George Hamilton-Gordon, 6th Earl of Aberdeen

Hamilton-Gordon was born at the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the eldest son of the 5th Earl of Aberdeen. In 1863, he went to Canada to visit his uncle, Arthur Hamilton-Gordon, who was then Lieutenant-Governor of New Brunswick, aboard the ship, Pomona, but returned home a year later, after hearing his father had become seriously ill. He then inherited his father's title and travelled back to North America in the winter of 1866/67, under the assumed name of George Osborne. He entered a naval college in Boston, Massachusetts and soon became a Captain in the United States Merchant Marine.

Hamilton-Gordon settled for a time in Richmond, Maine, where he took jobs cutting ice and clerking at a store (where it is reported he lost his temper at being fired and told his employer that he "could buy and sell him many times over" before storming out). As a sailor, he often shipped out of Richmond, and at one time captained a small ship called the Walton (or Waltham). His profession was not entirely a mystery to his family at home, as he wrote letters to his mother and brother on occasion. Travelling from Boston to Melbourne on the Hera in 1870, Lord Aberdeen was washed overboard during a violent storm and drowned. It was reported he was swept away when attempting to take down the boom sail, which he could have ordered another man to do. His younger brother had been killed in a rifle accident two years earlier, so Aberdeen was succeeded by his next younger brother, John.