McCulloch One Name Study

John McCulloch, burgess of Kirkcudbright, may have been another son, for in 1607, he and the widow of James signed Letters of Slams as nearest of kin to James. He too, was slain, though not without putting up a very good fight. In November 1613 he was killed upon the lands of Kirkhous, within a quarter of a mile of Kirkcudbright, by John Maxwell in Dumfries, called Achilles John, and by the deceased John Maxwell, natural son of the late William Maxwell of Auchinlarie. On 4 February 1616, Achilles Maxwell was before the Court of Justiciary, pursued by Thomas McCulloch of Barholm. It was stated that John McCulloch’s body was a mass of wounds, two deadly strokes on the head, fifteen bloody wounds in the breast and belly, and other fifteen on back and sides. Both the Minister and Commissary of Kirkcudbright gave evidence, the former to finding two dead men, the other, perhaps, being the bastard son of Auchinlane, and the latter to taking instructions that day from the accused anent his testament. The accused man put forward an alibi that he was a hundred miles away at the Place of Teilling in Angus, but the Court accepted the evidence of the Commissary and Achilles was duly hanged.