THE GLENNIES AND THE REIDS: TWO SCOTTISH - AMERICAN FAMILIES

Chapter 7: Gordon, Elizabeth and Jeannie Reid in America

2007-07-17T20:56:00.003-04:00

Gordon, Elizabeth and Jeannie Reid in America

John A. Glennie, Annie's son, with Bob Duncan, husband of Lizzie Reid

Jeannie, Lizzie, and Annie with Annie's son, John
Above: Jeannie (Reid) and John Baskin (Feb. 1912)

Gordon, Lizzie and Jeannie Reid were the last in the Reid and Glennie families to immigrate to America, and they apparently did so with guidance from their elder sister, Annie[1]. All unmarried, they journeyed from Glasgow to New York City (Ellis Island) on the vessel, “Laurentian”[2], arriving in June 1902. Their destination was North Andover, Massachusetts, Annie’s home. Annie by this time was married to William Glennie and pregnant with Everett. Upon the arrival of Gordon, Lizzie and Jeannie, all those still surviving of the Glennie and Reid families from Lochrie and Tollafraick, respectively, who were to set out for the New World had been reunited in and around North Andover.

Unlike the Glennies, the Reids divided and re-settled, Annie (as we have seen) remaining in North Andover, Gordon migrating to New Hampshire, Lizzie to the Boston area, and Jeannie to Marion, the entrance way to Cape Cod in the southern peninsular of Massachusetts.

Gordon Reid

Among the Reids who migrated to the US, we know the least about Gordon but what is known reveals a life that was a trial throughout and ended in destitution. In the years immediately following his arrival in North America, he moved to Manchester, New Hampshire and married Charlotte Johnson. Charlotte became afflicted with a disease that weakened her, then rendered her bedridden and in relentless pain for the last 2 ½ hears of her life, which ended on April 1, 1919. They had no children.

Gordon eventually remarried and moved a few miles from Manchester to Auburn, NH. I remember visiting Gordon with my parents sometime in the late 1940s. Gordon then owned a chicken farm. I remember a tour he gave us to the hen houses and the noise and the smell of it all. Gordon and his wife, unlike his sisters, Lizzie and Jeannie, were seldom in touch and I do not recall them surfacing again until 1956, when Gordon called my father saying he and his wife would like to visit us. My father was troubled about their coming, but he welcomed them nevertheless. Mother served dinner, during which Gordon and his wife wept as they described their financial hardships and bleak future. Gordon subsequently wrote my father a letter, dated October 21, 1956, thanking him for his generosity. “It was so good of you to act so fast and generous. May God bless you, Jack (my father’s nick name)… You must have been very successful in your business… I would have done better had I stayed in the chemical business…” He signs off, saying the daylight is fading and his eyesight is poor, preventing him from reading (and writing) in artificial light.

Just over a week later, on October 30, Gordon wrote my father a follow-up message, and the news was shattering. “The Sheriff was here last Friday 26^th and served us with the final notice – a court order to sell us out, hen houses and equipment, all the hens, and last but not the least our home, in fact everything. The whole is to be sold by auction, Saturday, Nov. 24, 1956 at 10AM. Isn’t that discouraging? I have just told Everett, but not my sister Lizzie.”

I know nothing of Gordon after his property was liquidated, but at his age, then 83, death likely came soon thereafter.

Lizzie (Reid) Duncan

Lizzie married a fellow Scot, Robert Duncan whom she had known in Scotland, although not until both were settled in the US. Bob, at age 30, arrived at Ellis Island on July 1, 1903 on the same ship, the Laurentian, that the 3 Reids had sailed on a year earlier. The route was the same, from Glasgow to NY. The ship’s manifest shows Bob was to meet Charles Glennie at 35 Massachusetts Avenue, Lawrence, MA, a solid clue that Bob and Lizzie planned a life together before leaving their homeland separately.

Bob and Lizzie lived most of their working lives in the Boston Metropolitan area. Bob, who had listed his occupation as “farm laborer” on the Laurentian’s manifest, worked as a head gardener in a private estate in Chestnut Hill. I remember visiting them at their residence on the estate and thinking it comfortable and cozy. Upon retirement, they bought a new home at 73 Jady Hill Ave., Exeter, NH, the town where Everett and his family lived. Bob and Lizzie, like brother Gordon and sister Jeannie, had no children.

I remember Uncle Bob and Aunt Lizzie (as I called them) well. We visited back and forth during some holidays and other occasions. They stayed with us for an extended visit at a lakeside place of my parents during part of the summer of 1952. In a letter from Uncle Bob dated August 24, 1952 and which included me as well as each of my parents in the salutation, he related how much he and Aunt Lizzie had enjoyed their time at the lake. He wrote with fond memories of boating and other outdoor activities and devoted much of his letter to giving me sage advice.

The only trouble will be going to school so make the best of the time that is left before that time comes next week. In my school days, summer play time was just six weeks, but I was kept at home twelve weeks by special permission as we had a lot of berry picking all that time. Strawberries began in June and other kinds of fruit came on which had to be picked for the market, but the strawberry season continued (into October). So if ice cream was unavailable (My father owned an ice cream business.), the strawberries were a real good substitute and I was very fond of packing them in me besides keeping the basket full. So you see good times have a limit and when school time comes it seems too bad but as you grow bigger and older you will come to see that it is necessary for you to do your figures and letters as well as swim and handle a boat so my wish for you is to do your best at all those things so your father and mother will be proud of their bigger boy as well as they are of you now.

I remember Uncle Bob as avuncular, always taking a keen interest in me and gifted in telling stories and dispensing wisdom gently and with humor. I happily listened to Uncle Bob and my father talk of earlier times, current events, and family matters as well as report on my own goings-on, in which they seemed just as interested as in their own, more adult, talk. One of the stories Uncle Bob told of himself as a young man in Scotland was taking an examination and undertaking the training to become a constable. He passed, but turned down the opportunity of a position on the force, telling his examiners he was only interested in seeing whether he could meet the requirements and had no interest in police work. They were irritated with him, but he laughed in telling the story at how pleased he was with himself.

I liked being with Uncle Bob immensely. My father seemed to be the more comfortable, more cheerful, and more engaging with Uncle Bob than with any of our other relatives. I liked Aunt Lizzie as well. She was friendly and took much interest in me, particularly in my progress in school. Aunt Lizzie, however, was reserved by nature and often chatted separately with my mother during our visits.

As I reflect on Uncle Bob and Aunt Lizzie, I find it remarkable that they valued my educational development as highly as they did. Like all those in the Reid and Glennie families who migrated to America, they had comparatively little formal schooling. They would have well known John and Charles Glennie and of their success in business and Alexander, an accomplished poet. None of these family luminaries had more than grade school backgrounds. Yet, Uncle Bob and Aunt Lizzie (as well as my parents) were prescient, knowing that my future rested on educational attainment.

I was 11 when Uncle Bob died in 1952 at age 81. His passing introduced me to the devastation of death, and it was traumatic. I had earlier viewed a dead body, that of my Godmother’s brother, John. John, whom I had seen only once or twice in life, appeared to me in death as only asleep. I was therefore not unduly uncomfortable with the thought of viewing someone who had died as I anticipated seeing Uncle Bob. All this changed when I saw him laid out in his coffin. He had been a tall, strapping, handsome man, even as he aged, and I had loved him. But in his coffin, he appeared wizened and ghastly. His journey to death had been a wrenching ordeal, as I later learned. There was nothing of the illusion of sleep here. Uncle Bob looked to be what he was - dead. He was lost forever to me, and I knew it. I sobbed inconsolably.

A close relationship between Aunt Lizzie and us continued after Uncle Bob’s death. In a letter addressed to my parents and me, she talked at length about how she described me and what she saw as my accomplishments to a pastor who visited her. (Poor man must have been bored silly.) The letter was filled with lots of chatting about activities and visits with Everett, his wife, Irene, and daughter, Ann. Aunt Lizzie wrote a final letter in my possession after her husband’s death, by which time she had moved to another residence, although still in Exeter. In this letter, dated April 21, 1957, she thanked my father for his gift of Easter chocolates, saying, “I hope you have done a good business. You deserve it. Everything you make tastes so good. If you want a loan any time, I shall be your banker.”

Aunt Lizzie’s death and its aftermath ruptured the relationship between my father and his brother, Everett. While the details have faded over time, the rupture was deep and irreversible, at least by them.

The next, and last, time I was with Everett and his family came at my father’s funeral in March 1976. Cousin George Glennie had called Everett to tell him of my father’s death and funeral plans. Everett, who by then had some degree of dementia, misunderstood, thinking that I, not his brother, had died. This time, they came to the wake and funeral. Irene and I had a long talk about the issues pertaining to Aunt Lizzie’s will and she said they regretted the “misunderstanding.” Everett grinned congenially, seeming to follow conversations around him, but saying nothing. I believe this silence signaled his mental decline. On the day of the funeral, at the grave site and after much ado about saying “goodbye to Granddad”, my son Reid, then 2 ½ years old, saw Everett, who bore a striking resemblance to my father. Reid went up to Everett, took his hand, and said, in a surprised tone, “Granddad.” And so, after years of estrangement, forgiveness if not reconciliation came by the word of a child.

Everett’s dementia progressed. He died several years later. I read a newspaper notice of Irene’s death in 2000. Ann, who married, took her husband’s surname, one I do not know, so that link is severed as well.

Postscript: Several years after writing this story of the break-up of the brothers, I received a call out of the blue from Bill Chapman, Ann's son and Everett and Irene's grandson. The call came just a day short of the 35th anniversary of my father's death. Bill and I, along with his siblings and cousin Cressida, are planning a reunion this coming summer (2011). With reconciliation in place and with bygones having become bygones all the way around, we are set to become united again as a family.

Jeannie (Reid) Baskin

John Baskin and Jeannie Reid were married sometime during the years following her immigration, but surely by 1912. Jeannie and John became naturalized US citizens on the same day, August 29, 1927. John, like Jeannie, had been a British subject, although from Ireland. He was 4 years younger than she. They had no children.

I know little of John, apart from his being Jeannie’s husband. A family story was that his cousin wrote the then famous song, South of the Border, but, if true, no gift for music had been passed to John, so far as I am aware. His early photos show him as a tall, robust man of good appearance if not handsome. I remember him differently, however, during the last few years of his life by which time he was suffering from rheumatoid arthritis and had become crippled. His height of 5’9” as stated on his naturalization document must have effectively diminished to no more than 5’. He was gaunt, with a weak, raspy voice, and yet a pleasant demeanor. One time, when I was 5 or 6, he gave me a gift of $100. I had not seen so much in cash before, nor did I until some years later.

On one visit to their house, I observed that Aunt Jeannie had a heavy wooden bar rigged to barricade the door to her bedroom from the inside. (John slept in a separate room.) I asked my father why, and he told me that John’s pain was so severe that he sometimes acted in “peculiar” ways. Aunt Jeannie needed to feel secure. John fell down the basement stairs to his death in 1952, when he was 70.

The Baskins apparently enjoyed affluence in their early years as a married couple. By 1912, they had bought their own residence on Converse Road in Marion, Massachusetts, about 80 miles from North Andover. Their house, a detached structure of 2 stories plus the basement, was located in a pleasant, suburban neighborhood. They furnished their new home principally from Houghton & Dutton Co. and Drake & Hersey Co., both in Boston – hardly the least expensive of the choices they must have had. (The prices in today’s world seem hilarious[3]: Oak dining room table @ $11; 4 dining room chairs @ $2.20 each; 3 piece “Parlor Suite” @ $43; iron bed @ $14; one pair of silk pillows @ $5.) Based on the receipts I have, it appears they did the whole house, from major items of furniture to curtains, shades and sheets. The furniture they then bought lasted them the rest of their lives.

It only got better. In 1923, John bought a new Ford Coupe from J. E. Stinson, the Ford dealer in Marion, for $585, in today’s value about $7,000. The Stinson letterhead reveals as much about the times as do the terms of sale. The Stinson dealership retailed Lincoln as well as Ford cars as well as Fordson tractors. At the top of the stationery is a sketch of a Ford Motor Company manufacturing facility with the caption, “Capacity One Million Cars a Year.” The slogan on the letterhead exhorts, “Buy a Ford and Spend the Difference.” A telephone number (“Marion 32”) for the Stinson dealership was given. The industrial revolution, not to mention the consumerist culture, was well underway. Life had sure changed for Jeannie from her days at Tollafraick.

Aunt Jeannie maintained close relationships with her sisters and their families. Photos from the 1910s, 1920s and 1930s frequently include Jeannie with Annie and sometimes Lizzie and Bob. John is seldom seen in these pictures, although there was, among Annie’s materials, a wonderful photo of John and Jennie, looking elated, reading the headlines of a newspaper announcing the end of World War I.

Sometime during the 1930s or 1940s, the halcyon days for the Baskins came to an end. The causes might have included the Great Depression and John’s eroding health. In a letter dated April 25, 1950 to my parents, Aunt Jeannie tells of being happy to be able to get out of the house (a trip to Wareham, MA on the bus). While away, the neighbors visited John, who was, on that day, able to shave himself! She invites my parents to visit, saying, “John is able to talk and likes to have callers.” She assures them that they need not think of doing anything to help, they are “getting along fine” and my parents have ‘done so much for us already.” On the very next day, Aunt Jeannie again wrote, this time just to my father, saying that she and husband John have been talking “real business this morning” and expressing the hope that he will take charge of their financial affairs if John were to outlive her. She emphasizes, “This is strictly private, no one else will know. I am very glad that John said this morning it was his wish to have John A. Glennie in charge. It was always my wish. We want to live in our own home among our own friends as long as I am able to keep it going.” She invites us to visit them the next week.

In a letter dated September 17, 1951, Aunt Jeannie conveys urgency in having my father formally take charge of matters. As she says, “John is now so helpless he will need you to take charge of him in my place (should I die first).” She discusses various administrative details concerning insurance, bank accounts and investments and the like, and then sketches out their wishes in an informal will: Whatever is left in their estate after their deaths, she hopes, “will be enough to pay you for all your trouble and kind thoughtfulness of us.” Anything left over is to be equally divided between him and Everett, with a “remembrance” to Lizzie and Gordon, should they still be living. She signs off, “We have appreciated your kindness to us in so many ways.”

Her next letter to us, dated August 24, 1952, follows John’s death. She is effusive in her thanks for my parents having her to their summer place, saying “It was such a good change to be so highly entertained, and it’s so many years since I’ve had a vacation and not having to think about housekeeping. It meant a lot to me and loneliness and sorrow do not come to me nearly so much.” She says she likes to “visit lonely women and try to cheer them up, and that helps myself.”

Aunt Jeannie outlived John by nearly 2 decades. We spent Thanksgiving holidays thereafter with her in Marion, my mother preparing dinner at home in Lowell and bringing it with us on the 80 mile journey to Marion. One Thanksgiving, when my father was hospitalized with a thrombosis in his leg, at his insistence mother and I nevertheless trucked to Aunt Jeannie’s house with cooked Thanksgiving Day turkey traveling in the trunk of the car.

On my father’s and my first visit to her after my mother’s death, I remember Aunt Jeannie as more philosophical than empathetic about her passing. I would not say she was insensitive about mother’s death, but she seemed to view death in general as a normal part of life. Also, by this time in her life, she had seen so much of death and is affects on survivors that she may no longer have completely connected with the profound sadness that often accompanies the deaths of loved ones. A letter she wrote to my father about mothers’ dying was much the same in tone. “Sorry to know that Olive has passed on. She is now enjoying her heavenly home where so many of our loved ones are. You did all you could to keep her well but her time had come.” P.S. If flowers are given order some and I will pay for them.”

In the years following my mother’s death for as long as Aunt Jeannie lived, my father made her well-being a focus of his life. He was doing his best to be a good nephew to his mother’s sister. They corresponded frequently (Years later after his death, I was astonished to see the many letters in his files from her during this period.), he made numerous visits to Marion, and he and I thoroughly investigated possible nursing homes for her when she could no longer live by herself. My father supported her nursing home care financially when government support (Medicaid) stopped. Her handwriting, once clear with firm strokes, deteriorated, as did her mind, during her last few years.

As with the Glennies of that generation, the youngest of the Reid siblings was the one blessed in the greatest measure with longevity. Aunt Jeannie died in 1971, aged 93. By coincidence, I was in Boston on a business trip when she died. My father called me, distraught at her death and frustrated at not having been able to reach me earlier during the day, when I was with clients. The following day, a Saturday, I took the train to Marion, where Dad and I planned the wake and funeral. It was a simple task, although as I thought back to it, one that helped me prepare for my father’s wake and funeral when he died 5 years later. Dad, the undertaker and his assistant, a minister and I were the only ones in attendance for Aunt Jeannie’s farewell. She is buried in Ridgewood Cemetery, next to husband John and by Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Bob and my parents. The epitaph on the Baskin tombstone reads, “Wise in the ways of nature, seeking the ways of God.” That sums up their life well.

[1] For Annie Reid’s story in America, see the section on William and Annie Glennie.

[2] The history of the Laurentian is worth a footnote. Originally christened, Polynesian, she was fitted with both engine and sails, and sailed on her maiden voyage in October 1872. She had a reputation for rolling. Sailors said this ship would "roll on wet grass" and called her "Rolling Poly." In 1893 she was refitted, converted to engine powered only, and renamed the Laurentian. The vessel frequently sailed from Liverpool and Glasgow to Canada and the USA. She was fitted to carry 36 first class and 1000 third class passengers. The Laurentian was owned by the Allen Line, which served a niche market of emigrant children as well as regular passengers. She was wrecked near Cape Race, Newfoundland, Canada in 1909.

[3] According to BLS data, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) has climbed from 9.8 (January 1913) to 208 (June 2007), or about 21 times. Their payment in 1912 of $11.00 for the oak dining room table would come to about $230 in today’s values.

Chapter 6A: William and Annie Reid Glennie

2007-07-09T10:50:00.000-04:00

William and Annie (Reid) Glennie

William Glennie seems to have been a man who took life as it came and made the best of what there was. Among his generation of Glennies, he, as a young man, and Alexander appear the most curious about life and what it could offer. For William, life, at least until he was facing middle age, may have been more about the zest of the journey than settling in at the destination.

William seems to have rediscovered himself once he got arrived in middle age, however. In these later years, he was deeply concerned with morality although with never a hint of self righteousness. He possessed humility, and may have been unusually emphatic towards those facing prejudice. He settled down in North Andover and into business endeavors on which he stayed focused for his remaining years. He devoted himself to his wife and young sons.

Did William have a “mid-life crisis”? Today, we might say so, but perhaps it was more of an awakening. His forties were filled with upheaval, some good and some bad but all life defining. Between years 1901 – 1907, he lost both parents and a sister, witnessed his mother suffering greatly before her death, married for the first time and became a father, and learned that his own death would come early. Unlike his brothers John and Charles, he did not make a big splash in business and, unlike Alexander, he appeared not to have been blessed with extraordinary talent. Yet, he made his mark as a man who left his legacy in his sons, the houses he built, his cheerfulness, his heartfelt pursuit of a life lived according to moral principles, and inspiration he instilled in others for dealing courageously with adversity.

Annie, as the eldest of the Reid children in her generation, was a pioneer in her family, much like John Glennie, being the first to emigrate to America then paving the way for 3 of her younger siblings, Gordon, Lizzie and Jeannie. Annie was married late and widowed early. She gave birth for the first time when she was nearly 40 years of age and went through it all again when she was 41. Advanced in years for becoming a new mother, she had ventured on a difficult passage in any time, but dangerous as well in her time - the first years of the 20^th century. Being widowed at age 53 left her with slim prospects for re-marriage (which did not happen), no means of earning a middle class income, and 2 boys to rear who were then entering adolescence. Despite hardships, she invariably radiated happiness in family photos taken later in her life, maintained strong ties with her sisters, and devoted herself to her children.

The relationship of William and Annie before their marriage is difficult to penetrate as we look back more than a century later. They had known each other from youth, growing up on adjacent farms with only 4 years in age separating them. Yet, nothing in Alexander’s poems mentions Annie, or any Reid for that matter. If Annie and William wrote during her summer in Banff, when she was 21 and he 25, no record has been left behind. William packed his bags and left Lochrie with the remaining Glennies in 1887 to venture to North Andover, but Annie stayed at Tollafraick, at least until 1893, when she turned 30.

I do not know where Annie was or what she did after departing Tollafraick until she resurfaces in 1901 through the 2 letters from William to her while she was on a visit to her family, by then in Aberdeen. William signs off on the earlier of these letters (July 17, 1901), “I am yours as ever, W. G. Glennie” and on the later (September 5, 1901), “Your ever loving William.” Their relationship finally seems to have been warming up, but even this is hard to say as the purpose of William’s September 5^th letter was to tell Annie his father had died and that, by itself, may have struck the emotional tone reflected in his signature. Did Annie reside in North Andover during some or all of the years from 1893 to 1900? This seems likely, as I am unaware she would have known anyone other than the Glennies to smooth her transition to life in America. She and William were planning in the summer of 1901 to be married later that year, which they were on November 20 in a ceremony in Boxford, near North Andover. They obviously had spent time together in advance. However, why they waited so long for matrimony remains unsolved.

While we know little of Annie’s life from 1893 – 1901, we do know something of William’s, although more in fragments with years separating one slice of his life from another rather than in a steady flow as his life progressed. After his arrival in North Andover in 1887, he stayed on the family farm for a year or so, undoubtedly helping to make it comfortable and productive for his parents. At some time, I do not know when but most likely during his early years in America, he took a train trip around the US, departing Lowell, traveling to Chicago then through the Rocky Mountains to the Pacific and back in “40 days and 40 nights.” He kept a journal of this venture, a day to day narrative of 101 pages. Unfortunately, it is not dated and written in pencil, making it difficult to decipher in many places. I shall return to it in time and later add what I can from its contents.

After a stint on the family farm, William went to join a cousin, William Glennie, in Western Canada, where he remained and went into sheep raising. This endeavor lasted for a couple of years, then it was back East, to North Andover, where he went into the milk business. He eventually sold his milk route to his brother Charles, who, in time, built the route into a prosperous milk company.

When we next see William, he was off to Boston, where he worked as a part owner with Brother Alexander in his meat wholesale business.[1] Charles, in his History, says this arrangement lasted only a few months and places it chronologically right after selling the milk route, which would have placed this event sometime in the 1890s. Yet, the share certificates for the “A. Glennie & Company, Inc.” transferred to William by Alexander are dated in 1908 – 1909, long after William was married. The chronology is murky.

William is best remembered in his work endeavors for being a home builder, or contractor, which he pursued, along with other business activities, until his death in 1916. Uncle Charlie credits him with building most of the houses on Commonwealth Avenue and Annis Street in North Andover. In a 4 page, handwritten letter on stationery dated April 25, 1912, William sets forth the specifications of a cottage to be built on Mass. Avenue, North Andover. The requirements he lays out were accompanied by plans, no longer existing. The stationery itself is interesting, as it advertises his services related to real estate, including real estate brokerage, announces he was a broker for “all kinds of insurance”, and states he deals in steamship tickets. With the address of 35 Massachusetts Avenue – North Andover as the header on the stationery, he was apparently working out of a residence, as that was Uncle Charlie's address.

While focusing most heavily on home building, William seemed to take his insurance sideline seriously. On note sized paper in the form of an enlarged business card, he had printed advertisements touting “Real Estate and Insurance”, listing the various insurance lines carried, e.g., life, fire and accident, employers’ liability”, along with steamship tickets. My favorite service he offered is, “Rent Collected.” This card shows him with 2 associates, S. F. Snell and O. J. Randlett, with offices at 718 Bay State Building, Lawrence, Mass. On a separate letterhead, this with the banner, “United States Health and Accident Insurance Company” headquartered in Saginaw, Michigan, appears in his handwriting a table of savings at various rates of compound interest.

Most fascinating of all, on the reverse side of the “business cards” and front of the table of compound interest (carried to the second page) are handwritten snippets of aphorisms, or principles of conducting business (and life) ethically. They sound like Ben Franklin could have written them. A sampling:

A mean act will soon recoil, and a man of honor will be esteemed.

Always avoid profane swearing.

Be never afraid to say no, and always prompt to acknowledge and rectify a wrong.

Trust no man’s appearance. Rogues generally dress well. The rich are generally plain.

Good character is above all things else.

Live within your means.

And so on.

In William’s handwriting also is an essay, possibly not original with him but reflecting values important to him, comparing China to the US. It serves as a lesson in humility to those of us in the Western hemisphere. Part of it reads:

A Chinese once said to an American, ‘Wait ‘till your government has been tried before you boast of it. What is 100 years? Ours has stood the test of time of forty centuries. When you did not exist, we were. When you shall have passed away, we still shall be.”

The essay continues by discussing the marvels of the Great Wall, the magnitude of the Chinese population, and more celebrating the accomplishments of the Chinese society. The message seems to be that we, as fellow Americans and Caucasians, have much to learn and do to think we are equal in accomplishment to China and the Chinese.

William’s selecting the Chinese people and their government in making such comparisons with America is intriguing. Not to put too fine a turn on it, but I cannot help but note that, when William scribed these words in the early years of the 20^th century, there was deep set prejudice in America and Great Britain against Chinese people. China’s new Republic, established after the overthrow of the last of the Qing emperors in 1911, was shaky at best and much of the country was in chaos. Yet, William chose to retain words using China as a standard of comparison with America emphasizing accomplishments of the former. Most Americans (and British) of his time, I think, would have chosen an alternative standard for critiquing American values of the day.

Other words he found precious pertain to children, their education, and the related responsibilities of their parents. In his handwriting, again on the back of insurance company letterhead, are these words:

Children hunger perpetually for new ideas. They will learn with pleasure from the lips of parents what they deem drudgery to learn from books, and even if they have the misfortune to be deprived of many educational advantages they will grow up intelligent if they enjoy in childhood the privilege of listening to the conversation of intelligent people. Let them have many opportunities in this way. Be kind to them and don’t think it beneath you to answer their little questions…for they proceed from an implanted faculty which every true man and woman should delight in gratifying.

That William not only would spend time on such writings but that they would have been preserved by Annie then my father is revealing about the man – honest, trying to live right by others, and reflective on matters of morality.

I know little of my grandparents’ day to day lives, but it is not difficult to imagine. They resided at 235 Middlesex Avenue in North Andover, the scene of many family photos. Annie would have spent most of her days raising their sons and doing the household chores that came with the role of the traditional wife – mother of the times. William was working on his various endeavors – home building, selling insurance, and writing notes of the type I have uncovered. They kept a horse in a stable in the back of their house as means of transportation. My father was only 11 when his father died, and he had little to say about these early years in his life. For him at that time, life would have consisted mostly in attending school, playing with friends and, given his own interests and energy, spending as little time inside as possible.

William died at age 56 on May 6, 1916 and was buried 3 days later in the family plot in Ridgewood Cemetery in North Andover just a mile or so from the farm house to which the last of the Glennies to emigrate moved days after their arrival in America. My understanding has always been that a heart condition brought about his demise, although his cause of death is listed on his recently found death certificate as pneumonia. We do know that his passing had been anticipated some years in advance. Alexander, to no one’s surprise I am sure, recorded William’s death with a poem, although one with a perplexing format. It is entitled, Letter to Mary Ann (she being the eldest sister), and signed, In Memoriam W. G. Glennie, May 9, 1916, this date, of course, being 3 days after William’s death and the date of his funeral. The poem, which is lengthy, does not in its body mention William by name, but refers to him by his age at death and other unique characteristics and attributes so we know for certainty that he was the object of the poem. Selections from the poem appear below.

Orderly and fairly, he loved his life of pain

Saw his hopes in blossom, to turn to dust again,

Solemnly and slowly, we lay him in his tomb

While Spring bursts Winter’s Dungeon dark and floods the fields in bloom.

Vanished is his presence, empty is his place

Gone for aye the smile on that serious manly face

Nevermore he’ll greet us with kindly words and cheer

That home so cozy once and bright, now silent cold and drear.

All too short his journey – threescore years less three

Who next shall hear the trumpet? It maybe your or me.

But never more heroic did Soldier meet the foe

Ten years he faced his certain Fate nor quailed before the blow.

But how can gentle Nature rejoice and gambol so

And all seem joy and gladness while we are plunged in woe

Oh Spring thou fairest Daughter of hoary Father Time

Thou bringest us a ghastly gift – a man dead in his prime!

Alexander Glennie

Annie’s life after William’s death was a trial. Any estate William left was meager. Everett and John cut their formal educations short to provide financial support for the household through jobs at Uncle Charlie’s milk plant. Photos in her later years show her with her sons, her sisters Lizzie and Jeannie and brother-in-law Bob Duncan, and other family and friends. Her family seems to have been a source of consolation.

A poem (untitled, undated, and author not given) I have, found among Annie’s possessions and in her handwriting, reads in part:

Today the way appears so dark

And life so useless seems

It takes so long to reach a path

In which the sunshine gleams.

Hope sometime almost flees away

And leaves me in despair

Then life appears so very hard

And often so unfair.

Annie maintained correspondence with Alexander, her brother who had remained in Scotland, and sent him and others gifts of various sorts. In a letter to her dated November 15, 1921 with a return address of “Springfield, Macdonald Avenue, Westcliff-on-Sea (which is in England), Alexander expresses deep gratitude for her sending 2 rabbits which he describe as “sweet and fresh as can be.” Sadly, he is not well. He reports that he is unable to bend his back “because it is so weak and painful, and the noise in my head is simply terrible.” His wife, whom he does not name, is unable to move him. Most of the letter, though, is about the sharp fall in food prices during the earlier 2 years (coinciding with the end of WWI), a disaster for farmers. He signs off, “Your affectionate and most grateful brother, Alic.”

Annie received 2 other letters in my possession, one from England at Alexander’s address above and a second from Aberdeenshire, during this time frame. One of these, dated March 2, 1922 and from the same address as Alexander’s, is from “Your affectionate uncle Sandy.” Sandy, of course, is a common nick name for Alexander, and I am unsure how this “Uncle Sandy” fits in to the picture. He does not mention her brother, Alexander. Correspondence between him and Annie was infrequent, as he notes they have not been in touch since before William’s death, then 7 years earlier.

Sandy’s ailments are much the same as Alexander’s, as he describes himself as having “terrible head noises” along with spinal problems and little feeling in his hands. He also has become “deaf as a stone.” “Rent and Rates” have become impossible to pay on his “annuity from the Retiring Fund.” His wife has seriously injured herself during the winter, and he says, “I am only waiting my Lord’s call.”

Sandy refers to 3 sons. One, Ronald, is a schoolmaster at Gravesend who is married and helping out financially “as best they can.” The eldest, Dayley (?) is also married and has a garage at Yeovil (?), Somerset. Youngest son, Harold, likewise is married with a 6 year old daughter, Mary. Harold was wounded in France, fell ill with “Trench Fever” and suffers from an enlarged heart. Since both letters are from the address on Macdonald Avenue, the writing reflects some level of mental impairment, the handwriting is very similar, the timing is so close, and neither author mentions the other, I wonder whether both are from Alexander.

A last letter in this series is dated October 15, 1925. The return address is Drumblair Cottage, Yoergue (?) By Huntly, Aberdeenshire. It is signed off, “Your loving sister, Bella Reid.” Bella, from the letter’s contents, clearly is a younger woman, one of the next generation, to be literally Annie’s sister. Her sons are named Sandy and Alex. As with Uncle Sandy, I am not sure how she links to the Reid family.

Annie died in her home at 235 Middlesex Street in North Andover on January 30, 1937. She had been ill with pneumonia for only for 2 – 3 days before her death, and her quick demise shocked her family. My father and mother were in Florida at the time, and received the news via telegram. They returned immediately to North Andover. This time, the epitaph for a fallen member of the family was not penned by Alexander, but his brother Charles and Annie's sister, Lizzie. In a letter to my father, Uncle Charlie said, “You have lost a very loyal friend who can never be replaced and we both sincerely sympathize with you.” Lizzie wrote my father and mother, "I sympathize with you all for the passing of your dear Mother. She was a great mother and a very dear friend to me ever since we were small children. She seemed so happy last time she was here (i.e., at Lizzie's home, then in Reading, Massachusetts). I shall always remember her like that. She was one of God's own children and her place is with the redeemed. Please accept my deepest Sympathy. Lovingly, Aunt Lizzie.

[1] Among William’s materials are certificates of shares issued to him by “A. Glennie & Company, Inc.” The certificates, one for 20 shares and the other for 10, were dated February 1, 1908 and July 1, 1909 and were to pay interest at 10% per annum. I do not know whether William paid for these shares or was given them as part of his arrangement for working in the company.

Chapter 6B: William and Annie Glennie - Photos

2007-07-09T10:40:00.001-04:00

Top photo: Clockwise from top left: Robert Duncan, Lizzie Reid Duncan, Annie Reid Glennie, William Glennie, John Glennie and Everett Glennie (circa 1910)
Middle photo: Jeannie (Reid) Baskin, Lizzie, Annie, John (circa 1920)
Botton photo: Jeannie and William (circa 1915)

Chapter 5E: Alexander Glennie

2007-07-04T15:47:00.001-04:00

Alexander (Sandy) Glennie

Alexander, the second last of the children born at Lochrie, emerges through time as the Glennie who broke the mold that shaped his brothers and sisters. He was artistic, individualistic, sociable, and emotional. He surely was the most colorful and enigmatic of his generation of Glennies and likely was the most charming.

With only a grade school education and youthful life experiences limited to goings on in Strathdon, Alexander became an accomplished – and published – poet. In this, he was following a Scottish tradition. I have in my possession originals of 2 copies of Aberdeenshire poets of his day, amateurs, perhaps farm-boys like him, but with the same penchant for expressing their love of their homeland and their nostalgia as they, too, had found new lives overseas. Perhaps they found inspiration by Robert Burns and other Scottish literary luminaries of their times and earlier. Alexander was more than the family poet; his works were published in The Boston Globe and the Boston Post, both major publications of their day reaching the sophisticated readers of Boston and vicinity.

The poems by Alexander I have are a selection featuring family members and occasions, and were collected in a booklet assembled by Uncle Charlie entitled, The Glennie Family.[1] Oddly, in the booklet, Alexander is given no recognition for authoring these poems, although there can be no doubt he did so. The poems are neither dated nor organized in a chronological sequence. The time span covered in these poems range from Alexander's childhood into his old age.

We are indebted to Alexander more than anyone else for giving us insight about the conditions of life and relationships among the Glennies of his parents and his own generations. I already have quoted him in characterizing a number of family members and occasions elsewhere. The emotional range of his expression runs the gamut, from the euphoria of social gatherings that must have been raucous blow-outs (Maggie’s Wedding, A Night at Sandy Glennie’s), to sentimentality embellished with homespun philosophy (A Winter Evening at Lochrie, Answer to Yillie’s Letter, The Bonnie Banks O’ Dee, When Florence Fyfe Got Married), to tributes colored by affection (To Marjory, Lizzie, Louise), to grieving at the deaths of family members (Father Dead, To Mother Dead, and others), and somber reflections on the passage of time and aging (Growing Old, At the Prospect of Death).

n my opinion, Alexander's poetry at its usual is more than clever and at its best remarkably well crafted. Alexander writes as a learned man. His vocabulary is extensive, and he is facile in switching syntax from Scottish Highland dialect to more generalized English as his subject matter dictates. His insights reveal perceptiveness as an observer of the human condition.

Among my favorite stanzas in his poetry is the second in The Bonnie Banks O' Dee:

Away ye unromantic plains wi’ garnered flowers aglow

Gie me the wild secluded glens where sparkling waters flow

Where the bonnie broom and heather bloom, and the daisy decks the lea

And the partridge springs on whirrin wings by the bonnie banks o’ Dee.

Alexander Glennie

Not only does the poem rhyme in a graceful flow of words, but it has consistent meter as its underpinning. Alliteration is effectively used, and the poem is rich in imagery and metaphor. Despite a temptation some might feel to fall back on sentimentality in describing favorite haunts of childhood, he does not succumb. He avoids clichés as shortcuts in conveying his thoughts and feelings.

Alexander was well schooled in Christian beliefs, and weaves them into his writings, particularly dealing with death. In Father Dead, Alexander writes:

How grand and holy is that calm strong face[1],

How like a mighty Monarch lies he there,

Not pain nor agony hath left a trace,

Upon that countenance serene and fair;

And kneeling at thy feet I breath a prayer

For my soul – not for thine – Oh Time and Space,

He hath annihilated you. And where

Oh, Death is now thy sting, Oh, Grace thy hideousness?

Alexander Glennie

This language is somewhat similar to that in 17^th century English poet John Donne's poem, Death Be Not Proud:

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

And Death shall be no more: Death, thou shalt die!

John Donne

[1] A reference to his father, lying in death.

Throughout his mid and later life, Alexander seems at times absorbed by anxieties of aging and death. However, he often references the Christian hope of life eternal following death in his poems. Concerns about aging and death aside, Alexander comes across as someone who loved people and deeply valued relationships. He could feel joy, but was no stranger to emotional downs. His devotion to the Glennie family is abundantly clear in his writings.

Alexander, in his poems, tells us about himself as he writes about others, but more directly in writing about himself. In Work, where he extols the virtues of labor as a source of happiness and fulfillment, he says:

Oh I am a riotous care-free lad

Not much good, but not all bad

And I’ve got no time to be gloomy or sad.

For life to me is a glorious quest

And work and play to the game add zest

So I do what I can and leave the rest.

And the days fly by in a swift review

For the task is great and the years are few

And the joy lf like is the good we do.

For fate has been wondrous kind to me

He has given me the work of two or three

And I am as happy as man can be.

They tell me life is a passing show

A snare and delusion I don’t know

But give me a ticket and let me go.

So this be my motto for life’s short span

I hate no man, and I fear no man

And I’ll do my duty the best I can.

Alexander Glennie

More introspective in Myself, he has this to say:

‘Mong men or (beasts) it holds alike

The first of laws confessed

We like our neighbor well enough

We like ourselves the best.

So when you scan this silly rhyme

Don’t quest on how ‘twas written

I hardly care to write his name

‘Twould only be forgotten:

He’s been life’s kindest friend to me

We fought and fed together

He’s not just what he ought to be

But just as good’s another.

Alexander Glennie

Alexander’s life played out in some ways more similar to his brothers than my commentary above might suggest. He emigrated from Lochrie by himself (or, at least not with other family members), arriving in North Andover in December 1886, 6 months or so before the remaining Glennie made the trans-Atlantic voyage. Although a poet by avocation, he went into business like all his brothers, initially joining John and James in their soap business, then moving to Boston, where he worked for cousin Sandy Munro, who by that time operated restaurants. He then transitioned into his own business in Boston, named A. Glennie & Co., Inc., (See image of business card above.) selling meat and produce. He was joined in this business in time by his brother and my grandfather, William. Uncle Charlie bestows credit on Alexander for being the first in Boston in his business to introduce cold storage in showcases.

Alexander’s creative flair in business, however, did not translate into great financial success. In time, his business closed and its shares of common stock, some of which William and then his estate held, lost all value.

Possibly as revealing as some of his poems might have been Alexander’s demeanor, reflected in the photo above. The most handsome of the Glennies, with rakish mustache and jaunty expression, Alexander’s personal life was portrayed, at least by my father, as colorful if not altogether stable. During his Boston days, he is said to have become an aficionado of the City’s nightlife, frequently dating showgirls. Apparently his business experience did not dampen his love of fun and enthusiasm for dancing with pretty women and cavorting with his friends. His vocation as a poet flourished in terms of recognition if not financial remuneration.

Alexander married Mary MacLean of Nova Scotia, although I do not know when. Mary was 5 years older than he. They had no children. I have not seen any mention of her in his poems, although that is not to say she was never his subject. Perhaps Uncle Charlie excluded such poems from his collection which I now have. In what must have been an horrific event, Mary was fatally burned when her clothes caught fire while cooking Christmas dinner in 1941. Alexander penned a poem in his wife's memory:

TO MARY

A gentle soul as sweet and fair

As ever breathed God's heavenly air

A painful tale too quickly told

A human heart of living gold

Such was our Mary sweet and true

Admired and loved by all she knew

Sweet be her dreams of pure delight

Goodnight my dear Goodnight, Goodnight

Alexander Glennie

Alexander died 6 months later, which Uncle Charlie attributed to burns he sustained while attempting to save his wife. He lived to be 73. Alexander and Mary are buried in Ridgewood Cemetery, North Andover.

[1] This title is similar to A Short History of the Glennie Family, written by Uncle Charlie, but they are different publications.

Appendix B1.Letters to Annie from Tollafraick.1884

2007-07-03T22:13:00.001-04:00

In Appendix B, you will find original correspondance from the Reid children and mother to Annie, who, with her father, was working in Banff for the summer. The date of the letters is August 10, 1884. This event is described (or, at least imagined) in the text. The first of these letters, in this file, is from Annie's mother, who signs herself as "Betsy Ann'. In Appendix B2, you will find letters from Alexander and Gordon and in B2 from Lizzie and Jeannie, who signs her name "Jane". Double click on the image to see an enlarged version.

Appendix B2.Ltrs. Lizzie.Jeannie to Annie.1884

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AppendixB3.Ltrs Alex.Gordon to Annie.1884

2007-07-03T22:04:00.000-04:00

Chapter 5B: Great Grandparents James and Isabella & Daughter Isabella Glennie

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James and Isabella Glennie and their Daughter, Isabella

As we already know, James and Isabella arrived in North Andover in 1887 at advanced ages for the time. Their first years must have been satisfying ones, seeing their children take up lives in North America which could either be described as successful or at least promising. The family farm was bought, renovated, and provided them with a home infinitely more comfortable than their Lochrie dwelling.

James, however, was to fall ill with some now unknown malady that, while apparently not quick, was fatal. He died in 1901. Alexander, in one of the 3 poems he wrote concerning his father’s death, has this to say:

Why should we sorrow when an old man dies

Whose day has dawned on the Eternal deep,

Whose soul for Death’s emancipation cries,

And whose tired body longs to sleep;[1]

William, in his previously mentioned letters to Annie while she was visiting family in Aberdeen, writes on July 17, 1901, “Father don’t improve very much am afraid he will not get over this attack if he keeps….” By the time of his September 6^th letter to Annie, William’s father has died and he laments, “I am sure you was sorry when you heard of my poor old father being taken away from us.” He goes on to say that the great consolation in his father’s death is that he is “better off” and then relates how the minister told them (the family members) at the funeral, “that he quoted Scripture to him whey last met and so much he had by heart.” William describes there being more flowers than he had seen before at a funeral and the people attending showing “greatest respect.” The whole family, except Mary Ann and Maggie, was at James’ bedside at his death and at the funeral.

Interestingly, William apologizes to Annie for not having written on black stationery, customary then in times of mourning. In his words, “You might wonder how I have not wrote you in black but the truth of it is we have only one black sheet here, and I want to write you now. Of course I make you just as one of ourselves and you must not think that I am slighting you at all.” This seems to be another clue that Annie is already assimilating into the Glennie family with, as noted before, marriage to William now on the horizon.

Isabella lived several years after James’ death, but they were not good years. We know of her trials in her last years through Alexander’s poems and Uncle Charlie’s History. In Father’s Grave, Alexander writes in his last verse:

Oh Mither, Mither dinna greet

Nor let yer grief gang ower ye

To miss his kindly words and sweet

He’s only gane afore ye

Your ups and downs sinee first ye met

He’s nae the kind that can forget

He minds them fine and winners yet

When he’ll be comin for ye.

In a poem focused on Isabella’s grieving in the winter after James died, Alexander portrays his mother as alone, lonely, and infirm. Her children would gladly take her in, he says in MOTHER: The Winter After Father Died, but:

She fears she might be a burden so here she’d rather stay.

And she must be near the cemetery where Father lies at rest

And she keeps his chair and the Bible his constant touch had blessed

And the room they used to sleep in, she likes it still the best.

The house is growing colder, the midnight hour has tolled

Her hands are shaking with palsy, and her feet are numb with cold

And she sways and moans in anguish, and weeps in her apron’s fold.

And still she’s sitting greetin as lonely as can be

With her poor old head in her apron and her elbow on her knee

Old and withered and wrinkled, and thinking o’ you and me.

Isabella spent her last 2 years bedridden, following a stroke that left her immobile and unable to speak. Her daughter, also named Isabella, took, in Uncle Charlie’s words, “splendid care of mother.” Daughter Isabella’s fate, however, was a sad one. Overworked caring for her mother, she took sick. Her physician had her placed in the Massachusetts General Hospital, where she underwent surgery from which she never regained consciousness. Not sure that their mother could understand from their words and gestures that Isabella had died, her children carried Isabella’s body into her mother’s room so she could see that her daughter was dead. Mother Isabella died three weeks later, on Christmas Day, 1907.

James and Isabella were a remarkable couple, beloved by their children and respected by those who knew them. James seems to have been the more gregarious of the two, with Isabella reserved and modest. Their accomplishments were prodigious. They raised a large family of their own plus a niece and nephew and, through example and their love, taught them to be good, to care for one another, to love and respect their parents, and to endure hardship uncomplainingly in the quest of worthwhile ends. We see these qualities in many ways – in their children’s remaking their new farm in North Andover into a comfortable and productive home for them, in Alexander’s poems about his parents alive and in death, in William’s telling Annie of his father’s death and how the family coped with it, and most of all in daughter Isabella’s caring for her mother in her last years and at great sacrifice to herself.

James and Isabella managed, in spite of a limited formal education, their large family size, and humble status as tenant farmers, to accumulate the means to buy their own farm upon arriving in North Andover. At advanced ages, they had the unusual capability to look to the future, as they transplanted their roots deeply embedded in Strathdon, joined their children, and set off for a land unknown to them except for the promise of a better life for all.

[1] This is from Father Dead. Alexander’s other 2 poems about James’ death are Father and Father’s Grave.

Chapter 5D: The Remaining Glennie Daughters: Mary Ann, Elizabeth and Margaret

2007-06-29T20:41:00.000-04:00

Mary Ann, Elizabeth and Margaret

Virtually all I know about the remaining Glennie daughters of my great grandparents Glennie is from Uncle Charlie’s History and several of Alexander’s poems.

The 3 sisters shared some aspects of their lives, yet they and their fates were more different than similar. Of the 3, Mary Ann and Margaret married, while Elizabeth remained single. Margaret remained in Scotland while the others migrated to Massachusetts. Both Mary Ann and Margaret had 8 children and each lost one to death as casualties in France during World War I.[1]

Mary Ann, the eldest of the siblings after John, married Robert Fyfe, almost surely in Scotland. She arrived in North Andover in 1900, making her the last of the Glennies to be on site, but I am not sure of the date of her immigration to America. She therefore may or may not have been the last of the Glennies to leave Scotland. Her stay in North Andover was apparently brief, and she and Robert moved to Lawrence, then Melrose, finally settling in Reading, all in Massachusetts. Mary Ann died in 1931, achieving the then advanced age of 77. All her children, except for Charles who was killed in France, lived at least well into adulthood (All were living at the time Uncle Charlie wrote his History.) and possibly into old age.

Alexander dedicates two poems[2] to Mary Ann, the first of a celebration, Family Reunion at Mary Ann’s Three Score and Ten. The poem, several fragments of which appear below, begins with a fond reminiscence of their childhoods at Lochrie and concludes with reflections about Mary Ann and the condition of life that comes with aging.

The bonnie glen, the haughs so fine

Are just as livin in my mind

As in the days o’ aul lang syne

When we were lads and lasses

Ad mony a battle since then we’ve fought

And ups and downs we’ve had a lot

But fint a ane o’s hae forgot

The hills and braes and mosses.

Them happy days are lang since gane

To never mair return again

And a’ we’ve left is just our ain

The best hae gane afore us

Father and Mither, the finest pair

That ever raised a family there

Willie and Isle[3] sick and sair

Hae joined the silent chorus.

Now ane and a’ we’re idnet gaun

We’re following ye Mary Ann

To that mysterious shadowy lan’

Whence nane returneth ever

So couthy be yer but an ben

And may yer three-score years and ten

Be but the start and nae the en’

O’ yer journey to the river.

Alexander Glennie

In a far more somber poem entitled Mary Ann, Alexander writes of his sister shortly before her death. By then, Mary Ann’s life, always hard, has become one of relentless suffering. However, she is one to be remembered for her lifelong virtues.

Aged, and helpless, and stooped and thin

Like faded parchment her wrinkled skin

Sight and hearing and speech nigh gone

The fires burn low, but she still fights on,

Oh Sister o’ mine, What a World of pain

Of sorrow and heartache and struggle and strain

Have been your lot, since you first drew breath

And now you wait at the Gates of Death.

Oh Sister of mine, What a joy you’ve been

With your quenchless courage and faith serene

Though soon at rest must your body lie

Your triumphant spirit can never die.

Alexander Glennie

Not much is reported about Elizabeth, and, sadly, I do not remember her ever being discussed. She immigrated to North Andover with the last of the Glennies in 1887. She kept house for John for some years and later for Uncle Charlie and his family. She eventually moved to Reading, Mass., where she died in 1937 at age 74. She is described in the History (along with Isabella) as a “fine Christian” woman, “devoting all of (her life) for the good of (her) friends and relatives.” Alexander devotes a poem to "Lizzie," which seems a fitting tribute to her except for ending with a reference to her as a "Mother". Because of the position of the poem among others who clearly refer to family members, the absence of any other "Lizzie" and the nature of the poem itself, I suspect that Alexander uses the term "Mother" figuratively in the poem, referring to her helping raise the children of John and Charles when she was with their families as what Uncle Charlie calls a "housekeeper". Here is, "Lizzie":

Like a star she shine resplendent
In the circle of her home
Like a diamond in a pendant gem impearled
She holds her home and family
In the hollow of her hand
She's the finest little Mother in the World.

Alexander Glennie

Margaret’s migration was the shortest, limited to moving to Glenbucket, Aberdeenshire upon her marriage. She became the wife of James MacGregor of Glenbucket, and counted Frederick, whom I came to know and like immensely, among her children. (I’ll have more to say about Fred when describing my first visit to Scotland when I stayed with him and his wife, Jessie, in Bella Beg.) Margaret did not leave Scotland, except for one trip to France to visit the grave of her son, Alexander, killed in World War I. While only one of her children died in infancy, 4 others predeceased her. Two of Margaret’s children, Mabel and Caroline, migrated to North Andover, married and lived there as next door neighbors. Margaret died in 1927, at 62 years.

We do not know much about Margaret’s persona from family records, but Alexander, ever ready with quill, writes of her marriage day as marked with a feast and raucous celebration. In Maggie’s Wedding, he describes the scene:

Oh Hae ye heard the latest news

That’s gaun like fire fae hoose to hoose

How Randy Meg has ta’en the vows

To Jamie wi’ the e’en

Yestreen they had the marriage spree

And lads andd lasses merrily

Came far and near to haud their glee

The like was never seen.

The Parson usually can spare

An hour length grace and maybe mair

This time cut short and wi’ an air

I hardly ca’ divine

He grabbed a speen and started in

At this the others did begin

Then oot they bundled to the laft

In pairs to music sweet and saft

And to the fleer they flew like daft

To outdo ane anither

Then lap and sprang the Duke of Fyfe

And Randy Meg was thumpin rife

My father he got Tollie’s wife

And Tollie got my mither.

They roun came stately Gobly Gates

Wi’ baunchin Jennie Brodie

And Lairg was snoring on the seats

And Drum was drinkin toddy

Wi’ dancin and prancing

They loupit and they flang

Wi’ stampin and rampin

The very rafters rang.

Alexander Glennie

And so it went until:

Wi’ toddy they broke up the ball

And started to gae hame

But how they managed to get there

Was to themselves a mystery

And ragin heads and stammocks sair

Revealed the forenicht’s history

For quiet I say it

The most of them were fu’

Some cheery, some beery

Some rennin o’er the moo.

Alexander Glennie

Alexander wrote 2 poems to “Marjory”, but I am unclear about whether they were intended to honor Margaret. As you will see, they are written for someone who living with the family most likely as member. Margaret, as the youngest sister, seems the most likely target, but there was no “Marjory” in the household and Margaret’s nickname was Maggie. Nevertheless, I find the poems delightful, and unusual for Alexander in the affection and joy they express. So, here they are, even though we cannot be sure of the subject.

To Marjory

There’s always lots of pretty Girls, but always one the best

And many pretty faces, but one, the prettiest

So fair and happy be your days, your skies be clear and blue

For of all the Girls in the World, the nicest one is YOU.

Alexander Glennie

In another affectionate poem, he celebrates Marjory’s impending marriage.

To Marjory When Married

Oh Marjory, my Marjory

And must you leave your home and me?

Your lovely smile no more I’ll see

Marjory, my Marjory.

It seems I saw you yesterday

A laughing little child at play

Now Husband, Home, and family

Will seem so strange for Marjory.

But since ‘tis so, it must be so

So bless your heart whereere you go

And Fortune smile on thine and Thee

Marjory, my Marjory.

Alexander Glennie

[1] Alexander memorialized each of his sisters’ sons’ deaths in poems: To Alec Macgregor Slain in Battle and Charles G. Fyfe…Killed in Action.

[2] A comparison of the syntax of the poems shows Alexander writing the first of the 2 poems phonetically in the Scottish dialect of English as the setting is for the most part years earlier in Scotland. In the second, when the setting is implicitly in the US where Mary Ann resided during then contemporary times, he writes in a universal style of English.

[3] William and Isabella

Chapter 5C - Brothers James & John Glennie

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James Glennie

James was the only member of the Glennie family of his generation to make farming his livelihood. Initially taken with opportunities his brothers saw in business, he worked for John in his meat business, later buying 50% interest, later leaving this to go into soap making with John and again selling out his share. He moved to the family farm in North Andover in 1888 to be with his parents, and in 1890 started the milk business with brother Charles. Charles and he also each bought 1/3 of the farm, and the elder James was looking to be free from that burden as he was growing quite old by this time. In the early 1900s, James sold out his interest in the milk business, leaving Charles as sole owner, and bought from Charles and his father's estate the outstanding interest in the farm, becoming the sole owner. Charles in his History reports him as "quite successful with the farm, growning some very nice crops and marketing his produce."

I do not know the date of Jame's immigration to North Andover, but he was second (after John) and the year would have been approximately 1880. He married Elsie Crawford, a Canadian, and one of his sons was George, a contemporary and close friend of my father. I remember George well, as we occasionally visited him and his wife, Hazel, at their home in Andover. George was a warm, highly intellegent, and successful man. To this day, I appreciate his help and advice at the time of my father's death. My last conversation with George was in the mid-1980s, when he told me he had cancer but, "I'm going to lick it, Jack," he said. Sadly, he did not.

James died in 1926, at the age of 70.

John Glennie

John was not only the first to leave Strathdon, but the first to separate from the family and in many ways went his own way. For example, it was cousin Alexander Munro, not John, who met John’s parents and the last of his siblings when they arrived from their overseas journey in Boston, having traveled by boat and train from New York. The new immigrants did not meet son / brother John until they arrived at his house in Lawrence. Alexander, the Glennie family bard, never featured John in his poems although he dedicated at least one to other family members, including himself and Alexander Munro. And, as I relate below, Uncle Charlie seems unduly sparing in his characterization of John’s business accomplishments. There is no record that John helped his parents financially in buying their North Andover farm.

If this perception of some distance between John and some of the other Glennies is correct, it would be understandable. John left home at a young age, only 17. The next of the family to emigrate, his brother, James, did not do so for a decade or so thereafter, by which time John had married Isobel Lee and was the father of 2 children. By the time the rest of the Strathdon Glennies came in the late 1880s, John was the father of 6 and firmly established in business. John made his own way in America.

I heard of John making only one trip to Strathdon after he immigrated, and it was while his family was still at Lochrie. The story goes that John approached his father in one of the fields, not having seen him for some years, and asked him whether he know who he (John) was. His father, James, answered, “I know the face, but I cannot place the name.” Apocryphal or not, it’s a story I have always liked.

However, if there were some distance between John and some of the other Glennies, there was not estrangement with any and close ties with some. John first worked in Massachusetts with Alexander Munro and, as discussed above, later hired brother James to work for him in his meat business upon the latter’s arrival in America. James later worked for John in his soap business. And, if John left it to his cousin to meet his family in Boston after their long journey from Strathdon, he did put them up in his house for a week before they moved to the farm in North Andover that James and Isabella had purchased. Sister Elizabeth lived with John and his family for some years, serving as "housekeeper".

My impressions of John, through reviewing family materials and recalling my father’s characterizations, are not without contradiction. What is clear is that John was an entrepreneur. He started a meat business, described by Uncle Charlie as “the first one in Lawrence (a major city at the time) to handle Western beef,” and then went into the soap and rendering business. While my father described John as the most successful of the Strathdon Glennies in business and estimated his estate at the time of his death in 1929 at $1 million (I have no idea concerning the veracity of this estimate.), an enormous net worth at the time, Charles damns him with faint praise, giving him only a begrudging, “He was reasonably successful in all these trades.” Let it be remembered that Uncle Charlie was a wiz in business himself, and there may have been sibling rivalry underlying his words.

John lived a long life for his era, to age 77, and died a widower. He lived to see the stock market crash of 1929 (He died on November 25.), but not so long so to see the fallout from the Great Depression. His death was through injury, not illness. He was struck near his home by a car and taken to Lawrence General Hospital, where he was diagnosed with broken bones and internal injuries. He died 4 hours later. The driver of the car was charged with manslaughter, among other crimes. John is buried in Ridgewood Cemetery, next to his parents and sister Isabella.

Chapter 5A: The Glennies and Reids in the New World

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The Glennie Homestead

The photos above are of the first Glennie homestead in America, located in North Andover, Massachusetts. The one above was taken by me in 1985, and my children, Justina and Reid, are in the foreground. The lower one was taken sometime early in the 20th century, not too long after the Glennies moved in. I found it in some family photos dated from about 1910 - 1935, so assume it is from this time frame. As you can see, the property has not changed much at all over the years although it is no longer owned by Glennie descendents.

A. Great Grand Parents James & Isabella and their Daughter, Isabella.

The Glennies did not have to wait long to change their fortunes and fates in the New World. As we have seen already, James and Isabella became land owners within days of their arrival in North Andover and soon their property, through the sweat of their children’s labor, had been transformed into a farm that provided both comfortable lodging and bountiful harvests. Uncle Charlie, in his Family History, cites in particular the financial boosts that came from being first to market with their potato harvest and fortuitous sale of timber from pine trees. In fact, produce from the farm was so abundant and prices so good that the Glennies, for the first time ever in their history, found themselves on the cusp of affluence.

Alexander Glennie, always ready with pen to celebrate family joys and lament family trials, authored a delightful poem to celebrate the Glennies’ attaining the status of landowner. It was obviously written after his parents had died, but nevertheless includes them as part of the celebration of good fortune. He writes:

To the Finest Family In the Finest House in Andover[1]

We wish ye gude luck in year braw new hoose

Sae trig and sae trim; sae canty an croose

An as yer desert, sae be yer reward

A big peatstack an a green kailyard.

May the years chase ane anither like lammies at their play

A’ white and licht an gladsome throu a’ life’s happy day

An ne’er may fa’ the shadow o’ tragedy or shame

Till the SHEPHERD comes in the gloaming, to ca’ the lammies hame.

There’s twa fine faces missin, twa sovereign hairts are still

The finest twa that ever saw the Sun come o’er the hill:

Oh, Father, ye wid clap yer hans wi a hairty “Dere a Boy”

An Mither she wid hide her face and greet wi every joy.

Ye’ve clum’t the lang, land hill, and ye’re stannin at the Kern

An the Future whines afore ye spreadin doonward to the burn

An han in han thegither, may ye toddle doon the brae

As the gloaming shadows gaither at the ein o’ a perfect day.

Alexander Glennie

Yet, setbacks emerged that affected all family members, and fortune did not shine on all in equal measure. James and Isabella faced the afflictions, physical and emotional, common to old age not long after their arrival. One of the Glennie children died in circumstances that were the saddest of any about which I have read of the family. The American dream, while captured by several beyond what must have been their wildest expectations, was cruelly elusive to others.

We turn next to the fates of the family members, both Glennie and Reid, who migrated to the New World.

Why should we sorrow when an old man dies

Whose day has dawned on the Eternal deep,

Whose soul for Death’s emancipation cries,

And whose tired body longs to sleep;[2]

Oh Mither, Mither dinna greet

Nor let yer grief gang ower ye

To miss his kindly words and sweet

He’s only gane afore ye

Your ups and downs sinee first ye met

He’s nae the kind that can forget

He minds them fine and winners yet

When he’ll be comin for ye.

She fears she might be a burden so here she’d rather stay.

And she must be near the cemetery where Father lies at rest

And she keeps his chair and the Bible his constant touch had blessed

And the room they used to sleep in, she likes it still the best.

The house is growing colder, the midnight hour has tolled

Her hands are shaking with palsy, and her feet are numb with cold

And she sways and moans in anguish, and weeps in her apron’s fold.

And still she’s sitting greetin as lonely as can be

With her poor old head in her apron and her elbow on her knee

Old and withered and wrinkled, and thinking o’ you and me.

James and Isabella were a remarkable couple, beloved by their children and respected by those who knew them. James seems to have been the more gregarious, with Isabella reserved and modest. Their accomplishments were prodigious. They raised a large family of their own plus a niece and nephew and, through example and their love, taught them to be good, to care for one another, to love and respect their parents, and to endure hardship uncomplainingly in the quest of worthwhile ends. We see these qualities in many ways – in their children’s remaking their new farm in North Andover into a comfortable and productive home for them, in Alexander’s poems about his parents alive and in death, in William’s telling Annie of his father’s death and how the family coped with it, and most of all in daughter Isabella’s caring for her mother in her last years at great sacrifice to herself.

James and Isabella managed, in spite of limited formal education, their large family size, and humble status as tenant farmers, to accumulate the means to buy their own farm upon arriving in North Andover. At advanced ages, they had the unusual capability to look to the future rather than the past as they transplanted their roots deeply embedded in Strathdon, joined their children, and set off for a land unknown to them except for the promise of a better life for all.

[1] These are selected stanzas, not the entire poem.

[2] This is from Father Dead. Alexander’s other 2 poems about James’ death are Father and Father’s Grave.

Appendix A: More on the Mackintosh and Robertson Clans[1]

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This appendix is a supplement to the information about the Mackintosh and Robertson clans appearing in the main body of the text, and is more a presentation of “left over” fragments than a systematic attempt to describe the 2 clans and their histories. You will see referenced in the main body sources of clan materials which provide a more complete picture.

Clan Robertson

Robertson is a Scottish clan about which William Forbes Skene (1809-92), Historiographer Royal of Scotland, wrote in 1837 that: "the Robertsons of Struan are unquestionably the oldest family in Scotland, being the sole remaining branch of that Royal House of Atholl which occupied the throne of Scotland during the 11th and 12th centuries."

According to clan lore, the Robertsons were supporters of Robert the Bruce and his War of Scottish Independence, taking the field at Bannockburn, although historical documentation of this early patriotism is sketchy. (In the main text, I give the benefit of the doubt to the Clan.)

There is no question, however, that many Robertsons fought in the Jacobite army as part of the Atholl Brigade, and were supporters of Bonnie Prince Charlie. They fought against the English in the Battle of Culloden. After the defeat of the Rebellion in 1746 the Robertson lands became part of the Forfeited Estates, though most were returned to the then Chief, another Alexander Robertson, in 1784 after it became clear that the Central Highlands were wholly pacified.

Unlike many other Highland noblemen, the Robertson Chiefs refused to countenance 'clearing' their clansmen in favor of the more profitable sheep during the late 18th and early 19th centuries. This honorable, humane, but financially disadvantageous policy led to the eventual alienation of the entire clan lands by the early 20th century. Only the family burial vault at Dunalastair is still in the possession of the family of Struan.

The Clan Robertson crest appears at the beginning of this section, on the top left with the Latin translating as, “Glory is the Reward of Valor.” the Clan tartan (modern) is on the upper right.

Clan Mackintosh

The earliest authentic records of Mackintosh history tells of the clan’s founding by Shaw, son of Duncan Macduff, in the mid 12^th century. Shaw had supported King Malcolm IV of Scotland and was awarded lands in Invernesshire and appointed “Constable of the Castle Thereto.” Shaw took the name “Mac-an-Toisch,” which means “Son of the Thane (Chief)”, in founding the clan.

Chief Angus MacKintosh later supported Robert I (Robert the Bruce) of Scotland during the Wars of Scottish Independence. He led the Clan Mackintosh at the Battle of Bannockburn in 1314 where the English were defeated. He is placed second in the list of chiefs given by General Stewart of Garth as present in this battle. We also know that The Mackintosh Clan was a stalwart supporter of Bonnie Prince Charlie, fighting and incurring heavy losses at Culloden.

Moy Castle, the old seat of Clan Mackintosh, can be seen today as ruins on an island on Loch Moy, not far from Inverness.

The Mackintosh Clan crest is shown in the same frame with the Robertson crest and tartan on the lower left with the motto Touch not the Cat bot a Glove translating into more modern English as: "Do not touch the cat without a glove". I wouldn’t touch that cat even with a glove. The Mackintosh tartan (modern) is to its right.

Update on the 2 Clans

Following Culloden, the fates and fortunes of the chiefs of the Mackintosh and Robertson clans diverged. The direct descendants of Mackintosh leaders today claim Moy Hall, a modern version of their ancestral home, as their own and appear to enjoy the position that comes with a secure place in British aristocracy.

The Robertson’s fate took a different turn. While their lands were restored in the years after Culloden, the Robertson Clan Chieftains were reluctant to conform to the economic forces that followed. Their commitment to their clansmen and the old way of clan life led to their financial demise.[2] George, the 18^th Robertson chief, sold his barony in 1854, reserving only the right for him and his descendants to be interred in their family burial grounds. Thereafter, Robertson chiefs resided on estates in Jamaica, migrating years later to Kent, where they took up farming.[3]

[1] Most of this material, including the images, is from Wikipedia. (See sections on each clan.) Additional sources have been used as well, and are so noted in the text.

[2] Wikepedia, under “Clan Robertson”

[3] Plean, pp. 231, 303.

Chapter 4C: The Glennies and the Reids Leave their Ancestral Homes

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After John’s departure from Lochrie in 1870, the other Glennies, except Margaret [1] who married James MacGregor of Glenbucket and remained there, were to follow during the next 17 years. All went to North Andover, and all either stayed there or in nearby communities for the rest of their lives. James left Lochrie sometime in his early 20s, perhaps the mid to late 1870s. Alexander’s migration was in 1886. Their parents along with William, Elizabeth and Charles, arrived in North Andover in June 1887. Charles describes their journey on the S. S. Alaska from Liverpool to New York in A Short History of the Glennie Family. Isabella arrived a few months later, on Thanksgiving Day. Mary Ann arrived in North Andover with her husband, Robert Fyfe, and children in April 1900. She, however, had left Lochrie in the early 1880s to set up housekeeping with her then new husband, Robert. The entire Glennie family from Lochrie, again with the exception of Margaret, was reunited in the New World.

The Reid’s migration story shares some themes with that of the Glennies, but there are differences. Apparently, the Reids left Tollafraick en mass in the early 1890s[2], but not all for the New World. With the possible exception of Annie, their destination was Aberdeen, Scotland.[3] According to research by Cressida, the 1901 census shows all the (grown) children at 106 High Street in Old Aberdeen. Father Alexander has died by then (1900) and mother Elizabeth, while apparently still alive, was at an address unknown. In the 1901 Census, Lizzie and Jeannie’s occupations appear as “dressmakers,” and Gordon as a “tobacconist.” Alexander, who remained in Scotland for the remainder of his life, had become, according to the 1901 Census, a “carter,” i.e., one who worked with a horse and cart, presumably to move goods.

Annie, however, was on a different track. While it is possible she traveled with her family to Aberdeen, she did not stay long if she did. She sailed on the vessel “State of Nebraska” from Glasgow to Ellis Island, New York, arriving on September 26, 1893[4]. She was single at the time. Annie does appear in the 1901 Census as living with her family in Aberdeen, with an occupation as “housekeeper,” although that designation may simply have described her chores around the Aberdeen house while in residence. Annie’s surname is listed is listed in the 1901 Census as Reid, not Glennie, so had remained single, although she is approaching 39 years of age.

Annie’s residing with her siblings in Aberdeen in 1901, after she had emigrated to America, was an extended visit, not a permanent arrangement. William, now in the picture apparently as a fiancée, wrote her 2 letters in my possession, one dated July 17 and the other September 5, 1901.[5] In the earlier letter, it is clear William is expecting Annie to return to North Andover in September, although we see in his September 5 letter that her return date remains uncertain then. He informs her that his sister, Mary Ann, married and then residing in either North Andover or (less likely) Lawrence, would welcome her as a guest in her house when she returns, obliquely stating that, if Annie were to arrive in September, “There would be some two months.” However, two months until what is left for us to imagine. Given the context, timing, and the birth of their eldest son, Everett, in December 1902, my guess is William is referring to the time they were planning to marry.

For Lizzie, Gordon and Jeannie, Aberdeen turned out to be a stop on the way to their final destination in North America. They sailed from Glasgow to New York on the “Laurentian,” arriving in June 1902. As the women traveled under the surname “Reid,” they were still unmarried. The stated purpose of their trip was to visit Mrs. Annie Glennie, by then married to the elusive William – and not a moment too soon. The destination of the 3 Reids was North Andover.[6] Perhaps Annie’s visit to Aberdeen a year earlier had been to pave the way for her younger siblings to make the journey overseas. Upon the arrival of Gordon, Lizzie and Jeannie, all those still surviving of the Glennie and Reid families from Lochrie and Tollafraick, respectively, who were to set out for the New World had been reunited in and around North Andover, Massachusetts.

So, why did the Glennies and Reids leave their ancestral homes for lives, either in urban Aberdeen or the USA? We’ve hints already – the shifting economic tide with its depopulation of the Highlands, the pressures to expand farm size that meant less space to provide homes for the younger generation, and the rigidity of the social and economic structure in Scotland at that time. The mid-18^th century, as we have seen brought its particular hardships and trials, and John, the pioneer, set out likely with these difficulties fresh in his memory.

In the case of the Glennies and Reids, exploitation through lack of land reform may well have played a major role. In Strathdon, they could only aspire to continue their lives as tenant farmers. And with so many sons, particularly in the Glennie family, at this time of farm consolidation by the estate landlords, there was room at best for only one to continue to call their homesteads home during their lifetimes. As Martin Pugh says:

The idea that the crises of 1832 and 1846 (in Britain) marked the triumph of the bourgeoisie over the aristocracy is largely a myth. In fact the landed aristocracy retained its wealth, status and power largely intact, at least until the 1880s…. Yet despite attacks on aristocratic privilege …as, as yet, no general will to abolish the hereditary basis of the House of Lords or to tax landed wealth.”[7]

These families surely know there was a brighter future beyond the straths and glens and river of their homes. The time of their emigrations was one of economic expansion far more outside the borders of Great Britain than within. I have read that the late 19^th century was one of national malaise in Great Britain. Again, in the words of Martin Pugh:

The 1870s and 1880s rang to the complaints of farmers and businessmen suffering from reduced profit margin, or even bankruptcy, as a result of the prolonged fall in prices….[T]here is evidence that Britain’s economy had by now passed its peak. The rate of growth was slower than in the Victorian era, and, more alarmingly, it was inferior to that of Germany and the USA. Thus, Britain’s share of world output of manufactured goods fell from 22.9% in 1880 to 8.5% in 1900; in the same period the American share rose from 14.7% to 23.6%....[8]

If the Glennies had prophesies of fortune and social freedom of like in the US, they were borne out in the wink of an eye. As Charles was to proclaim, within 2 weeks of leaving Liverpool, the last of the Glennie family to migrate, tenant farmers in Scotland delivering peat to their landlord as part of their lease, owned their own farm in North Andover. While the farm was apparently run down when purchased by James and Isabella, the younger generation turned it into an attractive homestead and productive resource within a few years. The American dream of owing your own home (and farm), and taking pride in it, was theirs.

Finally, why did the Glennies and Reids select North Andover as their destination? I believe the answer lies with a first cousin of the Glennies, Alexander Munro. As you may remember, Alexander and his sister were raised at Lochrie by James and Isabella along with their other children. Alexander, several years older than John, had migrated earlier. Alexander was settled in Massachusetts and working on the “Captain Bradley” farm in Methuen, Mass (not far from North Andover) by the time John arrived. John briefly worked with Alexander on that farm. As evidence of an enduring relationship with the Glennies, Alexander Munro, not John, years later met the last of the Glennie immigrants upon their arrival in New York and escorted them to North Andover. Alexander was the catalyst, drawing them his cousins to the place of their new lives.

We do not know why Alexander Munro chose the vicinity of North Andover as his destination, but it's a good guess that economic opportunity ranked high on the list. By the late 19th century, Lawrence and Lowell, Massachusetts, both near North Andover, were beginning to boom, with mills appearing on banks of the Merrimack River, which ran through both cities. Each city was to claim, in time, that it was the largest manufacturer of textiles and related goods (e.g., shoes) in the world. This growth, of course, brought with it many job opportunities in these manufacturing industries and multiplier affects drove development and prosperity in the region's other industries, services and agriculture.

As the relationship between William and Annie blossomed, Annie’s future became tied to North Andover. With her residing there, Gordon, Lizzie and Jeannie picked North Andover as their New World point of arrival and all would permanently reside there or elsewhere in Massachusetts or New Hampshire. Many of these Glennies and Reids are buried in Ridgewood Cemetery, in North Andover. But we’re getting ahead of our story. We turn next to how the Glennies and Reids built their lives in the New World.

[1] Margaret married James MacGregor of Glenbucket, where they remained for the rest of their lives. She had left Lochrie sometime before the last of the Glennies departed for North America. She only left Scotland once, for a trip to France where she visited the grave of her son, Alexander, killed in WWI. She and James are buried in the Glenbucket churchyard.

[2] The most likely time is 1893, the year Annie left Scotland for the New York and when, according to Cressida’s analysis of leasehold agreements, the lease on Tollafraick ended. We know from Census records that the Reid family remained in Tollafraick in 1891 but were in Aberdeen by 1901.

[3] While we in the New World often tend to think of the Scottish migrations ending up in those places where we now are, e.g., North America, Australia, New Zealand, in fact much of the exodus was from rural to urban areas within Scotland. During the late 18^th and 19^th centuries, the population of Scotland’s 3 major urban areas, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Aberdeen, grew dramatically while it diminished in the countryside.

[4] Ellis Island data base.

[5] It is quite possible these 2 letters are his only correspondence with Annie during this time. He apologizes in both letters for not writing her more frequently. I have no letters, or references to letters, from Annie to William.

[6] The source of this information is the Preliminary Form for Petition for NaturalizationNew Bedford, Massachusetts. It is undated. for Jeannie Reid Baskin. It was prepared for the Superior Court at

[7] Pugh, Martin. Britain Since 1789: a Concise History. (New York: St. Martin’s Press). 1999, p.81.

[8] Ibid. p. 115.

Chapter 4B: The Reids at Tollafraick

2007-06-18T13:19:00.000-04:00

The Reids at Tollafraick - Photo

I believe the photo above is of Mother Elizabeth and several of her chilldren at Tollafraick.

The story of the Reid family’s life in Strathdon and embarking for America parallels that of the Glennies. The Reids had farmed in Strathdon for generations, their social and economic situations were similar to the Glennies, and most Reids of my grandmother’s generation emigrated to the

USA

, although later than the last of the Glennies. The ties of neighborliness established over generations between the 2 families were cemented in America through the marriage of William Glennie and Annie Reid, my grandparents.

Thanks to the research of my cousin from the Reid family, Cressida Potter[1], we know that the surname Reid has Gaelic origins, here in the name, Ruadh, or “Red”. Cressida has also found that the Reids were established in the Strathdon area at least as far back as the late 17^th century, although we cannot be sure that the Reids recorded in the records of the 1696 poll tax would be our direct ancestors.

The homestead on Reids in our direct line of ancestry is Tollafraick, a farm much like Lochrie and adjacent to it. The photo below, taken by Cressida in 2006, shows Tollafraick on the left. Lochrie is just out of the picture beyond Tollafraick and probably not visible anyway from the angle of the photo since the old buildings are in ruins and largely not standing. More recently, Tollafraick has been abandoned, too.

Photo by Cressida Potter

The photo is much as I remember the area during my last visit there in 1980 (and, for that matter) earlier in 1965. Beautiful, desolate, little changed from the time the Reids and Glennies left for more fruitful habitats. In 1965, I visited Tollafraick and met the third generation of the family that took over Tollafraick when the Reids moved out. Hey were an elderly couple whose name I do not recall – welcoming, less than fully understandable with their thick Scottish brogues (imagine how I must have sounded to them!), and living a simple life without such “luxuries” as electricity from a public utility. (As I recall, they may have had a generator.) I pictured myself as them but for my family emigrating so many years ago. Thanks, elder Glennies and Reids, for making my life as it was then and is now possible.

My great grandfather, Alexander Reid, was born at Tollafraick in 1819, just a few years before my great grandfather James Glennie’s birth in 1823. He farmed Tollafraick most of his life, but in his later years, also like James, was part of the family migration. The Reids’ destination, however, was 105 High Street in Old Aberdeen, not across the sea, where he died in 1900, just a year before James’ death in North Andover. Alexander’s wife and my great grandmother, Elizabeth McDonald, was born around 1835. Her places and dates of birth and of death are yet to be uncovered.[2]

Alexander and Elizabeth had 5 children (out of 9) who survived into adulthood, 4 of whom eventually made their way to New England in the US. Of these five, all born at Tollafraick, the eldest was Annie (1863-1937), my grandmother; Alexander (1872 - ?), the only sibling to remain in Scotland; Gordon (1873 – late 1950s); Elizabeth (Lizzie) (1876 – 1958); and Jean (Jeannie) (1878 – 1971).

Life at Tollafraick at the time of the Alexander and Elizabeth Reids and their children must have been a lot like that of the Glennies just down the road. Both farms were sizeable for the times, and both families employed others to help them with the work inside and out. Tollafraick, however, appears to have served as a dairy farm, the 1861 census showing a “dairymaid” in residence. So far as I know, produce at Lochrie was limited to vegetables and livestock to sheep.

While we appear not to have a poet among the Reids to wax nostalgic about the evenings of times gone by as did Alexander Glennie, we do have evidence of a closely knit Reid family. Annie, then at 21 years of age, left Tollafraick with her father during the summer of 1884 to work in Banff, on Scotland’s coast north of Aberdeen. (It was common for Highlanders to take seasonal employment away from home during this time to make ends meet. Coastal cities were popular summer destinations due to activity in the fishing industry and job opportunities derived from it.) Since mid-century, Banff and Aberdeen had been connected by train service, and this probably was their mode of transportation.

Annie’s siblings and mother wrote to her during her time away in letters that are moving, not just for what they say but because Annie considered them so precious she kept them throughout her lifetime, passing them on through my father so that I have them today, nearly 125 years after their composition. In one of these letters, dated “Sunday Morning”, Annie’s mother assures her she is watering her (Annie’s) flowers, laments there is “nothing new to writing you we are so often writing”, admonishes her not to bring herring home with her as “they would be wrong before you would be home”, and says she wishes Annie “were home to drink some of (our milk) with your cuppie.” She wishes they are “both” well, a reference to Annie’s father. The letter is signed, “Your loving mother, Betsy (?)”.

Other letters to Annie, these by her siblings, are all dated August 10 1884. It is likely her mother’s letter was that date as well, as August 10 of that year was a Sunday and all letters appear to have been folded so as to fit the same envelope, which I have. One can easily imagine the mother around the kitchen table with her young children overseeing their writing their letters and notes to their sister, Annie.

Lizzie, 8 years old when she penned wrote to her sister, is easy to read between the lines. “I have been thinking long to see you,” she says, followed later by, “You must write me a few lines to let me know how you like to stay there.” Lizzie, like her mom, acknowledges Annie’s flowers, “Your poppies are bloomed and there are nine roses.” But, the work goes on, even without Annie and Father. “We have the hay ‘coled’ (coiled?) and some peats[3] home. … I am helping my mother all that I can.” And another reference to Dad, this one more direct than her mother’s: “I hope you and my father is well.” Signed off: “I must stop that ugly letter now.”

Jean, the youngest of the siblings at 6, writes only a note, but she writes it well, perhaps with some coaching from her older sister, Lizzie: “I am thinking long to see you. There are 9 roses and nearly all the poppies.” “Annie write me.” Then, perhaps with mom’s inspiration, “I am at school. I am helping my mother all that I can.” And the sign off, “I must stop you letter now because I have nor more news now. Your sister, Jane[4] Reid”

Gordon, 11 at this time, is possibly too understanding about his older sister’s absence. “I write you this lines to let you know that we are all getting on well without you. You can stay as much longer as you like.” Again, the flowers: “You have a pretty garden now with roses and poppies of various colours and size.” Eagerly, Gordon closes: “I am in a hurry to get to kirk. My time is up. Kind love to you both. Your brother, GR.”

Alexander, at 12 the oldest son and with his father and eldest sister away in Banff, wants Annie and his father to know he has it all under control. “We are all getting on splendid. Gordon is going to the church and I am going to the Sabbath School…. I am going to say my lessons to my mother.” Then, “I must conclude with kind love to my father and not forgetting your self. Alexr. Reid.”

And so we have the Alexander and Elizabeth Reids of Tollafraick, presenting themselves and their children to us in a few letters from more than a century of time: A mother keeping the family tight, actively raising her children to be good, to be educated, and to work; a father working the fields and cattle at Tollafraick in season and migrating for work at other times to provide for the household; an older sister working away from home in the summer to return home to work some more; younger children obeying their parents, pursuing activities that are church and school related, writing their absent sister and father, and working on the farm.

Interestingly, I found no solid evidence of a relationship between William and Annie while both were in Scotland. There is no correspondence, nor even mention of any member of the Glennie family by any Reid or the other way around. In one of Alexander’s longer poems, A Night at Sandy Glennie’s, he reminisces about a festive gathering of many families and clans (Munro, Gordon, Campbell, Clanronald, and many others) with no mention of their closest neighbors, the Reids. At the time of Annie’s summer in Banff, she was 21 and he 25. These are primary years for matching, and, in fact, Annie’s later migration to North Andover, where William was then living, cannot have been coincidence. It must have been motivated by the prospect of marriage.

There is, however, an outstanding mystery in all of this. In the 1881 Census of Strathdon, there is among the residents at Tollafraick one William Glennie, age 15, listed as a servant. My grandfather, William, however, was born in 1859 and so would have been 21 years old at the time of the 1881 Census. (His birthday for that year would not have occurred by the date the Census was taken.) Annie’s age, reported as18, is correct in the 1881 Census. The most likely explanation to me is that this William Glennie and my grandfather are 2 different people. The age discrepancy is considerable, Glennie was a not uncommon name in that part of Scotland at that time, and the Glennie’s had servants of their own, making it improbable that one of the children would have been a servant in a household just up the road. When I obtain the 1881 Census, I should see whether William is reported as a resident at Lochrie. More later on this one.

[1] Cressida, with whom I have corresponded as part of developing this family history, is the daughter of Margaret Grant Reid, born in Alfred, Scotland in 1911. Cressida has established a web site <http://www.geocities.com/cressidanicola/index.htm>, where you will see the results of her ongoing genealogical research, which includes the Reids of Tollafraick. Cressida has kindly permitted me to incorporate some of her materials in this report.

[2] For more details on the Reids at Tollafraick, see Cressida’s website.

[3] Peat is an accumulation of partially decayed vegetation matter often formed in wetlands, sometimes called peat bogs. Under certain conditions, peat is the first stage in the formation of coal. In Scotland, peat is, I believe, usually harvested for domestic rather than commercial purposes, although peat fires are used to dry barley in the distillation of Scotch whiskey giving it its distinctive “peatiness” aroma and taste. It is typically scraped from the earth in squares and stored outside to dry before use as a heating fuel in winter. Digging peat, still done in parts of Scotland, is hard work and burning it for heat is oppressive and hazardous due to smoke emanating from the smoldering material filling the living area.

[4] “Jane” is not a typo, but the name signed in the referenced letter. In the relevant censuses, a “Jane” of Jean’s age appears at Tollafraick, but she is not a different person. Jean may have gone also by Jane. On official documents (naturalization papers, for example) she was “Jean” and to me she was, “Aunt Jeannie”.

Chapter 4A: The Glennie and Reid Families at Strathdon - The Glennies

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The families of Glennie and Reid appeared to have much in common in the 18^th and 19^th centuries. Both families had been established on their respective, adjacent farms for several generations, both Glennies and Reids appear to have been at the upper stratum of the agricultural working class in Strathdon, and it was the same generation of these families that migrated from their Strathdon homesteads.

The Glennies at Lochrie[1]

While I am unsure of the roots of the name, “Glennie,” I suspect it is derived from the Scottish Gaelic / Irish word, gleann, or glen in English. A glen is a valley, typically narrow, secluded and defined by mountains. Glen is a frequently found root of the names of places in Scotland (e.g., Glen Coe, Great Glen, Glen More, not to mention the local names Glenbucket and Glenkendie). The suffix “i.e.” means small, so we seem to have in Glennie a name meaning “small valley”. As the terrain of Strathdon[2] could well be described as one of gently sloping mountains bisected by valleys, it seems reasonable to hypothesize that the Glennies take their name from the region in which they resided for so many generations.

The Glennies’ residing at Lochrie apparently dates at least to some time in the mid-18^th century[3], although we have no information concerning from whence they came and whether the Jacobite Rebellion or its aftermath explained their move. However, as a sept in the Mackintosh Clan with a history dating to the 12^th century, it is quite possible that the Glennies lived at least in the general area of Strathdon for centuries. As you will see below in the map of Northern Scotland showing the locations of the clans, the Mackintosh name (red dot) appears in the virtual center, where Strathdon is located. Also, the Mackintosh ancestral home at Loch Moy, while not labeled on the map, is near Inverness, shown to be quite close.

Clan Map of Scotland

We have few details about the family composition until after the turn of the 19^th century on which my grand uncle, Charles Glennie, reports, bolstered by a census, repeated every decade, systematically taken of Strathdon’s residents starting in 1841.

James Glennie, my great grandfather, born in 1823 and migrated to North Andover, Massachusetts, where he died in 1901, was the first-born Glennie to participate in the emigration from Strathdon. He married Isabella Howie (1828–1907) of Keithmore, Bannfshire, Scotland, who migrated with him. James and Isabella had 11 children, 9 of whom survived into adulthood and all but one of whom migrated to America. They are[4]:

John (1852-1929)[5]

Mary Ann (1854-1931)

James (1856-1926)

William (1859-1916)[6]

Isabella (1861-1907)

Elizabeth (1863-1937)

Margaret (1865-1927)[7]

Alexander (1869-1942)

Charles D. (1871-1955)

From what we know of the Glennies of Lochrie through family records and infer from census and other information, they lived lives that were harsh by modern standards, yet attained a lifestyle that placed them among the advantaged of those tied to the land in Strathdon during the 19^th century. The head of the Glennie family was the head of Lochrie, a farm that was among the largest in Strathdon’s 7^th district, perhaps the best indicator of family economic status given the pressures of the time to achieve high levels of efficiency in farming. James and Isabella supported the needs of what was to become a large Glennie family, with 11 children living under the Lochrie roof.[8] The Glennies employed agricultural laborers and household servants. (In fact, Isabella came to Lochrie in her teens as a household servant, later marrying James.) James served as Deacon in the Established Church of Strathdon, a position of esteem if not wealth. James and Isabella were well enough to make a strenuous Atlantic crossing in steerage class[9] from Liverpool, England to Ellis Island, N.Y. at advanced ages (64 and 59, respectively) in 1887. Their life spans exceeded those of the average of their Strathdon neighbors by at least a decade. The Glennies were established farmers, not peasants.

James and Isabella’s children provide further evidence of the relative well being of the Glennies at Lochrie. The Glennie children attended the Ardler School in Glenkindie, reported as “uninhabited” by the 1861 Strathdon Census, and the Glenbucket School, the latter presumably after the Ardler School was closed. James and Isabella, in addition to their own children, raised James’ nephew and niece, Alexander (b.1847) and Jane (b. 1850) Munroe, at Lochrie. The Munro children’s mother was Isabella’s sister. While we do not know with certainty why Alexander and Jane were raised at Lochrie, we do know they were not servants and attended school. Charles speaks of his parents “raising” these children. The most likely explanation of this arrangement appears to be financial constraints in the Munro household.[10]

Most remarkably, when the last of the family (James, Isabella, William, Elizabeth and Charles) emigrated to the US together in 1887, they were able to buy a farm almost immediately upon their arrival. As Charles was later to write:

On Monday June 6, 1887, we arrived at my brother John’s home, the house next to the bridge on Mass. Avenue, North Andover. We stayed there just one week and then moved to a farm my father had bought in North Andover. We were living on our own farm in just 2 weeks and 2 days from the time we left Liverpool.[11]

Yet, it would be wrong to think of the Glennies as “well to do” as we use the term today. What, in a ruined condition, appears to have been a small homestead of only several rooms, Lochrie must have been confining as a house for so many family members and workers. Some slept in the barn. In contrast, gentry of the time, here the Leiths in Glenkendie, lived in grand mansions on vast estates. Isabella gave birth at home to all 11 children during a 19 year (1852-1871) time span, an arduous and dangerous undertaking at a time when death in childbirth was common for women as well as infants. She unlikely had medical attention, a hardship the more affluent would not have so likely endured. The Glennies were not landowners, but tenants. James and Isabella took one half lease of Lochrie from his father upon their marriage and the balance after his father’s death. Annual rent was about 50 pounds plus providing other provisions, such as “ten cartloads of peat delivered to the landlord’s house.”[12]

Economics aside, the Glennies appeared to be able to look beyond day to day labor, trials and inconveniences and find pleasure in family life. Alexander describes family time at Lochrie as idyllic in a poem, A Winter Evening at Lochrie. In it, he salutes each member of the Glennie family by spelling their names vertically in the first letter of each line, with each family member having his / her dedicated verse. The poem is undated, and more compresses a period of some years when the children were growing up rather than a particular evening. There never was a time when the entire family lived together at Lochrie. John was settled in Massachusetts before Charles was born.

You will find several verses below and the entire poem in an appendix.

For the most of the day, the snow has been falling

And the depth of the snowfall is simply appalling

The icicles hang from the edge of the thatch

Hard frosted the snow to each thing does attach,

Even the water is frozen and everything drear

Reminds us that winter, stern winter, is here.

Murkily round us the twilight is falling

And tired we retreat to our snug little dwelling

Right cheerfully blazes the fire on the hearth

Young hearts are o’erflowing with innocent mirth,

And the old folks seem twenty years younger and more

Not a heart but is merry and glad to its core

Not a soul but with gratitude simply runs o’er.

Cold is the winter wind roarin down the lumm

Hurry aff to bed now, the morning will soon come

And quickly the Quines set in order the chairs

“Remember”, says Mother, “remember your prayers.”

Light-hearted, they all have gone off for the night:

In soft foot steps Mother looks in if all’s right?

Everyone is asleep, she retires with the light.

Alexander Glennie

[1] See Appendix _ for more comprehensive and detailed genealogies of the Glennie and Reid families.

[2] “Strath” is derived from the Gaelic Srath, which means large valley, typically a river valley that is wide and shallow, as opposed to a glen which is typically narrower and deep. Strathdon seems well named, as the suffix “don” surely refers to the River Don, which flows through the “strath”.

[3] Glennie, C.D., A Short History of the Glennie Family, p.1.

[4] Glennie, C. D., A Short History of the Glennie Family.

[5] This is the John Glennie, our pioneer introduced at the start of Chapter 1, who was the first of the Glennies to migrate to America.

[6] William was my grandfather.

[7] ) Margaret was the only of her generation to remain in Scotland for life. She was the mother of John Glennie Frederick MacGregor, who introduced me to Strathdon during my first visit in 1965.

[8] This may be a slight overstatement as John Glennie emigrated to America in the year before the youngest of his siblings, Charles, was born. The 11 children include the Munros, introduced in the next paragraph.

[9] Steerage class travel appears to have resulted from lack of space, not lack of funds. Charles reports the 5 Glennies were promised private accommodations in Aberdeen, but, upon their arrival in Liverpool, the port of departure, were told that an “intermediate” berth was only available for Elizabeth. The 4 others traveled steerage. Elizabeth lamented later in life that her parents were deprived of second class passage during this journey. These Glennies sailed on the S. S. Alaska, which Charles described as among the fastest ships of the day and carried steam and sails. There were 3 classes of travel on the Alaska: steerage (1000 passengers), intermediate, and saloon.

[10] A theme to be picked up later has to do with Alexander Munro. He emigrated to Massachusetts earlier than John (He was several years older.), and was helpful to the Glennies, starting with John, as they established themselves in the New World.

[11] Glennie, C.D., A Short History of the Glennie Family.

[12] Ibid.

Chapter 2C: Transformation of Scottish Society in the 18th and 19th Centuries

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While laws can be enacted and repealed by the wills and whims of rulers, economic forces are not so susceptible to human control. In the remaining years of the 18^th century and well into the 19^th, Scotland, particularly in the Highlands, became ever more the economic colony of industrializing

Great Britain

In short, industrialization took farmers from their land to engage in manufacturing and other forms of specialized labor. The urbanization that resulted, not only in England but in Glasgow, Edinburgh, and Aberdeen, created large pockets of the population who needed to be fed and clothed by the labor of others. This, in turn, forced the need in Britain for an efficient agricultural system, one far beyond the capacity of Scottish farmers scraping by on tiny plots of land with expectations limited to sustaining only their families. Highland chieftains evolved with the times into landlords ruling by the laws of economics, not of traditions. In many cases, but not all, clan leaders sold their landholdings to wealthy English gentry, most of whom had little understanding, never mind empathy, for Scottish peasants. The absence of land reform accentuated the victimization of the clansmen.

This all changed with the new economic pressures. Accompanying industrialization in the South was urbanization, necessary for achieving specialization with production on an efficient scale. Along with English cities that were to be at the forefront of industrialization were Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen. With urbanization came the need for much greater production and efficiency in agriculture to support greater numbers of people living in cities. This put great pressure to achieve economies of scale in agricultural production in the Highlands. Small farms were barely adequate for supplying families with food for their own tables. They were woefully inefficient in meeting the needs of markets in an industrializing and urbanizing Britain. Small farms were merged into larger ones as landlords sought high profits on their land portfolios. The upshot was that many Scots could no longer be maintained in rural communities. Some Scots were forced off the land through the Clearances while others left less dramatically but just as wrenchingly because they could no longer support themselves on the land they occupied. These were the people who spread to North America, Australia – New Zealand, and other corners of the globe. As one historian has put it, starting in the decades immediately following the debacle of the Jacobite Revolution:

In the 1760s and 1770s as in the rest of Scotland there was a marked acceleration in the rate of social change and, in subsequent decades, material, cultural and demographic forces combined to produce a dramatic revolution in the Highland way of life. In simple terms, traditional society was destroyed in this period and a new order based on quite different values, principles and relationships emerged to take its place…. [T]his decisive change of pace … was brought about by an enormous expansion in the rest of Britain for such Highland produce as cattle, kelp, whisky, wool, mutton, timber, slate and a host of other commodities. The irresistible material and ideological forces which were unleashed transformed the Highlands forever.[1]

These trends continued to play out through the 19^th century. Migration, voluntary as with the Glennies and Reids, or through compulsion, continued. During the mid-century decades, there were years of poor crops, including a potato blight. There were numerous revolts by crofters protesting the Clearances and conditions of impoverishment in general.[2] The Crofters’ Act of 1886, passed as the last of the Glennies were leaving Lochrie and the Reids were planning their emigration from Tollafraick, was an attempt to remedy grievances.

Either way, whether landlords of Scottish lands were descended from clan chieftains of legend or English gentry of means, Rob Roy[3] was shunted aside to make room for Adam Smith. John Glennie and tens of thousands of Scots like him packed their satchels, turned their backs on Strathdon and hundreds of parishes like it, and set out to snare the prospects they imagined in lands beyond the sea.

[1] Devine, T. M., The Scottish Nation: A History 1700 – 2000. (New York: Viking Penguin). 1999, p. 172.

[2] Ibid., pp. 413-425.

[3] Rob Roy’s life, shaped by Scottish traditions as well as Adam Smith, is a fascinating transitional figure of the times. Rob Roy MacGregor (1671-1734) fought with his father for the Stuarts cause, became a cattleman, fell into debt he could not repay, was declared a bandit and eventually imprisoned. In later years, he was pardoned. His life, in fictionalized versions, was turned into prose by both Sir Walter Scott and Daniel Defoe.

Chapter 2B: The Jacobites, Bonnie Prince Charlie, and the Subjugation of the Highlands

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The Jacobites of Scotland took their name from the Latin for James, Jacobus, here referring to the exiled King James. Under James VI of Scotland, the 2 nations had a shared monarch as this Scottish king became James I of England. The Jacobite monarchs were Stuarts. While Scotland retained its sovereignty as an independent nation until after Culloden, the relationship between these 2 nations was set forth by the Treaty of Union of 1707, in which England and Scotland joined to form Great Britain. The essence of the Union was a political affiliation between the nations which, among other provisions, called for mutual defense against foreign countries and sharing of newly founded colonies.

The Jacobites, along with most Scots, opposed the Union on a variety of fronts, including taxation whereby English tax-collectors were sent to impose the law strictly in Scotland. Bonnie Prince Charlie, the grandson of King James VII and more formally known as Prince Charles Edward Stuart, led a Jacobite rebellion against the English in 1745. By this time, the House of Stuart had been displaced by Hanover, which then reigned over Britain through the person of King George II. Therefore, a restoration of a Stuart to the throne overthrowing, not only the King of Scotland, but of England as well. This was a serious business.

Prince Charles sailed from France and landed in the Western Isles with just a few men and lacking tangible support by the French. However, his charisma, if not his intellect, motivated Highland chieftains of some powerful clans, including Mackintosh of which the Glennie family was a sept, and some of the less powerful but equally committed, including the Robertson Clan, which counted the Reids among its clansmen, to rally to the Jacobite cause.

Within a month of Prince Charles’ arrival in Scotland, he fielded an army and soon held the Highlands and Edinburgh in his grasp. As he moved south, he met little organized resistance, but the breadth of support he anticipated never materialized. Scots of the Lowlands viewed Highlanders with distrust, and even contempt, and were opposed to the restoration of Roman Catholicism. Neither were the English in the mood for embracing the Jacobite cause in favor of King George II. At Derby, about 125 miles north of London, Prince Charles retreated with English troops surrounding his army. .

Charles, chased into the Highlands, took his stand on April 16, 1746 at Culloden, near Inverness, against an English army commanded by the Duke of Cumberland, the brother of King George II. With officers and troops not fit for battle and out-maneuvered by Cumberland, the Highlander troops were routed, and then massacred.[1] Prince Charles escaped to the Hebrides, eventually sailing to France and obscurity. The Jacobite Rebellion was over forever.

The English, outraged by the Rebellion, hammered Scotland into a shape more to its liking. Jacobite supporters were oppressed with a vengeance in a campaign that lasted one year. Numerous Highland settlements were torched and decimated. Cattle were confiscated. The Mackintosh Clan, known for its longstanding support of the Stuarts and which had provided Prince Charles with lodging in the days leading up to Culloden and many men to join him in fighting, was targeted, along with other clans supporting the Rebellion, for particularly harsh treatment. Yet even clans loyal to the Crown did not escape the wrath of the English.[2] Some Scots, even today, view the English actions in the aftermath of Culloden as ethnic cleansing, or genocide.

Military actions aside, a cornerstone of post-Rebellion policies applied to Scotland was eradicating the power of the clans, the force that defined Highland society and the glue that held it together. Clan chieftains could no longer wage war nor hold court dispensing justice as they saw it to clan members. Clan icons and implements, the tartans and bagpipes, were declared illegal. Highlanders were no longer permitted to carry weapons, not only crimping their ability to do battle but curbing their persistent and remunerative, if annoying, practice of plundering Lowlands farms.[3]

The Highlanders of our imaginations – a proud and independent people of colorful clans led by valiant chieftains marching to the skirl of the bagpipes - were transformed forever into the fluff of legend.

While the disaster at Culloden and its aftermath did not, alone, send John Glennie on his way westward more than 100 years later, it facilitated restructuring the Scottish social fabric and economy in ways that did.

[1] Devine, T. M., The Scottish Nation: A History 1700 – 2000. (New York: Viking Penguin), 1999, p. 45.

[2] Ibid., pp. 45-46.

[3] Brown, P. Hume, A Short History of Scotland. (Edinburgh: Oliver and Boyd, Ltd.), 1961, pp. 290-291, 300-308, 312-313,

Chapter 2A: Historical Forces Driving the Migration of Scots to the New World

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The major forces, as I see them, leading to the vast outpouring of Scots from (particularly) the Highlands, include: the role of the clans in shaping Scottish society and the power of the clan chieftains, particularly regarding ownership of the land; the failed Jacobite Rebellion, led by Bonnie Prince Charlie, which led to the subjugation of Scotland to the English; the absence of land reform in Scotland in the face of transforming pressures of industrialization and, with it, urbanization; and the economic development and concomitant opportunities to be found in offshore locations, particularly North America.

The Scottish Clans: Their Roots and Role in Structuring Scottish Society

It seems to me that we cannot fully relate to the Scottish migrations without taking into account the pivotal role of the clans in Scottish society and the power of the clan chieftains over the clansmen, particularly in the Highlands where the Glennies and Reids and their respective clans were situated.

The origins of the oldest and most powerful clans lie deep in Celtic mythology, and chieftains of these clans trace their lineage to ancient kings and heroes known from legend as well as history.[1] What is considered by many to be the most ancient of the Scottish clans, Clan MacNeil, was founded in the 5^th century. In my review, it seems that the clans were most firmly enmeshed into the governing and social fabric of Scotland by Robert the Bruce, Scotland’s king during the early 14^th century. It was “The Bruce” who, through his military prowess and statesmanship, waged victorious campaigns against the English and gave Scotland its greatest victory on the field at Bannockburn (1314). It was this battle that, during Bruce’s rule as King of Scotland, led to Scotland’s being recognized by the English as an independent nation and the Scottish king a free king.[2]

Bruce, in his campaigns, was well served by clans supporting the cause of liberation from England. The sixth Mackintosh chief was a stalwart supporter of the Bruce during the War of Independence against England as was Duncan, leader of the Robertson Clan. Both clans fought for Scottish independence at Bannockburn.[3] As the Glennies were a sept (family) in the Mackintosh Clan and the Reids a sept in the Robertson Clan[4], forefathers of the Glennies and Reids were in on the ground floor in establishing Scotland as a free and sovereign nation.

Within the clans, the chieftains’ rule was close to absolute. Having heredity titles, their estates and authorities were passed from generation to generation. In theory, the clan chieftains reported to the king, but, with their vast estates and income generated there from and with their dominion over the men who made up the armies, they were powerful rulers of their domains. Their rule over their clansmen was absolute. They allocated use of their land, approved marriages, sent clansmen to war, and presided over legal proceedings. According to highlands lore, the chieftains were at the same time not without compassion and rewarded loyalty with security and even relative comfort, but not with land ownership. While perhaps more fused with nostalgia than historical record, a common perception of the traditional clan chiefs, in this case The MacNeil of the Western Isles, is recorded below:

The MacNeils exercised great jurisdiction over their tenants. When the wife of a tenant dies, it was customary for the surviving spouse to appeal to the Chief, who would select for him another wife…. In a similar manner, a widow addressed herself to MacNeil, who straightway chose for her another husband….

But the MacNeils had their good points too, for when an inhabitant became too old and frail to till the soil any longer, he was admitted into the family, where he was maintained during the remaining years of his life. Again, if owing to the severity of the weather, or to any other unfortunate cause, a tenant should lose a milch cow, it was the recognized custom for the Chief to compensate him for his loss by providing him with another cow.[5]

And so it went until Bonnie Prince Charles led the Scots, with ardent support by the Mackintosh and Robertson clans, in the disastrous Jacobite Rebellion. Scotland was never to be the same.

[1] Plean, George way of, and Squire, Romilly, Scottish Clan and Family Encyclopedia. (New York: Barnes & Noble), 1994, p. 13.

[2] Ibid, pp. 88-95.

[3] Ibid. pp. 230, 302.

[4] See Appendix A for more information about these 2 clans.

[5] MacGregor, Alasdair Alpin, Behold the Hebrides!. Edinburgh: W, & R. Chambers, Ltd., 1925, pp. 8-9.

Chapter 1: The Migration Begins

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John Glennie left his family in Scotland at age 17 for a life in North America. The year was 1870, and while we do not know the date, chances are John set out in the late spring or early summer, when the heaviest of the farm work would be done and the North Atlantic would be free from its severest storms. If John left at that time of year on a day like most days, the weather likely would have been pleasantly sunny, with intermittent showers.

John’s journey started at Lochrie, the family homestead for generations of Glennies, in Strathdon, Scotland. John’s father and mother, James and Isabella, were tenant farmers at Lochrie, which comprised a dwelling, a barn, and, at the time John departed, 48 acres of land. Lochrie is at the end of a dirt road, unpaved to this day. John, in just a few minutes of walking, would have passed the Reid homestead, Tollafraick, which also harbored a primitive abode, an outbuilding or 2, and 48 acres of farmland. The Reids and the Glennies were much alike - tenant farmers toiling on the same, adjacent land for generations. These two families and their lives were intertwined in Scotland and, at least among some family members, so would continue in America in the years to follow.

Although John was the first of his line of Glennies to emigrate from Scotland, he was a pioneer only to his own family. Scots had been leaving their homeland in great numbers from the 18^th century and would continue to do so for years after John was settled, along with most of his family and several of the Reids, in New England. The forces driving John and so many of his country folk to seek lives in new lands were fermented in events, some contemporary and others with roots in the origins of Scotland as a unified nation.

We begin our story, in Chapter 2, with an examination of the chief historical forces driving John and hundreds of thousands of Scots from their land in the 18^th century. We continue in Chapter 3 with an overlay of the conditions facing the Glennies and the Reids of Strathdon that led them, specifically, to establish new lives in other places. In doing so, I try to portray the Glennies and Reids as distinct families, and in some cases, distinct individuals, and their way of life in Scotland during the second half of the 19^th century. Then, it’s on to the immigration stories and resettlements in the New World for those in these 2 families who crossed the sea.

This author is John R. Glennie, grandson of William Glennie and Annie Reid but for whose love for each other, spirit of adventure, and reaching to embrace the American dream there would be no story to tell, at least by me.

Chapter 3B:Findings from the Strathdon Censuses

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The 3 censuses of Strathdon (District 7) of 1841, 1851 and 1861[1] were examined with care, these being reflective of the times leading up to John Glennie’s departure for the New World in 1870. Differences in classifications of some of the data recorded and modifications of the scope of the survey make some comparisons of interest questionable, but what seems reasonably sure is reported herein.

From the first of theses censuses, the Glennie family is shown with Lochrie as its homestead and farm and the Reids are at Tollafraick. In fact, from separate records, we know that the Reids had been at Tollafraick for “generations”[2] by the mid-19th century and the Glennies had been at Lochrie since the middle of the 18th century, having moved from “Rinnavohn”(also “Rinnavoan”), a farm also in Strathdon.[3]

From 1841 – 1851, Strathdon’s residents endured hard times. The population dropped from 209 to 177 and the number of homesteads from 39 to 31. Because these numbers rebounded to some extent in the following decade, serious hardship must have befallen local residents during this decade. A prime candidate is the potato blight that hit the Highlands in the late 1840s, at about the same time as it did Ireland with consequences that were severe although not as catastrophic as in its neighbor to the West. In addition, cattle prices were down during this period, causing higher than usual numbers of tenants to fall into arrears. [4] These factors, together, may explain at least some of this downturn in Strathdon’s population.

The decade ending in 1861 brought a lot of change to Strathdon, and the Glennies and Reids in particular. The size of the average farm had grown substantially, from about 27 acres to 42, with the largest farm in 1861 increasing to 140 acres from 90 a decade before. Smaller farms at this later date appear to be headed by older people or laborers than earlier, suggesting that small parcels may not have been sufficient to sustain growing families. At the same time, even though the population returned to close to the 1841 level, the percentage of the population listed as living on farms dropped from about 66% to 57%. Farming was becoming more efficient, a sign of the times.

The experiences at Lochrie and Tollafraick comported with the general picture, although these 2 farms seemed to do better than most. They comprised 48 and 40 acres, respectively, in 1851 and Lochrie grew to 60 by 1861 (There are no comparable data for 1841.), making them (particularly Lochrie, of course) among the largest holdings in the 7th district.[5]

While agriculture dominated Strathdon’s economy during these years, it was not the only economic activity there. A wool mill claiming 9 people in 1841 employed 14 in both 1851 and 1861, more than even the largest of the farms. A blacksmith is shown to be in residence at the time of all 3 censuses. But there were signs of downturn as well. By 1861, Strathdon (district 7) no longer was home to a surgeon. A school had closed and the schoolmaster had left.

The estate of the Strathdon gentry was apparently at Glenkendie, and there life was very different, indeed. Listed under several separate tracts, all called “Glenkendie,” occupations reported included masons, a stone finisher, a miller, tailor, gardener, and, in the 1851 census, a “retired advocate,” or attorney. This would be Alexander Leith, a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge and son of General Sir Alexander Leith, a peer. By 1861, Glenkendie was headed by Mary Anna Leith, described as “landed proprietor’s wife”, who resided with her 5 servants. Interestingly, in 1861 Ernest and Isobel Reid (gardener and gardener’s wife) are reported in residence in Glenkendie with their daughter, Ann, a dressmaker, although I know of no connection between these Reids and my grandmother’s family.

The decades of the 1850s – 1860s is also the time when many of those in the Glennie and Reid families who would emigrate to America were born, but more about that later.
[1] Insert source for Census.
[2] Source - Potter
[3] Glennie, Charles D., A Short History of the Glennie Family. Circa 1950, p.1. By the 1861 census, Rinnavoan, also in Strathdon’s 7th district, is a farm of 65 acres headed by the Dickson family, with whom there is no known connection.
[4] See Devine, pp. 413, 420
[5] When the last of the Glennies migrated in the late 1880s, these 2 farms were merged into one.

Chapter 3C: Life in Strathdon during the 19th Century

2007-06-15T23:07:00.001-04:00

We know what we do (At least, I know what I do.) of Strathdon in the 19th century through some family records, covered in more detail in the next chapter, but also through records of vital statistics, the systematic collection of which began with the 1841 Census and has been taken every decade thereafter.[1] In these records covering the 19th century, Strathdon is divided into seven districts, with Lochrie (the Glennie homestead) and Tollafraick (the Reid homestead) placed in the 7th. The exhibits and discussion below are based on the censuses of this district only, unless otherwise noted.

[1] The earliest census of the area including Strathdon was reported in the Aberdeenshire Pollbook of 1696, which includes a section on nearby Glenbucket Because borders shifted over the years, I can only say for certainty that Glenbucket was at least near Strathdon and could have been apart of it. In reviewing a copy of this record, I found 3 individuals with the surname Reid, but none with Glennie. The purpose of this early census was to establish a poll tax and collection of census type data was not continued until the mid 19th century.

Findings from the Strathdon Censuses

From the first of theses censuses, the Glennie family is shown with Lochrie as its homestead and farm and the Reids are at Tollafraick. In fact, from separate records, we know that the Reids had been at Tollafraick for “generations”[2] by the mid-19^th century and the Glennies had been at Lochrie since the middle of the 18^th century, having moved from “Rinnavohn”(also “Rinnavoan”), a farm also in Strathdon.[3]

From 1841 – 1851, Strathdon’s residents endured hard times. The population dropped from 209 to 177 and the number of homesteads from 39 to 31. Because these numbers rebounded to some extent in the following decade, serious hardship must have befallen local residents during this decade. A prime candidate is the potato blight that hit the Highlands in the late 1840s, at about the same time as it did Ireland with consequences that were severe although not as catastrophic as in its neighbor to the West. In addition, cattle prices were down during this period, causing higher than usual numbers of tenants to fall into arrears. [4] These factors, together, may explain at least some of this downturn in Strathdon’s population.

The decade ending in 1861 brought a lot of change to Strathdon, and the Glennies and Reids in particular. The size of the average farm had grown substantially, from about 27 acres to 42, with the largest farm in 1861 increasing to 140 acres from 90 a decade before. Smaller farms at this later date appear to be headed by older people or laborers than earlier, suggesting that small parcels may not have been sufficient to sustain growing families. At the same time, even though the population returned to close to the 1841 level, the percentage of the population listed as living on farms dropped from about 66% to 57%. Farming was becoming more efficient, a sign of the times.

The experiences at Lochrie and Tollafraick comported with the general picture, although these 2 farms seemed to do better than most. They comprised 48 and 40 acres, respectively, in 1851 and Lochrie grew to 60 by 1861 (There are no comparable data for 1841.), making them (particularly Lochrie, of course) among the largest holdings in the 7^th district.[5]

While agriculture dominated Strathdon’s economy during these years, it was not the only economic activity there. A wool mill claiming 9 people in 1841 employed 14 in both 1851 and 1861, more than even the largest of the farms. A blacksmith is shown to be in residence at the time of all 3 censuses. But there were signs of downturn as well. By 1861, Strathdon (district 7) no longer was home to a surgeon. A school had closed and the schoolmaster had left.

The estate of the Strathdon gentry was apparently at Glenkendie, and there life was very different, indeed. Listed under several separate tracts, all called “Glenkendie,” occupations reported included masons, a stone finisher, a miller, tailor, gardener, and, in the 1851 census, a “retired advocate,” or attorney. This would be Alexander Leith, a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge and son of General Sir Alexander Leith, a peer. By 1861, Glenkendie was headed by Mary Anna Leith, described as “landed proprietor’s wife”, who resided with her 5 servants. Interestingly, in 1861 Ernest and Isobel Reid (gardener and gardener’s wife) are reported in residence in Glenkendie with their daughter, Ann, a dressmaker, although I know of no connection between these Reids and my grandmother’s family.

The decades of the 1850s – 1860s is also the time when many of those in the Glennie and Reid families who would emigrate to America were born, but more about that later.

[1] Insert source for Census.

[2] Source - Potter

[3] Glennie, Charles D., A Short History of the Glennie Family. Circa 1950, p.1. By the 1861 census, Rinnavoan, also in Strathdon’s 7^th district, is a farm of 65 acres headed by the Dickson family, with whom there is no known connection.

[4] See Devine, pp. 413, 420

[5] When the last of the Glennies migrated in the late 1880s, these 2 farms were merged into one.

Health Conditions in Strathdon during the mid to late 19^th century

Conditions of health and longevity were not so much different in Strathdon than other places in Scotland, or, for that matter, the US, during the mid 19^th century. Infant mortality was high, death from causes now routinely cured was the norm, and average life expectancy was in a range today considered to be in the far side of middle age, not elderly. Even though health conditions in Strathdon seemed to fit the norm for the times, I was struck by how harsh life was for many and how painful final days of life must have been for most. Many died without medical attention. However, there was marked improvement in the well being of the Strathdon’s residents starting in 1865 or so. This development is worth a short diversion from our main story.

Strathdon[1] Deaths in Selected Years[2]

	1856	1864	1875	1881
Total Deaths	33	31	29	18
Average Age at Death[3]	51.5	52.8	62	55
% of Deaths < style="" href="#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title="">[4]	15%	20%	0%	11%

While one cannot read too much into the “Total Death” statistics since the numbers are so small that generalization is problematic, the trends at least suggest a consistently favorable bent following 1864. Even setting aside the remarkably good year of 1875, life expectancy is edging upwards while infant mortality is inching lower. This pattern is generally borne out in the Glennie family over a longer time span. My great-great grandparents on the Glennie side had 9 children born during the 1820s – 1830s, only 5 of whom survived childhood. My great grandparents had 11 children born in Strathdon during the 1850s, 1860s and in 1870, 9 of whom survived well into adulthood. Of the 2 infant deaths, one died in his first year and the other at birth.[5] Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of the Reids, where 4 of 9 children of my grandmother’s generation did not survive into adulthood.

Causes of death during this period included many afflictions no longer considered life threatening. Consumption / tuberculosis were a major killer, as were other infections. The cause of death among many of the older population is frequently recorded as “infirmities of old age,” or “debility for years,” or words to that effect. Death following childbirth was not uncommon. A surprisingly large (to me) proportion of deaths are recorded as gastro-intestinal related, e.g., diarrhea; perforation of bowels; duodenitis (from surgery); exhaustion following constipation of bowels. However, there was during this time, certainly in the more urban areas of Scotland, increases of death from such afflictions.

Nevertheless, acute (health) problems also existed elsewhere [than Glasgow]. The urban areas were steadily becoming more lethal. There were serious typhus epidemics in 1837 and 1847 and, for the first time, the dreaded cholera visited Scotland in 1832, leaving 10,000 dead with other outbreaks in 1848, 1853 and 1866…But more insidious…was the inexorable increase of death rates from the more ‘mundane’ diseases of consumption, diarrhea and whooping cough. Between the 1830s and late 1850s, death rates in the cities rose to peaks not seen since the seventeenth century.[6]

Equally surprisingly, I saw only one instance of accidental injury recorded as a cause of death, this particular injury leading to peritonitis. I envisioned work on a farm more hazardous, but perhaps the lack of mechanization in farming had the benefit of low injury rates.

[1] These are deaths in all Strathdon, not only District 7.

[2] Source

[3] This statistic excludes infant deaths, i.e., less than 1 year old at time of death.

[4] This statistic conveys the percentage of total deaths accounted for by infants, i.e., less than 1 year of age at time of death.

[5] Glennie, C. D., A Short History of the Glennie Family.

[6] Devine, T. M., The Scottish Nation: A History 1700 – 2000. (New York: Viking Penguin). 1999, pp. 334-5.

Chapter 3A: Strathdon – The Ancestral Home:Strathdon - The Place.

2007-06-15T22:43:00.000-04:00

Strathdon (pronounced with the emphasis on the second syllable – strath-DON), approximately 45 miles due west of Aberdeen, is a Parish within what, at the time the Glennies and Reids resided there, was the County of Aberdeenshire. Strathdon, once known as “Invernochty”, referring to the place where the Rivers Nochty and Don join, is a comparatively small area, about 25 miles in length and a few miles in breadth.
The map above gives at least a truncated picture of Strathdon and its surroundings. (Double click for a larger image.) As you’ll see, Strathdon is just left of center, with Glenbuchat to the northeast on route A97, which, in just a few more miles takes one to Glenkindie. Alford is further east on A944. The river Don flows through Strathdon, with the village of Bellabeg just on the other side of the Don. It was in Bellabeg that Fred MacGregor (more about him later) lived with his wife, Jessie, in Park House and where we stayed during 2 trips to the area in 1965 and to which Beth, Justina and I stopped for a brief visit with Fred in 1980. Neither Lochrie nor Tollafraick appears on the map, but Rinmore, homestead of another Reid family, is shown north of Glenkindie. Northeast of Glenkindie is Kildrummy, site of an ancient and historic castle mentioned later in the text.

Strictly speaking, Strathdon is more of a gateway to the Highlands than in the Highlands themselves. By most reckonings, the Highlands begin just west of Aberdeenshire, extending upwards into the northwest Scottish mainland. Yet, by history, tradition, and terrain, Strathdon is of the Scottish Highlands. Those living in Strathdon at the time of the Reids and Glennies clearly thought of themselves as Highlanders.

Strathdon has been described in these words:[1]
[1] See web page of the Highland Trading Post < http://www.highlandtradingpost.co.uk/strathdon.html>.

Topographically, Strathdon is of great beauty, a fertile strath leading into the wild and rugged scenery of the Highlands. As the Don winds its way through the main strath there are stretches of fine farmland. Further up the valley the scenery is still beautiful in character but more dramatic. Here, the Strath becomes narrower and much more wooded, mainly with birch and pine which give a fine contrast in spring and autumn when they are tinged with shades of almost every hue. The highest part, nearer the source of the Don, is moorland and mountain giving a bleak and barren appearance. The 'go back' call of the red grouse serves only to heighten the feeling of isolation.

Remote enough, even with modern transportation, to discourage much economic development beyond agriculture and seasonal tourism, Strathdon retains its rural origins to this day and has the look of a place that has not changed much since the Glennies and Reids departed. Lacking the dramatic vistas of northwestern Scotland, its hills, tinged with heather purple and valleys dotted with the occasional cottage and outbuildings – often derelict - paint a scene of melancholy beauty.

Strathdon has its modest share of historical artifacts, the most notable being the ruins of the 13th century Kildrummy Castle, famed for defending (unsuccessfully) the family of Robert the Bruce in the War of Independence. However, it would be incorrect to think of Strathdon as a place rich in historical significance. But Strathdon does have a past, evident in abundance through the artifacts left behind by the Scots who have lived there through the centuries. Traces of their lives and times are found in the ruins of their castles and more humble dwellings, remnants of stone walls, and in ancient kirks with their gravestones marking the passing of generations long at rest.

THE GLENNIES AND THE REIDS: TWO SCOTTISH - AMERICAN FAMILIES

Chapter 7: Gordon, Elizabeth and Jeannie Reid in America

Chapter 6A: William and Annie Reid Glennie

Chapter 6B: William and Annie Glennie - Photos

Chapter 5E: Alexander Glennie

Appendix B1.Letters to Annie from Tollafraick.1884

Appendix B2.Ltrs. Lizzie.Jeannie to Annie.1884

AppendixB3.Ltrs Alex.Gordon to Annie.1884

Chapter 5B: Great Grandparents James and Isabella & Daughter Isabella Glennie

Chapter 5D: The Remaining Glennie Daughters: Mary Ann, Elizabeth and Margaret

Chapter 5C - Brothers James & John Glennie

Chapter 5A: The Glennies and Reids in the New World

Appendix A: More on the Mackintosh and Robertson Clans[1]

Chapter 4C: The Glennies and the Reids Leave their Ancestral Homes

Chapter 4B: The Reids at Tollafraick

Chapter 4A: The Glennie and Reid Families at Strathdon - The Glennies

Chapter 2C: Transformation of Scottish Society in the 18th and 19th Centuries

Chapter 2B: The Jacobites, Bonnie Prince Charlie, and the Subjugation of the Highlands

Chapter 2A: Historical Forces Driving the Migration of Scots to the New World

Chapter 1: The Migration Begins

Chapter 3B:Findings from the Strathdon Censuses

Chapter 3C: Life in Strathdon during the 19th Century

Findings from the Strathdon Censuses

Health Conditions in Strathdon during the mid to late 19th century

1856

1864

1875

1881

Total Deaths

33

31

29

18

Average Age at Death[3]

51.5

52.8

62

55

% of Deaths < style="" href="#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title="">[4]

15%

20%

0%

11%

Chapter 3A: Strathdon – The Ancestral Home:Strathdon - The Place.

Health Conditions in Strathdon during the mid to late 19^th century