Author: Sutherland, William
Biography:
SUTHERLAND, William (b c. 1795: ancestry.co.uk)
Known as the Langton bard, he may have been the son of John Sutherland and was born at Coldstream, Berwickshire, in 1795. However, MSP give his place of birth as Gavinton, Berwickshire. MM says that his father was from the Highlands and had settled at Choicelea, near Gavinton, and his mother’s name was Ann Tait. He attended the parish school and was apprenticed to a joiner. He disliked carpentry and opened a grocery shop with a friend in Coldstream. This was unsuccessful and in about 1823 he emigrated to America where all trace of him was lost. He may have been the William Sutherland who married Hellen Mills in Coldstream in 1822. He was a contemporary of the poet Robert Mennon (b 1797; published Poems Moral and Religious in 1860); they wrote verse epistles to each other. (MM; MSP; ancestry.co.uk 5 Oct. 2020)