Donald Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal immortalised as the "Cheeryble Brothers" in Charles Dickens' book, Nicholas Nickleby. Donald's mother was the sister of the Canadian explorer John Stuart, partner of the North West Company who rose to become Chief Factor of the Hudson's Bay Company. Smith was educated at Anderson's Free School and on leaving at age sixteen he was apprenticed to become a lawyer in the offices of Robert Watson, Town Clerk of Forres. By the age of eighteen, Smith chose another career path: offered entry into mercantile life at Manchester, and a career in the Indian Civil Service, his choice was to pattern himself
Bertie Dickens Bertie Dickens Bertie Caudill Dickens (1902–1994) was an old-time banjo player from the community of Ennice in Alleghany County, North Carolina. Dickens was born in Grayson County, Virginia, but lived most of her life in Ennice. Dickens was raised in a musical family. Her father, Sid Caudill, was a banjo player and her brothers, Hus, Joe, and Clell were fiddle and banjo players. Together, Sid and his sons operated a sawmill in what is now Felts Park, Galax, Virginia. Bertie learned to play the fiddle and banjo as a young child, and played both the old-time clawhammer style as well