MAXTONE, a surname derived from the lands of Maxton in Roxburghshire. A family of this name has for centuries owned the estate of Cultoquey, Perthshire, which, during the time that it has been in their possession, has never, it is said, been larger or smaller than when they got it. They had the same common ancestor as the Maxwells, the one name being derived from Maccus-tun, a Saxon termination, and the other from Maccus-well (in course of time shortened into Maxton and Maxwell,) to denote the manor and well of Maccus, a Saxon baron who came into Scotland at an early period, and received a grant of lands upon the Tweed.

Robert de Maxtone had a charter of the lands of Cultoquey dated 1410, but that the family possessed the estate previous to that time is proved by mention being made of them in charters of other houses of older date. His descendant, Robert Maxtone of Cultoquey, who had a charter of the lands of Ardoch in 1487, was slain at Flodden in 1513. Anthony Maxtone of the same family, was, in the reign of Charles I., prebendary of Durham. The succession in the male line has been uninterrupted from father to son from the first. The 13th proprietor, James Maxtone Graham, Esq. of Cultoquey, born June 20, 1819, succeeded his father in 1846.

One of the proprietors of this house is celebrated for having repeated the following curious addition to his litany every morning at a well near his residence:

“From the greed of the Campbells,
From the pride of the Grahams,
From the ire of the Drummonds,
And the wind of the Murrays,
Good Lord deliver us.”

His estate was surrounded by the Breadalbane, Montrose, Perth, and Athol families, and he thus showed his apprehensions of his more powerful neighbours.

James Maxtone Graham of Cultoquey, married in 1851, the daughter of George E. Russell, Esq., East India Company’s Service. In 1859 he succeeded to the estate of Redgorton, Perthshire, on the death of his uncle, Robert Graham, Esq., cousin of the celebrated Lord Lynedoch, and in consequence assumed the name and arms of Graham under letters patent of the Lord Lyon.