also a good deal ahead of us, but what was a most singular thing, it stopped blowing all at once. But though the wind had ceased the waves seemed only to rise higher and rolled in such a way as made the great ship rock and roll from side to side, like a huge cradle in such a way that many thought she would turn over altogether. It had a most fearful effect in the interior of the vessel, for it so happened that a great many of the chests and boxes had not been lashed, and a number of them rolled over from one side of the ship to the other. The water came and slop pails were overturned and kept up a rattling and clattering with the movement of the ship. It was difficult for any person to preserve their entre of gravity, and some severe falls were got. What with the shrieking of women and the cries of children and the rattling of tins and boxes, it was a scene altogether indescribable. I had previously been advised by an old seaman to lash all my trunks and boxes, and I received no damage. But there were a good many who sustained a heavy loss from breakage as well as from awful fright.
Previous to this, scarlet fever had broken out among some of the children. One was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Young from Glasgow. I mentioned to Mrs. Young that I had a cure for scarlet fever by wrapping in a wet sheet and that two years ago I applied it with success to three of my own children. She said she had heard of it and would be glad to have it applied. This we did. Three times, and the girl who was 10 years old got better in a day or two. I spoke to the doctor of the ship about the importance of the wet sheet for scarlet fever but he seemed very much opposed and so I had to keep still. But this did not prevent Mrs. Young and myself from visiting some of those who were affected, and on mentioning how her daughter had been cured, they were willing to have their children treated in the same way. This however had to be done on the sly for fear of the doctor, and in this way we operated on four who all got better in a very little while. But there were several deaths on board from this disease.
We came on the banks of Newfoundland about the 22nd and as is it common, we had some calm and thick fog, but in a day or two we saw lightening and heard thunder. Then it commenced to rain. And then it literally poured in such a way as I had never seen before. It flowed down from the rigging and upper deck in great streams. I equipped myself with my rubber coat and thick boots and with a pail collected great quantities of rain water for my family and others. After this we saw a great many of the fish, porpoises. Our children were much amused to see them sporting in the after and in making their quick gyrations around the ship. We also saw three whales at a distance and saw the blower rising from their nostrils. On the morning of the 28th a woman gave birth to a fine boy. There is a place called the hospital where all such are taken. The captain named the boy Austin Americanus, and he with some others mad the parents a present of two guineas.
From this till the 3rd of October the wind was favorable. On the morning of the 2nd the captain said to me that we might now be looking out for a pilot, though he considered we were not yet over 300 miles from New York harbor. That afternoon about 2 o’clock a boat was seen away to the south with a white sail. It soon came nearer so that it was seen to be a pilot boat with the number 19. Our ship slacked sail a little and the boat came alongside. A Yankee stepped on board and took command of the ship. We had some good sailing for a certain time rough. I well recollect that in the morning there was a report that land was seen. I thought that could hardly be the case, but when called to look in a certain direction, sure enough it was land. But on examining my guidebook with its chart, I doubt that we were near the north end of Long Island and the most prominent object we now saw was Montgrue Point. We had been driven this far north by the late storm. The wind being in a southern direction, it took is more than two days to sail tacking out and in from the island till we reached Sandy Hook. As we were thus sailing slowly, a pilot came alongside and the captain invited them to come on board, seeing they had some newspapers, I asked them for one, and an opening, I saw the new that Sabastapool was taken. This I called out and gave a cheer which I knew would offend the captain, as his sympathies were greatly Russia. The two men had luncheon and a bottle of Brandy from the captain. When they again went with their boat out to sea. On the morning of the 6th we saw the highlands of New Jersey and Sandy Hook lighthouse. In a little time a large steamer came and took us in tow, and in a little we were between the land of New Jersey and Long Island. The scenery on both sides improved as we advanced till we came to Staten Island. The ground rises undulates: the whole extent is thickly studded with neat willas of a light and airy appearance, clumped and interopeed with trees and shrubs of various hues forming altogether a grand panorama of nature and are in combination.
Here the doctor came on board and we passed in review to see that we were all in good health. When we were about 10 yards from the battery, the ship stopped, while a large raft came along and on it was put all the luggage. Here the custom officer had a look to see that we had no excisable goods. A steamer was then attached and the passengers and luggage were then taken alongside the castle gardens. This we found to be a great boom for emigrants, as all outside runners are excluded and every needed information is as to the place of their destination. Our luggage was all wheeled in and checked. Then we had to pass singly into the interior where we were asked from what country we had come. Then passing on, we were asked to what part of the country we were going—the states or Canada, what business did we follow, and how much money had we brought with us. There were also parties directing our attention to various large maps showing the best and cheapest routes either by steamboat or rail, when and where, they started from, and their regular charges. Anyone could remain here for a day or two and get good victuals at a reasonable rate. When they left, their luggage was weighed and the railway or steamboat company came and took it free of expense. The rate of charge was fixed and paid to them, and the emigrant had only to show the Castle Garden Ticket to either steamboat or railroad.
After passing through this ordeal on the Saturday forenoon, I went away up Broadway to see Mr. Gilkerson, who was then foreman in the firm of Bowen and McNames. He took me to the Battery Hotel where my family and I had good lodgings for three days. I had thus some time to call on parties whom I knew, especially Mr. James Buchan and William and John Aitchison, who lived at Brooklyn: and also write letters home to friends, and especially to Mr. Andrew Murray of the Kelso Chronicle. New York looked a large place then, but what an immense change on both it and Brooklyn within the last 30 years! I therefore made arrangements at the Castle Gardens to get my tickets and start forKalamazoo on Wednesday evening of the 10th. My first ticket was by steam vessel from New York to Albany, with a certain amount of luggage mentioned. We thus started about 6 o’clock in the evening, traveled up the Hudson all night and arrived about 7 in the morning, at Albany. There we had breakfast and started in the forenoon by rail for Buffalo, for which we showed our tickets. We thus had a fine view of the Mohawk Valley, occasionally the Erie Canal and other sights on the line. But a good part was traveled under night, and we arrived at Buffalo on the Friday afternoon. Here I had a look round this city till 6 o’clock when the steamer started along Lake Erie for Detroit. Here again we showed our tickets and with our luggage got all on board. We had a night and part of a day sailing on this lake, and in the morning and through the day had some views to the left of the states of Ohio and Michigan. We had a better view of the Canadian side as we came nearer Detroit.
Page 15
Here we arrived about 3 in the afternoon and were told that the Kalamazoo train left at 7 o’clock. I spent a little time looking round this city. They seemed a good deal engaged in pulling down old buildings and putting up new. And one thing I particularly noticed was the great number of vessels of all sorts going up and down the river by the way of Great Lakes. When I went to the train at 7 o’clock and presented my ticket, they said they could not take my luggage as this was Saturday evening, but that it would be sent the beginning of the week. I had therefore to accept this alternative, and so we took the emigrant cars to Kalamazoo. We stopped at several places by the way including Marshall, where we had some good eating. I recollect I went down to where an old colored lady was cooking, and among other things I smelled was some fine ham. I made an arrangement with her for a good plate of this. I brought it up to my family and they ate it with great relish. They said that American ham was far better than ours at home. I suppose their appetites were getting better after coming off the sea. As daylight came on, I saw Kalamazoo River. At that time the banks had a roughish appearance and the rail fence was a new object in the landscape. Battle Creek seemed rather a rising place having water power machinery. The morning was calm with a little white frost. And so we passed through Galesburg and Comstock, and arrived at Kalamazoo about 9 o’clock.
My late brother Andrew met us at the depot and took us up to brother James' house where we had some washing and breakfast. After this, my wife and family went up to Robert Walker's farm at the west end and remained there until I got a house provided. I had come with the expectation of entering on the land which Andrew had wrote to me about some two years before. But I found he had got into some strife in the business which had caused him to give the Rights and Titles of his land into the hands of another party. He told me how his difficulties had come upon him, but that he hoped in a little time to make it all right with me. Brother James, knowing these matters, proposed to let me have a piece of his land opposite theMountain Home Cemetery, as a nursery. And so I looked out to find a house for my family most convenient to this. The only one I could find was an old one at the corner below the cemetery belonging to Charles Stuart, and the rent he charged was 2 dollars a week. I thought this very high for such a house, but was assured that I could not tent a house any cheaper. Then I had next to look for furniture. James let me have his kitchen stove as they wanted a new one. Then he went round with me to get the other household things, and I found it a fact that to all parties where we went, they were owing a bill for fleshmeat they had been receiving. I thus got all my necessary things collected and so arranged as to commence housekeeping on Saturday 20th of October, 1855. My luggage meantime had come along to the depot. And when I went to take it, I was quite surprised to find charges on it. I told the agent how I had paid the whole freight and passage at Castle Garden and therefore I refused to pay this charge. He admitted that it might be as I had said, but as they had been charged to pay him, he durst not let them go without payment. I decided to pay under protest and told him I would write the company at Castle Gardens. This I did and received a letter by return post, requesting me to call at the Railway Office and receive the money which I had paid for freight from Detroit to Kalamazoo. This I did and they paid it to me at once, only requiring my signature.
Our first commencement in housekeeping that Saturday evening was not of a cheerful aspect. Through the course of the day, I had got the furniture placed in a certain way and the stove set up, which was something new to me. My wife and family had arrived and had some wondering looking round on the new things. As it began to get dark we had light by the candle and we had also a lamp, but at that time they were a very poor affair and the oil was wretched poor stuff, so that with the black stove and the dim light, the contrast was altogether very great from our open fires and the brilliant gas lights of our house in Kelso. While I felt this, I yet tried to show cheerfulness for my family's sake, and things daily began to brighten up and improve.
As I had yet no means for commencing nursery work I studied to make myself useful on the farms, and my first work was taking down and gathering apples. There was a good crop that year. The orchard then being young and in good bearing order. Another new kind of work to me was cornhusking, which somewhat brought me into American associations. There was another thing I learned which I had never done before, and that was milking a cow. My brother James in his way of business had always a great many extra cows and cattle on hand. There was one nice red cow among them which he said I could milk and have the use of for my family. I said I had never milked a cow but would try to learn and would get Robert Walker, his man, to show me. So I told Robert and brought up a milking pail. He said he had to learn when he came here and that I would find it quite a simple matter. He then took the pail, went forward and laid his hand gently on the cow and began to milk in quite an easy way, then he got up and I took his place and began milking. But it did not seem to come readily and then the cow began to feel uneasy and moved forward. I tried again and then she made another move. A thought here came over me to give up cowmilking and take a chance of getting milk some other way, but a second thought prevailed and I tried again, found out the proper way to handle the tits and make the milk come freely. And after this, I found it quite a simple matter. We had thus a cow all the 12 years we lived in this west end, and in the course of two or three years some of the boys for the most part did the milking.
It was on the evening of the 10th of November that my youngest son, John was born. My wife soon recovered and for two years had pretty fair health. Isabella and the two oldest boys went to school. On the Sabbath days I went to the Presbyterian Church. The Rev. William Huggins being then the minister. I also joined in the adult Sabbath School Class, and in this way got well acquainted with some of the most intelligent members of the Church. I was also in the way of regularly attending prayer meetings. It was not however till sometime in the spring that I joined this church. My wife was also admitted by our letter.
In the course of the fall and winter of 1855 and 1856, I was employed a good deal with the farm hands in wood chopping. There was a field sown in wheat alongside the Grand Prairie Road where we cut a great many large Oaks, both for firewood and sawlogs. We did a great deal of chopping west of the Lake Shore Road where Vine Street now runs.
I recollect of meeting with a surprise on the last day of that year 1855. I had been up on the farm and on coming down to my house in the evening, some of my family met me on the road and said there was a man from Kelso in the house. This made me wonder, but as I came near I heard loud talking and I was certain it was the voice of Adam Oliver, who I expected was now in Australia. Sure enough, it was the same man. The reason for my wonder at seeing him here was that in the spring he came to me at Kelso to bid me a final goodbye as he was going to Australia where he had a sister. Something had occurred that prevented his going, but induced him to come to Paris in Canada. He had been working and looking around, but not finding things quite to his mind. He had packed up his traps and come with his family to Kalamazoo. His wife and family he said were at the American Hotel. And so I went down town with him and introduced him to brother James, who said he thought he could find him a house in the morning. This he did and I recollect he got him furniture in somewhat the same way as he got mine. He and some of his sons were also engaged in woodchopping on James' farm and also did a good deal of the same work on brother Andrew's land.
The winters of 1855 and 1856 were severe, and I had some experience in cutting and handling ice. Brother James was then in the way of filling a large icehouse which required a good many hands among which were myself and Adam Oliver. We cut from the Mill Pond on Portage Street. I think the ice was from a foot to 15 inches thick.
The ground where I commenced my nursery was ploughed and put in order in the fall. In the course of the winter I sent an order to Stuart and Mein in Kelso for a considerable number of Evergreen trees and ornamental plants, the greater number being the Norway Spruce. My brother James thought at first that I was acting foolishly in planting so may Evergreen trees and that fruit trees would be far more wanted. I said that might have been so when he first came to Kalamazoo, but I could perceive that there were a good many people in the town and country who would like to have their places ornamented, providing such things were properly grown to answer that end. I found on talking with several people about planting Evergreen trees on their grounds. They said they would be willing to do it if they would grow, but that they had once got some and they died. I learned that the evergreen trees came from agents in the east who were selling fruit trees and sometimes had a few evergreen. This statement was very conclusive reason to me why Evergreen trees carried about and exposed failed to grow. The Evergreen trees that I had ordered came in good condition about the beginning of April. I had them all planted out in a proper way, and I scarcely lost a tree. And in the course of the season they grew well as ever I had seen them do in Scotland. I also went into the raising of vegetable plants especially cabbage and tomatoes. I therefore had two or three hotbeds made, did most of the glazing myself. I had a large fine stock of plants in the month of May. The demand for such was greater than I could supply. I transplanted as many of these and I had ground for and sold them all at good prices. All the hotels were good customers and I often left a good supply at my brother's Meat Market, where they were readily sold. Early green peas and sweet corn were also in great demand and brought good prices. I found however, there were some garden products highly esteemed in Scotland which were scarcely known or thought of here. Among these chiefly was celery. That first season of 1856 I transplanted out about 300. It grew well and was of good quality, but then even the hotelkeepers scarcely knew what it was. And it appeared to me at first that I had got a dead stock on my hand. At that time there was an Englishman of the name of Cox, who then kept a small grocery store near to where the post office is now on Brucick Street. I showed him some one day and knew what it was and said that if I would bring him some one day and he knew what it was and said that if I would bring him down a few heads he would talk with people and try to sell it for me. This he did and I kept supplying him with a little as it was wanted. I also took some to my brothers' meat market and they also talked with people and sold some, but it was with some difficulty that myself and the above parties sold the 300 heads.
The next year Mr. Acre of the Burdick House wanted me to bring him a dozen or two every week, then of course the Kalamazoo House had to be supplied in the same way, then certain private families wanted a couple of heads. Before long the thing went on like a house afire, almost everybody wanted it. For nearly ten years I was the principle grower of celery and I made well out by it, as the price at the hotels was never below 50 cents a dozen. At that time it had not been discovered that our Kalamazoo marshes were so well adapted for growing good celery which is now done to a much greater extent than any other place in the United States.
In the course of the next 4 or so years the demand for Evergreen trees began to increase, not only in Kalamazoo but in other towns east and west along the railroad. People had now found out that there was no difficulty in making them grow and so the demand increased in both town and country. There were many people at that time who made some great mistakes in planting these Evergreen trees so near the front of their houses. They looked very well for a few years, but as they grew larger, many of them had to be cut down. I was thus in the first place making some money while the people on their part were learning something by experience. It was about this time that I introduced a form of planting Evergreen trees as a hedge, more especially the Norway Spruce. The first which I sold for this purpose was on the north side of the town to Mr. Humphry on the Gull Road. He had just got his large new house finished and the ground leveled round about. He called on me to see about getting some Evergreens for his place, and he mentioned that some person had advised him to plant a row of the Norway Spruce for a hedge. I told him to plant them 2 ½ feet apart. I sold him 200 good bushy plants 18 inches high for 15 cents each. The hedge was well tended and trim and became the admiration of every one that passed along the road: an advertisement from what I received a great benefit.
As the spring came round, I put advertisements in our local papers, and by this means I had a great deal of custom from the farmers in the county. I had also some agents at Battle Creek, Marshall, and Jackson. The same also on the western line, such as Dowiagac and Niles, and for some time I also sent a good many to and agent in Chicago. The grounds of the Mountain Home Cemetery were laid out with regular drives about this time and I supplied the company with 100 dollars for decoration. It was in the winter of 1857 that I commenced a large stock of young Apple trees by root grafting. This is a Yankee invention, and here I found its superiority to what was our practice in Scotland. They succeeded well and I soon found customers from the farmers around.
Some of the people in Kalamazoo were now beginning to acquire a taste for flowers and ornamental plants. I had got with some of my nursery orders from Stuart and Mein, two or three dozed of the finest varieties of Herbaceous plants, as well as some of the finest Hybrid Perpetual Roses. I recollect that in one of these importions they sent me a few seeds of the Delphinium Formosum. This was the first year that this new variety was offered to the public and it came out with great praise, as it had been awarded the first prize at the Royal Horticultural Society of London, the last years as the finest new variety of Herbaceous plants. I think I started these seeds in the Hotbed and planted them out carefully. They grew freely and flowered profusely in the months of July and August. In September I noticed a good many seed pods on the stalks that had flowered. I carefully gathered them. It so happened that the Michigan State Fair was held in Detroit that year and I thought I would go and see it. And as there were a good many of the Delphiniums coming into the second blood, I cut a fine large bouquet and took it with me, and also a good package of the seed I had gathered. I had this bouquet of Delphiniums shown off in a conspicuous place, and it soon attracted a large crowd of wondering ladies. Of course I had to tell the name and especially that this was the flower that received the highest prize at the Royal Horticultural Society of London. I sold a dozen seeds for 25 cents, altogether about 12 dollars worth. This good success in Detroit led me to try the same scheme in another direction. This occurred in about 3 weeks later at Chicago where the Illinois State Fair was held. I had never been to Chicago before and was therefore the more encouraged to go. And so I took a bouquet of the same as I did at Detroit and showed it off, talked with the ladies and sold a large amount.
There was about half an acre of ground round about my old house and it was here where I cultivated my flower garden. Here I showed such a collection of fine things as altogether new to the place. Hybrid Perpetual Roses were one of these, and I was in the way of propagating a large stock both by budding and layering. The fine display attracted a great many visitors, certain of the ladies ordered freely and instructed me to collect the bill from their husbands. In one or two cases I was plainly told that if their wives ordered any more this way they would not settle the bill. Of Dahlias and Hollyhocks I had also the finest collection and strangers from other towns and the country were frequent visitors. All my gardening operations for the first 3 or 4 years were done with the aid of Hotbeds along. There was another party who had commenced a greenhouse in town, and was in the way of selling a good many bedding and houseplants. This man's name was Watkins and was from New York, and knew the business well; but he often indulged in drinking habits and got into debt with a great many till he was obliged to sell out. This he proposed to me at a cheap rate, and so I bought his greenhouse and stock of plants, which I had moved up at once to my own garden grounds. This I think was in the fall of 1859.
My wife's health through the course of this last year had been very poor, and I had called in the skill of two of our best physicians, Mottrem and Pratt, but she seemed only to get weaker and died about the end of September of that year. Her disease no doubt was one of the many forms of Consumption. My oldest daughter, Isabella, took charge of our housekeeping, and with the advice of some of our good neighbors kept all things in good order.
Our nursery business seemed still to increase. My brother had cleared out about two acres to the south of the nursery which he had bought to square up his land. This also was appropriated by me for the growing of trees and vegetables, as for this I also found the demand increasing. All this with the greenhouse greatly increased our amount of work, but my boys were now coming to be of great help, not only of garden work, but also for marketing.
It was about this time that I was induced to purchase two acres adjacent from Mr. Benedict, our neighbor on the College Addition. This I paid by so much down and the rest in the course of two years. This lot was mostly planted with Apple and Peach trees and was now in good bearing order. I was also in the way of cultivating a good many strawberries and other vegetables among the fruit trees. This lot I still hold and have been offering it for sale for the last three years.
For the first two or three years after I came to this country, I had some scruples in taking out my papers as an American citizen. I had always protested against slavery and it appeared to me that the government was in some way identified with it. But I could perceive that a conflict was coming on, and therefore I thought I would become a citizen and fight the battle with the Antislavery party. I found even in Kalamazoo a good many thought proud of being American citizens, and democrats were yet haters of the nigger and advocates of slavery. I even found that certain parties belonging to our churches and teachers in our Sabbath Schools were holding that slavery was a divine institution and were ready to prove it from the Bible authority. Of this I had a noted instance in our own Presbyterian Sabbath School. I was in the adult class, and that portion of the Scripture came up for our lesson in Ephesians 6th chapter, 5th verse where the Apostle enjoins servants to be obedient to their master with fear and trembling and singleness of heart. I think there were about 8 or 10 who were regular members in this class, and as near as I could estimate, there were 3 or 4 Democrats and other Republican and Abolitionists. The great question insisted on by the Democratic party was that the text of this lesson enjoined slavery and that in the books of Moses there were certain injunctions given to the Israelites in their buying and selling of slaves. For 6 Sabbaths we debated the matter, and considerable numbers came round to hear this question or the hour discussed. After all the parties had given their reasons for and against, I directed the class to look at this question in the light of the divine progression, as the scope of the Bible and the Plan of Salvation more especially as it was brought out in the teachings of the Savior and the Apostles as recorded in the New Testament Scriptures. To give an instance of this, I directed the class to look at some of the imperative laws of Moses, and what would be the effect upon us if we should put these same divine laws into effect in our state of Michigan. For instance, a son that was rebellious and disobedient to his parents was to be stoned to death, the same for an open violation of the Sabbath and certain others of the same sort. We are not now under a Theocrasy but under the dispensation of the New Testament, and the grand Golden Rules of the great Master which at once settles this whole question: "Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them." This brought our discussion to a termination, and the end of the Civil War four years afterwards confirmed it.
Previous to and all through the time of the War, our money system was in a very unsettled condition. The banks of the various states having issued bills, many of these had become depreciated and some were nearly worthless. For sometime no person durst take a bill till looking into a book of record. On many of them there was a discount of ten, twenty, and thirty percent. This Civil War created a great excitement all over the country, and a great deal of trouble and distress to those who were subject to the draft as soldiers. It was a serious time with all right thinking people, and some of us as church members and frequent meetings for prayer that the Lord would guide and direct our rulers and that our success in this great conflict might be equal to the justice of our cause, and I am happy to think that these prayers were fully answered.
In the summer of 1862 I thought I would like to run across and see the Old Country once more. My boys being certain that they could manage the business with a little assistance in my absence. I therefore started from Kalamazoo with the early train to Detroit. Spent the day seeing some Scotch friends, started at 6 o’clock by rail to Albany, checking my trunk to that place. As I had a great desire to see Niagara Falls, I spoke to the conductor about this, and he gave me a layover ticket. Our train arrived there in the morning about 5 o’clock. I went out and went down to the end of the bridge. The river here being narrow begins to move quickly and I was induced to walk down for about half a mile and see the whirlpool. After looking at this wonderful galph and the scenery around it, I came up again to the end of the bridge, and seeing an eating house I went up in and had a good plain breakfast. I found the lady that kept this very intelligent, and mentioned that I was now going up to the falls, she gave me some advice to take care of sharpers. She said there is some near by, pointing at some Hackmen with carriages. I thanked her, but I thought I could clear my way. No sooner had I shown myself then the Hackmen were at me in full mouth, most persistent to take me up to the Falls. I allowed them to talk some time and then calmly told them that I was going to have the pleasure of walking and saving my money. I then slowly went up, often stopping and looking at the River and the steep rugged banks by the way. The view of the great Falls from this Canadian side as you draw near is truly grand, as you stand a great measure in front of them. I went up where there was a large Inn and some interesting sights, but I did not spend any money. In my observations I had seen a small boat passing back and forward, a little below the falls. As it was drawing near, I went down and found there charge was 15 cents for taking me across. This I paid and thought it well spent, as the view of the Falls and the water still whirling and surging around was an extra sight. On arriving at the foot of the bank I found two ways of ascending. One was by an elevator and the other by a winding staircase. I chose the latter, where I could rest and look around at the grand scenery. On coming to the top, I found myself a little to the right of the American Fall. After looking over this grand precipice I walked up a little way, where were several large hotels, but I did not patronize any of them. Then I had to cross a bridge or bridges to Goat Island which charge I thing was 25 cents. I then went down to the precipices and had a look into the great gorge of the Horseshoe Fall which was awfully grand. As I stood on the verge looking over I thought if any demon or spirit had the power, how easily they could push me over, but then that Scripture came to my mind. “He shall give his Angels charge concerning thee.” Then I felt calm and confident. I walked round this Island,, saw the rapids and some other fine sights. I sat down in a retired place and had about an hours sleep. Then there was a calm eddy in the stream where I took a bath. I then came back the same way looking on the sights around, and then came slowly down the banks to the village and station at the end of the bridge. I had been here eating in a cheap way, and the train not starting for Albany till after 6 o’clock, I had a walk down and saw the whirlpool from this American side. I found an intelligent man at the station who was also going to Albany and from there to New York by steamboat as I intended. He had traveled this same way before and could therefore give me the names of the places. We arrived at Albany about 6 o’clock in the morning. This was the first time I had experienced the great benefit of our check system. I had told my friend that I expected my trunk here. Just as we stepped from the cars, a man was calling for baggage for the boat. I gave him my check and was assured my trunk would be at the boat when it leaves at 9. My friend and I had a walk and saw the capitol, had breakfast, and went down to the boat. It was a pleasant day and we had a fine view of all the noted places on each side of the River. This was all new to me, as when I came up seven years ago, it was under night. We arrived at the wharf at New York about 5 o’clock, and my friend took me to a good hotel where he had stopped before, so passed a good night, and after breakfast went down to the Steamship Office No. 9 Broadway to secure a Passage Ticket. As I came near the place I was surprised to see a large crowd around the office. On inquiring, I was told that they wanted to secure passage to the Old Country and could not obtain it. I then made an effort to get into the office and find the reason why a Passage Ticket could not be obtained. After some difficulty I got word with one of the clerks who said they had got a dispatch from Washington this morning forbidding selling tickets to men without civic authority. The reason being that they wanted to escape the Draft. A thought here struck me that I would go direct to the shipping office at the dock and hear what they had to say. I went up Broadway and down one of the streets to the left, where the office was. As I went in there I saw two or three men sitting with their feet up doing little or nothing. I asked if I could have a Steerage Passage to Liverpool and back in the course of three months. They said I could or even to London if I wished. I then asked what a round ticket would be from London and was told 75 dollars. I said I would take it, but that I had not got my Bank Check cashed yet, but would pay them 10 dollars now as security till I got my money at Wall Street. All right, they said, and so I went and got my check cashed at a discount then of 11 percent. On coming back to the office they said, “Why we did not know when you were here that an order had come to this company from Washington not to sell any tickets to men without an order from the mayor of the city.” “Well,” I said, “Gentlemen, I could have told you that, but as you know I’m not running away to escape the draft, I shall now pay you the balance of my passage money and you can write me out a ticket as a receipt.” They gave a laugh and said I had rather come smart over them. On Saturday forenoon there was a good deal of trouble with the civic authorities, but about noon the company had a dispatch that all who had taken passages were allowed to go. This vacillating of the authorities at Washington caused a delay of our ships sailing till 5 o’clock in the afternoon. There was a great deal of trouble and confusion. I got an appointment in a berth which held 8 persons. There were 6 Irish men and 1 Englishman and myself. These men had been in this country for some time and were much more clean and respectable in appearance then as I had seen them coming from Ireland.
Page 16
The weather was favorable for the first four days and about that time our ship touched at Cape Race and took in the last news of the war. Our rations were pretty good and I got along first rate with my Irish neighbors in the berth. Our vessel had about 600 on board, and as the weather was pretty good we spent a good deal of our time on deck. I got acquainted with some of the cabin passengers and had a good time with them. One was a Presbyterian minister of Delhi in York State who was well acquainted with our cousins, the Mables. We had religious services on board once or twice. I think we saw land about the 19th, touched at the harbor of Queenston. As we were entering, a small boat came alongside for mail with the last news from America which was no doubt sent over the telegraph wires to Ireland and Great Britain. The majority of our passengers went out here.
I think we came into the harbor of Liverpool on the forenoon of the 21st. Before leaving the ship, our trunks and parcels had to be examined by the Excise Officers. Tobacco being one of the things they looked for, I saw several packages taken. We spent two or three hours in the city and took the train for Carlisle about 2 o’clock. The minister from Delhi and the other two Scotchmen were with us. As soon as the train came to Carlisle, I had to secure another ticket by the Midland line to Newton Roxburgh County. Then I had to push about among the throng of people, get out my trunk, and have a label to Newtown put on it. Here again I found the advantages of our American Check system. I again got on board the train and along the new road that had been made since I left. We touched at Harwick, where my friends left me and arrived at Newtown about 8 o’clock. Here I had a good rest at the hotel, rose early in the morning, and went down to St. Boswells and saw the old man, Brotherstone, and delivered him a present of money from his son Andrew in America. From that village I came down a steep bank to the Tweed, and running forward I plunged my hands into her limpid water, as having once more met with an old friend. Here Fryburgh with its old Abby lies close on the other side, where the bones of the great Minstrel, Sir Walter Scott, rests. I came up the side of the river to the hotel where I had breakfast and awaited the train for Roxburgh at 9. The train from Edinburgh took us on to Roxburgh, where there is a connection to Jedburgh. Seven years ago this road was just being talked about. So I purchased a ticket and had the pleasure of riding over the old ground on the cars, where I had so often walked it. The station I found was at the Bongate Bridge. After passing the tollgate, my eye caught the Cottage House, where my mother lived when I left seven years before. She was not there now, but had passed to the Higher Mansion about a year before. I went up the Bongate Road across the Geopole Bridge and up through the old town, where I had walked so often through the Market Place, and then along the Ramport by the side of the graveyard and the old Abby. Then across the Jed and up round by the Free Church. Just as I made the town here, my sister Agnes saw me. When I received a most hearty welcome. My sister Margaret Telfer was living just a little way off and we were soon all together. After dinner I went away through the park to the Hastrigge Garden to see my brother John, where I had another cordial reception. I found the garden had greatly improved since I left. He had some of the finest strawberries. This was the more of a wonder to me as ours in America were all over two months before. This variety I think was called the Elton Pine. There was another thing in the garden with which I was much gratified, that was some very fine large peaches. These trees had come from our Kelso nursery and being finely trained on the wall, the fruit was much larger than any I had ever seen in this country. I also visited our friends at Bonjedward and Jane Wheelance at Grahmslaw.
When at Kelso I stopped with my old friend Robert Rutherford. Then I had to see all the gentlemen gardeners and many others in town and neighborhood. Sometime in September I was induced to make a trip to Ireland, and this was with my brother-in-law, William Hugguns. He was in the way of doing a good deal of Millwright business in that country, and his daughter Janet was married to a Mr. Laing, who was then living in Dublin. We went by the way of Edinburgh and there saw my sister Mary and her son, Andrew Stevenson. Then to Glasgow and took the steamer at night which sails for Dublin. The vessel was a good deal crowded and my hand satchel, which was laid aside among some others, was stolen. Several more of the passengers raised the alarm that they also lost certain things. This led to the captain and officers to make a general investigation. Two men were found who had certain things that were identified by those who had lost them. But my satchel with shirts, razors, and other things was never seen. I think there was a fault with this vessel in not having a place to check all such things. We soon found a Mr. and Mrs. Lain who lived alongside of the Phenese Park near the banks of the Liffeg. One of the first things that strikes a stranger in this city is their jaunty cars with the seats on every side, the long way, instead of across. I found I could ride all over the city in this way at a moderate charge. I spent about a week in this city. There are some fine government buildings and also some shops in the central parts; but on the outsides, a great many poor shops and other wretched buildings. Any person of genteel appearance going along is constantly accosted with beggars. One of the finest things about that city is the Phoenix Park, both for size and variety. It is said that with the Vice Regal grounds and gardens there is altogether about twenty-two hundred acres. I saw a great many deer, sheep, and goats. There are fine carriage drives all round and through it. I called several times at the Vice Regal Gardens and got intimate with the head gardener who was a Scotchman. These gardens and grounds are kept in fine order. This city has a fine museum which I visited once or twice. Nearby is the Glasnever Cemetery. Any person that would want to know something about Catholicism, its religious tires and ceremonies should visit such a place. This burial ground seemed a good deal crowded with a good many plain, upright grave stones. I noticed that on a great many of these, after mentioning the name of the deceased had also requested friends to pray for the soul of the party whose name was mentioned. I noticed that when a funeral procession came along, they had to wait on a large open space outside the gate till the priest and some other church officials came and escorted the funeral to the grave. Here a good deal of ceremonials had to be gone through, among which was the sprinkling with Holy Water. At one time I was standing so near I felt a small squirt of it but it seemed to have no effect on me for good or evil, but I felt a deep sorrow for the poor blind deluded people.
We left Dublin by rail for Belfast. This was in the early part of the day, which gave us a fine opportunity of seeing the country. But what a contrast in traveling through the same space in either Scotland or England. Here we saw hundreds of small holdings with wretched buildings and poor cultivation. This verified to me what I had heard from some of the Irishmen who came over to the Harvest in Scotland, many of which were farmers of the lands I now saw. I noticed however, that as we came nearer Belfast, the farming of the land was greatly improved, larger, and better managed. Here a great deal of Flax is cultivated for Linen Manufacture. I was told that a great many of the people here are Protestant. We reached Belfast about 4 o’clock and found the steamboat to Greenock sailed about six. Before sailing, my friend, Huggan pointed my attention to a certain object as it suspended on a high pinnacle, asking if I knew what it meant. I did not and was told that it was a storm signal. He did not want to go. We started out in a fair way, but sure enough about 9 o’clock the wind began to blow and Huggan’s fear began with symptoms of sea sickness. He then engaged a berth where he could lie down. But the wind still increased and his sickness increased with severe vomiting. I once or twice looked in on him, when he gave me a wicked agonizing look. I went down to the hold of the vessel where I witnessed an awful scene of sickness and throwing and soon left for the deck. I now felt a little sickness coming over myself and engaged a berth for a small fee from a seaman. I had now a little spell of throwing which at once gave me morning. When it got calmer I went and saw Huggan. He had now got over his sickness and he seemed to be more pleased when I told him what I saw in the hold. He said he would now like to go and see that place, so I led the way. But when we got to the top of the gangway there were a number of men pulling with ropes to extricate a steer that had fallen into the hatchway. Afterwards we went down and found the people in an awful fright. Huggans now seemed more pleased when he saw so many others worse than himself. We then got washed and brushed up a little, had a nice view of the banks of the Clyde, and when we came to Glasgow, had some appetite for breakfast. We then came home by the way of Edinburgh to Jedburgh.
Having a free passage ticket from Liverpool to London, I had to go there and get it certified. I therefore took the railroad to Carlisle and from the seaport near there by steamer to Liverpool. We started at night in good order, but the wind soon rose to a perfect gale worse than from Belfast. I had a severe spell of sea sickness but got over it and had a rest of two or three hours on the vessel in the harbor. I then got my ticket to London and started with the morning train. By a mistake I boarded the express and had the pleasure of a quick trip to London. I went direct down to Cheapside and from there to Bow Lane where I lodged in 1851. The same lady recognized me again and said she could give me lodgings. I then had dinner and a walk down to the London Bridge.
The World’s Exposition of 1862 was now being held in London and the city was thronged with strangers. The buildings for this were in the Kensingston Gardens and were not light and elegant as the Crystal Palace of 1851. There were a great many wonderful things exhibited. Owing to the Civil War, the American display was more limited than would otherwise have been. But the Crystal Palace at Sydenham was in fine running order, and the fine display on the outside ground there with the many floral shades and figures of the new ribbon system were the admiration of every visitor. I kept looking round London for a few days. Once I took an excursion down the Thames to Sheerness and saw some of the ship building operations. I visited Woolwich and saw some of the great guns and a great many other military tactics. Another day I took a railroad excursion to Bristol. I never had been on the west side of the island before. I wanted to see George Mullers Orphan Institution, of which I had read. The train reached Bristol in the afternoon, and I could see at a distance the various buildings of the assylum on the high grounds of Ashley Down. They are nearly a mile from the centre of the city. As I drew nearer I met large companies of boys walking with their attendants. I found the buildings fitted up with economy and utility. I had some conversation with some of the officials. I called at the office and registered my name, and as I was a stranger in the city, they gave me the address of a Christian family where I would find cheap and comfortable lodgings. It was now beginning to get dark and on asking for the street and the place where I intended to lodge and then going in that direction, I was accosted by a well dressed lady who said she would take me to good lodgings. I declined her offer as I had already made an engagement. She then showed her true character and took certain liberties, the same as I had sometimes experienced in Edinburgh in my early days. I soon found the place to which I had been directed and had a very pleasant and comfortable lodgings. I took the train in the morning and arrived at London in the afternoon.
The fame of Mr. Spurgeon as a preacher had now become well known, and one Sabbath I found my way to the Tabernacle. In the afternoon I went to the Rowland Hill Chapel to see and hear my old friend Rev. Newman Hall. That large house was also filled to full extent. I waited on him in the vestry after service and he was very happy to meet me again.
I found that the Civil War created a cotton famine, and I saw thousands of workmen going about idle, awaiting with anxiety the news of every steamer that touched Queenston. I found it to be much the same in London, where the news of the morning and evening papers were awaited with anxiety. I well recollect one morning while sitting at breakfast I noticed the landlady come in from the door with the London Times in her hand, and as I looked and gave a signal, she passed the paper to me. On opening it I at once saw in large heading, “President Lincoln Proclamation to Free the Slave.” I at once gave a hurrah for Lincoln and Liberty to the slaves. This called out some comment by various parties at the table, some saying that it could not be done and would end in a blast of wind. I found the general impression was that the Northern States should divide with the South and let them retain their slaves.
Page 17
I came back to Scotland by the Eastern lone York and Newcastle. I here made a call on George Taylor and his wife, a cousin of mine, who kept a furniture store. I spent a night with them and then came by way of Berwick to Kelso. Brother Alexander was then Farm Steward at Burnfoot where I stopped a few days, calling on some of my old acquaintances about Morebattle. I made a selection of Nursery Stock to take home with me. Among some of the new things were 250 European Linden, the first I suppose that ever came to Michigan, and also a few cuttings of the Black Italian Poplar. I have often the pleasure of looking at many of the fine specimens now growing round Kalamazoo.
I had spoken to Jane Wheelence about going to Kalamazoo with me, signifying that I needed a person of her experience both to look after myself and family. After thinking over the matter she thought she would go. She had a good situation as housekeeper at Grahamslaw, but there was not certainty of this. I said I thought it might be better not to enter into a marriage relationship until we get home to Kalamazoo. She then gave up her situation and made the necessary arrangement to leave for America. After seeing all the friends, we started about the beginning of November for Liverpool. My passage of course was previously secured, and so we took the first of the companies vessels that sailed for New York. We were taken out of the harbor by a tug and then made our way for Queenston. We remained in the harbor for two hours and took a great many passengers. Among these were several that came over with me in the month of August. They said they found that America was the best country for a working man.
We had some pretty rough weather, heaving the ship and sometimes washing over the deck. Jane Wheelence stood the trip well. She got a good berth with several respectable ladies. I also got acquainted with some intelligent gentlemen where we met together after the greater part had retired and discussed various matters. I met a man of the name of Brewster, son of Sir David Brewster of Jedburgh. Once when we were alone, he told me he had been in the Southern States for some time, but when the war broke out he did not wish to engage in hostilities. But he thought there was a chancce to make something by running the blockade, and so with certain other parties, made one fortunate hit, but the next time were caught and kept prisoners for some time. Then after being liberated he took passage to England and when in Liverpool, he got acquainted with certain parties on this vessel who secured him this passage to New York. He seemed to be quite familiar with that city and told of a lodging house at the foot of Chambers Street where I could order anything I wanted and have a separate lodging bill. I went to this place when we landed and found cheap and good accommodations. It was from this Mr. Brewster that I first heard of the Alabama. He said our ship had 5,000 stand of arms aboard and he hoped that vessel would come and take them. I said I hoped we would escape, more especially as I had a good many young trees and plants which I would be sorry to lose. We however got into port without seeing the Alabama, and after passing through the Castle Gardens, I next went to get my box of trees through the custom house. This I found was no easy business. I had heard that there was a great deal of roguery connected with this Institution and I now had proof and experience. I think I went before half a dozen different officials who had certain questions to ask. Then I had to sign certain papers and pay certain charges. One paper required me to go before an appraiser to ascertain a value to reach the office of this party. I had to walk about a mile. I was heartily sick of this business and was glad when I got my box on the train. We took our railroad passage by the New York Southern by way of Elmira, where we stopped two hours for a connection. Then we came to Rochester, where we stopped all night and took the train in the morning to Niagara Falls. We stopped at one of the inns there, went to church in the forenoon, and after took a walk up and saw all round the falls. In the evening we again attended church and heard an excellent sermon.
The next morning we started for Detroit, and I was not a little surprised to find on the train my brother James. He had been east with a car load of sheep and was on his way home. I also met on this train our great Michigan senator, Macharia Chandler. Brother James introduced me as having been making a visit to our English neighbors. This brought him out pretty strong upon the way England had been acting toward our government lately, but he was certain we would yet get about with her for action. I told him that she was suffering a good deal on our account. This brought out the sentiment which I had expressed that England was one of the chief agents that nourished and upheld slavery in this country. He seemed confident we would put down the South and slavery.
We arrived at Kalamazoo in the morning and had a happy reception from our family. I found that Andrew and the boys had managed our business affairs pretty well, and our household affairs were also greatly improved by the assistance of cousin Jane Whillence. We had arranged to go through the forms of marriage on the 1st of January 1863. Dr. Stone who was then our neighbor, performing that ceremony. All that spring and summer everything went on pleasant and agreeable till the 24th of August, when my oldest son, Andrew, lost his life by accidental drowning in one of our small lakes. He had been downtown as usual in the forenoon marketing our vegetables, and while at dinner he said that he would like if I could spare him time to go out to the Twin Lakes with his gun this afternoon, where there was some good duck shooting. I said as he had been in the way of working so well, that I would have no objection. He then started, accompanied with his younger brother James. And after going to the lake he shot a duck which fell a little way in the lake. There being no means of getting it out. He thought as he was a good swimmer, he would go in for it.. Thus far all seemed right, but there was on e thing he had not taken into calculation, that in this part of the lake there was a great growth of aquatic plants, whose roots and stems are below the water forming a sort of tangled network. It was among this hidden trap that he so entangled himself he could not extricate himself, and so he sand and was drowned before any means of rescue could be obtained. The body was brought home in a light wagon by one of the neighboring farmers, and it was a sad shock to me and the rest of the family. He had particularly distinguished himself at school as a fine scholar and was of a most kind, loving, and obliging disposition. There was something altogether different in him from any of the family, and the way and manner of his death had always seemed to me a most wonderful providence. It may possibly be fully disclosed to me in a future life. But there was another sad affliction which fell me shortly after this. The time had come for my wife to give birth to a child and her illness was of a protracted nature. The child was a large fine boy, but by the very severe labor, was strangled in Life’s Porch. We had some slight hope at first that she might recover, but on the second day a sort of stuper came over her and she passed away in a most pleasant manner with a smile on her countenance.
My daughter Isabella had again to resume our housekeeping and continued so till Violet was able for this. For a year or two I was still doing a good business in the nursery, both in evergreens and fruit trees. About this time I was induced to purchase a piece of land from Mr. Sabin Nicols on Grand Prarie. There was 20 acres with no buildings but all well fenced. The price I think was 1,500 dollars. I paid a part of this down and the remainder in the course of three years. On the greater part of this land, I grew farm crops but I also grew a good deal of sweet corn,, cabbage, turnips, and celery. I now kept one horse and wagon, but had most of my plowing done by the farmers.
The war was still going on and the tendency was to greatly derange business and all money matters. But it seemed to me truly wonderful how so many men left their homes and exposed themselves to all the hardships of the camps and the dangerous conflict on the battlefield. I noticed that all the time this great conflict was going on, the Democratic Party were often in the way of getting up meetings and sometimes with street parades and bearing certain emblems caricaturing the acts of President Lincoln and the Republican Party. It seemed that while they had a strong desire to maintain our National Independence, they had at the same time an utter abhorrance of the nigger. And in the second campaign when Lincoln was re-elected, one of the planks in their platform was that the “War had been a failure.” I think that as we look back upon the past, the Democratic Party had a most uneviable record. It was a great and happy achievement for this country when the War was brought to a termination, but just upon this, the Nation and World was shocked by the assassination of President Lincoln.
My brother Andrew had now for some time given up his store in town and was living on his farm. He kept a number of cows and went into the milk business for two or three years. He had also sold off several lots to parties for building on both along the Alcott Street and also at the Parkhous on Portage. He had also made a platt of lots alongside where Reid Street is now opened. In talking with him one day, he mentioned that he had now made arrangements with Mr. Breese to sell building lots, and that if I would come over and look around this place I could now get whatever land I might require for a nursery. I said it would certainly be more satisfactory for me to have a larger nursery and also a place which I could call my own. A day was then appointed. This was some time in the month of August 1866. When I came over I met him at the road near his house. We then started to walk westward where Reid Street now runs toward the Mill race. As we went along, I mentioned that this platt of ground to the left which was nice and level was just right for a nursery. We then came to the race and walked up the side for a certain distance, when I stopped and said that ten acres from here to the Portage Road would be as much as I would take to make me a good nursery. He then mentioned that I should have had this land when I came here, had not a certain circumstance prevented, but he would now make it all right with me. Now he said we will take a walk up as far as the large oak tree at the corner of the fence. When there he said now from this along the fence to Portage Road would make you a most complete nursery. This land is now worth 250 dollars per acre and I now propose that you can have the whole agreeing to pay me at your convenience 800 dollars. I then said I would agree to that proposal. He then mentioned that Mr. Breese had been a good friend in helping him out of his troubles and that he would like to show him all the gratitude he could, and if I would just do him the favor to make a mortgage deal of this land to Mr. Breese, he would see that it should never come against me. In this friendly way, without thinking over the matter, I signed that Mortgage to Mr. Breese merely as a matter of form.
But I found to my cost afterwards that I had made a sad mistake, for it so happened that only six months after this, my brother died suddenly while traveling in the South, and so the mortgage came against me and also the balance of the 800 dollars to his widow, which she was not slow in exacting. I commenced building a new house and barn the next year, and through the course of the winter had the stone drawn for building the cellar and foundation. We had fixed on the site of the house where my brother had planted an orchard a few years before. I can well recollect our first beginning with a sleigh load of stones which my son James and I brought from the west end of Grand Prarie. The only entrance from the road then was by the upper gate betwixt two oak trees. Then we had to pass down a hollow where the snow was deep and it was a very hard pull for the horses. This with the present surroundings had rather a hard look for a beginning, but we still continued drawing till we had a large pile. We also drew a good deal of our lumber from a yard near to where the South Haven Road now runs, about 16 miles from Kalamazoo.
That summer of 1867 was an extra busy one with both gardening and house building. I was fortunate in having sold my farm lot on Grand Prarie the previous year at a pretty fair price. I had now however a large outlay of money both for materials and wages. George Turned, a new neighbor, was the builder of the house and barn. The whole work with the plastering was finished so that I was able to enter and occupy it about the middle of November. I mind it was a cold afternoon and I had a good deal of trouble in fitting up the stove pipes. I thus left the old house on the west end where I had spent my first 12 years in Kalamazoo, and in the course of that time I had paid Charles Stuart for house rent with the little garden attached the sum of 1,250 dollars. I found also a good deal of trouble and labor in removing my nursery stock. Those that were small were not such a difficult matter, but I had some large stock which took me a couple of years to clear out. On the new ground I put in a great many of the different sorts of shade trees and found a good sale for them. Then I set about grading and leveling round the house planned for a drive in, also a grass lawn and flower borders and shrubbery, evergreen trees, so planted and disposed as to have a harmonious effect. I also planted certain varieties of hedge along the roadside, consisting of Beech, Barberry, and Norway Spruce. In this last I made an experiment which was successful. I planted the hedge between the first and second growth. Every tree grew and there were over 150. This hedge is cut every season in the month of August. It is a model from which a great many other have been sold. There was now a good deal of fencing needed all round the place. There was one especially needed from the race to Portgage Street, forming the south line where Reid Street was to run. All the fencing and labor cost a good deal of money.
The second year after I came to this place, I was induced to enter into a certain speculation which turned out anything but profitable. My late brother’s widow still held the land and she proposed to let me have the three fields to the south of the nursery nearly 40 acres at a certain yearly rental. I agreed to this for one year, and had it plowed and planted with potatoes and corn. I had a good crop of both but it cost me a good deal for hired labor, and then I had to pit and store a great quantity of the potatoes. These being in large deep pits, a good many of them rotted, so that altogether I lost several hundred dollars by this engagement.
The next year Mrs. Taylor, my late brother’s widow, was so fortunate to sell the farm to three parties: Reid, Cobb, and Wells for the sum of $25,000. As a matter of justice and equity, the mortgage which I had signed at the request and promise of my late brother should now have been cancelled, but I never mentioned the circumstances thinking that as I had done so well in my business hitherto I would soon be able to meet this or that a wealthy man like Mr. Breese would never enforce by law such an unjust claim. But I learned afterwards that the laws of God and the laws of Michigan can be made to operate in a very different way. I think I paid on this mortgage at different times the sum of $1,500.00, besides the $800 to my brother and his widow.
My oldest daughter Isabella was now teaching school, and my youngest daughter Violet was acting as housekeeper. I think about this time my son James attended Business College a season or two, and George and John rendered help to me in the Nursery and vegetable department. In the winter we were kept busy in drawing manure from various parts in town. This now cost some money being very different from when I first came, when I could get all I wanted for the drawing away.
As I had been relying on my daughter for my housekeeping for the last seven years and had not security how long this might continue, I thought it might be well to look out for one upon whom I might permanently rely, and so I got acquainted with my present wife, Susan Carter, who for a good many years I had known as an assistant housekeeper with Mrs. Henry Breese. So the preliminary arrangements being made, we were married at their house in Kalamazoo on the 20th of January 1870. We took the evening train that night to Three Rivers, came back the next evening to Schoolcraft, where we spent two or three days with friends and acquaintances, and then settled down at our home in Kalamazoo.
Mrs. Henry Breeze had by a former marriage two sons and a daughter. The sons had gone out some years previous to California and had there taken up farms. One of the youngest of those sons, Romulo E. Bangs, made a visit to his friends about this time, and so a marriage was arranged with my daughter Isabella, which took place at our house a few months after in the same year 1870. They then returned to their home farm which is near Modesto, Stanislaw County. I do not recollect of any particular incident occurring till the Fall of 1871 when I thought I would make a trip to the west and southward, where I had never been before. I therefore started for Chicago on an early morning train, where I landed at that city about 8 o’clock. My first business here was to call upon a man who had been in the way for some years of having a considerable number of Evergreen trees for the decoration of the suburbs of the city. He lived on Division Street and I found him and got a settlement for a bill of about one hundred dollars. I intended to go to St. Louis and the evening train did not start till 9, I spent the day in looking round the city where great building and improvement were going on. The great Pacific Hotel where a year before I had seen them laying the foundation was now built up, a splendid structure.
I then took the train for St. Louis and arrived at the left bank of the great river about 8. At that time the bridge was only talked about and so we were taken across to the city on a barge. I visited the Fair which was held that week, and then in the morning went to Kansas City. On the way we had an occasional view of the Missouri. And as there had been a long course of dry weather, the river was so small large stumps and trees were seen lying stranded. The effect of the drought was also seen on the land, where all along the sides of the railway and some of the fields were scorched and burned over. While on the car I got acquainted with a gentleman from Virginia who was on his way to Kansas City to see friends and do some business. I found him very communicative and he felt a special interest in talking about Scotland. We reached the city about 8 o’clock, had supper at the hotel and had a double bedroom where we spent a good night. Next morning we had a walk out toward the river, saw them leveling down hills for building purposes, walked across the river on a bridge where there was a jusge. He pointed out a range of space that he was offered five thousand dollars for, and now the same property today could not be bought for half a million dollars.
That afternoon I took the train for Lawrence, Kansas. Major Ransom whom I had formerly known in Kalamazoo and had gotten evergreen trees from me, and also recommended me to others, was urged to be his guest while I remained in the place. I thus spent part of two days looking round and had some excursions on the railroad with him. Lawrence, I now found to be a thriving town; having risen from its ashes at the great raid at the beginning of the War. On the Sabbath I went to the Presbyterian Church and heard a good sermon. I then waited on the Sabbath School and was introduced to a large adult class where I had a hearty reception of Christian intercourse. I can well recollect that Sabbath evening how the wind blew, little knowing at that time that this was the beginning of the great fire of Chicago. In the morning I took the train to Leavenworth, when I arrived there the telegram had come that Chicago was all ablaze and would soon be wiped out. As it was on my way home I thought I would take a ticket and see the great ruins. I bought a ticket for twenty dollars. This was by the new line just opened and I saw a box of new tickets. I was told that I hoped I would bring good luck to them. The train did not start till the afternoon, and they gave time to look around the city. We were instructed to go on board a steamer which took us two miles up to a railroad connection. I recollect that here a new bridge was building, but was not yet finished. So after getting on board we traveled all night and came to Museating and Davenporte in the morning.
At one of these places we saw the smoldering remains of the great fire. A mill and some other buildings had burnt through the night. We crossed the Mississippi at Rock Island, and here I saw the first car of provisions attached to our train for the destitute of Chicago. It was here I met with an old Scotsman on the train. He was wondering whether the stockyards would be saved, and he was going up to see, as he had a little interest in them. More provision cars were attached to our train. As we drew nearer we saw and felt the smoke. And in a little while we came to a standstill, all ahead being blocked by cars, and the depot being all burnt. I walked along on the outside to 22nd Street where the Michigan Central has a station. Here I learned there would be no passenger cars for Kalamazoo till 7 o’clock. I therefore resolved to look round on the desolation till that time. It was with some difficulty that I could get along the streets. I endeavored to see the ruins of some of the places which I had been so much admiring a little more than a week ago, and the contrast was truly sad and sickening. The Great Pacific was now a great heap of smoldering ruins. Some fires were burning fiercely where coal formed an awful scene of desolation. The water works had been destroyed and this want was being supplied by numerous drays and with barrels selling water for so much per quart or gallon. I noticed some stores outside the burnt district were doing a good trade by selling bread and provisions at enormous high prices. But large stock of provisions were coming in by all the trains, and numerous parties were deputed by city authorities to see that all these were properly doled out. I now drew near to the stations before 7 o’clock and found a vast crowd around the place. Poor people who were going to friends in the country received free pass from the railroads.
We started with a large train and stopped to have supper at Niles. The table was crowded and then the whistle sounded and there seemed to be no special charge for supper. On arriving at Kalamazoo I found another train alongside just about to start for Chicago. On this were some Kalamazoo people, among which was my brother James and Stephen Cobb. I think they had a carload of provisions. But I found that one great anxiety with my brother was the condition and safety of the stockyards.
I thus got safely home to Kalamazoo again, and then we got the news of great fires in this and other states, especially in the lumber regions. I have never seen so much a dry fall since I came to this country. It has been a matter of wonder how Chicago rose so soon again from its ashes, and I was a witness of this as I visited the city the year after and saw the immense amount of building done and in operation. This is one reason why so many of the buildings are superior and of orderly plan. The fire thus removed all those that were old and unsightly.
Shortly after this time we found that our Evergreen culture was not so renumerative and the reason was that there was now a great deal more competition. Several of those nurserymen who began with fruit trees now went into raising a great stock of evergreens. This they did without proper thinning and transplanting. Then having a great stock they must either sell or lose. They sent agents all round to make sales. For a time this was a success, but after a year or two this stock not being transplanted, a great part of it died and thus gave many a disgust at all evergreen planting. I have every reason to think that some of these parties learned something from the mistakes they had made but it had also the effect of afflicting a great loss upon me.
In raising vegetables we have also found a considerable competition. One great means of success is to have them early, especially is this so with peas, sweet corn, and tomatoes. We have found also that certain of the late vegetables, especially squash and melons can be profitably and successfully grown by a system of alternate cultivation. We have found this especially so in growing our first early peas. These we sow as soon as the season will permit in rows marked about 2 feet apart, leaving every fifth or sixth row vacant. Then sometime about the middle of May when the weather and ground get warm, plant squash in hills along the vacant rows. As soon as they are up they should be hoed about and looked after for bugs. After the crop of peas are gathered about the end of June, have the straw pulled up and the ground well cultivated betwixt the rows of squash, and in a little while they will soon cover the whole ground. In this way we get a large crop of early peas which generally bring a good price and then a full crop of Hubbard squash which are for sale all through the fall and winter. We have always found that squash raised in this way were better than when raised alone. I have found in my experience that this same system of Internal Cultivation can be practiced with many other garden crops.
As my three sons were now all able to do good work, I made up my mind in the fall of 1874 to have another run across the Atlantic and see all the friends in Scotland and England. My wife also thought she had heard too much about Scotland that she would also venture to make the journey along with me. At that time the passages were cheaper than formerly. The agent at Kalamazoo said he could get me a second cabin passage by the Anchor Line for 28 dollars. This I agreed to do with one of their best steamships which was to sail the first week of December. My wife suggested it might be well for us to go by Washington where she had a great many family friends. To this I readily agreed as I had never seen that city or few of her friends. I then proposed to go by way of Cincinnati, where there was a young man of the name of Turnbull from Scotland. His mother was my former wife’s sister.
Having made all our arrangements we started from Kalamazoo in the morning about 10 o’clock with the G.R.1. for Cincinnati. This was the day before Thanksgiving, and there was an inch or two of snow on ground. This continued till we came to Fort Wayne when it disappeared. We arrived at 9 and found James Turnbull waiting for us at the depot. He at once took us to a comfortable room and lodgings, where we had a good supper and were kindly attended by a young lady who in a few weeks later became his wife.
We spent the next day in looking all round the city. A part of it is rising ground, and when the lamps were lighted it brought me a good deal in mind of Old Edinburgh. We also went across on the High Bridge to the Kentucky side and thus had a fine look down on the Ohio below with its numerous shipping craft going up and down. We took a sleeping car for Washington about 8 o’clock and passed a comfortable night. We had breakfast at Wheeling in the morning and had rather an interesting day in passing along the Baltimore and Ohio Road. The hills and tunnels and the varied scenery we passed were something new to me. We lay over two or three hours at one place, and here I met Senator Beck of Kentucky who was on his way to Washington with his wife and daughter. We had a good talk on various subjects, and as he is a Scotsman he felt the more interested when he heard I was going there.
Our ticket was good for another night on the sleeping cart, and about daylight we passed Harper’s Ferry. This place was the more interesting from what I had read of old John Brown and his famous raid. We arrived at the city about 9 and took a carriage to the residence of Mr. Mills, my wife’s sister’s husband. We spent nearly a week in the city, looking all round. At that time they were making some great improvements especially round about the Capitol, taking up some old trees and leveling down the grounds. I visited the Botanical Gardens and got well acquainted with one or two Scotchmen. I also visited the Patent Office and two houses of legislation, the library, and a number of other things. I also ascended the dome of the capitol and saw people walking like pigmies below and had a fine birds eye view over the whole city. I looked around the White House and adjacent buildings but did not go in. The Session of the Alabama Claims were then sitting, but I did not go in. I called on our honoured Citizen Judge Wells. I was introduced by some of our friends to an old venerable woman Mrs. Sarah Davis, who had seen every president of the United States. She said that George Washington once kindly laid his hand upon her head. I believe the last she saw was President Hays. We left Washington on the 5th of December. The vessel with which we had engaged was to sail on the 6th. We had a pleasant and interesting journey in seeing so many places, I had read, such as Baltimore, Philadelphia, and other noted places. And then New Jersey with its vast industrial population verging upon the great city of New York. We reached that place about 4 o’clock and took our lodgings for the night at a hotel near by. In the morning I went down to the dock and saw the vessel. A great crew of men were loading wheat and barrels of flour. The passengers had orders to be on board with their baggage at 12. At that time we were ready butfound them still loading, and this continued until 4 o’clock, when the bell rang and we moved out of the harbor.
There is always considerable confusion at first starting, and as it was beginning to get dark, we were shoved into a berth in the steerage. I was obliged to submit to this till morning, when I spoke to one of the officers that I had a second cabin ticket and wished to have a berth of that sort. From this man I received no satisfactory answer, so I at once went to the Captain and stated my case. He seemed a little imperious and gave me some uncivil language. Then I told him I had crossed the Atlantic several times before and if he did not give me my right, I should give this hip the benefit of an advertisement on both sides when I came to land. He then talked with one of the subordinates who gave me a sign to follow him, when I was shown a comfortable berth for myself and wife. Our provisions were there served to us and we had some fine neighbor associates.
We had only a very short qualm of sea sickness and the weather was for the most part so favourable that we could often remain hours on deck and see the great billows heave and swell. Our vessel went by the north of Ireland, and we came in sight of land in the forenoon and ran into the bay of Moville in the evening, where some of our passengers left. In the morning we were in Greenock Harbour, where were some custom inspections. It was put to our option either to remain on the vessel for 3 hours till the tide would permit to go up to Glasgow or we could now leave and take the first train. This we did and had a good view of the scenery by the way through. There was a considerable amount of fog and smoke, and this was more apparent when we came near Paisley, and from there to Glasgow where factory chimneys are one of the prominent features of the landscape. We then had a scramble for our trunk and then got a hack which took us to the Cobden Hotel. We stopped there for two days looking round up the great sights of the city. There had been a fall of snow and a considerable frost, and what with clouds and smoke, we had never seen the sun since we landed.
I had sent a letter to Andrew Stevenson letting him know that we would be at Edinburgh with the morning train from Glasgow. So we started and after traveling about ten miles we got some little glimpses of the sun. There is some fine farming land on this line, and we noticed some large fields of the finest turnips. In approaching Edinburgh from the west the Castle and Arthur’s Seat are among the first prominent objects that meets the eye. The old town on the right and the new on the left are altogether a great contrast. We found our friend Andrew waiting for us at the depot where we had a cordial reception. We engaged a hack which took us and our trunk over to Bristo Street where he then stopped with mother. It was now about the 20th of December, our sea passage being a little over ten days. I had a happy meeting with John Brown and some old acquaintance, but there were some that had passed away since the last in this city in 12 years before. My wife did not feel for some time and had to keep the house for two or three weeks.
After being a day or two in the city I took a run out to Kelso and Jedburgh to see the friends, but there were some I could not see, as both my sisters, Agnes Huggand and Margaret Telfer were dead. I also went to Burnfoot and saw brother Alexander and his family. I also saw George and William Purvis. At that time William was the president of the famous club that was in the way of meeting on the first Friday of each month, where they had dinner in the Cross Keys Hotel and then a talk afterwards on their various experiences in farming. He was very anxious that I should meet with so many of the farmers of the district with which I was formerly so well acquainted. I said I would endeavor to do so. In the mean time I went back to Edinburgh, as my brother John was expected from Nottingham. That night when I went in, my brother John arrived and we had a happy meeting. I think it was the next day after dinner that John Brown called at my sister’s house to see me and brother John. After talking a little, my brother expressed a wish to take a walk out and see Downie and Lairs Greenhouses, these being considered at that time the finest in the city. These were situated at the west end near to Donaldsons Hospital. So we walked in that direction, remarking as went upon the many improvements that were being made. In a little time we came to the range of greenhouses. There was an extra large one in front which seemed as a place of reception, for here we found a number of ladies walking about and admiring the various specimens of flowering plants. I noticed there foreman going about and cutting a bouquet of flowers for some ladies. After he had finished, I went to speak with him. When looking full at me he said, “Oh, Mr. Taylor, is it you?” “Well,” I said, “I think I recognize your face but can’t recollect when or where.” “Why,” said he, “do you not recollect your old apprentice, Andrew Kier?” Then I recollect that this was one of the young men that served his time with me while I was foreman in the Kelso Nursery. I then introduced my brother and John Brown, mentioning how I was now on a visit to friends in this place. Brown then said to Kier, “So you were an apprentice with Mr. Taylor. He also taught me to be a gardener when I was Mr. Yarr’s boy at Eckford Mance. But,” said John in a warm way, “he taught me something far better—to be a Christian.” Kier then looked him in the face and said, “This sir, was one of the first things he taught me, and he knows how I became a member of the Church in Kelso.” At this my brother John came forward in a smiling way and said, “I am afraid we will now make him too proud of himself for he also taught me to be a gardener and after that a Christian.” I here learned a lesson that in our ordinary business of life, if we are Christians we will be workers together with God, and that we can make known the truth of the gospel to our fellow men while working with our hands. This testimony which I had from these three witnesses was a strong attestation to this fact and goes to show how much everyone had in their power to influence others for either good or evil. It is a solemn thing to live.
The new year had come in and I thought I would take a run out to Kelso, as I had promised, to meet with Mr.. Purvis at the Farmer’s Club. I therefore started on the morning train, though it was blowing and snowing pretty hard I had no fear of getting along. After passing Dalkeith, the storm seemed to increase and as we came on higher ground, great snow drifts were being laid in and in a little time our train had to stop. We thus remained standing for a few minutes. We learned that the early train that had gone out before was stuck in the snow drift before us. On looking out we saw the passengers of that train coming tumbling and plodding through the snow in order to get aboard ours. In a little while this was accomplished and our cars were crowded with a sorry looking company. Our train then put back and took us again to Edinburgh where on presenting our tickets we received our money. I wrote a letter to Mr. Purvis stating what had prevented me from coming to his club meeting, and he wrote me how he had been prevented in having stuck with his carriage on the way to Kelso. There would be no meeting until the first Friday in February. I thus spent a few more days in Edinburgh and once more visited the top of Arthur’s Seat.
After my wife had gained strength, we went out and visited our friends at Jedburgh and Burnfoot, and when at Kelso boarded with Mr. Thomas Sleight of the Temperance Hotel. I had now made arrangements to visit London and our niece Isabella Turnbull at Turnbridge Wells. I therefore went by the way of Berwick where I met my old friend, Mr. Matthew Young, of the Lintseed Oil Cake Factory, and spent a good part of the day with him and his family. We then took the train in the evening for Newcastle, arrived there and had lodgings at a hotel. Went out in the morning and saw the great sheep and cattle market, called on Mr. Thomas Ruthford who formerly kept the Temperance Hotel at Kelso. And then with him I found the Rev. John Rutherford who was the minister of the Evengival Union Church when I first came to Kelso.
We then went down to Hartlepool and spent a night with our nephew, Thomas Turnbull and his family. We then took the train to London and arrived there in the afternoon. The first night we stopped at a hotel near the station. And when we went for our trunk we experienced an act of civility from the railway porter, who carried it free of charge to the hotel. Next day we went down to the centre of the city and took lodgings at what is called the Beanford Building, adjacent to the Strand. Here I think we spent about ten days looking round the great city. We took the run down to our niece and her mother at Turnbridge Wells. This is a great summer watering place and we spent a day and a night looking round. We visited the Crystal Place at Sydenhams where nearly all the world is represented in a pictorial way. We took one day to visit the Royal Gardens at Kew. The curator of Kew Gardens proved to be the man who was foreman at the Duke of Roxburgh Garden when I was with Stuart and Mein at Kelso. We had a pleasant chat. He then said we were at liberty to walk all through the various greenhouses and grounds. There is a large palm house where these are grown to full size, and in the other houses all the tropical plants and every variety of plant and flower of the world.
Among the notable things we visited in London was the Tower, Westminister Abby, and the Houses of Parliament, Madame Tesauds; these and many others I had visited before but they were all new to my wife, and I often enjoy these things more the second time.
We left London in the morning by the western route, lay over at Carlisle for an hour or two and arrived at Newton Station in the evening. In the morning I took a walk across the Tweed to Dryburgh Abby, saw the grave of Sir Walter Scott, and then made a call on Major and Lady Grizel Bailey, who lived adjacent to the Abby. The object of this call was to know about Mr. Robert Renwick who had died since I was last in Scotland. We made another visit to our friends at Jedburgh and Burnfoot. And one day while there I thought I would like to visit the old ground where I lived from five to fourteen years of age. I therefore went over by the top of Linton Hill, where I had a good birds eye view of all the old ground. Then I went down the moor by the celebrated spot where tradition says a great monster worm or snake once existed which swallowed up every living thing that came near. This is a narrow deep glen called Wormington where this monster existed. I recollect of seeing an old picture on the old Linton Church door which represented a man on horseback riding at full speed with a great long fiery torch in his hand and thrusting it into the gaping mouth of this monster, by which means it was killed. And hence came the verse, “The daft Laird of Larristone He Killed the Worme or Wormiston and was a Lonton Parochine.” This I suppose had its origin from St. George and the Dragon. I went down across the Yethold road to the mansion of Old Garden, now the property of a Mr. Humble, whom I formerly knew in Kelso. I called and was kindly received and pressed to stay to dinner. I then went over the hill to the east and then down a long strip of pasture land on the south side of Hoslaw Mop which we used to call Cakes Shott. I was now alongside of the Mop where I used to gather cranberries and sometimes seek wild duck and snipe nests. Then I came near the east end of the Mop and crossed once more the little brook that drains it. I found that hey had made a deep cut down the centre of this mop and sheep and cattle were now pasturing where I had sometimes seen them drowned. I then went up with the Mop on my left hand to the site of the old Farm Lochinches where my Father lived for five years when a shepherd at Hoslaw Bank. The old place is now all down and a little square plantation now occupies the site. I went to the spot where our garden used to be and a little farther to the west on the verge of the Mop to see the old spring well, where I had carried many hundred pails of water. It was still bubbling and springing up. Then I went round to the Lough and the little island where I used to gather baskets of Pickmaw eggs. I found however that the cut down through the mop had lowered the water in this lough considerably.
Thus far I had seen no person but was left to my own meditations. Where was now Father and Mother and many other friends that we used to meet with and be so familiar? It was a grand lesson to me of the mutibility of all earthly things. As I went round toward the east side of the lough I saw a man plowing, I went and talked with him. I asked about the present proprietors and if he ever heard or knew of certain parties that once farmed this land, but he said he did not. Here was the Lough and the large mop, and other external features, but the people who were once the active agents had all passed away. I went around the east end of the Lough where so often I had helped at sheep washings, then up the road to the high ridge of the Hoslaw Bank. Here I had a fine look to the Berwickshire to the northeast and to the old Hume Castle and other prominent objects to the westward. In the foreground was the old village of Lempitlaw where I first went to school. And the various fields and farmhouses seemed as familiar. I looked at the farm homestead of Hoslawbank. The old houses were nearly all down. The only one now standing which I had known so well was being used as a Blacksmith Shop.Going a little to the west I went up the old road where I first went to school, to the top of Garden Hill where I had again another view of the old familiar ground. I then took a road west to the garden when my father was shepherd two years with the proprieter, a Mr. William Dawson, an uncle of James Dawson who was the first editor of the Kelso Chronicle in 1832. I found some changes had taken place on the buildings of this farm, but some of the old trees were yet standing. As I came westward I saw that they had nearly cut down the fir plantation which was the first I ever saw planted, and was pointed out to me by my grandmother when I was accompanying her from our house to her home in Morebattle. I then passed the farm of Grenless which I had done hundreds of times on my way to Linton School, then I passed the farm of Bankhead and then past the old Linton School. Here I called on John Young who was Blacksmith here, with whom I got well acquainted when at Ormiston. I had thus spent a most interesting day with the old familiar scenes of the past. I think it preached me a sermon from which I derived great profit. While at Burnfoot I made some calls over to Morebattle where were some few old acquaintance, but how few, if any, when I first saw that village with my grandmother about 70 years ago. We now bade goodbye to our friends at Burnfoot and Mr. Purvis very kindly sent his man with his carriage to take us to Kirkland Station. On our way we called at Maslefield where I used to work the garden, and there we met with Miss Johnstone, a good Christian lady with whom I was formerly well acquainted. We then drove to Kail Waterfoot, and left our carriage and walked up the road to Eckford Church Yard specially to visit the plot of ground where the bodies of my Father, Mother, and first wife, Helen Robson with her two infant boys are buried. After looking round the old Church we took a walk up to the manse to make a call on Rev. Joseph Yair and his wife, where we were very kindly received. After a pleasant talk we then took our way by the Chain Bridge and down the road by Ormiston Mill to the station at Kirkbank, where we took the train to Jedburgh and there remained a few days with the Huggans.
One of these days with my wife I took a walk up the Jedwater to visit some of the old romatic and once familiar scenes. Among these were specially the two famous Oak Trees known for hundreds of years by the names of the Kings of the Wood, and the Capen Trees, the first for its majestic straight tall bosy, and the other for its division into branches at the bottom where it extends for a great breadth on all sides. We also visited the old Cathedral and its surroundings and got photographs of them. One day we took a drive round the country with a horse and gig. We first went by our friends at Bonjedward and then by way of the Ancrum Bridge where we made a call on James Weaver who was for many years Forrester to the Marquis of Lothian, and then up by the village of Ancrum. Then calling on another acquaintance and then we took the nearest and best way to the village of Lilliesleaf where Charlotte Jean Whilleans, youngest sister was living and married with a family. After spending a few hours with them we took the straight road across the Teviot to Denholm. Then direct for Jedburgh up and along the north side of the Dunion where there is a most extended view on every side, then down hill pass the Jail to the old Burgh. That evening we had engaged to have tea and supper with late Provest William Deans and his wife, where we spent some happy hours. I spent one day mostly on foot in the way from Jedburgh to Kelso looking at some of the old familiar places. I came by the way of Crailing, making a call on the Rev. Adam Cunningham, and likewise on John Doddor, the old Blacksmith. He was now retired from business and very feeble, but seemed to have pleasure in talking of old things.
I came down by the Crailing Tofts, there calling on Walter Rutherford the farmer, then down the road to the Burn Houses where I lived for four years, but now they are no more, there being only a plowed where the five houses and gardens once stood. I next came down and cross the Chain Bridge and down the side of the Teviot to where was a fine hardwood plantation which I had thinned and pruned up about 35 years ago. I was much gratified to see what a proper system of forestry can accomplish in a few years. I then walked down to Roxburgh and took the train to Kelso.
My wife came down the next day when shortly after we went to Edinburgh and then in due time, when our ship was to sail we came to Glasgow. Here we were detained a day or two longer then the time specified, as the vessel had struck iceberg in coming over and had to undergo repairs. Both my wife and myself had a little touch of seasickness for the first two days but soon got all right. There was a little sensation on board one afternoon which was only known to a few at that time. I was walking on deck when all at once a report came from below that the ship was on fire. In some way a pile of coals had caught fire. The Captain was called and there was a hurry among the seamen. I noticed one or two of the men were pulling off a hatch cover in order I supposed to pour down water, when all at once the captain almost struck them down. The reason for this was that if the air had got access, the whole would soon have been ablaze. Then it was that some windlass and ropes were applied in another direction and I was called on to pull and assist. In a few minutes it was announced that the fire was subdued and all danger was over. There was no doubt but this was an inferior vessel. As after we were more than half way over one of the boilers gave out and the remainder of the voyage had to be accomplished with one, which made it very slow work, making our whole voyage nearly 20 days.
I had a box with nursery stock on board and had again some trouble in getting it through the custom house. After this we started for Delhi to see our cousins, the Mable’s, and with some roundabouts and delays we arrived there about the first or second of April. We spent three or four pleasant days with them and were introduced to a good many Scotchmen. We then came by the way of Niagara Falls and Canada and spent a few hours with Tom Huggan and his family at Paris. Then on to Detroit and arrived at Kalamazoo on the evening of the 6th of April.
We had altogether a pleasant excursion, but I learned one thing that I can travel a great deal cheaper when alone then when I am accompanied with a lady.
Since 1875 I have gone through a varied experience in the country. Up till 1880 the nursery was run in my name and on my account paying all the wages for labor, taxes, and household expenses. My son James ran the vegetable department. But the old mortgage was hanging over me and a crisis came, when in the spring of 1881 Mr. Breese in the form of a legal process foreclosed that mortgage and then things came to a sort of standstill with me. I made a Christian protest against this to Mr. Breese as an act of injustice in the sight of God. I showed him that after paying my brother Andrew’s passage in 1836 that I gave him 100 dollars with instructions to have it laid out in land (either by himself or brother James) in Kalamazoo suitable for nursery and garden purposes. This I showed him with the note to this effect with Andrew’s signature. I therefore appealed against this case being settled according to the Civil Laws of Michigan but rather by Christian Jury to be chosed by neutral parties and then submitting to them the whole facts of the case from the beginning. This he refused to do and therefore I consider he violated both the Law of Equity and the Law of Christ. I was a little troubled the course of my life, that after done so much for the welfare of my brothers and sisters and my own family, that I had been thus entrapped to be left in comparative poverty and dependence in my old age. With this feeling I cast my care upon God and looked to Him for help, and I have great reason as I look back to see that his good hand has been over me this far, and that this case, though looking dark at first, will yet be among the all things that has been working in some unseen way for my greatest ultimate good.
It was here that my son James came in to pay a certain amount of the debt and took the responsibility and has paid all up since. The place is now his and I work pretty hard through the spring and summer. I have a comfortable home with my wife, good bed and board, and have always a little money on hand for Church expenses and for 5 or 6 of the best papers which keeps me properly posted with what is going on in the civil and religious world. The only property that I now have is the two acres of orchard on the Colledge Addition which I expect to sell some of these days for 2,000 dollars.
I now come to notice some of the events connected with my family and friends. My oldest daughter Isabella was married in the fall of 1870 to Romulo E. Bangs, who was my wife’s cousin and who with his brother has a large farm in Modesto, California. They have now in 1887 a family of six children. My youngest daughter Violet, being in poor health went out to stay with her sister in 1876, her health greatly improved for some time, but later she was affected with some internal disease, of which she died in 1886. My brother Alexander who for a great many years was steward with William Purvis at Linton Burnfoot died about 8 years ago. His widow with some of the family are now living at Sprouston on the Tweed near Kelso. He died in November 1889.
Here also in Kalamazoo death has been doing its work among our relations. My brother James’s wife, Helen Gilkerson died June 29, 1881 and also James rather suddenly on December 25, 1881. The last death in my own family relation was my oldest sister Mary, in Edinburgh, whose death took place there on the 16th day of May 1877. Thus leaving only two out of a family of eight—myself the oldest born in 1803 and John the youngest now in Nottingham, England, born in 1821.
I now come to give some account of what I have been doing in Michigan lately. And I may mention that I became a life member of the Michigan Horticultural Society about 1875. The sum of 10 dollars entitled me to the privilege. Since that time I have frequently been in the way of taking part in the various meetings. The most prominent of these has been on the subject of hedging and forestry. These have appeared in the Annual reports of the society. The first of these was read by me at the winter meeting which was held in Paw Paw, Ban Buren County. It was entitled Arboriculture and Forestry, and printed in the 8th annual report at page 193. The second article is on forestry at page 68 of the 9th volume, and another the same year on hedging, page 153 of the same. All these were not a matter of theory with me what I had both seen and practiced. The last time that I spoke on this subject was at a meeting of the State Forestry Commission held at Grand Rapids on the 26th and 27th of January 1888. At this meeting there was a great deal of talk about the necessity of planting, but no practical mode as to the way by which it could be done. I urged upon this meeting that such a display in all its bearings and relations should at once be done, showing the people that it could be done and the way to do it.
Since my visit to Scotland and England in 1874 and 1875, I have not traveled a great way from home. About 1878 I took advantage of an excursion to Petaskey and Mackanack Island, and I felt a good deal interested in passing through the north woods to see the way in which many of these were being wasted and destroyed. I saw some places where great fires had recently swept through for miles and I soon perceived the reason for this. I observed certain places where timber had been cut that a great amount of brush and heavy branches were lying in piles so promiscuously scattered that a fire once started with a little wind would soon make a general conflagration. This destructive waste might all be prevented by having this brush collected and burnt before the hot dry weather came on. I spent a part of two days on Mackanack Island seeking some of nature’s great wonders and also collecting a good many young evergreen seedlings which I found growing abundantly under the shade of certain large trees.
I have also been in the way at several times in making a run through to Chicago and St. Louis and observed how both these cities are growing and advancing. After looking at these in their various relations, we can then form some more correct opinions of this great country. There is another thing that we can see in these and other cities and that supplying the sources from which so much sin and misery and crime originates. Most conspicuous of these is the many and various saloons with their sources of supply the breweries and distilleries. It is here that an impartial observer perceived a great anomoly in our government. Special business is to punish and repress crime, but while it seems to be doing this with one hand, it is with the other fostering and encouraging it by granting license to sell those ingredients which are the most prolific of all crimes. In all these cities we see a great many fine churches, but these saloons and drinking places are a sort of Devil’s agents that work right against them. These churches all have Sabbath Schools with teachers laboring to instruct and praying that their scholars may be brought up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Here these Christian citizens are sowing the good seed of the word, while they suffer an enemy to be in the same field sowing the tares which so readily grow, so that the good seed has a great struggle for existence. From this I infer that every Christian is a warrior and should put on the whole armor of God and also being an American Citizen he ought to use this ballot to strike down the Distillery, the Saloon, and the law of license. In this way only will every Christian be consistent in following up their prayers by their works.
Through the course of the spring and summer of 1888 there was nothing that occurred of any note different from the usual events of daily life. In the fall I took advantage of an excursion given to Chicago which I had not seen for four years. I spent a part of three days looking around the city and a good part of one at the stockyards. And on going to these grounds I found one advantage which did not exist a few years ago and that was the cable cars. These now run through all the principal streets of the city and I thus took one from Madison Street where I lodged to the stockyards nearly 4 miles for the sum of 5 cents. I had previously learned that a Mr. Clay a Scotchman had a business office at these grounds and having got his address I called at the office and found him. This Mr. Clay is a son of John Clay, who has long been a farmer on the farm of Calchester in Sprouston Parish. After an introduction and where I was from and that I was a Scotchman who had spent the best of my life in Kelso and neighborhood, I at once received a very cordial reception. He then said that owing to the amount of business he was sorry he could not round with me, but he went out and pointed to me where I could best walk and see some of the greatest sights of the various stock pens of these yards and buildings. I found on looking round that the grounds and buildings had been greatly enlarged and improved since I had last seen them. There is now a high walk where you can walk around and look down on the various departments of stock penned up for slaughter. And there are certain places where you can see this process going on, and where it is now in great measure done by machinery. In the centre of these yards and on the outside are hundreds of railway cars bringing in live stock and shipping away the slaughtered meat to all parts of the country. In the summer this is mostly done in refrigerated cars. It is only as we look at the vast amount of stock that is constantly being brought in here that we get some little idea of the resources and extent of country that keeps up this constant supply. There are also other cities in the west as St. Louis and Kansas City that have now extensive stockyards and are very year increasing.I spent another day in the northwest part of the city, went out to Graceland where is the great cemetary and the extensive grounds so tastefully laid out. Then I came in by way of Lincoln Park where great improvements are still being made in walks and drives, and especially a broad boulevard all along the side of the lake for nearly two miles. I came in by the great building where the motive power is originated for driving cable cars, which is one of our great modern inventions. I saw some very high new buildings which are being put up in various parts of the city, and all around the suburbs it is extending in every direction.
The year 1888 closed with us in much the usual way and shortly after the new year in 1889 my wife made a visit to Schoolcraft to see her sister and family for a few days. It was shortly after she came home that she was seized with some disease in the throat which gave her a great deal of trouble, so much that we sent for a doctor who put her under a course of medicine. All through a part of February when it was thought that this throat trouble was nearly resolved. But all at once she was suddenly seized with some internal trouble affecting the heart and lungs, by which she was so prostrated that after this she could scarcely ever speak and no medicine seemed to give any relief. She did not seem to suffer much pain but gradually got weaker and on the 5th of March she passed away as in a sleep without any sensation of pain. Both her sisters, Mrs. Jack of St. Louis and Mrs. Bow of Schoolcraft were with her at the time. The funeral was held on Friday the 8th from the house to the Mountain Home Cemetery, a good company of friends and neighbors attending. The Rev. Mr. Jones of the Episcopal Church, her minister and the Rev. Mr. Lobe of the Presbyterian Church performed the religious exercises. I was thus left for the fourth time a widower, and I now felt that I had lost one of my best friends.
My son James is now keeping house with a hired woman and I have reason to thank God that I do not want for any of the comforts of life and that my health is good and that I have still strength to do a considerable amount of work. I have as usual dressed all our evergreen and ornamental hedges and also some others in the city.
The only excursion I have made this year was to the great exhibition at Detroit in the month of September. I had not seen that city for the last eight years. I found it greatly advanced and still growing. The exhibition I found altogether to be a great thing with certain features I had never seen before. I had some fine steamboat rides up and down the great river and it is only in this way that you can see some of the great business industries of this city. In one of these I visited Belisle Park where some great improvements are being made. A great many sailing vessels of all sorts are constantly going up and down this river and shows that a vast amount of business is done betwixt the east and west. After looking round the city for three days I again arrived safely home at Kalamazoo.
We have had a course of very dry weather this fall but the first fruits of winter has come upon very suddenly, as on the 26th of November snow fell from 10 to 12 inches, so that on the 28th, Thanksgiving Day, we had fine sleighing.
According to the usual custom the various Churches in the city united in holding religious services in the first Baptist Church.
LINKS
| Intro & 1 Thru 4 | 5 thru 8 | 9 Thru 12 |
| Celery Production in Michigan | Celery Historical Marker |
| Celery Cultivation In Kalamazoo | Celery Flats Interpretive Center | Celery Growers and Shippers in Kalamazoo |
| Celery Image Gallery | Dutch in Kalamazoo |
George Taylor's Recollection's The man who started celery cultivation in Kalamazoo |
| Portage Bicentennial Park |
Return to
the County History Index
Return
to Kalamazoo Co. Michigan USGenWeb page
All rights
reserved.
This site may be freely linked to but not
duplicated
in any fashion without my consent.
The information on these pages is meant for
personal genealogical
research only and is not for commercial use of any type.
