‘Mr. Thomas Reid was born at Strachan, April 26, 1710; married to Elizabeth Reid, August 12, 1740. The said Elizabeth was born August 3, 1724. Their children:—(1) Jean, born July 21, 1741, died February 27, 1772, buried in College Churchyard, Glasgow; (2) Margaret, born October 20, 1742, died 1772, buried as above; (3) Martha, born August 22, 1744, married Dr. Patrick Carmichael; (4) Elizabeth, born February 21, 1746, died of smallpox in August 1746, buried in the Churchyard of New Machar; (5) Anna, born July 10, 1751, died of chin-cough May 21, 1753, buried in the Isle of Old Machar; (6) George, born February 11, 1755, died at St. John’s, Newfoundland, February 1780; (7) Lewis, born December 13, 1756, died of teething July 19, 1758, buried in the Isle of Old Machar; (8) David, born February 26, 1762, died at Edinburgh August 30, 1782; (9) Elizabeth, born May 8, 1766, died June 1, 1767, of smallpox by inoculation, buried in the College Churchyard, Glasgow.’ The story of the fifteen years at New Machar, as we have it, is almost empty of incidents, a dim picture. The scene does not warmly touch the imagination. Undulating hills of moderate size, chill and tame; land monotonously fertile, with scanty timber; yet pleasant prospects in the distance of the valley of the Don, with Benachie and remoter Grampians in the background; a population mostly agricultural; two or three country mansions; the highroad from Aberdeen to Banff traversing the parish. New Machar was wanting, on the whole, in the breezy highland charm of the early home at Strachan. The social life was simple but intellectually stagnant. Among the infrequent visitors at the manse I find incidental mention in Reid’s letters of one. He tells that he made the acquaintance of the well-known Jacobite, Mr. Hepburn of Keith, ‘by his lodging a night in my house at New Machar,’ when he was in the Prince’s army, on his way to Culloden; perhaps when he was in Lord George Murray’s division, which retreated through Aberdeenshire in February 1746, or in one of the detachments which were in motion around New Machar in the preceding December.