THE PRENTICES

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE PRENTICES, A LITTLE NOBILITY IN THE FAMILY.

                                          

COVINGTON MAINS

Archibald Prentice ( 1734 - 1813 )was a "Farmer of Covington Mains, near Biggar, in Lanarkshire, whom (Robbie) Burns visited on 27th November 1786, en route for Edinburgh. There was a most agreeable little party in the evening. Burns stayed the night at Hillhead Farm, with Mr and Mrs Stodhart--described by Burns as glorious good fellow with a still more glorious wife--and Prentice joined them for breakfast on the 28th. Prentice was an admirer of the poet, and subscribed for twenty copies of the first Edinburgh Editon of his Poems.

 

David Prentice (1781 - 1826) A copied extract of a lease, dated 21 April 1801, for a field at High Hill (Windmill), Carluke, known as "Officer's Acre" indicates that David was a millwright in Covington. However, David immigrated to America in 1805 and established an iron foundry in Louisville, Kentucky in 1817 with Thomas Bakewell which was called the "Eagle Works." He was also a genius. It is said that he was the first one to place a steamboat on the Mississippi River. The U.S. government offered a reward for the best mechanical contrivance to remove snags or sawyers. He nearly completed a steam boat, connected by a strong beam to push them over down stream, when he died. His ideas and plans were taken up by another, who received the award. His will, probated 2 Oct 1826, names his wife Margaret and their children.

 

Archibald Prentice (1792 - 1857 ) After a brief period at school, Archibald Prentice was apprenticed at the age of 12 to a baker in Edinburgh, but the occupation proved incongenial. He was in the following year (1805) apprenticed to a woollen-draper in the Lawnmarket in Edinburgh. Here he remained for three years before going to Glasgow as a warehouse clerk for Thomas Grahame, a textile manufacturer, who was also the brother of James Grahame the poet. Archibald impressed this employer and in 1815, Thomas Grahame made him a partner and sent him to represent the business in Manchester, England.

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