Rocking Chair Ranche Company, Limited

The Rocking Chair Ranche was a ranch located at North Elm Creek in Collingsworth County, Texas from 1883 until October 11, 1896.

Description

The 200,000-acre (810 km²) Rocking Chair Ranche was bought by Dudley Coutts Marjoribanks, 1st Baron Tweedmouth in 1883. After his death in 1894, it was owned by his son Edward Marjoribanks, 2nd Baron Tweedmouth and his son-in-law John Campbell Hamilton-Gordon, 1st Marquess of Aberdeen and Temair.

Archibald John Marjoribanks, the youngest son of Sir Dudley Coutts Marjoribanks was sent to Texas to work as the assistant ranch manager and bookkeeper. Archibald was not paid by the ranch but his father gave him a living allowance of £400 a year. Lord and Lady Aberdeen visited Archibald in the summer of 1887 and found him living in a one-bedroom wood frame house which he shared with the ranch manager J. John Drew. During their stay, the Aberdeens slept in the bedroom while Archibald and the ranch manager slept on the terrace. The closest township to the ranch was renamed Aberdeen after their visit at the suggestion of Archibald Marjoribanks.

Archibald became engaged to Elizabeth (known locally as "Myssie") Brown, of Nashville, Tennessee, daughter of Judge Trimble Brown, to the disapproval of Archibald's sister Lady Aberdeen who regarded Nashville ladies as frivolous and empty-headed compared to sober and industrious Scottish girls. Nevertheless Archibald and Elizabeth were married and, after the ranch failed, moved to Bath, England where they had two children. After Archibald's death in 1900, Elizabeth married Archibald's cousin Douglas Hogg who later became First Viscount Hailsham and Lord Chancellor.