Tensas gazette. [volume] (St. Joseph, La.) 1886-current, 1913-05-16
Mr.. COLIN GRANT MACKENZIE.

News Of the death of Mr.. Colin
G. Mackenzie, 80 we'll and affec.
tionately remembered in this town
and parish, where he has visited
several times as the guest of bis
kinsman, Hon. w. M. Davidson,
was heard several weeks since with
utmost regret, as he was most high
ly esteemed by a large circle OF
friends, who appreciated his lofty
interllect and keen wit and humor.
Mr.. Mackenzie was a Scotchman by
birth, and though a resident of
America the greater part of his life,
was ever in sympathy with his ma
tive land, which he visited when
ever opportunity offered. The
Journal, published at Banffshire,
Scotland, upon learning of his
death, paid him the following hand
some tribute:
1t Is with much regret that we record
the death of Mr.. Colin Grant Macken-
zie, which took place on 18th inst, at
the residence of his daughter, Mrs. F. o.
Lockhart, % Clinton Street, Brooklyn,
New York. Mr.. Mackenzie, who was
! in his 8lst year, was taken i'll about five
or six years before his death, and the
illness was in course diagnosed as a
painful internal ailment from which hope
OF recovery was necessarily slight. The
illness made rapid progress, but happily
the patient did not suffer much pain,
and he was carefully and lovingly tended
TO the end. go
In Mr.. Mackenzie there has been taken
gentleman of remarkable mental powers.
He was a man of brilliant gifts and his
natural endowments of mind he had
greatly enriched by wide reading and by
intimate and influential contact with
men and things of the world. All his
life he had passion for literature, which
put him among class of men and
students who are fitted to hold their
own in any company. He was widely
read. He had retentive memory, and
he was himself a poet of no mean aoili
ties, while he had descriptive literary
gifts Of high order, so that he was a
charming companion and corrospon-
dent of the finest type. Mr.. Mackenzie
was native of Banff, and many friends
will recall, no doubt, the two visits that
he paid in recent years to his native
town, when he pleasantly renewed old
associations and looked again on scenes
that had been dear to him since child
hood. He had for a number OF years re-
tired from business, but his career had
been both active and interesting. He
was one OF the first apprentices who
were engaged in this Office. Here he
was brought up to the printing craft,
and in his own experience he had seen
and taken part in the development of
the printing trade from the days of the
hand press until he became the head Of
great establishment, recognised as the
foremost and most up-to-date of its kind
tation so high that it was visited for
professional purposes bv the chief pro-
prietor of the London "Times." While
engaged in business, Mr.. Mackenzie had
seen much of America. He had worked
in Chicago and had looked out on the
Pacific at California; he visited Canada
and had been in the Southern States;
but his life-work may be said to have
been done as head of the University Press
at Cambridge, Mass. He was there
brought into intimate personal contact
with the leading literary men in the
United States, and had associated with
some, such as Longfellow, ]. R. Lowell,
Oliver Wendell Holmes, j. G. Whittier,
T. G.. Aldrich, and others whose names
are familiar wherever the English
tongue is spoken. Mr.. Mackenzie had
himself successfully wooed the MUSES. and
more than one volume of his poetry has
been put before an appreciative public.
Many here know that no small portion
of the best of his poems was devoted to
his native Scotland and to the beauties oil
the district around Banff, for love of his
native land, and IN particular OF his
native town-of the Deveron, the hills Of
Montcoffer, the rocks of Alvah-was with
him veritable passion, and he never
tired singing their praises in attractive
and pleasant verses. On his first return
to Banff in the summer of 1874, after an
absence from the town of seven anC
twenty years, he wrote beautiful poem
entitled "Banff Revisited''-
How swift the rolling years will glide,
And worldly cares will leave their trace;
With May-dew from MontcOner's side,
I'll battle the wrinkles from my face.
/ see my much-loved Deveron flow,
It's peaceful current onward pour
To mingle with the flood below,
| And join the oceans ceaseless roar.
hear the gaudy peacock scream
Round Dun House pleasant grove;
And cushats In their leafy screen,
In cooling notes, proclaim their love.
Thoughts and words such as these wer'
ever occurring in his works, as, for in
stance, when on Christmas Day, 1868, a
Cambridge, Mass, he wrote Recollection
of Banff-