The town of Moffat hosts an old cemetery at the south end of the High Street with gravestones almost solely created from local red sandstone extracted from the River Annan basin. It includes remains of the gable end of a pre-reformation church and in the late 18th Century a new church was built on the site of the current St Andrew's Church.
In 1685 John Graham, of Claverhouse, was sent to Scotland with orders to enforce conformity to the Established Church. He stood in the churchyard and ordered the people of Moffat to take the Test Oath (swearing loyalty to the English king.) Anyone refusing was labelled a “Covenanter” and was likely to be persecuted, tortured and banished. It was through his relentless repression of the Covenanters that Claverhouse earned the name “Bluidy Clavers.”
In 1747 the original graveyard was covered over with four feet of soil to accommodate future burials. It contains several famed occupants including Francis Moffat the Clan Chief of the Moffats who was buried in 1992 and, John Loudon Mcadam inventor of tarmacadam (a smooth road surface)
To find the cache you will need to visit the four waypoints and obtain the information required:
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Jessie Dixon died in her Gth year of life
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A father and son shared and died in the same profession. The father famously died on 01/0A/1831 aged H7
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William Johnstone died on the 04/11/179B aged 6D
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John Bell died on F6/07/18KC
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John Pagan died on 16/07/18E1
You will find the geocache at: N55 AB.CDE W003 FG.AHK
