1876
The School Board of Kilrenny have resolved to build a new school in Cellardyke to accommodate 225 children , and to discontinue the grant of £10 hitherto paid annually towards the expense of maintaining the school at Benerbo. The sum required to be raised by assessment was fixed at £260, or the same as last year .
Estimates in Cellardyke – The erection at once to be proceeded with a handsome range of business premises for Marr, general merchant. The designs were prepared our local architect, Thomas Brown, who is also the contractor for the mason work £398, the joiner’s estimate being in the hands Bailie John Lumsden, total cost being about £800. Mr Brown has also prepared a working plan to cost £100 of a slip at Cellardyke harbour, to facilitate the beaching the large boats. At present this is a most laborious operation, owing to the steepness of the incline, in which also the carriage wheels under the load the big boats sink every turn of the axles. The undertaking has been resolved upon by the Town Council, and the expense will met by the rents paid as boat stances on the beach, which like other vacant ground in the burgh, is in virtue of the charter granted of old by the lairds of Kilrenny—the unquestionable property of the inhabitants as part of the common good of the town.
1877
DEATH A DISTINGUISHED NATIVE Many in Fifeshire will learn with deep emotion of the death of that distinguished and native Cellardyke, Captain Alexander Rodger, the melancholy event having taken place Glasgow on Wednesday afternoon, the 6th inst. Captain Rodger had been for some time yielding to the infirmities age and to the fatigues of a busy life passed in all quarters of the globe, and it might be to the yet greater trials of household sorrow and bereavement; but about a fortnight ago he was seized with an alarming malady which from the first-aroused those fears which the sad event has only too well verified.
Let us sketch the romantic life story which has now closed in honour and respect of all. Alexander Rodger was born in old Cellardyke in 1804. He is thus about seventy-three years age, but was only ten when he was left an orphan by the loss of his father, who perished with the oldest of the household by the capsizing of his boat while at the Burntisland herring fishery on the last day the year 1814. The stricken fold, however, was not left unprotected. Heaven was near in that holiest angel of earth, a faithful and devoted mother; and great as it was, her charge was so blessed that four of her sons rose to the highest honours in their profession as master mariners in as fine ships as sailed the seas. Alexander Rodger owed little to his early opportunities. He was one of the little crowd at the Parish School, in those days when was only the grim “ben end” of Dominie Orphit’s dwelling-house, and a few years later he was one of the crew in his brother David’s fishing boat, but like a young bird he was fretting all the time for a nobler flight, conscious of that which was in him, and longing for the wrestle and the race. For the sake of the future he at eighteen began life as a sailor on the little Dundee brig the “Ocean,” and the cramped forecastle of the Baltic-man he exchanged for the rougher service of a collier; but steel that was in him so clave through all obstacles, that when little more than twenty two he was sailing master of a square rigged ship trading to the Mediterranean. Here we must introduce an anecdote characteristic the man. The Archipelago was at this time infested with pirates and one day the brig “Hind “ was in the offing the wind fell, and she lay at the mercy of the sea wolves. Nor had the crew long to wait before the brig was in the hands of the pirates. No resistance was or could be offered, and aware this the ruffians were coolly ransacking the ship when the eye of the leader fell on Alexander Rodger’s flute as it lay in the binnacle. He made a gesture to play. It was a command not to be refused, and there and then the young Cellardyke sailor engaged the old Scottish melodies. “I believed it t was last time I would ever so, and played accordingly,” said the gallant narrator. But such was the influence the music on the desperadoes that after caressing the minstrel they quitted the ship without any molestation to crew or cargo. Subsequently Captain Rodger was in command on voyages to all parts the world, in the course of which his ship was the first to sail from Glasgow to Australia—an incident the time attracted much attention as an extraordinary era in the navigation of the Clyde. About this period also his name was honourably associated with an important discovery which made in the Indian seas. He was homeward bound on his own ship the “Helen,” when one evening the topsails flapped the fitful breeze, though the vessel rolled like a drunken man in the swell of the recent storm – consternation fell on all on board as the cry rose “the ship is on the reef.” The charts showed a clear and open sea, but the masts quivered with the crash, and the false keel was floating alongside, when the vessel providentially swung from the rock, which, like a true sailor, her captain accurately surveyed, and “Rodger’s Rock.” it is called, is now shorn of its terrors in every chart the Indian seas.
About seven and twenty years ago the state his health induced him quit the sea, but his energy was not to be tamed or subdued. The country was ringing with the gold fields Australia, and Captain Rodger was first perhaps to organise an association from Britain to open the treasures of the colony. It was composed of the flower of Cellardyke who went out on Captain Rodger’s charge, and that eventful summer day will not soon be forgotten when, with mothers and sweethearts weeping on the oil pier, but with the Xantbo’s” colours fluttering proudly and the cheer of the brave young hearts rising high and long In the sunny air, the gallant adventurers sailed from Anstruther harbour to enter on the distant expedition which did great honour to the Captain’s head and heart. He returned, however, so far disappointed; it was seen that the harvest had been exaggerated, but almost on stepping ashore the old country he became the pioneer one the most magnificent enterprises of the times. This was the establishment of what were called the China tea clippers, these noble ocean racers which made the British flag peerless all waters. His own ships were like household words either side the Atlantic; need we mention such favourites as the Kate Kierny, the Taeping, the Lahloo.
But, however surrounded success as merchant and ship-owner, Captain Rodger never forgot the home and friends of his youth. On the Contrary, in his unwearied efforts to promote the well-being of the inhabitants- the public bleaching green, the new wintering berths for the boats, the improved harbour and fairway, are understood to have cost over a thousand pounds, which he raised with no other object than to do good to his native community- Year after year his generous hand gladdened the hearts of the old and unfortunate by his Christmas dinners; but in a thousand ways besides he fulfilled the holy maxim of not allowing the sun to shine upon his charity.
Captain Rodger has stood by the open grave of his venerable partner, and all his promising sons have one after another gone before him to ‘the narrow house’ but he is survived by three married and one unmarried daughter, whose sorrow is to-day largely and sincerely shared by very many hearts on the shores of the Forth.
1878
Sale of Fish curing Premises.—We understand that the well-known fish curing premises in Cellardyke erected by the late Bailie Crawford, and presently occupied by “the father of the trade” Mr James Watson, have just been purchased by private bargain by Mr Robert Melville, whose premises, as our readers may remember, was bought some time ago in a similar way by Mr Andrew Mitchell, draper. The property opens from the street, and extends to the remarkable creek of Craignoon, which at a trifling outlay could be made perhaps the most accessible landing-place in all states of the tide on the coast, so that in leading feature the premises offer unequalled facilities for the interesting and varied speculations in the season of net and line and creel, which mark the fish curing enterprise of to-day. If rumour to be believed, the property, with the two front houses, have changed hands at the price of £800.
1879
Shetland – All the south country boats have now left, the two Cellardyke boats being the last and leaving this week. They have been very successful, we understand, having caught between eight and nine hundred cwt. of market fish each, besides halibut, skate, roes, livers, &c., and their earnings will amount to over £300 per boat, for nine week’s fishing.
The Cellardyke fishing craft, the “Refuge,” was running before the breeze, when one the crew, Mr Alex. Rodger, son-in-law of Provost Watson, while duty at the tack, was thrown overboard by the jibbing of the sail. Providentially, Mr Rodger retained his presence of mind, and at once struck out for a piece of lumber wood which one of his boat mates threw as the lively craft darted on her course. It was a painful and exciting interval, as the boat had to be worked to windward, the poor mariner all the while clutching for life to the piece of driftwood; but eventually, though not till the lapse of about thirty minutes, the “Refuge,” as she indeed proved, ranged alongside, when he was caught and saved by a friendly hand. Notwithstanding his long immersion, a little rest – thanks the comfort and convenience of the cabin with which the deep-sea boats are now provided—he was soon restored to the active duties of the fishing cruise.