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The beautifully-situated village of Sorn was an obscure hamlet in the days of the persecution, but the centre of a troubled district.
A curate was settled in the church, in opposition to the people, who were exceedingly hostile to him, and were not slow in showing their resentment.
A party of soldiers had a garrison in the place, and a noted persecutor resided in the neighbourhood, whose name lives in the traditions of the district as "bloody Reid of Daldilling." The site of his castle is still pointed out to the curious, as also the spot where his victims were hanged.
The last sufferer previous to the Revolution has his memorial in the churchyard--George Wood, a youth about sixteen years of age, shot by one of Craigie's troopers, without question or accusation. The murderer, on being challenged for what he had done, replied he knew him " to be one of the Whigs, and they ought to be shot wherever they were found.''
The original martyr-stone was inserted in the basement of the renewed monument, and bears this inscription;--
HeRE LYeS GORG
WOOD WHO WAS SHOT
AT TINKHORNHILL BY BL
OODY JOHN ReiD TRVPeR
FOR HIS ADHeRANCE TO
THE WORD OF GOD AND
THE COVeNANTeD WORK
OF ReFORMATION l688
On a panel surmounted by a pediment is the following inscription on the new stone:
TO
PRESERVE FROM OBLIVION
THE FATE OF
GEORGE WOOD
WHO WAS SHOT AT TINKHORNHILL
MDCLXXXVIII
FOR HIS ADHERENCE TO THE WORD OF
GOD
AND THE COVENANTED WORK OF
REFORMATION
AND TO MANIFEST GRATITUDE
FOR THE INVALUABLE
RELIGIOUS PRIVILEGES
NOW ENJOYED.
THIS STONE WAS
ERECTED BY SUBSCRIPTION.
Adapted from 'Tombstones of the Covenanters' by James Gibson, c1876.
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