John Howie of Lochgoin

IO THE PRINCETON THEOLOGICAL REVIEW
searched in vain for many things that one would like to
know concerning the personal history of the author of The
Scots Worthies. For the omissions, John Howie is not to
be blamed. The portion which he wrote himself was not
intended as an autobiography, but was entitled : "A brief
narrative of some Religious Exercises", etc. It begins thus :
"Although I had a religious education, and my grand-
father and grandmother (with whom I was brought up
from the time I was a year old, at Black's Hill in the parish
of Kilmarnock) were reputed, in the place where they lived,
for honest, religious persons; yet in my younger years, I
was mostly taken up with the common vanities of childhood
and youth, having no certain views of religion, or my own
depraved, lost state, and condition."
It may be noted that he neither gives the year of his birth,
nor states how long he lived at Black's Hill ; that he neither
gives the names of his grandfather and grandmother, who
lived there, nor states whether they were his paternal or
maternal ancestors ; that he makes no reference to his father
or mother; that, although he tells that he himself was twice
married, he does not give the name of either wife, or the
date of either marriage. Eighty years ago, M'Gavin
thought of giving a short account of his life ; but was in-
formed, by one of Howie's nephews, that his family pos-
sessed ample materials for a volume, and therefore he left
the subject untouched, in the hope that a Howie would do
it justice. If these materials were in the chest containing
his papers, they have probably perished, for some fifty years
ago it was found that the mice had got into the chest, and
reduced its contents to "mulins".
Fortunately, in 1835, the Rev. John Carslaw, of Airdrie,
prefixed a short memoir to his edition of The Scots Worth-
ies. From this memoir it appears that the old John Howie,
who died in 1755, had a son John who lived with him; that
this son John was twice married, his first wife being Martha
Thomson, 8 by whom he had two sons and two daughters;
8 Carslaw gives October, 1784, as the date of this marriage. This is
probably a misprint for October, 1734.