114 Notices concerning Oxnam Parish. By J. Hardy. 



Rickletown, in the Parish of Oxnam, Roxburghshire, in the beginning of 

 last century, whose children were the following : — 1 Robert, 2 Jane, 3 

 Janet, 4 William, 5 Richard, 6 Henry. 



1. Robert was the father of the celebrated George Stephenson. The year 



of his birth is unknown, as it is not to be found in the Parish 

 Register, which is not perfectly complete, although all the rest of 

 the family names appear. The traditional genealogy of the 

 family in other respects is corroborated in all essential particulars 

 in the Oxnam Parish Records, as examined by me lately, in the 

 General Register Office, Edinburgh. Robert crossed the Border 

 from Oxnam, in search of work at the Northumbrian coal mines, 

 and there his son George was born and was employed in early 

 life. It is possible that when he left home his brother William 

 accompanied him. It is not known by Harry Stephenson where 

 Robert came in the order of the births of the children, but he 

 knows he was his father's uncle. 



2. Jane was born at Rickletown, and baptised June 16, 1736. She probably 



died shortly after, as 



3. Janet was born at Rickletown, and baptised June 1, 1738. 



4. William was born at Rickletown, and baptised May 5, 1740. Nothing 



is known of any descendants of this son. He may have died in 

 youth, or never married. 



5. Richard, bora at Rickletown, was baptised May 16, 1742. Some of his 



descendants are known and still survive. 

 0. Henry, born at Bloodylaws, was baptised Feby. 27, 1745. The family 

 must have removed from Riccalton to Bloodylaws between the 

 birth of Richard and Henry. He lived at a place called Brow- 

 house, or Browhead, now removed, and there Henry his son, the 

 tailor whom I remember, was born on the 24th Nov. 1776, whose 

 son and daughter are now living at Hundalee. 

 Communication between Robert, or Bob Stephenson, and his Oxnam Water 

 relatives, was maintained for many years — not by letter, but by verbal mes- 

 sages transmitted through the medium of the Pack-horse men, who travelled 

 through Oxnam Parish between the Northumberland coal-pits and the 

 border towns, bringing what was familiarly known as ' O'er-the-Fell' Coals 

 in creels on the backs of horses. In my school-boy days strings of these 

 Pack Horses used to come to Jedburgh regularly, consisting of horses and 

 ponies, with the bags filled with coals laid across their backs. There was 

 then an Inn in the High Street, named ' The Pack Horse,' the landlady 

 of which, an elderly respectable widow, named Jean Halliburton, was 

 known to all the inhabitants of the town as ' Jean o' the Pack.' 



It is worthy of remark that the late Jonah Davidson, father of the gifted 

 ' Scottish Probationer,' succeeded George Stephenson's grandfather, after 

 the interval of a century, as shepherd at Bloodylaws, next farm to 

 Oxnam Row, and both now occupied by John Simson, Esq., and also at 

 Riccalton, now farmed by Mr Simson's cousin. 



DAVTD JERDAN. 

 Dalkeith, Dec. 24, 1885. 



