LEDINGHAM, George

21.
We now come to the last member of the original Skene Square family of
Ledinghams - George. Like his brothers John and William, he also was
connected with the loom and weaving industry, in the early part of the
eighteenth (19th ?) century.

22.
At that time America was forging ahead and required skilled men for its
weaving looms and mills, and George Ledingham infected by the spirit of
the times, about the year 1830, decided to go to America. He crossed the
Atlantic in a sailing vessel, landed at Boston, and found his way to
Clinton, Massachusetts. He was an energetic, progressive Scotsman, one
of the early settlers of American life.
23.
He worked for a short time in the mills of New England, but finally
decided to become a farmer and purchased a farm about three miles from
Leominster, and there carried on a dairy farm. He sold his produce in
the towns of Clinton and Leominster, and on a part of his holding he
planted an orchard and grew apples which were exported to England.
24.
A far cry from a weaver to a farmer, but he became a successful man in
the farming life of New England.
25.
After about forty years residence there, he returned on a visit to
Scotland and came to Aberdeen for a holiday. It was a great delight to
him to visit the town of his early years, but pleasure was mingled with
regret at the disappearance of many of the old landmarks and haunts of
his boyhood days. A new city had arisen, finer and grander than the one
that remained in his recollections.
26.
At this time he was sixty-six years of age. After a short visit in
Aberdeen he journeyed to the South of Scotland to visit some friends,
thereafter he returned to the land of his adoption, but this trip was
made on a steam ship and in record time compared with his first voyage on
the sailing vessel. After a stormy passage he landed safe and well, and
thereafter remained on the American side, where he
resided for the rest of his life. He was predeceased by his wife, and
lived to a great age, and died one of the pioneer settlers of America.