mortgage, a burden more grievous in that day than any income tax today. You do not have to pay taxes on what you do not make, you do have to pay interest on debts, whether you make it or not. And then, as now, one was not always successful in making it, but somehow in his case, it was made. At least the family crisis was delayed. As the mortgage, and all that went with it, played so large a role in the history of our immediate family, and directly and indirectly probably has influenced the whole course of its life more than any other single fact which might be mentioned, the writer will endeavor to deal with it, because in this instance, that which at the moment seemed to be an insurmountable burden turned out to be one of the family’s greatest assets. This fact came to be recognized by both father and mother, and in the end made them resigned to what they had to endure, as they were able to see the good that could come out of it. For this reason it is appropriate that all the descendants of James and Martha Elizabeth Murdock MacMillan know about this particular phase of our family history, and learn any lesson it may have to teach. But to get this larger picture, we will have to deal with Martha Elizabeth Murdock MacMillan, the wife of James MacMillan, whose lot it was to share with her husband in the events to be narrated, and helped to make this story the kind of story it is. Martha Elizabeth Murdock was said to have been one of the most beautiful young women in Greene County in her day. When James MacMillan married her, she was 24 years of age, and he was a bachelor of 35. It has been rumored in family circles that her father, Robert Murdock, a strict Covenanter, did not look with favor upon the match because of the wide difference in age, and because the prospective son-in-law in that ultra-strict Covenanter community was regarded as being a little worldly. But this did not prevent the match. On January 6, 1867, James MacMillan and Martha Elizabeth Murdock were married. The result of this marriage was all that any careful father and mother could have wished. True, the young wife was unable to get her rather mature husband to give up his love for fine clothes and fine horses and carriages, a love which he kept to the end of his life. In fact, in the 25 years on the farm, the writer never saw him dressed in any other way. His wife could not have been too displeased with this, for she, too, liked nice clothes and 22
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