Abridged and adapted from Pratt (1858)
Fraserburgh many be said to owe its origin to Alexander Fraser of Philorth. This Sir Alexander must have been a man of a very enterprising turn. He came to his estates in 1569, and almost immediately after "began to build a large and beautiful town at Faithlie where his family had formerly a burgh of barony." In the spring of the following year (March 1670) he laid the foundation of "the Tower of Kynnaird's Head;" and the next year he built the new church. On the 9th day of March 1576, "he began to build a large and convenient harbour at the same place and himself laid the first stone of it in nomine Patris, Filii, et Spiritus Sancti." After this he continued to beautifie and inlarge the town with publick buildings and fine streets;" and, on its being erected into burgh of regality, [The title of the town was The Burgh and Regality of Fraserburgh, and hence colloquially The Broch, the name still in use today] he obtained for himself and his successors, among other ample privileges, those of "naming the magistrates and town-council, and of erecting there an university, equal in privileges to any other in the kingdom,"—he and his heirs having "the nomination of the principal, professors, and whole masters thereof." In 1600, the General Assembly recommended a Mr Charles Fairholme, or Ferme, the minister of Fraserburgh, "a great stickler for presbytery," as principal. Whether it had anything to with the religious bias of the nominee, or the interference of Assembly with Sir Alexander's prerogative we cannot say; but the account of this attempt of the Assembly to nominate a principal, thus abruptly concludes: "Nothing farther was done."
McKean (1990) records that the Moses Tablet, the single remaining concrete record of the University of Fraserburgh, is to be found within the South Parish Kirk.