ABERDEEN, _June 17, 1637_.
CLXXXVII.--_To the_ LADY GAITGIRTH.
[LADY GAITGIRTH, or ISABEL BLAIR, daughter to John Blair of that ilk, by Grizel his wife, daughter to Robert, Lord Semple, was the wife of James Chalmers of Gaitgirth. To him she had five sons and five daughters. Mr. Fergushill of Ochiltree resided in the vicinity; see Letter CXII. Her husband, to whom Rutherford expresses his obligations in the close of this letter, was a man of worth. He was made Sheriff-Principal of Ayrshire in 1632; and in 1633, he and Sir William Cunningham of Cunninghamhead represented Ayrshire in Parliament. Embracing the cause of the Covenant, he, in 1641, with Cassilis and Caprington, were sent as commissioners from the Scottish Parliament to Newcastle; and in 1649 he had a troop in Colonel Robert Montgomery's Horse (Robertson's "Ayrshire Families"). His great-grandfather, James Chalmers of Gaitgirth, who lived at the time of the Reformation, was a very zealous reformer, and is described by Knox, Calderwood, and Spottiswood, as one of the boldest and most daring men of any who took part in that important revolution.
The name is often written Gathgirth and Gadgirth. It is in the parish of Coylton, about four miles from Monkton. The modern mansion occupies the fine site of the old, on a wooded knoll that overhangs the river Ayr, at one point commanding a view of ARRAN and Goatfell. It is a small estate.]