Tam Samson (1723 - 1797)

Thomas "Tam" Samson was a succesful Ayrshire seedsman with whom Robert Burns was aquainted.   Samson was a keen and skilled huntsman and had expressed a wish to die out on the moors engaged in his favorite pursuit of hunting. When he was late returning from hunting one night, his friends began to wonder if his wish had been fulfilled and during the course of the evening Burns penned the first verse of Tam Samson's Elegy. Samson returned later that night unharmed.