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Probably sometime before May of 1851, MARY's parents had chosen to depart from Kirkwall, taking her brothers and sisters down the mainland's east coast to the Scottish lowlands. 49-year-old WILLIAM WISHART was returning as a mill master to the familiar turf of Forfarshire where he was reared. But the trip from the Isles drew mixed feelings: 14-year-old Margaret regretted leaving her cherished Shetland pony in Orkney when they boarded ship at Kirkwall for the sea cruise to their new home. The family settled within eight miles of the historic ancient Glamis Castle, where Macbeth had served centuries earlier as Thane of Glamis. In the future year of 1930, about four score more, Glamis Castle would become the birthplace of Princess Margaret. The WISHART family set up their household possessions in the mill-house at Letham, near where WILLIAM's sister Elizabeth still resided. The mill was located in a neighborhood close to Dunnichen, where WILLIAM was born a half-century earlier, about a dozen miles inland from the seacoast. MARY's brother James later lived at Letham, but the Reverend ultimately concluded the place was quite a "vile and vulgar and wicked" city. The Scottish mill proprietor arose very early and started a pre-dawn fire to have the kiln sufficiently warmed before the sun's first rays began an illuminating glow over the eastern horizon. Then he cranked the water gate open, supplying the flow which forced the big wooden mill wheel to whirl, and made the mill operation ready for customers bringing grain. Once the daily routine was underway, amidst the creaking and clacking of machinery, there was the initial setting of millstones to ensure the grain was being properly ground in the desired manner. The slumbering remainder of the miller's family awoke each day to these familiar sounds of morning down by the old mill stream. Raising crops while attending the livestock and managing his business kept the miller occupied, requiring him to have at least two more workers to help run the operation. Although the customer occasionally transported his own grain down to the mill, the resulting meal was always delivered back to him by one of the mill-workers. Sometimes fresh grain brought to the mill needed drying before it could be dropped into the revolving millstones for crushing. While being processed, grain and meal were necessarily hauled about the place from one location to another. The worker operating the mill's kiln was called the dryster, and the assistant who moved the produce was commonly known as the ladester. WILLIAM WISHART employed his sons, William and John, to share these essential duties at the Letham Mill. Four Wishart children lived at Letham with their parents. Elizabeth, 26, was a dressmaker. Young William, 25, who would sail to America within the next couple years, assisted in the adjacent millworks with 18-year-old John, who would forever remain in Scotland. The youngest, 11-year-old Helen, who was also called "Helener," "Eleanor," and "Nellie," helped at home and was attending the local school. WILLIAM's unmarried sister Elizabeth was a hand-loom weaver. The term hand-loom is rather misleading, with the bulky gadget having all its necessary components housed inside a large stationary box frame. Hands were employed in threading the strands and to work the shuttle; and the feet of the operator, who sat at one end of the machine, operated a combination of treadles. Weaving with the device was a cottage trade, the finished goods being produced right at home. 52 years earlier, Elizabeth was born only a couple miles away at nearby Dunnichen to JAMES and ELSPET (BROWN) WISHART. MARY's brother David stayed at the Letham home of his spinster Aunt Elizabeth, where the 16-year-old lad operated the hand-loom each workday to make his living. James, a 28-year-old minister, Thomas, 23, Joseph, 22, and Margaret, 14, resided elsewhere, most likely all were nearby in Scotland. |
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