William Smith

William Smith was a young man only nineteen years of age. In 1685 the house of Caitloch was occupied as a garrison by the troopers, who ravaged the country round in search of wanderers. In one of these raids, Cornet Baillie met this countryman in the fields near his father's house.   There was no charge against him, but for refusing to answer questions, he was taken to the garrison.   His father immediately applied to his master, Laurie of Maxweltown, to meet Baillie at the Kirk of Glencairn, with the hope of obtaining the liberation of his son, but Laurie had no sympathy with the Covenanters; and on meeting the  Cornet, young Smith was again interrogated, and again refusing to answer satisfactorily, Laurie himself passed sentence of death, which he had power to do as a Commissioner.
Baillie opposed this summary process as illegal, but the blood-thirsty Laird would hear of no delay, and threatened the Cornet for sparing him so long. He was accordingly carried to the Race Muir, near at hand, and shot. A large boulder stone in the field is pointed out where he fell, and retains the name--William Smith--engraven on it. For some time his body was not allowed to be buried, and it is said he was first interred under the threshold of his father's cottage: afterwards it was taken to the churchyard at Tynron, where a memorial stone marks his last resting-place.