LEDINGHAM, Peter

15.
Another son of the older family, Peter Ledingham was a chain-maker to
trade. This was a thriving industry in the old days in Aberdeen, when
the wooden sailing ships were in vogue, those clippers that did such
marvellous work in building up not only the town and trade of Aberdeen,
but the history of the Empire itself. In those days the ship building
yards were hives of industry, and the harbours were full of vessels of
all tonnage, sloops, barques, and full-rigged ships which sailed to all
parts of the world. Hundreds of men were employed in the shipbuilding
yards, and it was a splendid sight
to watch the swarms of men and boys, in their white overalls, busy at
their work in the shipbuilding yards, in the early part of the eighteenth
(19th ?) century.
16.
Peter Ledingham lived to a fairly good old age, and died leaving no
family to follow in his footsteps or carry on his business as a
chain-maker, but, when the steamboat appeared on the ocean and in the
harboursof Aberdeen the industry became a small thing compared with what
it was in the days of the sailing ships . . .