A Gentleman whom indigence never solicited in vain.
February, 1806.
EVER green be the sod o'er kind Tom o the wood,
For the puir man he ever supplied ;
We may weel say, alas ! for our ain scant o grace,
That we reckt not his worth till he died;
Though no rich marble bust mimics grief o'er his dust,
Yet fond memory his virtue will save.
Aft at lane twilicht hour sad remembrance shall pour
Her sorrows, unfeigned, o'er his grave.
This Epitaph first appeared in 1806 in Mayer's Gleaner, page 132. See Note to No. 5.—Ed.
Note by Ramsay.—“This benevolent individual still survives. The allusion in the first line is to Ferguslie Wood, which is elsewhere celebrated as a favourite haunt of the Author's.”
In the same year—1756—that the four brothers, James, Thomas, Robert, and John Tannahill, weavers, came from Kilmarnock to Paisley; two brothers, Thomas and Alexander Bissland, wrights, came from Drymen to Paisley. Thomas Bissland was successful in business; and, in 1760, entered into the Baltic trade with the Laird of Merksworth, under the firm of Maxwell and Bissland, and, in 1771, contracted a matrimonial alliance with Margaret Kibble, daughter of William Kibble of Whiteford. He acquired about thirty acres of the Whiteford Estate in 1785, and built a mansion house in a castellated style of architecture, and called the place “Auchentorlie.” This house was taken down in 1828. His only son, Thomas Bissland, born 29th March, 1772 (the subject of the epitaph), on coming of age, entered into partnership with the husband of his eldest sister, William Stuart, and another person, as merchants and cotton-spinners. In 1798, Thomas Bissland, junior, purchased a few acres of the lands of Ferguslie with a house built thereon, upon which he made alterations and additions in the same castellated style as Auchentorlie mansion. He was married at Edinburgh on the 5th November, the same year, to Miss Margaret White Houston, eldest daughter of Captain Andrew Houston, Esq. of Jordanhill, and it was considered at the time he had married above his station. Shortly thereafter, William Stuart purchased from Captain Houston (Mrs. Bissland's father) his lands of Gryfe Castle, in the Parish of Houston. The Captain, however, like all discreet fathers-in-law, became reconciled to his son-in-law, and resided in family with him at Ferguslie; and an obituary notice states that Lieutenant-Colonel Andrew Houston of Jordanhill died at Ferguslie, near Paisley, on lst October, 1800, much and justly regretted. Another obituary notice states that Mrs. Margaret Kibble, wife of Mr. Thomas Bissland, senior, merchant, Paisley, died on Sunday, 14th December, 1800, much regretted. Thomas Bissland succeeded his father in 1804, and designed himself of Auchentorlie. He was chosen one of the captains of the Renfrewshire Yeomanry Infantry. In 1806, he purchased the estate of Ferguslie, containing 156 acres, from the Corporation of Paisley, for £10,000, and then called himself of Ferguslie. The general distress of 1810 in commercial affairs affected the extensive business of Thomas Bissland & Co., and they yielded to the pressure of the times in 1811. Shortly thereafter, he received the appointment of Collector of Customs at Greenock, from which he retired about 1836 on an annuity, and left Greenock to reside with his son, the Rev. Thomas Bissland, Rector of Hartley, Alton, Hants. The son and father both died. at Hartley,—the former on 31st May, and the latter on 10th July, 1846,—and tablets were put up in the Church to their memories :—
"SACRED TO THE MEMORY OFTHOMAS BISSLAND, A. M.," ETC.
"ALSO TO THE MEMORY OF
THOMAS BISSLAND, ESQUIRE,
LATE OF GREENOCK, IN THE COUNTY OF RENFREW, N.B.
WHO SURVIVED THE ABOVE, HIS ONLY SON, SIX WEEKS,
AND DEPARTED THIS LIFE,
JULY 1OTH, 1846, AGED 72."
He was 74 according to the date of his birth above-noticed; and in the Register of Deaths for Hartley, his age is also entered at 74. No marble bust, not even a tombstone, marks the grave where "Kind Tom of the Wood" is buried in Hartley Churchyard. The family is now extinct.—Ed.
[Semple 63]