Moffat's Royal Mail Martyrs

Many times I have driven south on the road from Edinburgh to Dumfries in all types of weather passing a large cairn at the watershed between the Tweed and Annan rivers. Here half a mile beyond the Devil's Beef Tub on 1 February 1831,two officers of the Royal Mail coach between Dumfries and Edinburgh perished in a snow storm. John Goodfellow the driver and James McGeorge,the guard had just changed their horses in Moffat before embarking on the steep pull out of the town. Already snowing heavily they became stuck so advised the male passengers to return to Moffat for a post chaise for the ladies.

Their strong sense of duty to deliver the mail prevailed,so they unharnessed the horses and plodded on into the drifting snow. They never made it. Their bodies were later found near a burn where the memorial cairn was erected in 1931. Their bodies were interred in Moffat kirkyard where two memorials were erected through public subscription.
So if speeding bye remember the efforts of Goodfellow and McGeorge