Records of a Family of Engineers

Records of a Family of Engineers is by Robert Louis Stevenson, and its introduction is headed THE SURNAME OF STEVENSON. The introduction says the surname spread across Scotland from the mouth of the Firth of Forth to the mouth of the Firth of Clyde. A section headed DOMESTIC ANNALS says it is believed that in 1665 James Stevenson in Nether Carsewell, parish of Neilston, county of Renfrew, and presumably a tenant farmer, married one Jean Keir.

Of Hugh, born February 1749, and Alan, born June 1752, the narrator says: "With these two brothers my story begins." One account says the writer immediately accosted the seamen about the state of the ship, and that they replied that the vessel being light, and having but little hold of the water, left them feeling perfect confidence in their situation. A dated entry for Saturday, 4th Aug. lists the artificers at the rock as eighteen masons, two joiners, one millwright, one smith, and one mortar-maker.