A Sunday at Tranquility Church

Our Scottish ancestors settled all around Tranquility Church which was southwest and west of  Buckingham Village.  The old church sits there to the east of Squire Wilson’s farm.  To me it seemed as if it had been there all the time, but it wasn’t.  It was built in 1874. .  My folks and all my uncles and aunts that were then in the country at that time all went to Tranquility Church.  They were all God worshipping and Sabbath observing people.  They all had the incentive of wanting to be better and do better for themselves as well as for the community.  And I might also say that if there is any good left in any of the rest of us, we would be doing well if we just give the credit to those Scotch Pioneer Presbyterians.

  

You have heard some people say that one person is just as good as another, but you can get up on a Sunday morning and you'll see people going to or coming from church, and you'll see people taking other ways of what they consider proper observance of the day, and you will see people not taking any observance of anything.  I you would then hear some one say that one person is just as good as another, you would be inclined to think they were pretty much wrong about that.  On the general face of things we can see that there are lots of people that are lots better than a lot of others.  The incentive of some people to try to be better and try to do things better than others, is what makes our progress.  If there are those that have that incentive more than we have, while they go ahead trying to do better and make things better for themselves, they are also making things better for  us too. 

It was common occurrence that after church was out some or other of those Uncles and Aunts would stop off at our house for dinner.  Those little visits were intensely enjoyable to those people.  Sometimes someone would have just received a letter from Scotland, or maybe a Scotch paper had been sent to someone, telling of some special neighborhood news.  By the time those things in the paper and letter had been discussed, the afternoon would be well worn away and it would be time to start for home.  The good-byes and the come agains would be said and they would start off on their homeward journey, but the best part of it all was that a kindly spirit of good feeling for each other prevailed.  They didn't have much of the worldly goods in those days.  Such as they had was obtained by common hard work, honest and charitable dealing.  I could illustrate honest and charitable dealings by telling a story.  I heard Father tell this story once.  He told it as a joke.  It might also explain in a way how it come that there didn't any of this pioneer family ever become very rich.

Source:  Dalton K. Wilson, My Story of the Pioneer Wilson Family