40 AI^EXANDER WIIvSON : POET-NATURAUST 



families and sixty-six looms ; not an unusual condi- 

 tion of affairs when compared with other parts of 

 the town. 



The Wilsons were originally a Lochwinnoch 

 family and were devoted Covenanters, but in the 

 time of Alexander's great-grandfather they were 

 driven by the persecutions of the day from Renfrew- 

 shire and found a refuge in Campbeltown in the 

 southern part of Argyleshire. 



Alexander Wilson, Sr., the father of the orni- 

 thologist, seems to have returned early in his life 

 to his family's native shire, where he settled in 

 Paisley and took up the occupation of weaving. He 

 was born in 1728, and was a man of hardy, robust 

 type, stern and taciturn perhaps, but a true Scot. 

 In addition to his legitimate trade of weaving, the 

 elder Wilson undoubtedly carried on a distillery of 

 his own, which did not come within the sanction of 

 the law. This distillery, we are told, was situated 

 in his garden, and in order to work it successfully, 

 more or less smuggling had to be carried on. 



The biographers of the distinguished son have 

 been wont to slur over, or attempt to throw doubts 

 upon, this fact in the life of the father, or else to 

 hold up their hands in pious surprise, for otherwise 

 he led a worthy and most godly life. But a little 

 study of this interesting period in Scotland will 

 quite do away with the necessity of any confusion 

 on this point or with any appearance of hypocrisy 

 on Wilson's part. The old man himself would have 

 been the last to blush from any sense of wrong- 

 doing. Smuggling and the illicit distilling of 

 whiskey were at this time considered very honorable 



