Murdoch Grant

Who was Murdoch Grant?

Murdoch Grant was an English itinerant peddler and murder victim of which the unusual circumstance regarding the capture of the murderer resulted from a local tailor who claimed to have witnessed the events in a dream.

During the spring of 1830, Grant visited the village of Assynt in the Scottish Highlands of Sutherlandshire to attend a wedding March 19. However, after disappearing between Drumbeg and Nedd on March 11, his body was discovered four weeks later by a farm servant passing by the Loch-for-na-eigin, a remote mountain lake located almost a mile from Drumbeg. After dragging his body ashore, the servant observed the peddler's pockets had been emptied and turned inside out and his backpack missing as well as marks on his face showing signs of foul play.

However, local authorities were unable to solve the crime and Grant's murder remained unsolved for some time. However, after the local postmaster casually mentioned to sheriff Lumsden about changing a £10 note with a suspicious looking man shortly after Grant's disappearance, sheriff Lumsden questioned schoolteacher Hugh Macleod. After Macleod denied the postmaster's claim, the sheriff arrested Macleod and ordered a search of his house.