Marie was found guilty of witchcraft and burned at the stake, the fate of the others is not known. A local verse recalls another notable character during this period... "In Auld Kirk the witches ride thick And in Dunrod they dwell; But the greatest loon amang them a' Is Auld Dunrod himsel'." 'Auld Dunrod' was the last of the Lindsay family of Dunrod Castle. As the result of a dissolute life he lost all his possessions and fell into the black arts. Local reputation had it that he was in league with the devil, and he died in mysterious circumstances in a barn belonging to one of his former tenant farmers. Nothing now remains of the castle which stood at the foot of Dunrod Hill. Commissioned by Sir Michael Shaw Stewart, 5th Baronet and designed by industrialist Robert Thom of Rothesay, this grand water supply scheme in the hills behind the village was completed in 1827. It entailed the damming of Shaws Water (a small stream on the other side of the hills from Greenock) to create what is now known as Loch Thom. The Greenock Cut was also created to supply water from the loch, around the hills, to the town of Greenock for domestic and industrial purposes. The scheme was still in use as recently as 1971, at which time it was made obsolete by the boring of a tunnel through Whinhill.   1849 was a disastrous year for the village; not only did the crops fail, but one third of the population died due to an outbreak of cholera. During the late 18th century and early 19th century, the village was noted for smuggling activities involving the illicit transfer of alcohol, tea and tobacco from vessels heading up the Firth of Clyde to the ports of Greenock and Port Glasgow. One well known case is that of Thomas Finnie, a local milkman, whose tale is recorded in the records of the Innerkip Society:  “Early in the morning of the 22nd of December, 1809, about 6 am, Thomas Spence, Supervisor of Excise in Greenock, could have been seen – suitably armed with pistol, etc – riding through the slush to Inverkip accompanied by two other officers. Almost exhausted and perished with the cold after their unusual errand they espied Thomas Finnie’s milk cart. They lay in wait near the Daff burn and when Thomas had reached that point on his way to the “big house” with his morning delivery, the command to halt came from Spence.