"gentlemen's estate to his sone in all that country.

"There is very expensive works lately built about the house, gardens and parks of Greenock, which exceadingly beautify "the place; and he hath singularly repaired and beautifyed "the church.

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"Near to the town of Greenock is the town of Carsedyke, lyand upon the river of Clyde, a litle to the east of "Greenock. It is erected in a burgh of barrony, and hath a "very convenient harbour for vessels. It belongs to the "Laird of Carseburn, Crawford, who is brother sone to the "Laird of Jordanhill, who hath a convenient house and dwelling ther, att Carseburn.-The town is mostly subfewed "to merchands, seamen, or loadingmen, who have built very "good houses in it; and is a very thriving litle place."

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The population of Crawfordsdyke and of Greenock must, at the time of Thomas Watt's settlement there, have been small; for we learn that nearly a century later it amounted to no more than four thousand one hundred souls in the whole parish. We may reasonably wonder at any teacher of mathematics whose practice was limited to so narrow a field, being able to derive even a sufficient subsistence from his erudite labours. Yet not only did he maintain himself and his family, in respectability and comfort, on the limited earnings of such humble but honourable toil, but he also accumulated funds sufficient to enable him to purchase the house in Crawfordsdyke in which he lived, with a garden attached, and afterwards a house in Greenock; neither of them, however, being the house which afterwards became famous as the birth-place of his eminent grandson. "The "house" (in which Thomas Watt lived), says Mr. Williamson, was situated on the east side of the bottom of the "street known by the name of The Stanners," (so called from the standard or weighing-machine which stood next door to Mr. Watt's house), " and had a slanting front to "what was then, and still is, the chief street or thoroughfare "leading from Greenock towards Port-Glasgow. To the "house and garden here mentioned he acquired right by "charter from the superior on 6th March, 1691. . . The

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"house was, about 35 years ago, pulled down and rebuilt. "Besides this property in Crawfordsdyke, Thomas Watt, as

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before stated, was proprietor of another house in the town "of Greenock, which was situated at the 'open shore,' and occupied part of the site of the large fabric fronting the "short lane leading to what is now Shaw Street, from the "new graving dock."*

He seems to have been highly esteemed among his worthy brother-citizens of the burgh; over which he was made chief magistrate, or "Baillie of the Barony;" he also became an Elder of the Parish and Presbytery, as well as Treasurer and Clerk to the Kirk-Session, ecclesiastical dignities which must be supposed to bear witness to the integrity of his life; and proofs remain of the nature of his dealings with men and things in each of those capacities, which demonstrate the rigidity of the rule he maintained over the minds and morals of the little community. Repairing the church,-widening the bridge, trying by mathematical standards the weights and measures used in the burgh,-are associated, in the records of the court in which he presided, with his infliction of penalties for assault and battery of the lieges, his threatening with "the pain of fourtie shillings Scots, toties quoties," "several of the young ones who does upon that night called Hallowin night abuse several yards in drawing of kail,” †—

*

Memorials of the Lineage,

Early Life, Education, and De'velopment of the Genius of James 'Watt, by George Williamson, late Perpetual President of the Watt Club of Greenock. Printed for the 'Watt Club, 1856, p. 58-a work which, not pretending to offer a complete biography of the great man whom it commemorates, was modestly set forth as simply a contribution of accredited facts such as form the basis and material of authentic history. As such it must be viewed as of considerable value, and will be often referred to in these pages; while the liberal and enthusiastic zeal which prompted its commencement and ensured its completion is to be commended as worthy of all imitation.

The first ceremony of Hal

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loween is pulling each a stock or plant of kail. They must go out, hand in hand, with eyes shut, and pull the first they meet with its being big or little, straight or "crooked, is prophetic of the size and shape of the grand object of all their spells, the husband or wife. If any yird, or earth, stick to the root, that "is tocher, or fortune; and the taste "of the custock, that is, the heart of the stem, is indicative of the natural temper and disposition. Lastly, the stems, or, to give them their ordinary appellation, the runts, are placed somewhere above the head of the door; and the Christian "names of the people whom chance brings into the house are, according

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his statuting and ordaining that "in all time comeing, if any persons keip hens, and they doe prejudice to any neighbour, "that the owner sall mak up the damnage attour lyable in "fourtie shilling toties quoties. This act extends to all sorts "of taim foules ;"-and many other instances of discipline, equally minute, equally solemn, and doubtless, equally salutary. Sitting in and haunting taverns, on Friday and Saturday nights," was, under the reign of his exemplary censorship, to be "abstained from after nine of the clock, "at which time the bell of the kirk is allowed to be "rung, to give advertisement to all to repair to their own. "house, except in case of necessity;"-offending skippers were made "to acknowledge their guilt" in "loosing their ships and taking them to seaward on the Sabbath Day," and were then held to be cheaply let off by being "censured "with a sessional rebuke, and admonished to carry more tenderly on the Lord's Day for the future."

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But the greatest eruption of the volcano of vice which then threatened to overwhelm Carsdyke with its torrent of moral lava, probably occurred when "the Minister informed the "Session that mountebanks having come to the place, had " erected a stage for a stage-play to be acted thereon, "and proposed" (i. e. the Minister,-not the mountebanks!) they should fall on some effectual method for suppressing the same." And "the Session, considering the thing to be unlawful, and inductive of much sin and looseness, appointed some of their number, to wit, James Craw"ford, John Clark, and Thomas Watt, to go to the "Doctor"-(not the Minister, but the quack-mountebank), "in name of the Session, and discharge him to use ropedancing, and men simulating themselves fools, or women "exposing themselves to public [gaze] by dancing on the "stage, or any indecent behaviour, allowing him only to expose his drugs or medicines to public sale." It is not always necessary for men to "simulate themselves" fools in order to show themselves to be so; but, without intending any reflection on the venerable kirk-session, it may be questioned how far their exception of the "drugs or medicines

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from the general anathema could have been beneficial to the bodies of the worthy burghers, any more than the antics of the merry-andrews and their fair but too frolicsome companions were likely to promote the welfare of their souls. The desire to partake of the one, however, would doubtless be less general than the longing to witness the other; and could not readily be suspected of any tendency towards dangerous overindulgence.

The name of Thomas Watt's wife was Margaret Sherrer; by her he had six children, of whom Margaret, Catherine, and Thomas, all died in infancy, and Doritie,-so the name is spelt,―at the age of eighteen. Thomas Watt died on the 27th of February, 1734, "aged about 95 years," and his widow on the 21st of March, 1735, "aged 84 years," as stated in the Register of burials of the Old or West parish of Greenock; or 92 and 79 years respectively, as engraved on the tomb-stone of Thomas Watt and his family, in the churchyard of the same parish. Of the two accounts, the former is the more trustworthy, at least one error having certainly been committed by the workman employed in cleaning and deepening the inscription on the tomb-stone, in 1808; for he unwittingly altered the date of Mrs. (Thomas) Watt's death from 1735 to 1755, which, besides making her thirty-four years older than her husband, is known to be erroneous from the short interval that occurs in the Register between the record of his death, in 1734, and that of her own.

CHAPTER II

JOHN AND JAMES WATT OF GREENOCK

SCENERY OF THE FRITH OF CLYDE

RAPID PROGRESS IN THE NAVIGATION OF THAT RIVER LIFE AND PURSUITS OF JAMES WATT OF GREENOCK, FATHER OF THE GREAT ENGINEER AGNES MUIRHEID, HIS WIFE-MUIRHEADS OF LACHOPFLODDEN FIELD -CHARACTER AND DEATH OF AGNES MUIRHEID OR WATT HER BROTHER, JOHN MUIRHEID.

Two sons of Thomas Watt, John and James, grew up to man's estate, surviving their parents; and both of them appear to have been diligently trained by their father in his own pursuits; in which John, the elder of the two, was for some time able to be of service in assisting his kind instructor. In 1712, John Watt, being then twenty-five years of age, was appointed clerk to the barony of Cartsburn, and burgh and barony of Crawfordsdyke, of which his father was for many years the baillie. But he soon quitted Greenock for Glasgow, to seek a wider field for the exercise of his profession; and there, as a surveyor, he obtained considerable practice; dying unmarried, at the age of fifty, in 1737. He left behind him a Survey of the course and Frith of the river Clyde, from above Rutherglen and Dalbeth on the East, to Loch Ryan, Portincross, and the coast of Ireland on the South, and the islands of Islay, Colonsay, and part of Mull on the West. This Survey was made in 1734; it was engraved in 1759, and published in 1759-60, by the united cares of his brother James, and of his two nephews, John and James; of whom the one perished at sea two years afterwards, on a voyage to America in one of his father's ships, at the age of twenty-four, and the other was the great engineer.

"The Survey," writes the latter in 1794, "as far as the "Point of Toward, was done by my uncle before I was born; the remainder was added by my father and my brother, but is not over accurate." Several alterations

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