1870
CAUTION TO CARTERS. —At a Justice of Peace Court held at St Andrews on Wednesday, John Elder, carter, Cellardyke, was charged at the instance of Captain Bremner, chief constable for the county, with having allowed his dog to go at large on the turnpike road leading from Anstruther to St Andrews, on the 18th February. He pled guilty, and was sentenced to pay a fine of 5s with 12s of expenses, or go to prison for 14 days. Fine paid.
1871
Anstruther – Between four and five o’clock on Wednesday morning, one of the stranger boats at present fishing here, the Maggie Lauder of Lossiemouth, while attempting to take the harbour, struck on the rocks known as the “Ghats,” knocking a large hole in her bottom. She soon filled with water, but the crew were able with some assistance to get into the mouth of the harbour. The extraordinary low tide on that day was chiefly the cause of the accident.
CHARGE or ASSAULT. —At a burgh court on Wednesday—Provost Todd and Bailie Darsie on’ the bench—George Gill, a fisherman from Lossiemouth, at present residing here, was charged with having, between Friday night and Saturday morning last, entered the lodgings in Kirk Wynd occupied by John Henderson, and assaulted him to the effusion of blood. Panel, after stating that he had only struck Henderson on being first assaulted by him, pled guilty, and was fined 10s 6d, or ten days’ imprisonment. The cases of Alex. Muir, fisherman, at present residing here, and Alex. Gardner, Cellardyke. the former charged with assault, and the latter with a breach of the peace, were called, but the accused failed to appear, and warrants were granted for their apprehension. — Another court was held yesterday, when Police Constable Mackay reported that he had apprehended Muir and Gardner, but they had afterwards been liberated on depositing bail to the amount of 10s 6d and 10s respectively. Having again failed to appear, the bail was again declared forfeited.
FISHING BOAT FOR SALE For Sale by Private Bargain, THE BOAT ” JESSIE,” of Cellardyke, suitable for Herring Fishings. — Length over Stems” 39 feet. Apply to Alex. Cunningham. Ellice Street, Cellardyke
1872
CASE OF ASSAULT:—A burgh court was held yesterday—Provost Todd and Bailie White on the Bench. Alex. Trail carter, Cellardyke, was charged with the mime of assault, in so far as, on the evening of Saturday the 17th ult., in the public house or hotel in Shore Street occupied by Emma Maria Gunn or Addy, he wanted to fight with Alex. Smith, carter, Cellardyke, and on his refusal to do so he seized him by the neckcloth, and threw him down and struck him. He pled not guilty. The first witness called was Alex. Smith, who said that he was in Mrs Addy’s public house on the night in question, when Trail came in and sat down, but immediately afterwards he rose again and wanted to fight with him. Trail then seized hold of him by the throat, and threw him over the table. In the scuffle he was nearly choked, and had to get his cravat cut from his neck. In cross examination, he denied having thrown a tumbler of ale at Trail, or of having threatened to strike him. Two other witnesses corroborated this witness’ evidence. The Magistrates found the panel guilty, and sentenced him to pay a fine of 10s or suffer ten days’ imprisonment. The fine was paid.
Two cases were before Provost Todd and Bailie White on Thursday, namely, Alex. Trail, carter, Cellardyke, who was charged with an assault upon Alex. Smith, better known as “Sandy Ba ‘” in the Mason’s Tavern on the evening of Saturday, the 17th inst. He pleaded not guilty, but proof having been adduced the charge was found fully proved, and he was sentenced to a fine of 10s, or ten days’ imprisonment. In passing the sentence the Provost characterised the case as a “drunken row which all the parties would be to blame”. The next case was that of Alex. Pattie, also Cellardyke carter, who was charged with furious driving along the Shore, and which he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to fine of 7s 6d, or eight days imprisonment—the Provost at the same time administering a sharp reprimand on the dangerous practice furious driving, especially when, as he said, there was no occasion to do so.
1873
Discovery of Coal near Anstruther. —The enterprising lessee of the Clephington Brick Work, James Skinner, merchant, Cellardyke, who has for some time engaged an interesting experiment to discover coal, succeeded in doing on Thursday, a depth of about 130 feet from the surface. Many rumours are abroad as the quality and thickness the seam or seams; but in the meantime, it would be premature to say more than that Mr Skinner is encouraged by the result of the boring that he is at once to proceed with the sinking of a shaft and the erection of suitable machinery to work the coal. The shaft and plant will entail outlay of £1500; but the spirited merchant understood to have concluded an advantageous lease with Walter D. Irvine, Esq. the proprietor of the lands and minerals of Clephington.
“THE SORROWS OF THE SEA.” Mrs Reid, one of the most remarkable women ever connected with the Scottish shore, died in Cellardyke on Saturday in the sixty-ninth year of her age. There is many a mournful tale of the sea—”the cruel and remorseless sea” —but few have had so much cause to lament over the weary waters as the aged pilgrim who has just entered on her rest. Mrs Reid, or Agnes Birrell to give her maiden name, belonged to one of the best reputed as well as one of the most numerous families of Cellardyke of our day; but her father, a strong limbed, clear-headed, sea-faring native of Kinghorn, was the first of his race in the East Neuk, where he had taken to himself a wife from that fine old stock, the sailor Robertson’s of Anstruther. Agnes, as the strapping fisher lass, married her promising townsman, James Davidson, and a happier young couple never crossed the old Kirk style of Kilrenny, but the sun was to go down on the very morning of their joy. On the 24th of September 1828, her husband, as one of his father’s crew, as was the custom at that time with the Cellardyke fishermen, had gone round with the boat to the Eden for mussel bait, and was lying ready to sail in the river, when the wind rose violently from the westward. The older hands wished to remain at their moorings, but the young men were impatient to be again with their wives and sweethearts, and though one of the crew predicted the coming disaster as he stepped on board — “There’ll be mussels skauppet the day whaur they never were before”— the sail was hoisted and the boat dashed out to sea. The little craft reeled gallantly through St Andrews Bay, and tacked to windward of the Carr; but while crossing the stormy “Hurst” she was struck by a dreadful sea. It was the old sad, sad story: the boat rolled over on the weather side, and lay unbosomed and helpless to the next stroke of the waves, which rushed like a cataract everywhere over the gunwale. “She is sinking!” and a long, wild cry rose over the hoarse roar of the storm as the poor fishermen cast their farewell look on sea and shore; but James Davidson and his father, as lovingly and trustingly as in the old days of childhood, and as if death could never divide them, clasped each other round the neck, and so sunk together into a watery grave. His old uncle was saved to tell the affecting story, which made a deep impression at the time on the public mind, though it could fall on no ear with the same heart-crushing misery as on that of the young widow who nursed her new born child in the silence of the night, with the saddest of all music, the wail for the loved and lost. But time softens every grief, and as years rolled on the widow became once more the happy wife and joyful mother of five fine children. Her second husband, Thomas Reid, was an enterprising fisherman; his fine new boat, the “Nancy,” of Cellardyke, had only been a fortnight at sea when she foundered during the memorable gale on the night of the 23rd April 1846, about fifteen miles, as it was supposed, from the Isle of May, when all on board perished, “with no ear to pity and no arm to save.” There were seven of a crew, and six widows and fifteen fatherless children were left to mourn their untimely fate. But the widowed Mrs Reid had other and no less poignant affliction to endure. Her handsome brother, Thomas, was one day accidentally drowned at sea. But on the 8th of December 1859 she had a more bitter cup to drink to the dregs, by the loss of another Cellardyke boat, with her gallant brother William, and her own eldest son—the child of her first love, James Davidson — who perished like the rest of the crew, with the exception of one survivor, who was spared on that fatal occasion to tell with what martyr-like constancy brave men could meet their fate. Three brothers of Mrs Reid’s second husband had years before met a similar death; but the afflicted widow again participated in no common measure in the last distressing calamity which befell Cellardyke, when her son Thomas—the Benjamin of her household —and her two sons-in-law, suffered with all hands by the foundering of ‘their boat in the North Sea on the stormy ‘might of the 10th of May 1865. By these accumulated disasters Mrs Reid has lost two husbands, two sons, two sons-in-law, two brothers, and three brothers-in-law, or to include nephews and other connections, more than twenty near relations have perished by the sea; and was it then strange that after all these manifold afflictions the bereaved wife and mother should love to linger where she could gaze out on the far away German sea— “the weary sea,” as she would say—and listen so wistfully now in the soft summer gloaming, to the voice of the waves in its low hymn-like murmurings; or, in, in the night of gathering storm where the billows trampled the shore fierce and loud as the feet of the Destroyer—for both to her was full of meaning —sadder it could not be, yet falling on the quivering heart with all the kindred pathos of the dirge song to the mourner sitting by the lonely grave. But while mourning long and truly for the dead, she never forgot her duty to the living. There is no situation in the ordinary life where woman is more truly the helpmate of man than as the fisherman’s wife, for she is not only the companion of his home the mother of his children, but in all the multifarious operations of the busy year, her industry as her thrift is the secret of his prosperity. Mrs Reid was one of these people you never find idle; but her nimble fingers were not confined to the common duties of his sphere, for in her earlier years she handled the tar and paint brush on her husband’s boat with all the skill of a tradesman, and this activity of disposition may be said to have remained with her to the last, as only this winter she was to be seem gathering limpets from the rocks as bait for the fishing line. The old heroine was also remarkable for her sterling Scottish independence, and ungrudgingly toiled from sunrise to sundown on a long summer day, in order, she said, “never to be obleeged either to frien’ or frem;” and so her life past on with exemplary diligence and usefulness, till she was struck down a few months ago by paralysis ; but it is pleasing to know evening shadows deepened around her—the heralds of the coming change—her spirit rejoiced in the hope of the better and brighter day.
Anstruther news- Mr John Gilchrist, of the Cellardyke Steam Boot and Shoe Works, is at present erecting a handsome edifice on the celebrated concrete principle on the fine corner opposite the Tolbooth of our thriving sister burgh. The novel erection is thirty-three feet long, twenty-one wide, and twenty-two high in the front wall, and is to embrace an elegant and commodious shop on the ground floor with neat family apartments above; and as it has swept away the mean and incongruous subjects which so long disfigured the locality, Mr Gilchrist’s enterprise has effected one of the most decided improvements ever carried out in Cellardyke. What, however, occupies public attention most in the meantime is the remarkable process by which heap after heap of seaside gravel, when powdered with Portland cement and stirred about much in the same way as “you mak’ parritch,” to use an old grandmother’s simile, is quickly transformed into the fair solid wall, which is raised step by step so magically through the medium of the well-known graduated iron frame. Concrete can nowhere boast of a greater triumph than at Anstruther, where, as the last resource, it has saved the famous new pier; but notwithstanding this *”ocular demonstration” as to its extraordinary adhesive properties, it is sometimes amusing to stand within hearing of the wise gossips, who remind us of the curious anecdote related by Colonel Reiley of Innergellie House. The gallant Indian officer was one of the first to appreciate the advantages of concrete, which he thought of using instead of stone and lime for & new house : but on broaching his purpose to one of the leading architects, that worthy professional burst into a hoarse laugh, and then solemnly warned him that “a concrete house might perhaps, and only perhaps, stand a Scottish autumn, but that by the end of a frosty winter it would certainly come down like a mole heap about the ears of its builder.” Every friend of progress amongst us, however, will be glad to see the introduction of a class of houses which, in these days of scarce and dear building materials, are soon likely to extend in the neighbourhood, which in this respect again owes much to Mr Gilchrist’s forecast and energy. The work is superintended by Mr William Jones, from London, who is a thorough master of the system, and though interrupted by the changeable nature of the weather, it is still making very gratifying progress. Many have come far and near to see the curious operation; but we were particularly interested the other day in an old country wife who appeared to have come on a kind of pilgrimage to the spot. “Eh,” quoth the venerable dame “ he’s a wonderful chiel that Mr Gilchrist, wha has pushet through sae weel, and a’ by himsel’. I mind o’ him five and-forty years syne, a bit loon breakin’ stanes up at Boofie; but I aye kent he would rise to be somebody. It was a cauld winter, but when the men couldna keep themsel’s in heat the bit loon warmed stanes wi’ a stick fire, and stood on them for beil to his taes.” We may here state, as so far corroborative of the ancient dame’s story, that about thirty years ago, while Mr Gilchrist was at work in the fields as an ordinary day labourer, conceived the idea of a light house shoe, which he straightway set himself down to furnish. The trade laughed and made merry over the Kilrenny project; but the humble beginnings then made has to-day developed into the largest of our Fife boot and shoe – making establishments, in which, besides the beautiful steam machines, there are about sixty employees at work. The new shop is designed for a grocery and provision store in connection with that part of Mr Gilchrist’s business, as the large premises fronting the works are now wholly required for a boot and shoe warehouse,
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