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1616 - 1629 - the Tolbooth was built to
serve as a Council Chamber, Court, and
Jail.
1630 - Marion Hardie from Elgin was
imprisoned in the Tolbooth for Witchcraft. A
trial led to her being strangled then burnt in
public.
1686 - the Market Cross was built in front
of the Tolbooth.
1703 - Witchcraft was no longer deemed a
criminal offence. Over 40 people had been
accused of witchcraft in the area, with many
burned at the stake. Tar barrels were used for
the fires.
1715 - locals declared James Francis
Edward Stuart King of Scotland at the
Market Cross in front of the Tolbooth. This was
a time Jacobite's claimed the Catholic Stuart
had a greater claim to the Throne than the
Protestant George I, a
German relation of Stuart.
The Jacobite Wars were over the English
Parliament refusing to select any more Kings
suspected of being Catholic and friendly with
their enemy, France.
1746 - the Tolbooth held over 50 Jacobite
prisoners after the Battle of
Culloden, the last Jacobite battle.
1700s mid - Aberdeen Merchants and
Magistrates kept many Local Children
in the Tolbooth and other buildings around the
city before transporting them to America to
work, basically as slaves. These were supposed
to have been street children with nobody
looking after them, although some were said to
have been snatched when out playing.
1842 - the Market Cross was moved about 150
yards east of the Tolbooth to the middle of
Castlegate Square.
1891 - executions in Aberdeen stopped, apart
from one much later.
1963 - the last person to be executed in
Aberdeen, and Scotland, was Henry John
Burnett for the murder of a merchant
seaman.
1991 - the Tolbooth was opened as a free
Museum.
1990s - the central Column of the Market
Cross with a Unicorn on top was replaced. The
original Column is now on display in the
Tolbooth.
2009 - the TV series Most Haunted visited
the Tolbooth as it is claimed to be the most
haunted place in Aberdeen.
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