MORTON, a parish, in the county of Dumfries, 15
miles (N. W. by N.) from Dumfries; containing 2161
inhabitants. The name of Morton, which is Anglo-
Saxon, signifies " the stronghold or dwelling on the
moor"; and the parish appears to have been thus denominated
from the old castle of Morton, a very strong
place, the striking ruins of which are still to be seen
upon an extensive moor at the bottom of a beautiful
green hill. This castle is supposed to have been originally
the possession of a Norman chief named de Moreville,
whose family had settled in Scotland in the tenth century,
obtained a large part of the estates in this neighbourhood,
and risen to great power and eminence. He
was appointed hereditary lord high constable of Scotland;
and his grandson, Hugo de Moreville, in the year
1140 founded the monastery of Kilwinning, in Ayrshire,
and in 1144 the abbey of Dryburgh, in Teviotdale.
Hugo afterwards gave a portion of land called the Park
to the abbey of Melrose; but this property, with the
church of Morton, was eventually bestowed on the
monks of Kelso. The possessions, at Hugo's death,
came to his son, and subsequently to his grandson William
de Moreville, who dying without issue, they all fell,
by marriage with Emma, sister of William, to Roland,
Lord of Galloway, who also obtained with the castle
and the property the office of lord high constable. Allan,
Roland's son, married Margaret, the eldest daughter of
David, Earl of Huntingdon, by whom he had three
daughters, the eldest of whom was married to John Baliol,
the father of John Baliol, King of Scotland. After
Brute ascended the throne, the lands of the Baliol family
and their adherents were conferred as rewards of
service on the friends of the new king, of whom Randolph,
Bruce's nephew, obtained extensive grants of
land in Annandale, as well as the castle of Morton,
which he held when regent during the minority of David Bruce.
But the property here not long after passed into other
hands; for Robert II. bestowed his daughter Egidia on
William Douglas, natural son of Archibald Douglas,-
Lord of Galloway, to whom he gave as a dowry the castle
of Morton and the district of Nithsdale. In 1390,
Douglas set out for Prussia to the Holy war, and was
killed at Dantzic, on the Vistula, by assassins hired by
Clifford, an Englishman, formerly his rival, and still envious
of his honour and promotion. Since the fourteenth
century, the castle and lands of Morton have been
in the possession of some branch of the family of Douglas.
The parish has long given their title to the Douglases,
Earls of Morton, whose residence at one time is said to
have been Morton Castle, and who were proprietors of
the whole lands, with the exception of the Mains of
Morton, lying north-west of the castle. The Mains belonged
to the Douglases, lairds of Morton, one of whom,
Malcolm Douglas of Mains, was distinguished for his
bravery in the border wars. The last of this family of
Mains was Captain James Douglas, who died at Bratford,
in the parish of Penpont, about the beginning of
the last century. The earls eventually sold their property
and interest here to Sir William Douglas Cashoggle,
who built a house a little south of the village of Thornhill,
called the Red House, where he sometimes resided;
but William Douglas, first Earl of Queensberry, obtained
from Cashoggle nearly all his lands, as well as the lands
of Morton-Mains from the other family, and, being lord
of the regality of Hawick, procured authority in I6IO to
translate that regality to Thornhill, to which he ga\e
the name of New Dalgarnoch. In ISIO the Scotts,
Dukes of Buccleuch, succeeded to this and other property
of the Dukes of Queensberry.
The PARISH is six miles in length from north to
south, and its mean breadth is about two miles; containing
7 680 acres. It is bounded on the north and
north-west by the parish of Crawford, in Lanarkshire;
on the west by the parish of Durisdeer, from which it is
separated by the Sheilhouse rivulet and the river Carron;
on the south-west by the river Nith, with the exception
of about \'10 acres called Morton holm, lying on
the south-west bank of that river; and on the southeast
and east by the parish of Closeburn and Dalgarno,
from which it is divided by the Cample. The surface
throughout is diversified with hill and valley, except
along the banks of the rivers, where it is flat. There
are three considerable ridges north of the Nith, large
tracts of which are uncultivated, and on the first of
which the village of Thornhill is situated. The surface
afterwards is gradually depressed until the declivity of
the third ridge terminates in a valley; and then appear
other hills and mountains, one of which rises '2.500 feet
above the level of the sea: there is generally, however,
a considerable tract of rich arable and meadow land
near the bases of the heights. lu the parish are nu-
merous springs, rivulets, and burns; the rivers Carron
and Cample run, as already stated, on its western and
eastern boundaries, and the river Nith on the southwest.
The SOIL is rich and productive along the banks of
the rivers, and on the first of the three ridges light and
fertile, resting upon a gravelly bottom: on the two
other ridges it is wet and heavy, and lies upon a clayey
subsoil. About 2600 acres are under cultivation; 580
are occupied by wood, ninety of which consist chiefly of
British oak about fifty years old; and 4500 acres are
waste or natural pasture, 1200 of which are considered
capable of profitable cultivation. The grain is chiefly
oats and barley, and the green crops produced are also
of good quality. In this parish the sheep usually reared
are the black-faced, which, as being more hardy, are
considered better suited than the Cheviots to the climate
of the parish; the cattle are mostly Galloways,
but the cows preferred for the dairy are of the Ayrshire
breed. The stock of draught horses has within these
few years been much improved. Husbandry is well understood,
and great improvements have been made of
late, and are still going on. The Duke of Buccleuch is
sole proprietor, with the exception of the farm of Ridings:
the annual value of real property in the parish is
returned at £'2S17. The rocks which lie under the
arable land consist chiefly of red sandstone; the hilly
grounds rest on the primitive andwhinstone formations.
The Chamberlain's House, the property of his grace, is
an elegant and commodious mansion. There are two
villages, viz., Thornhill and Carronbridge, the former of
which has received great attention from the proprietor,
and exhibits many important improvements. It has
excellent shops, two good inns, and a tannery employing
about thirty hands; and is a clean, healthy, and
populous village: the road from Dumfries to Sanquhar
passes through it. There are fairs in the village in February,
May, August, and November, on the second
Tuesday in the month, O. S.; many persons meet at
these fairs to hire servants, and there is a considerable
traffic in coarse woollen and linen cloth, and in yarns
made in the neighbourhood. Carronbridge is partly in
the parish of Durisdeer, but chiefly in that of Morton.
For ECCLESIASTICAL purposcs the parish is within the
bounds of the presbytery of Penpont and synod of Dumfries;
patron, the Duke of Buccleuch. The stipend of
the minister is £'237; and there is a small but comfortable
manse, with a glebe of about twenty acres, worth
£'25 a year. The church, an elegant edifice in the Saxon
style, was built in 1840-1: it stands on an elevated
spot near the village of Thornhill, chosen by the duke,
by whom, it is understood, the plan of the building was
designed; and from its j)icturesque appearance the
church is a great ornament to the surrounding country.
There is also a dissenting meeting-house, in connexion
with the United Presbyterian Synod. A parochial school
is maintained, the master of which has a salary of £34,
about £30 fees, and a free house and garden, with upwards
of two acres of land. Other schools are supported
by fees, and some by fees and a small endowment.
There is a flourishing subscri])tion library in the
village of Tliondiill, instituted in 1814; besides three
or four friendly societies in the parish. Among the antiquities
is a Roman fort or custellum with intrenchmeuts,
called the Deer Camp; it is situated about two
miles north of Tibbers, the great Roman station in the
parish of Penpont. The castle of Morton, however, is
the most considerable relic of antiquity, though not
above half of it now remains. It stands on the margin
of a deep glen, and the ruin is about 100 feet in length,
and nearly thirty in breadth. The wall of the south
front, still entire, is about forty feet high, and has at
each corner a round tower twelve feet in diameter: the
foundation walls are generally eight, but in some places
ten, feet thick. About the beginning of the last century
a boat, formed of one solid piece of wood, and resembling
an Indian canoe, was dug out of the bottom of a tract
of moss not far from the castle; a circumstance which
has led to the conclusion that the ground whereon it
stands was formerly encircled by a loch. In the vicinity
other relics have been discovered, indicating the occurrence
of hostile engagements. There are several chalybeate
springs in the parish; and near the castle, issuing
from a peat-moss, is a spring impregnated with a small
quantity of sulphuretted hydrogen, and the water of
which has proved of singular advantage in cutaneous
complaints.