Vindication of Highland Mary On or around the 20th October, is
the 225th anniversary of Highland Mary's death, and Norrie
Paton, of Campbeltown, thought it would be fitting to have an
updated article on her made available. We have reproduced his
article here. A young woman who died in a Greenock tenement on
(or around) 20 October 1786, became immortalised in world
literature as Burns’s Highland Mary. Robert Burns, to whom she
was then betrothed, explained the circumstances of the location
and cause of her death: “... she crossed the sea to meet me at
Greenock, where she had scarce landed when she was seized with a
malignant fever, which hurried my dear girl to the grave in a
few days, before I could even hear of her illness.” Mary had
arrived from her parents’ home in Campbeltown to stay with
relatives for a short spell until she took up employment with
the family of Colonel McIvor at Glasgow. She was buried in a
lair owned by these relatives, the McPhersons, in the Old West
Kirkyard that stood on the site no