Peck's Bad Boy

The most worn-out volume in Pete Fraser’s library was undoubtedly Peck’s Bad Boy and His Pa, first published in 1883. [David Harum of 1898 runs a close second.]

George W. Peck
[Source: Famous Wisconsin Writers, by James P. Roberts]

George Wilbur Peck (1840-1916) was an accomplished man. The oldest of three children, he was born in Henderson, New York, but the family moved to Wisconsin three years later. Peck attended school in Whitewater, Wisconsin until age 15, when he began his career in the newspaper industry as an apprentice printer with the Whitewater Register. At age 20, Peck married Francena Rowley and they had two sons.

Lieutenant George W. Peck
[Source: http://georgewpeck.com/gpbio.html]
The GeorgeWPeck.com website is comprehensive and worth a look.

In 1863 Peck enlisted in the Union Army, and was taken prisoner in Richmond, Virginia. Upon release he was appointed to West Point Military Academy by Abraham Lincoln. He served as a lieutenant before his regiment was mustered out in 1866.

After the war, Peck worked for a number of newpapers. In 1874 he founded The Milwaukee Sun. Within 10 years the weekly paper had an astounding nation-wide circulation of more than 80,000.

The Sun included Peck’s sketches featuring a bad boy named Hennery. They were very popular, and in 1883 the stories were collected into a book called Peck’s Bad Boy and His Pa. George Peck soon became a household name.

The text is a product of its day, and pokes fun at all corners of society. Some were appalled at Peck’s treatment of Victorian mores, temperance, politics, the church, freemasons, and class distinctions. The book is politically incorrect and often violent, but always hilarious.

George Peck introduced the Bad Boy to his readers:

Each chapter typically begins with Hennery, the Bad Boy, entering the local grocery shop. He might be limping or sporting a black eye. He explains to the grocer how his latest punishment is the result of yet another prank pulled on his long-suffering father, George. A chum is often his partner-in-crime.

While recounting his latest story, Hennery typically swipes some food from the grocer, who then quietly charges several times the amount to the Peck account. Before he leaves, the Bad Boy moans that a boy can’t have any fun anymore.

As he goes out the door, the Bad Boy might put out a sign in front of the grocery. The grocery man learned to check for these:

• FRESH LETIS, BEEN PICKED MORE’N A WEEK. TUFFER’N TRIPE.
• SPINAGE FOR GREENS, THAT THE CAT HAS MADE A NEST IN OVER SUNDAY.
• CASH PAID FOR FAT DOGS.
• YELLOW SAND WANTED FOR MAPLE SUGAR.
• SMOKED DOG FISH AT HALIBUT PRICES, GOOD ENOUGH FOR COMPANY.
• WORMY FIGS FOR PARTIES.
• STRAWBERRIES, TWO SHILLINGS A SMELL, AND ONE SMELL IS ENOUGH.
• SPOILED CANNED HAM AND TONGUE GOOD ENOUGH FOR CHURCH PICNICS.

and a favorite:

It is easy to imagine Dad chuckling at Hennery’s pranks. Although never taken to task by his own father with a bed slat, Dad admitted to a few Peck-ish pranks of his own:

• teasing his dog (tapping on the floor to indicate food that wasn’t there, prompting the poor Collie to bite the floorboards in frustration);
• putting cut-up elastics in his sister’s party sandwiches; and
• hooking up a car battery to an old sow’s fence, causing the crippled, arthritic animal to sprint for the first time in years.

There are some great phrases in the book that were certain to make Frasers laugh.

As the Bad Boy tells the grocery man:

In the morning he [Father] took me into the basement, and gave me the hardest talking to that I ever had, with a bed slat.

I am going to work in a glue factory, where nobody will ever come to see me.

… and if it hadn’t been for these pieces of brick [in his britches] he would have hurt my feelings. […] I have a good notion to take some shoemaker’s wax and stick my chum on my back and travel with a circus as a double headed boy from Borneo. A fellow could have more fun, and not get kicked all the time.

Well, good day. There’s a Italian got a bear that performs in the street, and I am going to find where he is showing, and feed the bear a cayenne pepper lozenge, and see him clean out the Pollack settlement. Good bye.

… and we went home and Pa fanned the dust out of my pants. […] Well, good bye. I am going down to the morgue to have some fun.

Say, don’t you want to hire me for a clerk? The grocery man said he had rather have a spotted hyena, and the boy stole a melon and went away.

… he made me wear two mouse traps on my ears all the forenoon, and he says he will kill me at sunset.

[after being dumped by a girl]:
I shall never allow my affections to become entwined about another piece of calico. It unmans me, sir. Henceforth I am a hater of the whole girl race. From this out I shall harbor revenge in my heart, and no girl can cross my path and live. I want to grow up to become a he school ma’am, or a he milliner, or something, where I can grind girls into the dust under the heel of a terrible despotism, and make them sue for mercy. To think that girl, on whom I have lavished my heart’s best love and over thirty cents, in the past two weeks, could let the smell of a goat on my clothes come between us, and break off an acquaintance that seemed to be the forerunner of a happy future, and say “ta-ta” to me, and go off to dancing school with a telegraph messenger boy who wears a sleeping car porter uniform, is too much, and my heart is broken.

[after polluting the house and church with limburger cheese]:
I want to board at a hotel, where you can have a bill-of-fare and tooth picks, and billiards, and everything. Well I guess I will go over to the house and stand in the back door and listen to the mocking bird. If you see me come flying out of the alley with my coat tail full of boots you can bet they have discovered the sewer gas.

Illustration by True Williams, 1900 edition

The grocery man to the Bad Boy:

Didn’t you hang up that dead gray tom cat by the heels, in front of my store, with the rabbits I had for sale? I didn’t notice it until the minister called me out in front of the store, and pointing to the rabbits, asked what good fat cats were selling for. By crimus, this thing has got to stop. You have got to move out of this ward or I will.

Look here, young man, don’t you threaten me, or I will take you by the ear and walk you through green fields, and beside still waters, to the front door, and kick your pistol pocket clear around so you can wear it for a watch pocket in your vest. No boy can frighten me by crimus.

George Peck’s books were illustrated by the best cartoonists of the day. The first edition (1883) was illustrated by Gean Smith (1851-1928). He was actually known as a great painter of horses, and his paintings still come up on art auction sites.

Cover of First Edition (1883), illustrated by Gean Smith

Pa battles hornets, by Gean Smith, 1883
[Source: Gutenberg project]

True Williams (1839-1897) illustrated other Bad Boy books in the 1890s and later. He is better known for his illustrations of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (1876). While his style is simpler, I find his drawings funnier than those of Gean Smith.

The Bad Boy loses his job at a drugstore.
Illustration by True Williams, 1900.

“… this morning I borrowed Pa’s teeth before he got up, to see if we couldn’t fix them in the dog’s mouth, so he could eat better. Pa says it is evidence of a kind heart for a boy to be good to dumb animals, but it is a darned mean dog that will go back on a friend. We tied the teeth in the dog’s mouth with a string that went around his upper jaw, and another around his under jaw, and you’d a dide to see how funny he looked when he laffed. He looked just like Pa when he tried to smile so as to get me to come up to him so he can lick me. The dog pawed his mouth a spell to get the teeth out, and then we gave him a bone with some meat on, and he began to gnaw the bone, and the teeth come off the plate, and he thought it was pieces of the bone, and he swallowed the teeth.”

Sadly, True Williams was an alcoholic who died in Chicago in 1897 at age 58 of an aortic aneurysm.

Other books in the series were illustrated by artists George Frick (listed as “C. Frick” in The Grocery Man and Peck’s Bad Boy, 1883) and Louis F. Braunhold (Peck’s Bad Boy With the Circus, 1905). Braunhold was known for his detailed Civil War etchings. The best-known illustrator of Peck’s books, however, was likely Charles Lederer.

Self-portrait by Charles Lederer
[Source: Wikimedia]

Charles Lederer illustrated Peck’s Bad Boy in an Airship (1908). One of the most brilliant newspaper cartoonists and caricaturists of his day, he was associated with the Chicago Herald for many years. Lederer was the highest paid newspaper artist in the country, and was a writer himself. He published the well-known Lederer Art Course, “A Complete, Simplified System of Drawing, Design, Cartooning and Colour Work” that was advertised nationally. Lederer died in 1925 at the age of 68.

Illustration by Charles Lederer, from Peck's Bad Boy in an Airship, 1908

Peck’s Bad Boy and His Pa was first published in March 1883 and originally sold for $1.00. It was an immediate success. Within six weeks of publication, 200,000 copies were sold.

Advertisement for Peck's Bad Boy and His Pa

Several editions followed, and multiple publishers produced subsequent works by George Peck, including The Grocery Man and Peck’s Bad Boy (1883), Peck’s Bad Boy Abroad (1905), The Adventures of Peck’s Bad Boy (1906), Peck’s Bad Boy with the Circus (1906), Peck’s Bad Boy with the Cowboys (1907), and Peck’s Bad Boy in an Airship (1908).

Comedy troupes in the 1890s adapted the stories to the stage, and the Bad Boy went on to movies, board games, comic books, magic lantern slides, and the theatres.

A 1921 movie starred Jackie Coogan (a year after starring in Chaplin’s The Kid).

Movie poster, 1921

A 1934 movie starred Jackie Cooper, and another film was made in 1938. Viewers expecting the wit of George W. Peck will be disappointed; these stories are only loosely based on the Peck franchise, and bare little resemblance to the original sketches. The Bad Boy isn’t even bad.

The humourist George Wilbur Peck, looking humourless.
[Source: Wikipedia] 

George Peck was a popular politician in addition to being a publisher and author. In 1890 he was elected mayor of Milwaukee, and was governor of Wisconsin in 1894. He retired from public life after being defeated for a third term as governor.

Peck reestablished The Sun in 1899, but folded operations a year later, blaming cheaper magazines and daily papers. He turned his attention to writing more Bad Boy books.

Peck was also a businessman and real estate entrepreneur. As president of the San Pedro Rubber Plantation Company of Milwaukee, he planned to develop rubber production in Mexico. In 1911 he became treasurer of Independence Life of America.

He died at age 75 in 1916 of Bright’s (kidney) disease.

Civil war veteran, publisher, author, freemason, mayor, governor, entrepreneur. As accomplished as he was, George Peck will always be best known for Peck’s Bad Boy.

= = = = =

The book remains a popular read and is an interesting study in American literature of the age. Access the full, illustrated text of Peck’s Bad Boy and His Pa at any of these links:

https://archive.org/search.php?query=Peck%27s%20Bad%20Boy%20and%20His%20Pa 
::  A scan of an original 1900 edition
::  Illustrations by True Williams

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015091100027;view=1up;seq=130
::  A scan of an 1893 edition, downloadable as a PDF
::  Illustrations by True Williams

http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/25487
::  New typesetting
::  HTML, Kindle and other file formats available
::  Illustrations by Gean Smith (1883)

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Russell Samuel Reid

Russell Samuel Reid

February 6, 1900 - July 4, 1967

Adapted from Far Spread the Sparks from Cantire, by Mary McKay
Additional photos from the State Historical Society of North Dakota

Dad's cousin, Russell Samuel Reid, was the third son of Peter Reid and Henrietta Balfour. He was born at the family farm near Hannah, North Dakota, on February 6, 1900. His father settled in Cavalier County in 1886 and his mother arrived there in 1889. The family moved to Langdon in Cavalier County in 1905 and then to Bismarck in 1913 where Russell graduated from high school.

Peter Reid's four sons: L-R: Russell, Austin, Neil, with Sterling in front

Russell was the quietest of the boys, he studied and thought out problems quietly by himself. From his childhood he was interested in nature. He was the only one of the boys who knew when he was very young, what was to be his life’s work. When he was four or five he began to collect pictures of birds and animals. He maintained his interest in nature, especially birds, all his life.

Russell was never very strong. When he was twelve years old, he was ill all winter and lost a year of school. He completed his schooling in Bismarck and graduated from Bismarck High School when he was nineteen years old.

Russell found his first beaver dam when the family moved to Bismarck. Here were many more shore birds and he travelled many miles with his dog and gun. He gave up hunting with a gun and began hunting with his brother Austin’s camera. He covered the area around Hay Creek and Apple Creek, did considerable trapping but gave up trapping when a very young man. His interests were entirely to preserve and protect wild creatures and birds.

Russell studied and thought out his problems quietly by himself. He could take the engine of his motorcycle or the old Dodge apart and put them together again, then with his long, slender fingers tint pictures or slides.

L-R: George Will, Sr., Clell Gannon, and Russell Reid sit near the Missouri River.  
[Source: State Historical Society of North Dakota]

About the years 1922-23, George Will, Clell Gannon and Russell had a boat built and named it “Hugh Glass.” They shipped it to Medora by train and they made great preparations getting ready for a trip starting on the Little Missouri. They did have some dangerous and harrowing experiences coming down the Missouri River and good times, too, and took many fine pictures all along the way. Such a trip was an undertaking for experienced river men, which they were not. Russell could not even swim. They had made maps and they knew where they were coming down the river and they wrote a very accurate report of their trip. They had a good time and had something to talk about for a long time.

Russell’s health did not permit him to go to college. He had the opportunity of going to George Washington University while his older brother, Neil, was there, but decided not to. Instead he got his education out of old books about nature, travels and history. He continued to build up a good library which was worth about $3,000.

A car fords the Little Missouri River at the south unit of the Theodore Roosevelt State Park near Medora.
Photo by Russell Reid, 1935.
[Source: State Historical Society of North Dakota]

He had a wonderful memory and could tell the exact date of any important thing that happened years ago.

Captain Roald Amundsen stands in front of Theodore Roosevelt's Maltese Cross cabin while it was on the state capital grounds in Bismarck. Photo by Russell Reid, May 11, 1925.
[Source: State Historical Society of North Dakota]

While his two older brothers were serving in the army in France, Russell was accidentally shot by a friend. His mother gives this account:

“Russell visited his trap line every Saturday and often he invited boys to come and stay with him all night. He had the whole attic for his bedroom and they all slept there. One day Russell was showing the boys an old Civil War gun given him by Mr. Andrew Munson who had dug it up from a Soo Railway track. It was rusted clear though. Russell was holding the gun high showing the boys when one of the boys picked up Russell’s 22 rifle and began pointing around the room and he turned and pointed it at Russell and pulled the trigger. The gun was not supposed to be loaded but the bullet went through Russell’s left wrist, through his lung, scarcely missing his heart. He was able to come downstairs, open the kitchen door where I was making their lunch and said: “Mama, I am shot.” I helped him to a chair and ran over to the office to tell his dad. We both ran back. I thought he was dying as he could not speak. He was hurried to the St. Alexis Hospital. They had been phoned and were waiting for us and was taken to the X-ray room. Doctor Roan said if there was no serious hemorrhaging he would get well. However he did hemorrhage once, as Russell never had been very strong. He was a long time getting over this. He was sick most all winter and lost another year of school.”

By spring Russell was feeling much better but not very strong and he was restless and wanted some work to do. He was offered some work with the county surveyor, Mr. T. R. Atkinson. The fresh air and the interesting work did much for him. In 1922 he got a position with Doctor Gilmore in the museum for a time. Sometime later he became assistant librarian and had charge of the children’s room. In 1928 Doctor Gilmore offered him a permanent position as curator. In 1929 he became superintendent of the Historical Society which office he held until 1965. For the next two years he held the position of historian and superintendent emeritus until his retirement on July 1, 1967, only three days before his death.

Russell Reid looked after his mother, Henrietta (Balfour) Reid

As a young man he never took part in any social affairs but stayed mostly at home. He shared his whole life with his mother who died only four years before him. The following quotes from her family story show the closeness of their relationship.

“I have been told that Russell’s collection of Badland scenes, historic sites, animals and birds and nests pictures are the best in the state of North Dakota. At that time they appeared in many newspapers, wild life magazines and school pamphlets. He still is a number one photographer but has not the time. No one but a photographer knows what it is to take pictures of wild life and wild flowers, waiting for the sun to be just right, the wind to go down, or wading the sloughs. I went with him on one trip to the lake at McKenzie to take pictures. We took our lunch and were there all day. Russell said you won’t like it mother but I assured him I would. I did not see much of him, he was behind the rushes and grasses; at nine o’clock it was almost dark and I could see a speck away across the water. It was Russell and I said guess we better go home, the mosquitoes are here by the thousands and horse flies. That was my last trip. He did get some good pictures, the patience he was waiting for birds to come back to the nest. The taking of rattle snakes, very close to them, are in his collection. Clell Gannon was with Russell on some of his trips and they did have a lot in common and took many pictures and developed them.

Clell Gannon atop a rock formation near Grassy Butte, North Dakota. Photo by Russell Reid, 1923.
[Source: State Historical Society of North Dakota]

“One trip I remember when he was about 20 years old he took the bicycle and went down to Sibley Island to spend the say. A terrible hail and rain storm had come up and he could not ride the bike home but had to push it 6 or 7 miles and most of the way home. He was so work out and tired I began taking off his shoes and stockings. He leaned back in his chair and said, ‘Oh, Mother, I had a good time today.’ ‘What did you do that you had such a good time?’ He said, “saw 6 or 7 big bull snakes.’ That was to him, a good time.

“Russell did have a great life in those early ’20s driving around on his new Harley Davidson motorcycle. I went with him on many trips and was comfortable in the side car, catching up or passing slow trains, it was like sailing in the air.

“Russell had known Usher L. Burkick for some time and he got the address of Duke de Vallombrosa’s in France. Russell had in mind getting some of the relics from the Marquis de More’s chateau. The Duke came to the United States and came on to Bismarck and gave the old chateau and all the possessions to the Historical Society, sending pieces of old furniture from France. He has been in Bismarck several times and stayed with us overnight. He was a sick, depressed and unhappy man as France had fallen to the Germans and he was anxious about his son in the French army. A very fine gentleman, Russell got to know him very well and will ever be grateful to him for giving the old home of his father and mother to the care and custody of the Historical Society. This was another highlight in Russell’s life. He had hoped for many years to have a building at Fort Abraham Lincoln. Through the W.P.A. work they did have a marker placed at the old building, block houses a stockade and a very fine stone structure, the museum, also picnic grounds. Another state park is situated at Arvilla, called Turtle River State Park and has cabins for tourists.

The Chateau de Mores in Medora. Photo by Russell Reid, 1942.
[Source: State Historical Society of North Dakota]

One of the highlights of Russell’s life was when he got a letter from Ernest Thompson Seton asking him to be his assistant and drive his car to the northwestern part of the country. He was given two months’ leave of absence by the Historical Board of Directors. With the party was Dr. Clyde Fisher and his wife, Mrs. Ray Buttrey, Seton’s secretary, Carol Stryker, Long Island, New York, and Miss Helen Saunders who was learning the sign languages. They left early July going by way of Fort Yates. It was a great experience for Russell. This expedition went as far as Arizona and New Mexico. They saw some wonderful country, climbed Long’s Peak in Colorado, witnessed several Indian religious dances, met some of the Indians, saw them weaving by hand the Navajo rugs and the making of pottery, brought some of their jewelry and baskets home. When their trip was almost at an end they were disbanding when Russell took seriously ill with typhoid fever. He was determined to come home and the health officer gave him permission to take the train home. How he ever stood the long journey the doctors said it was a terrible risk as well as terrible punishment for Russell. Carol Stryker brought him as far as Chicago and Clell Gannon went to meet him there. Not very long after this trip he was appointed Superintendent of the Society.

North Dakota Governor Norman Brunsdale, Joe Fleck, and Russell Reid with a 1904 Cadillac at the State Historical Society Museum, Bismarck, between 1951 and 1957.
[Source: State Historical Society of North Dakota]

Russell was superintendent of the State Historical Society of North Dakota from 1930 until 1965 and was editor of North Dakota History for 20 years. Even after his retirement he remained superintendent emeritus until July 1 1967, only three days before his death. After a short illness he died July 4, 1967. He was 67 years old.

Russell Reid was modest, steadfast, co-operative, very much a man of good counsel and of his word. He was the son who stayed home, shared his mother’s interest in growing gladiolus and gourds and cared for her in her old age. Despite the occasional stammer, he was a good conversationalist and a good story teller, not too retiring to give any asker the benefit of a remarkable store of North Dakota lore, ready at tongue-tip.

Russell Reid cuts the ribbon to open the Pembina Museum, July 4, 1962.  
[Source: State Historical Society of North Dakota]

This newspaper article praises him highly for his contribution to North Dakota’s state heritage.

29 Years on Job, University to Honor N.D. Historian 

by Ted Kolderie, Minneapolis Tribune Staff Writer 

GRAND FORKS, N.D. – “What else is a historian but a man who collects history?” 

By this definition – his own – Russell Reid is North Dakota’s No. 1 historian. In his 29 years as keeper of the state’s public attic he has stored away everything from Indian arrowheads to huge steam tractors.

A Red River ox cart. Photo by Russell Reid, November 28, 1923.
[Source: State Historical Society of North Dakota]

His collections now fill 17 rooms of the state museum and a couple of small warehouses beside. 

For his devoted work, the tall, quiet superintendent of the State Historical Society is to receive an honorary doctor of humanities degree at commencement exercises at the University of North Dakota here this afternoon.

His object, Reid explained last week, is to preserve an example of almost anything that people who have lived in North Dakota have used.

He has a small armory of rifles and hand guns, and a full line of agricultural implements. He subscribes to every daily and weekly newspaper in the state. He has saved coffee grinders, vacuum cleaners and radios.

“People are too intent on looking backward,” Reid said. “You have to anticipate what things we’re using now that may be of historical importance in the future.” His collection of lamps, for example, includes the latest variety of fluorescent tubes as well as the pioneer’s candles.

His policy is simple: “If in doubt about an article, save it.”

Reid was born in 1900 on a farm in Cavalier county. He came to Bismarck in 1913 where he finished public school. He began as an assistant in the state museum in 1918, became curator in 1923 and took the post of superintendent in 1929.

A bachelor, he lives with his mother in a small house on Twelfth Street in Bismarck.

From his office in the Liberal Memorial building, on the lush green lawn such south of the state capitol, Reid also supervises North Dakota’s 4,390-acre state park system.

State Historical Society staff members Russell Reid and Margaret Rose in the Liberty Memorial Building in Bismarck, circa 1937.  [Source: State Historical Society of North Dakota]

Originally concerned largely with the preservation of historic sites, the system is now moving more and more toward recreation as a primary purpose.

Only a handful of state employees surpass Reid in length of service. He has the kind of relationship with the legislature that every administrator dreams of. “If Russell Reid asks for this appropriation, he needs it,” is the attitude. “He spends every dollar as if it were his own,” one state official remarked.

A modest – almost shy – man, Reid seldom argues out a disagreement. He is more likely to begin, in Socratic fashion, a series of quiet questions that makes his point more effectively.

His personal interests in history are in Indian life, the fur trade, early navigation on the Missouri river and in the beginnings of railroading on the plains.

He writes occasionally, and once taught a short course in North Dakota history. But basically, he said, his job as a historian is to gather artifacts, household objects, tools, documents, photographs, newspapers, interviews – everything that goes to form the record of life in North Dakota.

“If historical societies didn’t collect things,” he said, “the people who write and interpret history wouldn’t have anything to write about."

=====

Russell Reid's death was noted in several newspapers.

Russell Reid, 67, Dies; 36 Years State Historian

An era in North Dakota history and the preservation of the state's heritage came to an end Sunday night with the death of Russell Reid in a Bismarck Hospital. 

Death came to Reid, who spent his last 50 years in the service of the state, at 9:15 p.m. Sunday. He was 67 years old.  

His efforts as superintendent of the State Historical Society helped bring about the creation of Theodore Roosevelt National Memorial Park, the Chateau de Mores Historic site, the International Peace Garden and the establishment of numerous other historic sties across the state. He served as state historian for 36 years. 

Reid, a native North Dakotan, was born in Hannah, February 6, 1900. His family moved to Langdon in 1905 and to Bismarck in 1913. While he was attending Bismarck High School, Reid went to work for the State Historical Society as a library and museum assistant. 

Following graduation from high school, Reid worked as a rod man for an engineering firm. He worked for the Bismarck Public Library for two years and then in the summer of 1922 he went back to the historical society. In 1928 he was named curator of the Historical Society Museum. 

When the superintendent resigned in 1929, Reid took over that position and held it until July 1, 1965. He held the position of historian and superintendent emeritus from that time until his retirement on July 1, 1967. 

In 1954, he was awarded the Pugsley silver medal for outstanding achievement in state park development and historic site preservation. The medal was presented by the American Scenic and Historical Society. 

He served as editor of the North Dakota Historical Quarterly from 1945 to 1965. He was the first vice president of the International Peace Garden, Inc., and a founder of the Missouri Slope Izaak Walton League. 

Reid was a member of the National Conference of State Parks and a senior fellow of the American Institute of Park Executives. 

In 1958 he received an honorary Doctor of Humanities degree from the University of North Dakota. 

Reid was honored at a testimonial dinner at the Municipal Country Club only a month ago, with friends and admirers from throughout the state speaking admiringly of him and his work for the state. 

He was the guest of honor at another testimonial banquet in Bismarck 18 years ago. 

He also contributed much to Bismarck, serving on the Bismarck Public Library board, the Bismarck Hospital board of trustees and the Girl Scout executive board. He was a member of the Rotary Club, the Bismarck Art Association the Garden Club and the First Presbyterian Church. 

Considered the No. 1 authority on many aspects of North Dakota history and on its scenic and historic sites, Reid was regarded as the principal author of efforts to preserve this historic heritage.

Clipping from Annie Reid's scrapbook

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Peter and Christena Reid

The Peter Reid Story

(abridged from Far Spread the Sparks from Cantire by Mary MacKay)

Peter Reid was born April 18, 1829 in the parish of Saddell, Kintyre, Argyllshire, Scotland, the only son of Peter Reid and Mary McGeachie. His father’s name appears in the Edinburg registry as Patrick Rid married to Mary McGeachy, with three children, Margaret, Mary and Peter. 

The Reid home in Kintyre was called Upper Ugadale. The upper slopes of their main farm sloped steeply to the coast road and the sea.

Peter and his two sisters were left orphans at an early age. His father was the skipper of a ship, presumably a small one, used to bring cattle from Ayrshire across the Clyde estuary to Kintyre. It is probable also that this ship was used in the herring fisheries of Loch Fyne which extends to the north. The waters of the Firth of Clyde, especially the part near Kintyre called Kilbrannon Sound, can be dangerous in a storm because of the rocky shores about three miles apart. There are no good harbours except Campbeltown.

On his last fateful journey, Peter’s father was returning to his home port, probably Carradale or Campbeltown, when his ship foundered at the foot of the slope below Upper Ugadale. It sank in the storm within sight of Peter’s mother who was watching anxiously from the shore. Mary McGeachie was left with three small children. No doubt that experience was a great shock which may have contributed to her early death, however the immediate cause is not known.

Campbeltown, Kintyre

Peter and his two sisters were brought up by an aunt in Campbeltown. Letters between various relatives seem to indicate that the aunt, whose name we do not know, lacked means to support her adopted family, and no doubt there was every incentive for them all to become self-supporting as early as possible. As a result, Margaret and Mary each went off to work at an early age.

Margaret, Peter’s oldest sister, married Lachlan Bowie and became the mother of nine children. The family moved from Stirling to Lanark and later to Cumberland following the development of the coal and iron industries in those places. Margaret died of cancer in 1869.

Peter’s younger sister, Mary, married John Brown. After a year or two as tenant farmers at Dalvarven near Ardrossan, Ayrshire, they settled on his father’s holding at Shedock Farm, Shiskine, Isle of Arran, Buteshire, Scotland. Mary and John Brown had seven children.

Our ancestor, Peter Reid, grew up in his aunt’s home in Campbeltown. We believe that he attended school only a couple of years, which in the circumstances seems likely to be all the time he would have been allowed. Yet he learned to read and write English and could at least speak and read Gaelic. His Gaelic bible is well thumbed and, not surprisingly, much blackened by daily use. His letters, in English, were written quite legibly and well expressed; but briefly, and of course they are few since he probably wrote little except when it was necessary to correspond with the Old Country. His day book containing entries from 1878 to 1892 is legible and clean, showing a command of arithmetic and accounting sufficient for the need.

The main feature of his education, of course, was his apprenticeship as a blacksmith. At that time, any apprenticeship required seven years. Peter was apparently apprenticed to a blacksmith at Tayinloan, a small village on the west side of Kintyre. 

Our pioneer fore-father came to Canada as a young man in his twenties single, and as a journeyman blacksmith, looking for employment. It would be natural for him to go to Paisley, Ontario, and to Elderslie where the names Taylor, Blue, Muir, Stewart, McAllister, McNeil, McDonald and Munn must have made him feel very much at home. 

Peter’s employment at Paisley was with J. B. McArthur, blacksmith and carriage-maker. He must have spent at least a year or two here. In 1860 he married Christina Taylor, whom he had known as a child in Scotland.

The Christena Taylor Story

Christena Taylor was born on a croft called Monielea near the village of Clachan on the west side of the Kintyre Peninsula, Scotland. She was the youngest of six children born to Alexander Taylor and his wife, Margaret Walker. The family were tenant crofters or farmers on Monielea, seventeen acres of wet land, a triangle, now forested. They lived in a very humble dwelling that was part of a large area presumably controlled by the Duke of Argyll. Along with other residents, the Taylors were encouraged (perhaps an understatement) to leave their Argyllshire homes; the Campbells, Dukes of Argyll, wanted the land for other purposes.

Unlike Peter, who came to Canada leaving his two sisters behind, Christena came with her parents and older sister Margaret, who was about 30, and three brothers, Donald, 28, John, 23, and Neil, 20. None of the family was married, probably due to lack of money to establish a home.

Christina (Taylor) Reid with her brothers Donald (front), Neil and John

In 1851 or 1852, the Alexander Taylor family left their Kintyre home, along with their neighbours, the Blues. After six stormy weeks on the Atlantic, the sailboat Melissa reached Quebec. Christena Taylor could not remember very much about how they travelled up the St. Lawrence and arrived at King Township in York County. They evidently stayed for a period in King Township, probably with Scottish settlers who had preceded them. We have no information about how they reached Owen Sound. From there they made their way on foot through the Queen’s Bush to Elderslie, Bruce County, where some land had been selected for them by John Gillies, a relative.

The Taylors and the Blues spent a few weeks in a shelter formed by leaning strips of bark against a fallen tree. Shanties and log buildings came later. Elderslie Township was surveyed in 1851. The farms were claimed very quickly and in 1854 the government held a historic land sale at which time settlers received deeds for lands on which they had been living as squatters.

Peter and Christena had known each other back in Kintyre

Peter Reid and Christena Taylor were married in St. Andrew’s Church, Paisley, Ontario, by Rev. Mr Bremner in 1860. They spent the first year of their married life in Erin, Ontario, where we believe Peter Reid was employed as a blacksmith during railway construction. It was here that their first child, Mary Reid, was born on October 22, 1861. Soon after they returned to Elderslie and made their home on Lot 13, Con. 5, beside her brother John. Peter set up his forge in the shop beside the “burn” (or Struan) of Cantire Creek, close to the road where he practiced his trade for many years. It was in the house near the blacksmith shop that the next eight children, Margaret (1863), Peter (1866), Tena (1868), Sandy (1870), Neil (1872), Donald (1875), Kate (1873) and Annie (1881) were born. In the early 1880s that house was replaced by a solid brick dwelling to the east and south of the original one. A large timber frame barn was built and Peter’s shop was moved closer to the house and barn. It now serves as a shop and implement shed.

The Reid farm, Ontario

For almost four decades Peter Reid served the community by shoeing horses, repairing implements, setting tires, etc. Most of the work was horse shoeing and other jobs related to everyday operations on the farm.

Patrons very often paid for their work not in money but in goods or services; for example, Peter’s day book notes that two bushels of oats were credited toward horse shoeing; a side of pork helped to pay for fitting a set of harrows with teeth. 

In 1894 Peter Reid made his only excursion to his native Scotland where he visited numerous friends and relatives. His sister Margaret Bowie had died in 1869, but her family was there.

It was fortunate that Peter made his trip to Scotland because he died the following February, 1895, at the age of sixty-six.

From the Paisley Advocate

February 7, 1895

The community was shocked on Tuesday morning upon learning of the death of Mr. Peter Reid of Elderslie. The deceased was taken ill with influenza about ten days before and the disease rapidly developed into pleurisy and pneumonia which could not be checked, and death claimed him on Monday night. The funeral took place yesterday.

At the time of his death his three oldest children were married. Mary (Mrs. Robert Muir) lived in Turnberry Township. Margaret (Mrs. George Muir) and Peter (m. Henrietta Balfour) were homesteading in North Dakota. His second son, Sandy, also in North Dakota, did not marry (Nettie Muir) until three years later. His fifth child, Tena, married (Jim Moffat) two years after her father’s death and also went to North Dakota to live. Neil, Donald, Kate and Annie were all at home. When they did leave, Neil (m. Agnes Aitken) lived on lot 1, Concession 12, Elderslie, Donald (m. Clara MacIntyre) took over the home place. The youngest, Annie (Mrs. Peter Fraser), went west to Hannah, North Dakota, and eventually moved to Pilot Mound, Manitoba after her marriage in 1916.

The Later Years of Christena Taylor Reid

Christena Reid, who was approximately ten years younger than her husband, survived him by almost three decades. No doubt the early years of her married life were strenuous ones when she had to participate and direct work in the fields while her husband plied the hammer and tongs at the anvil. However, in her mature years she lived among her sons’ and daughters’ families but chiefly in the Reid home on Lot 13. She was a gentle, white haired lady who had interesting stories to relate about her youth, and who spoke good English with the accent of one whose first language was the soft lilting Gaelic. That was the normal language of the Reid household in the early years. Her oldest daughter, Mary Reid, spoke Gaelic until she started school.

Four generations, 1916. Margaret (Reid) Muir (at right) with grandson George Trann and her daughter Christina (standing), with Christina (Taylor) Reid, on a visit west.

Christena Reid lived to enjoy four visits in Dakota with her sons’ and daughters’ families there. On one of them she and Mary, her oldest daughter, attended the wedding of her youngest daughter, Annie, to Peter Fraser in 1916. She travelled to Winnipeg by train and then continued south to Hannah, N.D.

The wedding of Pete Fraser and Annie Reid, at the home of James and Tena Moffatt, North Dakota

Christena Reid died May 28, 1925, in her eighty-seventh year.

Far from their ancestral Argyllshire, Peter Reid and Christina Taylor were laid to rest in the little rural St. Andrew's Cemetery, on the fourth concession of Elderslie, less than three miles east of their Canadian home, where they had brought up their family, and made their worthy contribution to their adopted country during its pioneer era. 

Raise a toast to Campbeltown with Andy Stewart, a favourite singer of Annie Reid's:

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