Mary Campbell, called by Robert Burns his 'sweet Highland Mary', inspired such odes as Will ye go to the Indies my Mary, Prayer for Mary and The Highland Lassie, O. Mary together with her father, Archibald Campbell, visited her brother Robert in Greenock at the home of Peter Macpherson, a ship carpenter and relative of her mother Agnes. Robert Campbell, who was apprentice to Peter Macpherson, and lodging with the Macpherson family, was struck down with typhus during the visit. Mary remained at the house and nursed him but she too died from the dreadful fever in 1786. She was buried in the Old West Kirkyard at Greenock in the lair owned by Peter Macpherson. Burns wrote Highland Mary immediately following her death and three years later penned the very moving poem To Mary in Heaven.

      Harvey Macpherson, a former Editor of Creag Dhubh, the annual clan magazine, displayed the snuff mull in the Clan Museum. He explained that on one of several visits to Greenock, Burns lft the snuff mull with the Macphersons as a keepsake and memento. The initials "D.S." are attributed to Dugald Stewart, the great Professor of Moral Philosophy at Edinburgh University and friend of Burns who had given him the mull. Harvey's uncle, Dr. Cluny Macpherson of St. John's, Newfoundland (see portrait at Panel 57), had given him the mull with the explanation that it had been handed down through the generations from Dr. Cluny's great-great-grandfather Alexander Macpherson of Greenock. Although both Macpherson families were contemporaries in Greenock it has not been possible to link the two. Dr. Cluny's great-grandfather was also named Peter Macpherson. The story regarding the snuff mull would be more logical if that Peter was the son of Highland Mary's relatives rather than Alexander and his wife, Agnes Campbell as believed by Dr. Cluny. The snuff mull is certainly of the period but at this time it has not been possible to substantiate its provenance.