28 The Green at Aberdeen. Lona. I. 
ters at Cupar. During that time, John’ Edward’s wife and 
family resided at the village of Kettle, about six miles south- 
west of the county town. They lived there because John 
was a native of the place, and had many relatives in the 
village. 
At length the militia were disembodied. Edward re- 
turned to Kettle, and resumed his trade of a hand-loom 
linen-weaver. After remaining there for some time, he re- 
solved to leave for Aberdeen. His wife liked neither the 
place nor the people. Kettle was a long, straggling, sleepy 
village. The people were poor, and employment was diffi- 
cult to be had. Hence Edward did not require much per- 
suasion to induce him to leave Kettle and settle in Aber- 
deen, where his wife would be among her own people, and 
where he would be much more likely to find work and 
wages to enable him to maintain his increasing family. 
Arrived at Aberdeen, John Edward and his wife “took 
up house” in the Green, one of the oldest quarters of the 
city. Their house was situated at the foot of Rennie’s 
Wynd, near Hadden’s “Woo mill.” There was really a 
Green in those days, lower down the hill. The Denburn 
ran at the foot of the Green. There were also the Inches, 
near the mouth of the Dee, over which the tide flowed 
daily. 
Since then the appearance of that part of Aberdeen has 
become entirely changed. Railways have blotted out many 
of the remnants of old cities.*¥ The Green is now covered 
* Some antiquarian writers are of opinion that the Green was 
the site of ancient Aberdeen. For instance, Sir Sathuel Forbes, of 
Foveran, in his “Description of Aberdeenshire” (17]5), says, “ From 
the end of the last-mentioned straight street [the Upper Kirkgate], 
there runs another southward and obliquely [the Nether Kirkgate], 
leading also to the town churches, and terminates in a pretty broad 
street, lying flat, and called the Green, the seat of the ancient city; 
where the river Dee receives a small rivulet, called the Denburn, 
covered with a bridge of three arches.” —Turrerrs’s Antiquarian 
Gleanings, p. 290. 
