Born in 1827 in Hillhead, Ochiltree John McTurk Gibson left home for America in his youth. He married and settled in Marengo, Iowa.
During the Pike's Peak Gold Rush, better known as the Colorado Gold Rush he left hiswife and children at home and set off with some friends on the Oregon-California trail in April 1857 to seek his fortune. Both he and his companion John Powell kept a diary and his great great grandson Weldon Hope has published both accounts here https://wjh.us/journal/copyrite.htm
By Elaine Corbett
This is a story of a family sticking together and helping out with motherless and orphaned nieces and nephews.
Two Sloans (children of Peter Sloan and Mary Gall of Roughside and Knockterra) married two McMillan siblings (born in Minnigaff).
First Alexander Sloan married Jeannie McMillan in Liverpool in 1880 and then in 1882 his sister Margaret Sloan married Jeannie’s brother James McMillan at Knockterra. Both men were drapers in Liverpool. Jeannie was already dead by the time of her brother's wedding in 1882 , leaving a baby Peter Sloan.
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| Margaret Sloan |
Alexander and Jeannie are in the census of 1881 at 9 Brownlow Street, Liverpool. He is a travelling draper age 28. Travelling drapers went from place to place selling items from a pack.
Other household members are baby Peter Sloan, and a three-year-old niece Elizabeth (Lizzie) Susan Clive. Lizzie was the daughter of Jeannie’s sister Margaret McMillan who had died in January 1878, aged 40, three months after the birth of Lizzie. Her widowed father a mason in Old Luce was looking after her brothers, while another sister was with their Aunt and Uncle on a farm in Old Luce.
Ten years on in the 1891 census James McMillan and Margaret (Sloan) are living at 16 Brownlow St. along with Alexander, Lizzie Clive, and Peter Sloan, as Jeannie had died in November 1881 when her son Peter was only 9 months old.
As well as the McMillan/Sloans, Brownlow St. appears to have several families in the drapery trade in 1891. They are:
Caroline Bentham draper’s Assistant aged 20,
William Alexander draper aged 45 (from Auchinleck) on Cumnock Connections tree
Mary Mitchell Alexander wife aged 43 (from Tarbolton)
Robert Alexander aged 19 assistant draper
Samuel Mitchell aged 29 draper
James Warrener aged 71 draper (from Pudsey)
Thomas Pagan aged 42 (from Scotland)
Jane his wife aged 37 (from Scotland)
William Morgan aged 45 Draper
William Rae aged 45 draper (from Scotland)
Two years later Peter’s father died, and Peter, at the tender age of 12, continued to live with his aunt and uncle.
In the 1901 census, the McMillan sons are listed as being school age, but Peter Sloan, aged 20 is a civil engineer. His cousins would later be taken into the family business that seems to have gone from strength to strength. Peter chose a very different path.
By the time of the census in 1911, the only drapers on Brownlow St. are the McMillans.
The 1921 census refers to the McMillans as ‘credit drapers’. This means that they sold goods ‘on tick’, payment in instalments with a premium added. Usually aimed at people in the poorer income bracket, some sales could make 100% profit for the draper. It was an early example of the credit card, and not universally approved of, being seen as temptation to the spendthrifts of the lower classes. The company was referred to as McMillan and Sons. James McMillan died at Wh
The term ‘Scotch Drapers’ refers to the travelling salesmen, who although in the early days had been predominantly Scots, they then evolved into drapery businesses employing travelling salesmen working on their own account, and from more diverse ethnic groups. The salesmen had to pay into the business, and act as tallymen, collecting dues from customers who bought goods ‘on tick’.
Peter Sloan however had received his education at the Liverpool Institute and served his apprenticeship with Messrs C. S. Wilson & Co of Regent Road, Bootle. He joined the White Star Line two weeks after the completion of his apprenticeship and served on various vessels both in the Atlantic and Mediterranean routes. He was shown serving as an electrician aboard the Cretic in October 1905, his ship prior to that being stated as the Celtic; at this time his address was listed as 103 Vine St. Liverpool.
Peter married Annie Blair, a Belfast girl, in August 1908 and they set up home together in 14 Newcastle Rd. Wavertree, Liverpool. Peter was a Marine Electrical Engineer by this time.
A year later Peter had risen to the position of Chief Electrician. It must have been with great enthusiasm that he signed up for his next assignment in Southampton.
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| Peter Sloan |
The ship he signed up to was RMS Titanic.
In April 1912, Peter set sail from Southampton, leaving Annie in Liverpool. They had no children. He was part of the crew that kept the ship’s lights and systems running.
When the Titanic hit the iceberg, electricians like Peter were among the heroes who stayed at their posts to keep the lights on so passengers could see to escape.
Peter Sloan’s body was never recovered, but his story became part of Titanic history — a reminder that sometimes the greatest legacies aren’t in money or business, but in courage.
