Sifting through the archive: an epistolary sketch of the elusive Reverend William McLeod

The focus of this article is on compiling a biography of Reverend William McLeod, a secular priest who served Corgarff from 1800 to 1804 and Braemar from 1804 until his death in 1809. This task is complicated by the fact that he was known by some as McLeod, and by others as McHardy, while Dom Odo Blundell in his 1909 \textit{The Catholic Highlands of Scotland} referred to him as McLeod alias McHardy. This article makes use of documents that have come to light, during the course of the last century, which not only assist in explaining who this enigmatic priest was, but also suggest possible reasons for the confusion surrounding his name. Although his service to the Church was interrupted by the tuberculosis which caused his death, the details of his life, including his presence in Braemar during a particularly turbulent period in this Mission's history, help to expand our knowledge of Catholicism in the north-east Highlands during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.