TRANSCRIPT

A.B. ANDERSON
Robert Anderson used to write letters to George Washington and advise him how to run his plantation, he was a writer, he wrote a magazine called The Bee and he wrote a lot of letters about cultivation and the operation of George Washington's estate.

INTERVIEWER:
This was in Scotland or in Canada?

A.B. ANDERSON:
This was in Scotland, and his son went to Calcutta and he married there, I have forgotten her name, and quite a number of his children were born in Calcutta; and he went there and he grew jute. He made a lot of money, well after he'd made all his money he came back to London and he started to manufacture and manufacture bags for grain and he nearly went broke, so he came to Canada, he and his family, and I don't know whether you've ever noticed, just opposite the second gate into the Briars, there's an apple tree, there used to be a log cabin there and that's where he lived when he first came to Canada.

INTERVIEWER:
This is Robert Anderson's son?

A.B. ANDERSON:
Yes. Then after he left there he moved up to a place called Gowan Brae, that's the big house just this side of Ainslie Hill up on the right, Mrs. Teston lives there now, and my great-grandmother lived there. My grandfather James Anderson, Chief Factor of the Mackenzie River District, went down the river in search of Sir John Franklin. And he had a terrible time coming back because they had to wade through ice and water and after that he could hardly speak above a whisper. And he got a letter from Lady Franklin thanking him, and unfortunately we loaned it to the Toronto Historical Society and somebody cut the signature out of it.