The Kilmorack Bodysnatchers

Body snatching was rife in cities like Glasgow and Edinburgh in the 1800s, when the infamous Burke and Hare were doing their worst. This plague of evil even reached the Highlands of Scotland, and was a painful time for bereaved families, when on the evening of their loved-ones burial, men would come from Aberdeen to steal their bodies and sell them to the doctors of the day for medical research. Small wonder Scottish doctors were well ahead of others at that time.

Andrew Fraser, son of Andrew and Margaret Fraser of Teanalonaig Farm, Kilmorack, recounted his maternal grandfather's story of how he helped protect his small community from this evil.

'In the Parish of Kilmorack, in a corner of the old burying ground is a wee bothy, said to be the guard house. My grandfather, John Mackenzie of Caulternich Farm, Kilmorack, spent many a night in the old bothy after a funeral, to prevent a body being dug up by the 'bodysnatchers' and sold for the purpose of medical research. In the dead of night, John Mackenzie (born 1851), along with another local man would sit, shot gun at the small window of the cold, stone building. Now and then, guns would be fired at the shadows of the wicked men who had come to rob the graves, though as far as we know none were killed. Even though these were desperate people, significantly no bodies were taken.'

Years later, John Mackenzie's grandson Simon, was visiting Andrew Fraser and his wife Johan in Melbourne. Andrew was telling Simon about their grandfather's role in protecting the bodies, and how he fired his gun from the wee bothy to frighten the body snatchers away. Simon, who farmed the land adjacent to the burying ground, was thoughtful, then announced;

'I had often wondered where all the metal in the tree had come from."

Years earlier, he was sent to cut down a tree that had fallen close to the graves. Struggling to cut up the trunk he now realised it had been full of lead shot fired from his grandfather's gun!

Kilmorack Graveyard Bothy, near Beauly

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