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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 July 2012
Since my last, I have not had an occasion of seeing old Taylor; but he is still alive and well, and I hope soon to have an opportunity of visiting him, when I shall take care to have the fullest account of him, I can possibly obtain.
page 231 note [a] The following account of this old man was accordingly received from Mr. J. Walker and J. Wells, 9th April, 1767, and read to the Society:
“John Taylor, son of Barnabas or Bernard (he calls him Barny) Taylor, by his wife Agnes Watson, was born in Garry Gill in the parish of Aldston in Cumberland. His father was a miner, and died when John was only four years old.
“John, when only nine years old, was set to work at dressing lead ore, which he followed for two years at two-pence a day: he then went below ground to assist the miners in removing the ore and rubbish, and had been thus employed for three or four years, when the great solar eclipse, vulgarly called the Mirk Monday, happened, viz. on the 29th of March 1652; he being then at the bottom of a shaft or pit, was desired by the man at the top to call those below to come out, because a black cloud had darkened the sun so, that the birds were falling to the earth. And this, which he always relates with the same circumstances, is the only event he can relate by which his age may be ascertained. He continued to work in the mines at Aldston till he was about 26 years of age, when he was employed by one Doubledice, a quaker, in the lead mines at Black-Hall in the bishoprick of Durham, where having wrought nine or ten years, he was sent by him to view, and make a report of, some mines in the island of Islay; and was afterwards employed there as a miner and overseer for seven or eight years. Upon leaving this place he returned to the North of England, and wrought at mines there and in the South of Scotland in a wandering manner, for many years, till he engaged himself in 1707 to work at the mint in Edinburgh, in coining the Scots money into British. The coinage being finished, he went again to Islay, and in 1709 married his only wife, being then, as he says, between sixty and seventy. He continued as a miner in Islay till 1730, when he came to Glasgow; and, leaving his family there, went to the mines at Strontian in Argyleshire, where he wrought about two years; and being seized with the scurvy, occasioned by feeding on salt provisions and drinking spirits, he returned to Glasgow; and in 1733 came to Lead Hills, where he wrought constantly in the mines till 1752; but still has the profits of a bargain (about 8 or 10l. per ann.) from the Scots mine company, which supports him comfortably.
His wife bore him nine children in Islay, four of which died young. His eldest, a daughter, born in 1710, was married, and died in 1735. Two sons and two daughters are alive in this place (Lead Hills) and all married except the youngest, a son, born in 1730. His wife died in 1758.
He was always a thin spare man, about five feet four inches high, black haired, ruddy faced and long visaged. His diet was always flesh, and the strongest he could procure y his drink malt liquor, and he would not refuse a hearty bottle when it came in his way, though he could never be called a drunkard. His appetite was always remarkably good; and when obliged to go to work at midnight (as the miners often are) he could make as hearty a meal of fat beef or mutton then as at midday.—His appetite is still good, and he must have a glass of spirits once or twice a day to warm his stomach, as he expresses it. His fight and hearing are not greatly impaired; and his hair is not more grey than that of most people at the age of 50; though his eye-brows, which are remarkably bushy, and his beard, are entirely white. His memory is pretty well, and he relates the different transactions of his life with great distinctness and a good deal of spirit.—In cold weather he lies much abed, but in the warm months he walks about with a stick, and is very little bowed down.—In October last be walked from his own house to Lead Hills (a computed mile), and having entertained his children and grand children in a public house, returned the same day.
The first sickness he remembers to have had (for the small-pox he had in his infancy) was about the year 1724, when he was seized with a dysentery. He had a fever in the Highlands, which was attended with one remarkable circumstance. Having been let blood, the wound broke open, and was not observed till the blood had run through the bed and floor into a lower room. The scurvy, which seized him there, continued to affict him for several years after he came to Lead Hills; and during his wife's illness, in February 1758, he catched cold, and was seized with a diarrhaea, attended with feverish symptoms, which brought him very low. But since his recovery, he has not had the least complaint, nor does he remember to have had any sickness but what is above mentioned.—He never slept much; and he says, that, when he wrought in Durham, his business for four years was to attend a fire-engine; during which time he was allowed no more than four hours sleep in the 24, and he bore it very well. The miners are obliged to work at all hours, and he never found any difference of times with regard to working, sleeping, or eating.
page 233 note [b] Mr. Atcheson, minister of Falkirk, informed Mr. Walker, that there were no inscriptions nor any letter on any of the stones found at Camelon, only a little carving on one or two of them. R. G.
page 234 note [b] The Scythians, who migrated Westward from the Palus Maeotis (their first settlement) were, in process of time, distinguished by several names, too many to be enumerated here; and from many authorities it appears, that it was that nation of them who were the Getae, or Getes, that passed very rapidly, and in very early times, into Scandinavia, and overspread Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and the islands of the Baltic. Of these, a colony, called the Picts, came into Britain and Ireland, and multiplied exceedingly in both islands, and were, a distinct people; in the one, from the Irish Scots, and in the other, from the Britons and Caledonian Scots, who were the same people with the Irish, Venerable Bede says, they came over from the Northern abodes in long boats: for it appears from a very ancient Irish record, that Heremon, the son of Milesius, drove them out of Ireland into Scotland, which increased their numbers in the latter to a prodigious degree, from which expulsion there was not one left in Ireland; but they were a very formidable people in Britain many centuries after.
Venerable Bede makes them a distinct people in another place; in ch. i. of his Eccles. Hist. he says: “Procedente autem tempore, Britannia, post Britones et “ Pictos, Scotorum nationem in Pictorum parte recepit,” &c.
page 239 note [c] Armach cannot be derived from the word for an oak, and the place of its growth, in the Irish tongue; because the word for an oak is dair, and sometimes dairvre. Armach is compounded of two words without the least mutilation, arm and mach; arm signifies arma arms, and mach a place, country, or territory; so that it is most naturally “a place of arms.”
As to Venerable Bede's appellation, the particle de is only a prepositive particle, as is practised now in many local titles, and always was both in Latin and French: and, if taken away, it leaves the armach intire; whereas if dair was the first part of this compound word, and the d taken away, it would be changed to airmach, which would signify an airy place, instead of a place of oaks. This shews, that the writer of Columba's life was mistaken, who should have rendered the Armach “Armorum “campi,” instead of “Roboris campi.”