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Picturesque Kirriemuir is set on a hill on the edge of the Glens Clova and Prosen. The narrow streets are lined with pretty red brick houses, with their old-fashioned bars, tiled butcher's shop and famous ice cream parlour giving great charm to this delightful town.
Kirriemuir is also the birthplace of Peter Pan's creator, JM Barrie. Barrie was a local handloom-weaver's son, born in a little whitewashed cottage at 9 Brechin Road, which is looked after by the National Trust for Scotland, and displays his writing desk, photos and newspaper clippings. The washhouse outside - romantically billed as Barrie's first "theatre" - was apparently the model for the house built by the Lost Boys for Wendy in Never-Never Land. Barrie's Birthplace is well worth a visit.
Don't miss the Kirriemuir Gateway to the Glens Museum in the old Town House on the main square. The oldest building in Kirriemuir, it as seen service as a tolbooth, court, jail, post office, police station and chemist. Today there are two floors of information and exhibits on the town and the Angus Glens, including scale models of the town in 1604, the year the tolbooth was erected, and one of Glen Clova, showing the relief of the hills.
From the late 1870s up to the 1920s, many young people emigrated from Kirriemuir to the Hawaiian islands. This period also saw the greatest migration from Scotland - many of them, farmers, nurserymen, mechanics and engineers who found work on the expanding sugar plantations.
On every Hawwaiian island, men from the Highlands and Lowlands of Scotland settled, forming their own close knit communities, and once established with a job and somewhere to live, were joined by their wives of girlfriends. The Hamakua area on the island of Hawaii was for many years called the Scotch Coast because of the large number of Scots living there.
Three Kirriemuir brothers, Tom, Charles and James Kennedy, were to prove to be a huge influence on the exodus from the little red town to the islands.
The brothers were the sons of James and Janet Kennedy. Tom, the eldest, was the first to go to Hawaii where he worked on the Big Island then retired and returned to Kirriemuir. Charles Clark, born 28th December 1849, was apprenticed at the age of 12 to an engineering firm near Dundee. On completion of his 5 years training, he sailed for Canada and worked on the railways, then moved to San Francisco. He arrived in Hawaii in 1877. He worked for 2 years at the Honolulu Ironworks. From there he was sent to Kohala to put up a sugar mill, and when that was finished he put up the Waiakea sugar mill which he ran as engineer and manager for 37 years.
He played an important part in the commercial and municipal development of Hilo he was the founder of the "Hilo Tribune", president of the First Bank of Hilo Ltd, the Hilo Electric Light Co Ltd, and vice president of the Hawaiian Insurance and Guarantee Company. He died on 9th January 1919, and his obituary described him as a capitalist, philanthropist and kamaaina of the islands. (This Hawaiian word is pronounced kah-mah-eye-nah and means a person who has lived in Hawaii for a long time and is considered to be just like a native-born resident).
James, the 3rd brother, was born in 1852, and at the age of 15 got a job in Edinburgh and worked there for 8 years as office manager. He arrived in Hawaii in 1878 and started work at the Honolulu Ironworks. In 1900 he worked at The Inter-Island Steam Navigation Company and became president and general manager of a company worth $5million. He retired in 1924. His son Stanley was a naval aviator in World War 1 and later founded the Hawaiian Airlines, Hawaii's first, and still the largest, airline.
Another three brothers from a prominent Kirriemuir family, the Jamiesons, were encouraged to emigrate to Hawaii by their cousin, David Wylie, who had become an overseer on a sugar plantation. Their mother, Annie Wilson Barrie, was first cousin of playwright and author James Matthew Barrie, and their father owned a hardware store on Jamieson Lane. The first brother, David Jamieson, left Kirriemuir in 1900 to work on a sugar plantation, and was followed in 1905 by his brother William, who found work as a bookkeeper. Frederick, the third brother, arrived in 1910 and found work with the Hawaiian Trust Company Ltd, eventually becoming a vice president. David retired as cashier of American Factors and William dies whilst treasurer and vice president of C Brewer & Co Ltd like American Factors one of the Hawaiian Big 5 Companies. The family connection to Kirriemuir is still very important and Mr Harry Jamieson, a nephew, regularly visits relatives in Honolulu with his wife Maimie.
"The Story of Scots in Hawaii" (published by The Caledonian Society of Hawaii, 2000), tells us that "Kirriemuir, a small town in Scotland, was the birthplace of many immigrants to Hawaii. They were hardworking, literate, and determined to become successful men and women, but they had to go abroad to realise their ambitions. Hawaii welcomed them, as did their fellow Scots throughout the islands. The Scots from Kirriemuir, like most of the Scots who went abroad to make their fortunes, gained much from their adopted land but they also contributed much to Hawaii".