Notes |
- "In 1595 in the church at Stewarton a marriage contract was signed between John Lockhart and Marion Cunningham, daughter of the late William Cunningham of Aiket and his wife Helen Colquhoun. Their eldest son was born in 1598 (he was the only son by 1614) followed be two daughters, Margaret and Janet. John Lockhart, for many years the town's commissioner at Parliament, acquired a taste for living in style, and when he died the furnishings of his house were valued at 800 pounds, plus 500 pounds worth of silver work. With his connections in high places (in his will the Earl of Dunfermline and Lord Abercorn were asked to be patrons 'of his poor wife and bairns and to see them not oppressed or wronged') John Lockhart had ambitions to be more than a minor Ayrshire laird. For centuries his kinsmen the Lockharts of Bar had been a powerful family at Galston but in 1609 their fortunes had declined, the last laird, George Lockhart and his wife living in rented rooms in Ayr and unable to pay the thirteen merks owing to the schoolmaster for teaching their two sons and daughter in 1606. In 1610 John Lockhart purchased their lands and the tower of Bar and henceforth was known as the Laird of Bar, a title that carried far more authority in Ayrshire than 'John Lockhart of Boghall.'" [Ayr and Its People, citation details below]
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