Whitelaw Reid. [Scribners monthly, an illustrated magazine for the people. / Volume 8, Issue 4, August 1874]

 Reids abilities and strength of moral character came to him by legitimate de-
scent. They are inherent in his pure Scotch blood, which flows so vigorously
and kindly in a stock transplanted to American soil.

His education has consisted of that self-dependent experience which belongs to the freedom of Western life, refined by the solid culture of the schools. Either is worth much, but each is somewhat incomplete without the other; and in the training of our most successful Western writers the two are frequently combined.
 Whitelaw Reid was born in Xenia, Ohio, October, 1837. His father, Robert Charl-
ton Reid, had married Marian Whitelaw Ronalds, who came in a direct line from
the small and ancient Clan Ronalds of the highlands. His paternal grandfather
emigrated to this country from the south of Scotland, and settled in Kentucky, one
of the earliest pioneers; but crossed the Ohio river in the year i8oo, and bought
several hundred acres of land upon the present site of Cincinnati. He was a stern
old Covenanter, and found his conscience uneasy, owing to a condition of the deed
which required him to run a ferry across the river every day of the week. Sooner
than violate the Sabbath, he parted with his new property, and, removing to Greene
county, became one of the founders of the town of Xenia. It seems likely that, but
for the pioneers scruples, the wealth of the family might have precluded the necessity
for the grandsons early struggles and the experience that has brought him to his
present reputation.