When James Oliver was born to his parents, George Oliver, a shepherd, and his wife, Elizabeth Irving, August 28, 1823, in the tiny village of Newcastleton, Scotland, it may have been hard to imagine that this child of humble beginnings would become one of America’s most influential inventors and industrialists. Or that James would one day have a son, Joseph D. Oliver, who would also become a business guru and build a mansion in South Bend, Indiana (Copshaholm).

George Oliver was born in 1770 on a farm known as Bleakboneynear in Newcastleton or, as the village was called in ancient times, Copshaholm. Most of Newcastleton’s residents were very poor. George was a shepherd, as probably were his ancestors. His wife came from an old and well-known Scottish family, and as a young man, George worked for them.

In 1802, George, 32, and Elizabeth, 21, married. Elizabeth’s family did not approve of the marriage, feeling that George, a shepherd, was well below the standing of the Irvings. As a result, the families were estranged for a number of years.

George and Elizabeth had nine children in 21 years. James, the last child, was born when Elizabeth was 42. Six years later when her brother was widowed, Elizabeth undertook raising his four children who ranged in age from infancy to six years old.

The Olivers, extremely religious, were Presbyterians. James learned to read and write in a church school. Cholera struck Scotland in 1832, bringing business to a virtual halt. George and Elizabeth were hard pressed to make ends meets. In addition, George, who had been injured in 1833 while driving sheep to England, was unable to walk without a cane.

In 1830, John Oliver, one of their older sons, restless and penniless, tied up all of his belongings in a red handkerchief and left for America, working his passage as a seaman. He found work at a dollar a day and wrote his family in Scotland in glowing terms. John described his new home in America, telling about a country where firewood was plentiful and in fact, were sometimes in the way. He also wrote about eating meat three times a week. (Actually he ate meat daily, but was afraid his family wouldn’t believe that.) He also explained that he ate at his employer’s table——unheard of in Scotland. Lured by John’s letters, another of the Olivers’ son, Andrew, and a daughter, Jane, immigrated in 1834.

All three wrote letters to Scotland describing opportunities America offered and sending money home to their parents. Impressed by this, Elizabeth, then 54, began a campaign to move her entire family to the new land. However, her husband George, who was 65, was content with life as a shepherd. He was too old to move, he declared, and too old to try to do anything but tend sheep.

But George eventually gave in.