6 J Transactions. 



Knox's second wife. Welsh's grandfather was John Welsh, 

 minister of Ayr, who towards the beginning of the 17th cen- 

 tury was banished to France, where he lived for sixteen years 

 in the capacity of a Protestant minister. John Welsh of 

 Irongray became a great Conventicle preacher, and he seems 

 to have stirred up a strong Covenanting spirit among the 

 Parishioners. 



Wodrow, in his " History of the sufferings of the Church 

 of Scotland," says, " The first open opposition to the settle- 

 ment of the curates I have heard of was at Irongray, where 

 Mr John Welsh was minister." (See Hist., Book I., chap. 

 IV., page 177, fol. edition.) 



I find that Welsh was licensed as a preacher by the Pres- 

 bytery of Glasgow, and ordained minister of Irongray in the 

 year 1653. He left the parish in 1662, and was ever after- 

 wards one of the staunchest covenanters. He took part in 

 the Pentland rising, and had a narrow escape in that un- 

 fortunate encounter. Large sums of money were offered for 

 his capture, but he never was taken. 



I have heard that he died in Jamaica, but whether his 

 death occurred before or after the Revolution settlement I 

 have not been able to ascertain. His name is not in the list 

 of ejected ministers mentioned by Wodrow as alive in 1688. 



There was a very large conventicle held at the Com- 

 munion Stones some time about 1678, when Welsh and 

 Blackadder, and other ejected ministers, officiated. It was 

 computed that over three thousand persons partook of the 

 communion on that occasion. 



There is a tradition still extant in the parish to the effect 

 that the communion cups which originally belonged to the 

 church were used on the occasion of the great conventicle at 

 Communion Stones on Skeoch Hill, and that they were con- 

 cealed somewhere in the neighbourhood and lost. In connec- 

 tion with this tradition I may mention a reference to the said 

 cups which I find in the Kirk Session Records, dated July 

 4th, 1697 : — "The cups, table cloths, and other utensils be- 

 longing to the church being amissiug, and there being need 



