296 The Buchanites and Crocketford. 



that this tollbar was nine miles out from Dumfries, the village 

 of Crocketford, which has grown up around it, is known 

 throughout the whole of Galloway as the Nine-Mile Bar.* 



* The Buchanites, from their eyrie on Larghill, were not 

 slow to perceive the advantages of the Nine-Mile Bar as a 

 site for houses. It was almost equi-distant from Dalbeattie, 

 Castle-Douglas, and Dumfries ; it was on a fine healthy 

 heathery plateau from which peat was still being dug, and 

 nearly 400 feet above the sea ; it was the point to which must 

 converge all the newly-diverted traffic of Galloway that was 

 intended for Dumfries or farther. Accordingly they led the 

 way in building. No time was lost, for in the very year of 

 the opening of the road they bought five acres of ground off 

 Little (?) Crocketford for houses and gardens. In 1806 they 

 began to build for themselves the dwelling still known as 

 Newhouse, and in 1808 they flitted into it, their envious land- 

 lord having turned them out in hope of achieving for himself 

 a like prosperity to theirs. 



As it was in the year 1806 that the great linguist, the 

 Rev. Alex. Murray, came to Urr as assistant to the Rev. Dr 

 Muirhead, one wonders how the young and scholarly minister 

 fared when first he visited his churchless, Sabbath-breaking 

 parishioners in their hill-solitude, and whether, when he 

 assumed full charge in 1808, and the Buchanites were safely 

 flitted into their new house, he ever ventured to call on them 

 to wish them a continuance there of their Larghill success, 

 although now within the bounds of another parish. 



From 1808 till 1846, when the grave closed over them 

 all for ever, the little group of Buchanites lived quietly, dili- 

 gently, and unobtrusively, but with steady, pathetic shrink- 

 age as the years rolled by. Three had died at Larghill, and 

 were laid in a quiet spot where the sacrilegious hand of man 



* With regard to the other roads at Crocketford, it may be 

 noted (1) that in' the minutes of the Road Trustees for 1810 (in 

 Kirkcudbright County Records) it was " agreed to make a road 

 between Crocketford and Creebridge by New-Galloway " ; and (2) 

 that in the minutes of April, 1808, the making of a road to connect 

 the Milton road from Stenhouse to Crocketford Tollbar was 

 approved. 



