Inverurie and the Earldom of the Garioch

154- Inverurie and the Earldom, of the Gfarioch.
furnished not a few ministers to the Garioch from that class of the alumni ; one of whom,
Eobert Burnet, was promoted to Oyne, in 1596. A number of examples occurred
during the next century.
Logiedurno had a minister to itself first in 1588, when Mr. William Strathauchin
served the cure for three years. Alexander Paterson, transported from Insch upon pre-
sentation by the King, served from 1592 to 1620. His son became Bishop of Boss.
Bourtie was long in emerging from the system of grouped parishes. From 1578
it was in charge of James Johnston, minister of the parish of Monymusk ; but it had a
minister of its own in 1595, in the person of William Barclay, who went to tnsch in
1596. Stephen Masoun is said to have served Meldrum and it for some time after ;
but in 1611 Gilbert Keith became minister of Bourtie alone, and he lived through great
part of both Episcopacies, as well as the intervening Covenant period.
Culsalmond, after a course of Readers from 1567 to 1595, had apparently its first
minister, Thomas Spens, before 1607.
Daviot, after a period of Beader incumbency, was to have had Patrick Myreton
(probably its former parson) for its first minister in 1573 ; but he did not accept the
king's presentation, which was given, the same year, to the minister of Belhelvie, George
Paterson, the individual who played the part of a small bishop for more than twenty
years in the Garioch.
Insch, along with Logiedurno and Culsalmond, was Stephen Masoun's first charge
in 1567. Before 1585, Walter Robertson, transported from Clatt, was minister of Insch,
with Culsalmond, Kinkell, and Kintore added ; and leaving it for Oyne, gave place to
Alexander Paterson, minister of Logie-Durno, in 1592. William Barclay, leaving
Bourty, served the cure of Insch from 1596 till 1603, obtaining his presentation in 1599.
The Records of the Family of Leslie name a vicar of Insch — James Spence — son of
Spence of Boddam, the husband of a Leslie of New Leslie, another of which family
married the minister of Inverurie, about 1603.
Inverurie appearing first under the charge of the pluralist, Mr. George Paterson,
became the parish of Alexander Mackie ; whose deposition was followed by the king
presenting Mr. James Mill, in 1600, to Inverurie and Monkegy.
Kemnay, a subordinate kirk of Kinkell, was left unprovided for at the Reformation ;
John Walcar, the minister of Kinkell, served it for two years, before 1602, for nothing.
Kinkell, the ancient Templar Church, head of six others, had only a Reader up to
1580 ; and from 1586 to 1597 shared the services of its minister, William Johnston,
with the adjoining parish of Kintore. John Walcar was there in 1599. He was formally
presented in 1613 to the benefice of Kinkell, comprehending the kirks of Kinkell,
Skene, Drumblait, Kemnay, Dyce, Kintore, and Kinellar.
Kintore, part of the Presbytery of Aberdeen in the Reformed Church, until it was
united to Garioch in 1702, had William Forbes as its first minister ; and lost him because,
like Kemnay, it furnished no stipend to a minister. He went, without authority of the