From Kelso To Kalamazoo

George Taylor was raised as the son of a Scottish Borders shepherd. He trained as a nurseyman before going on to have a successful career as an award-wining gardener and forester in and around early nineteenth-century Kelso. At the age of fifty, he took the major decision to follow his brother to the United States.

Moving with his young family to Kalamazoo, Michigan, in 1853, Taylor once again established himself as a successful nurseryman and he was responsible for introducing celery cultivation to the state of Michigan. He was married four times; three of his wives died in childbirth.

As with so many of his nineteenth-century contemporaries, George Taylor was avid reader of newspapers and an extensive travellers, both before and after his emigration. He comments on matters of the day such as slavery, the Temperance Movement, and the Disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843. During his travels he encountered a woman claiming to have been the wife of the real Tam o' Shanter and experienced notable events such as the Great Fire of Chicago in 1871.

The account, handed down through George Taylor's family for over a hundred years, provides an all-to-rare direct testimony on the thoughts and experiences of an emigrant from Lowland Scotland. As such, George Taylor's memoir is not only a good read but is also of genuine historical value.