Tour Scotland Video Family Chapel Abbotsford House Near Melrose Roxburghshire Scottish Borders

Tour Scotland video of the family chapel in Abbotsford House near Melrose on ancestry visit to Roxburghshire, Scottish Borders, Scotland. This was added to Abbotsford in 1855 by Charlotte the granddaughter of Sir Walter Scott, who had converted to Catholicism with her husband, James Hope Scott, in 1851.

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Old Photograph Arbigland House Scotland

Old photograph of Arbigland House near Kirkbean by the Solway Firth in, Kirkcudbrightshire, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. Arbigland House was built in 1755 by the improving laird and gentleman architect William Craik, born 1703, died 1798. His daughter, the poet and novelist Helen Craik, born 1751, died 1825, lived there until 1792. James Craik, the Physician General of the United States Army and personal physician of George Washington, was also born there in 1730. An officer in the Continental Navy, John Paul Jones, whose father was a gardener at Arbigland, was born in a cottage in the grounds on 6 July 1747. John Paul Jones was the United States' first well known naval commander in the American Revolutionary War. He made many friends, and enemies, who accused him of piracy among America's political elites, and his actions in British waters during the Revolution earned him an international reputation which persists to this day. As such, he is sometimes referred to as the " Father of the American Navy " an epithet that he shares with John Barry and John Adams. He later served in the Imperial Russian Navy, subsequently obtaining the rank of rear admiral. In June 1792, Jones was appointed U.S. Consul to treat with the Dey of Algiers for the release of American captives. Before Jones was able to fulfill his appointment, however, he was found dead, aged 45, lying face down on his bed in his third floor Paris apartment, No. 19 Rue de Tournon, on July 18, 1792. Jones's body was eventually ceremonially removed from interment in a Parisian charnel house and brought to the United States aboard the USS Brooklyn, escorted by three other cruisers. On approaching the American coastline, seven U.S. Navy battleships joined the procession escorting Jones's body back to America. On April 24, 1906, Jones's coffin was installed in Bancroft Hall at the United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland, following a ceremony in Dahlgren Hall, presided over by President Theodore Roosevelt who gave a lengthy tributary speech. On January 26, 1913, the Captain's remains were finally re-interred in a magnificent bronze and marble sarcophagus at the Naval Academy Chapel in Annapolis.



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Tour Scotland Video Leaderfoot Viaduct River Tweed Scottish Borders

Tour Scotland video of Leaderfoot Viaduct over the River Tweed on ancestry visit to the Scottish Borders, Scotland. This Scottish viaduct which is no longer used by trains, was opened on November 16th, 1863 to carry the Berwickshire Railway line, which connected Reston, on the East Coast Main Line between Berwick-upon-Tweed and Edinburgh, with St Boswells, on the Edinburgh to Carlisle " Waverley Line ", via Duns and Greenlaw. The engineers of the railway were Charles Jopp and Wylie & Peddie. The viaduct stands 126 feet from the floor of the river valley. The arches, each of 43 feet span, are of brickwork, and the abutments, piers and walls are of rustic faced red sandstone. Some later strengthening of the abutments and piers with old rails and buttresses on the southern valley side is very obvious. It is straight over its whole course, and runs in a broadly northerly direction.

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Old Photograph Glassel Scotland

Old photograph of a house at Glassel two miles South East of Torphins, Aberdeenshire, Scotland.

Famous people named Glassel include;

William Thornton Glassell, born January 15, 1831, died January 28, 1879, was an officer in the Confederate States Navy during the American Civil War. He laid out the city of Orange, California. He was born in Culpeper County, Virginia, was appointed a midshipman in the United States Navy from the state of Alabama on March 15, 1848. When he was still a midshipman, his ship, the St. Laurence was sent to The Great Exhibition in London, England. Lady Byron, Anne Isabella Byron, Baroness Byron, widow of the famous Lord Byron, visited the ship and invited only Glassell to dine with her the next evening. He accepted and " had a very pleasant interview. " Promoted to lieutenant in 1855, he was aboard USS Hartford off China when the Civil War broke out. When Hartford reached Philadelphia, Glassell declined to swear an additional oath of allegiance prescribed for Southerners, and was consequently imprisoned at Fort Warren and dropped from the U.S. service. Confederate authorities issued him a lieutenant's commission, arranged his exchange, and assigned him to CSS Chicora in the Charleston Squadron. On the night of October 5, 1863, Glassell and a crew of three in the diminutive torpedo boat David attacked the most powerful ship in the United States Navy, New Ironsides. Glassell, and the other crewman were however captured and returned to Fort Warren. Glassell, while in prison, was promoted to commander for his attack on New Ironsides. Exchanged in the last six months of the war, he returned to Charleston, South Carolina. On the evacuation of that city he was transferred to Richmond, Virginia and assigned to command the ironclad Fredericksburg in the James River Squadron. With Richmond's evacuation, the squadron's personnel were reorganized as artillery and infantry, and Glassell commanded a regiment. He was paroled at Greensboro, North Carolina, on April 28, 1865. Captain Glassell's health had been broken as a result of his experiences while in the Confederate Army, both by his hazardous undertaking, and subsequent capture and eighteen months in a northern military prison. He came to visit his elder brother Andrew Glassell in Los Angeles, and stayed to help in developing the Richland Tract in the capacity of surveyor. The city of Orange was founded by attorneys Andrew Glassell and Alfred Chapman. William T. Glassell died at the age of 48 in Los Angeles, unmarried and childless and is interred at Angelus Rosedale Cemetery in Los Angeles. His great nephew was George Smith Patton.



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Old Photograph Bassendean House Scotland

Old photograph of Bassendean house located south of Westruther, Scottish Borders, Scotland. The medieval village of Bassendean declined in the 17th century, and only a ruined church now remains of the settlement. The church, dedicated to St Mary, was established in the 12th century. Disused after the Scottish Reformation, it was rebuilt in 1647, but was replaced only two years later by a new church at Westruther. It subsequently became the burial ground for the Homes of Bassendean. Bassendean House has been the seat of the Homes of Bassendean since 1583. Only a fragment of the original tower house remains, although the 17th century house is still in domestic occupation. During the 1830s, the Colonial Secretary of Western Australia, Peter Broun, who had ancestral ties to Berwickshire, gave the name Bassendean to his homestead near Perth, Western Australia. By the 1920s, the surrounding suburb had also become known Bassendean and was officially renamed.



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