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Relatives: Wife of James Hutchison. Mother of Margaret Hutchison. Stone Condition: Damaged, Repaired Material: Sandstone Height: 1.87 Breadth: 0.99 Depth: 0.36 Inscription Condition: Clear but worn Inscription Technique: Incised Mason: W. Buchanan, Glasgow Pre 1855 no. 55 ( What's this? )

Monument Inscription

ERECTED
BY
AGNES GILMOUR,
IN MEMORY OF HER HUSBAND
JAMES HUTCHISON,
WHO DIED 12TH MARCH 1864,
AGED 56 YEARS.
AND MARGARET, THEIR DAUGHTER
WHO DIED 16TH JANY 1850
AGED 9 MONTHS.
AND AGNES GILMOUR, (RELICT OF
JAMES HUTCHISON.) WHO DIED IN THE TOWNSHIP OF ALDBORO’ COUNTY
OF ELGIN, ONTARIO, 9TH DECR 1879,
AGED 64 YEARS.

Family History

James Hutchison was raised from farming stock through his parents who farmed at Balgraystone Farm near to where the Balgray Reservoir is today. In 1844 James married Agnes Gilmour, a local lass. The couple originally took tenancy of an eighty acre agricultural holding known locally as Cunningham’s Land. This unit was situated next to Cunningham’s Cottage, in which lived a local land agent of that name. In time the holding became known as Lower Malletsheugh and was eventually absorbed into the larger Malletsheugh complex.

Despite waiting six years for their first a child, a daughter they named Margaret, cruel fate was to impose itself by giving the child only nine months of life.

Before his marriage James, along with his younger brother John, had farmed as young unmarried men the farm of Green near to Patterton.

James and Agnes, despite their earlier loss, were to go on to produce another four children, all sons, named David, John, James and Allan. Despite the services of four young men in the family, the farm also employed a ploughman, an agricultural labourer and two domestic servants.

James Hutchison Sen. was to die of congestion of the lung on 12th March, 1864 and joined his only daughter in the family plot in Mearns Kirkyard. His wife Agnes Gilmour was not to join her husband in this hallowed spot, as by the time of her death in 1879 she was residing in Ontario, Canada at the home of one of her sons.

A local story circulates that the owner of Cunningham’s Land, a Mr Cunningham, a stalwart of the Kirk at Mearns, on hearing that the church was having a pipe organ installed abandoned his churchgoing on the basis that he thought the organ was no more than a “kist o’ whustles” (trunk of whistles). His wife it is alleged was a one time girlfriend of Robert Burns (one of many if history is to be believed).