To Salt Lake City and back

By Kay McMeekin

If you look at the record for Agnes McLean - born in Skares, died in Skares you'd be forgiven for thinking she didn't get far. But you'd be wrong. She and her sister Mary and mother Jessie travelled to Salt Lake City and back a distance of over 10,000 miles!

Janet or Jessie Riggans was born on the 22 February 1854 in Cumnock to John Riggans and Margaret Bryden. She married miner William Frew McLean on 31 Dec 1872  at the age of 19 and they had 3 children in Ayrshire: Margaret, Mary and the aforementioned Agnes.  It seems he was converted to Mormonism.  He left for Salt Lake City in Utah in April 1883 on the SS Nevada. Accounts of the journey can be found here. It seems they travelled to Liverpool by train and tot a train in New York though it doesn't say how far the train went.

Jessie and the 3 children aged 9, 2 and 1, followed later that  year on the same ship, leaving Liverpool on 29th August and arriving on 10 September 1883 in New York. Their fare was paid for by the Glasgow mission of the Mormon Church. The adult fare was £4.5s children half of that and the baby £1. Total £9.10s (£9.50)

It was a horrendously long journey.  After the journey to Liverpool and the sail to New York, there was another journey by train of almost 2,000 miles. By 1870 Salt Lake had been linked to rail network via the Utah Central Rail Road. People began to pour into Salt Lake seeking opportunities in mining and other industries. Accounts of this journey can be read here. They had another 4 children in Utah. One died in infancy. 

Here is the record of the return trip in April 1890. 

For some reason, Jessie and 4 of the children returned to Cumnock in 1890 without William or the oldest child Margaret who was by then 15. 

Jessie took a job as a housekeeper at Grimgrew Farm in Cumnock.  She died in 1916.

Her son Robert enlisted in the army on 8th February 1901 and lied about his age as he wasn’t old enough. He was 16 years 2 months and at that time the minimum age was 18. He also lied about his place of birth which he said was Cumnock, but it was Utah. Jessie got local solicitor Archibald Brakenridge to get him out of the army by showing her family bible with the dates of birth of her children. People recorded the births of children at the time in a family bible. There were blank pages for this purpose. You can imagine her in Archibald's office having a rant and thumping the bible down with the evidence. The document he produced was saved in Robert's military record. He was discharged on the 23rd April after 75 days.  

GBM_WO97_5431_025_005.jpg

Robert married Susan Dunsmuir in 1908 and lived in Skares Rows in Cumnock. He died in 1958.

Mary married miner William Simpson in 1900 and had 11 children in Skares,

Agnes married John Shirkie and died in childbirth aged only 28.

Jessie married John Sharp of Thornhill and died in Cumnock in 1967.

On their marriage certificates they state their father William is deceased. So it seems they didn't keep in touch, since he wasn't.

Meanwhile back in the USA -

In 1890, the same year as Jessie returned home, William McLean's parents Robert W McLean and Mary Frew and two brothers also left Ayrshire for Utah sailing on the Wisconsin.

Jessie's oldest daughter Margaret married a farmer Jeremiah Hagerty and lived in Polson, Montana. She died there in 1926.

And William Frew McLean married Mary Bird Hummer in 1918 and died in 1927 in Salt Lake City.  His wife Jessie was still alive in Scotland. In later life he was a carpenter.

Wm F McLean and Mary Bird Hummer c1918

Dunsmor and Nicol families, Cumnock pottery and beyond

by Scott Daily

The Nicol ( and Dunsmor) family 1880
 

                                        For names of those in the photo, click here

A family strongly linked to Cumnock Pottery the numerous Nicol and Dunsmor (or Dunsmore) descendents of Annie Clarkson moved in and out of Ayrshire in the 1800's. 

Annie Clarkson was born in Douglas, in South Lanarkshire in 1836, her first marriage was to Robert Dunsmore, in Cumnock by the Rev James Murray on 6 March 1854. Robert was listed as a coal-master in a wedding announcement. 

Robert and Annie had two children, Elizabeth born in 1853, and David Robert around 1856. Interestingly at the point that David was born the family were living in United States, as David is listed as being born on the Cumnock Connections site in Lemonweir, Wisconsin. The 1881 census mentioned below also lists David has being born in the United States.  

Robert Dunsmore appears to have passed away in 1857, at the age of 29. In 1858 Annie married James McGavin Nicol, the manager, and soon to be the proprietor, of Cumnock Pottery. Many have written in detail about Cumnock Pottery and the role James played, see for example: this article from the Scottish Pottery Society or this one from the Cumnock History Group, my focus is more on his family, though the pottery, especially the "motto ware" is a fascinating subject. 

James and Annie appear to have had ten children (see Annie's link above), with seven of them listed along with step-son David as living with them in a 1881 census. When grown the Nicol children began to move about, some settling in other parts of Scotland. One son, John Strathdee Nicol (often called Strath) would move to England to work in a firm manufacturing explosives, where he became the managing director. For his services he was created M.B.E. Another son, Thomas Hamilton Nicol, would immigrate to America and settle around California. Both sons would seem to have had children who settled around these areas of England and America. 

David Dunsmor would remain in the Cumnock area, taking over the running of Cumnock Pottery after his step-father passed away. David was also known for serving as the Lieutenant of the Cumnock Volunteer Rifles, most famously taking part in the "Wet Review" when on August 25 1881, the Edinburgh Royal Review of Volunteers was held, as Queen Victoria reviewed large numbers of Volunteer Forces from all over Scotland at Holyrood Park on a day of prolonged extremely heavy rainfall. 

Notice of David Dunsmor taking over Cumnock Pottery

David Dunsmor married Wilhelmina Hillhouse in 1884, they continued to live in the Cumnock area for the rest of their lives. One of their sons, James Nicol Dunsmor, a unmarried banker, was killed in India, when the sergeant who was to guard him shot him. A news aritcle would state “an immediate official inquiry was made and it was found that the sergeant was suffering from meningitis and must have gone mad.”

headline about James Dunsmor's death

Anderson extended family to New Jersey

By Kay McMeekin

This is the family of John Anderson author of "the last mile hame."

His mother was Annie White (born 1874 in Pictou Nova Scotia) who was married to first Douglas Kennedy Anderson. When he died, his brother John married her. The Andersons below ( apart from the first one, her sister) are all her children.

The first Anderson to leave Cumnock for New Jersey was Elizabeth Anderson born 1870 and her husband John Pettigrew who was a mason in 1901.

They left on the Ethiopia in 1906. Their daughter was born in Jacksonville, Florida in 1907. They lived in Long Island and they finally settled in Hempstead  Nassau, New York. John was in the building trade. Elizabeth and 2 year old daughter Jeanie made a return trip to Cumnock in 1909 in 1914 and again in 1924.

1924 passport photo 

Jeanie Pettigrew age 16 in 1924 passport photo

Elizabeth's niece Jeanie Anderson was next to emigrate but not until 1926. Her husband Peter Stewart gave uncle John Pettigrew as the person in the USA they were going to.

They sailed on the California from Port Glasgow to New York. Their final destination was Roosevelt, Long Island. In the 1930 census he was working as a hod carrier in Madison, New Jersey,  Living with them were Jeanie Anderson's sister Mary Connel Anderson and her husband Hugh Torbet. Mary and Hugh returned to Scotland in 1931.

The youngest sister Annie Anderson went out in 1928 aged 15 on the Cameron also going to sister Mrs Jeanie Stewart. She married Anthony Infinito in 1937.

Lastly in 1930 the oldest son John Anderson, the author of "the last mile hame" went out on the Transylvania. He too was going to sister Jeanie Stewart. He never married and was still living with the Stewarts in 1950 census in Madison. He returned to Cumnock for a visit about 1950 bringing football boots for his nephews Bobby and Ian Kelly, Madge's sons.

John Anderson

John Anderson left Cumnock for America when he was just 16. It would be another 30 years before he came home.

On his long journey home he wrote this poem called

THE LAST MILE HAME

When I was just a wee bit boy, my mither said to me

When you grow to be a man, John, what would you like to be?

And I told her all I'd like to be and all the deeds I'd dare

For I was then a dreamer building castles in the air

I had the urge to travel in those days so long gone by

For I was young and full of life and all my hopes were high

I'd sail across the ocean and my mither she would greet

But I'd bring hame lots o' treasures and lay them at her feet

My memory always takes me back through all the years thats sped

As I listened to my mither and this is what she said

you may sail to places far away and riches you may gain

But you'll hunger for the treasures, John

You left behind at hame

Now the years are far behind me and my mither, she is gane

And I seek no more adventure for I am coming hame

When I come hame to Cumnock and I flee across the sea

Nae man in aw this wide world will be happier than me

Now I dream of all the things I'll dae an all the scenes I'll view

For the day I land in Cumnock will be a dream come true

And nothing will annoy me in the noises that I hear

For the humming o' the engines will be music to my ears

It will seem to me they're saying as they're singing their refrain

I carry precious cargo I'm bringing Johnnie hame

An they'll aw be there to meet me my freens an aw my kin

Waiting there to greet me when the plane is coming in

My you're looking weel John I ken that's what they'll say

An you hivnae changed a bit, John, in the years you've been away

And when I pass through Mauchline I feel like I could cheer

For I'm almost in my ain toon when Auchinleck is near

Then coming down through Auchinleck

Wi' my patience nearly gane

The longest mile o' any journey is the last mile hame

And when at last my journeys ended then I will declare

This is the finest place on earth

For this is Cumnock Square

I'm thinking o' that last mile as I write these lines today

When I journey to my ain toon three thousand miles away

And speaking o' that last mile this truth I'll always claim

The longest mile of any journey

Is the last mile hame