Marscalloch Moss

NX69SW 92 c. 60 91

Simpson 1846 (unpublished manuscript)

The Rev. Robert Simpson (1795-1867), pastor of the United Presbyterian church in Sanquhar and author of Traditions of the Covenanters (1846), left an unpublished address, undated, called The Martyrs of Deugh Glen – Or a few gleanings from the trials and suffereings of William Smith and Mary Maclymont, in 1684. This mss was acquired by the important local collector R S Anderson in 1933 (and is now in Stranraer Museum). The final page includes an account of the discovery of two bog bodies, which Simpson related to his account of two local Covenanters, surprised at a conventicle and killed by one of their persecutors:

‘McMillan [described as ‘a violent persecutor who lived in the district’] who had

breathed out threatenings and slaughter against the saints, and cause of God down to

this point, was now arrested in his mad career. He felt for the first time something like

the stirrings of humanity, darting through his troubled heart. There was but one last

office could be done for the two Martyers, and he felt constrained to perform it, namely

to have their bodies carefully interred, least they should be further mangled by the

ruthless Soldiers or torn by the ravenous fowls of the desert, for this purpose he sought

out two or three of the most trusty soldiers, to assist him in the solemn transaction. In

the darkness of night, they went to the fatal spot, and took up the remains of those two

faithful Martyers of Jesus and laid them in a grave which they had prepared for them in

the moss on which they fell. After all was over, McMillan took an oath from his

assistants, never to reveal to man, the time, the manner, the place, or by whose hands

these worthies were lain in the Grave.

About twenty years ago the farmer’s people were cutting peats at a breast in Moors-

calloch Moss, they came upon two human skelitons, imbedded in the moss, and in a

good state of preservation. When it became known in the neighbourhood what had

been found in the moss, some very aged persons, even some of those from whom the

writer gathered up these traditions, and who had been in the habit of teaching, and

telling them to their younger brethern for four score years, firmly believed that these

skelitons, found in the moss, could be none other but William Smith and Mary

Maclymont, who fought with McMillan and who fell by the stroke of his hand in 1684.

Indeed it seems to be a well known fact that Animal matter is preserved in the finest

Moss for ages. Geologists have affirmed that in certain states, Animal matter may be

preserved in moss for 500 years. But let this theory be as it may and let the Laws of

nature work as they will, there is ample security afforded to every believer that their

dust, and the dust of God’s Martyerd people shall be raised up at the last day.’

A fuller treatment is in preparation (by JP): at present, it appears that the names of the two covenanters are not recorded locally in any other sources, nor do they occur in any of the standard accounts of covenanting martyrs, including Simpson’s book. The find begs intriguing questions: were these bodies from a real incident or is this a ‘covenanting’ story invented to explain the discovery of bog bodies? Marscalloch is the current Ordnance Survey spelling of the name of the farmstead (NX69SW 91) at NX 60382 91366 (Bob Mowat pers. comm.).

T Cowie, J Pickin and C Wallace 2011