Thurburns

19
now forthcoming. The minister of Kirknewton, after leaving
his parish in 1744, entered the bonds of matrimony a second
time, and in his old age took to himself to wife an Edinburgh
matron. This person (who was childless), on the death of her
husband, would seem, by letters in the possession of the family,
to have laid hands on all the disposable property within her
reach, and therefore most probably acquired also the custody of
all papers touching on the history of her husband's family.
From the parish records of Smailholm there is evidence to
show that the minister's father, John Thurbrand, of Kirklands
and Green, during the latter portion of his life took considerable
interest in all Church matters, and was a person of consideration
amongst his neighbours ; for it is noticeable that he witnessed
the baptisms of every second or third child in the parish ! The
grave of this John Thurbrand is in the churchyard of Smail-
holm, but the inscription on the tombstone is so illegible and
otherwise worn out that it is possible that in assigning it to him
a mistake may have been committed. His son John, the clergy-
man, was born about the year 1674 ; for we find him in 1699
inducted as minister of Kirknewton in Mid-Lothian. Of this
person report states that his strength was something prodigious ;
and even to this day some of his feats are recounted. One of
these was the pushing out of a rut a cart which had stuck fast
in the mud, defying all the previous efforts of man and beast to
remove it from its position. On another occasion, at Kirknewton,
it is stated that some masons, whilst repairing the old ehureh,
could not remove a door lintel into its proper place. The minister,
apprized of the fact, permitted the workmen to proceed to their
meals, and during their absence, by his main strength, adjusted
the stone into position. The men returning to their work, and
finding their difficulty surmounted, attributed its accomplishment
to infernal power, and could not be prevailed upon to continue
any longer their labours in such an " uncanny neighbourhood."
In a letter dated 23rd March, 1779, written from Trochreg, the
seat of the Boyds, by Anne Stevenson, aunt of James Thurburn,