Highland Watch, The

“The Highland Watch” is a traditional Scottish strathspey in E minor, first printed as a slow air in Daniel Dow’s Ancient Scots Music (c. 1775) and set as a strathspey in Gow’s Complete Repository, Part One (1799). The title refers to the 42nd Royal Highland Regiment — the Black Watch, raised in 1739 under the Earl of Crawford — and later printings track the regiment’s renaming, with Duncan McKercher’s 1824 collection giving it as “The Highland Watch, now the 42nd Regt. or Royal Highlanders.” The tune also turns up in the handwritten tune books of individual musicians, including County Cork uilleann piper James Goodman (mid-19th century) and Nova Scotia fiddler James Barry of Pictou County. By the late 19th century it had crossed into American print, appearing in Jean White’s 100 Popular Hornpipes, Reels, Jigs and Country Dances (Boston, 1880) and, as “42nd Highland Regiment,” in Ryan’s Mammoth Collection (Boston, 1883).