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Thomas Wishart's oldest boy, Alick, was fulfilling a promised visit to his grateful elder grandfather, Alexander Begg, in late August of 1855. The bright young lad around five years of age had been delivered to the residence of his deceased mother's surviving parent, probably up at Aberdeen in eastern Scotland. Three of young Alick's uncles had left Scotland for Canada, and one emigrant son of the "old grandfather" had reported the favorable economic opportunities awaiting over there. This brother-in-law of Alick's 27-year-old father was urging the bereaved young widower to join them in the western hemisphere. Tom extended the Canadian proposal to his father and mother, but none of the Wisharts ultimately chose to emigrate to Canada. Each of his parents had just gotten over a two-week illness, and WILLIAM and ELIZABETH were enjoying the company of Tom's two younger sons at the Letham Mill house. The paternal grandparents were giving Willie and Fredric, little brothers of the absent Alick Wishart, a great deal of daily attention during their stay. WILLIAM would refer to the small grandsons they were keeping as ELIZABETH's "second family." Tom Wishart eventually remarried and lived at Aberdeen. He would add three more sons by his second wife within the next eight years, and at least another son and daughter after that. 54-year-old WILLIAM was content to forego a fresh start in North America and preferred to remain operating the Letham Mill where he lived debt-free on the little piece of rented land with his 58-year-old wife and their two maturing teenage daughters, 18-year-old Margaret and 15-year-old Helen. The height of the younger girl equalled that of her eldest sister, seamstress Elizabeth Wishart. Owning a thresher and a horse cart to complement their mill business, the WISHARTS were getting by. They also had two cows and a herd of pigs to attend, and a stock of potatoes, wheat, oats, and barley already stored up. But still, an improvement in prosperity would have been welcomed. WILLIAM was keeping his watchful eye on a different mill which would become available two years later, in 1857. He shrewdly considered being prepared to bid for tenancy on the best meal mill in the district. With a "good 2 horse farm," the better mill property would have enough attached land to allow some bona fide farming. WILLIAM knew he could always sublet the excess acreage to someone else. Local farmers were ready to begin cutting and gathering their ripened grain on August 25, but dark storm clouds invaded the Letham community, and ensuing precipitation soaked the fields and roadways all around on that rainy Saturday. Scottish grist mill operations had lapsed into the usual seasonal slowness just preceding one of their bigger peak periods of the year. 22-year-old John Murker Wishart took advantage of the break in the dusty work at his father's Letham Mill, and hired out to earn 29 shillings for each of the first three weeks in the warm sunshine of the approaching 1855 harvest. John's field work could net him about four and a half pounds sterling, probably equal to $21 at that time. The millworker's youngest brother, David, had been previously employed by a partnership until it dissolved. Seeking a new job, the 20-year-old engaged to labor the next couple years over at Arbroath on the coast. David's starting pay for the first year was puny at seven shillings a week, making a monthly value barely equalling a dozen Orkney geese. Brother John would collect enough income to purchase those same birds with his first week of grain-cutting in the fields. For the proposed second year, David's weekly wages were to rise slightly at eight shillings sixpence, beginning sometime in 1856. On Sunday, August 26, 29-year-old Elizabeth left her parents' mill-house, taking her small motherless nephew Willie up north to his maternal grandfather's home. His older brother, Alick, had been staying there at the Begg residence and would join them for the trip back. The youngest brother, little Fredric, remained at the WISHART grandparents' mill-house until the reappearance of his brothers and aunt there in the Letham community where his father and several other Wishart relatives resided. |
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