Records of the clan and name of Fergusson, Ferguson and Fergus

FERGUSSONS IN BALQUHIDDER 233
parents to ' wag his pow in a poopit,' he was educated at the
University of St. Andrews, numbering amongst his college
friends the Rev. Dr. MacGregor of St. Cuthbert's, Edinburgh,
the Rev. Dr. Gray of Liber ton, the Rev. Dr. Duke of St.
Vigeans, and others who have come to the front since then.
Licensed as a probationer of the Church of Scotland by the
famous Presbytery of Auchterarder in 1854, he acted as assis-
tant in the parish of Dull, and as Royal Bounty missionary
at Strathloch, in the parish of Moulin. In 1857 he was pre-
sented by Sir Robert Menzies, Bart., to the parish of Fortin-
gall, where he laboured with much energy and acceptance
until the year 1865, when, his health breaking down, he
retired in favour of an assistant and successor, and went on a
voyage round the world in the hope of procuring restored
energy. While a member of the Presbytery of Weem he
acted in the capacity of clerk to the Presbytery. On the
voyage home he was a passenger in the ill-fated steamship
London, which, the very next time she sailed from the port
of London, foundered in the Bay of Biscay, and went down
with two hundred and twenty souls aboard. The heroic con-
duct of the captain, crew, and passengers is commemorated
in one of his poems. The Queen's Visit was published in
1869, and on the evening of the day of its issue, the 27th of
September, its author, mistaking his way in the dark and
boisterous night, walked into the Tay near Perth harbour,
and was drowned. He left behind him a widow and five
sons, the eldest of whom, a distinguished medical student,
was drowned while bathing in Loch Voil, Balquhidder, in
July 1876.
The Rev. Samuel Fergusson was well known as a ripe
Celtic scholar, and wrote Gaelic poetry much superior to his
English verse. He was a member on the Committee on the
Revision of the Gaelic Scriptures, and wrote an account of
Dugald Buchanan and his poetry, which has never been
published. Many of his Gaelic poems were published separ-
ately, but none of them in book form. Shortly before his
death he had begun a History of Perthshire, having been
advised thereto by his friend the late Very Rev. Principal
Tulloch and others. The historical notes appended to the