Grampian Club > Monuments and monumental inscriptions in Scotland > Volume 1

PARISH OF MOFFAT. 315
Mr. Currie was son of the Kev. James Currie, minister of Hoddam.
He was ordained minister of Kirkpatrick-Fleming in 1746, and was
translated to jMiddlebie in 1763. He died on the 24th October,
1773, aged fifty-eight.
PAEISH OF MOFFAT.
In the parish churchyard rest the remains of John Finlay, an
ingenious and short-lived poet. He died suddenly at IMoffat on
the 8th December, 1810, in liis twenty-eighth year. At the age of
nineteen he composed his poem of " Wallace, or the Vale of
Ellerslie," which, published in 1802, attracted much attention.
His " Scottish Historical and Eomantic Ballads " appeared in 1808.
A monument commemorates John Loudon Macadam, the cele-
brated improver of roads. He was born at Ayr on the 21st
September, 1756. His ycutli was spent in America. In 1798 he
was appointed Government Agent for victualling the navy in the
"Western ports. On his method of improving roads he had experi-
mented in Scotland; he now made trial of his system in the
west of England. In 1815 he was appointed Surveyor-General of
British roads. His method being generally adopted, he received
from Government the sum of £10,000 in reimbursement of funds
expended in experiments. He was also offered knighthood, wliich
he declined. He retired to Moffat and there died on the 26th No-
vember, 1836, aged eighty.
John Williamson, M'ho discovered the Moffat mineral spa, is
celebrated by a memorial stone. He died in 1769.
A tombstone has been reared in memory of the Eev. Robert
Johnstone, missionary at Madras, who died in 1853.
William Muir, in Clarefoot, and his wife, who both died in 1759,
are tlius quaintly commemorated : —
" Here lies the man, the woman here,
Their mutual love surpassing dear,
When down she in the grave did ly,
Here he reclined of sympathy."