This town’s name isn’t a punch line. Or is it? Exploring Athol’s surprisingly posh, somewhat scandalous Scottish roots. - The Boston Globe (2024)

Yes, I know that joke. I know them all. Athol makes people giggle like schoolchildren who think they’ve heard a naughty word. After Belchertown, Athol probably ranks as one of Massachusetts’s most unpleasantly named towns. If you’re still not hearing it, touch your tongue to the palate of your mouth and say, “Athol.”

I knew my hometown was named after a village in Scotland called Blair Atholl (two lls is Scottish Atholl, and one l is the Massachusetts Athol). But until this year, I had no idea how beautiful Blair Atholl is or that it has a 700-year-old castle. There is even a Duke of Atholl who commands Europe’s only officially sanctioned private army. Who’s laughing now, Wellesley? Anything to say for yourself, Dover, or Newton? Sure, Athol may be one of the poorest towns in Massachusetts, and our high school ranks 239th out of the state’s 351 public high schools (I am a somewhat proud and semi-literate graduate of Athol Regional High School). But we’re named after a village with Britain’s second tallest tree. So take that, Brookline!

My visit to Blair Atholl was a happy accident. I was on vacation in April, beginning with a few days in Glasgow. I drove north to Inverness to explore the Highlands and then southwest to Edinburgh. Halfway between Inverness and Edinburgh, I spotted a sign for Atholl on the highway. My husband, Alex, turned to me and said, “We’re stopping, right?” It was a rhetorical question.

Cut to 30 minutes later, and we’re pulling into the parking area of Blair Castle & Estates. We were surrounded by sheep-dotted hills and acres of manicured gardens. I was beginning to think that this Atholl contained an extra “l” to denote that it’s lovelier than Athol, Mass. Because it was April, every inch of grass was over-saturated Technicolor green, and the sheep seemed extra plump. The setting was heavenly.

Before exploring the castle, I headed to the Hercules Garden, which dates back to the 18th century and was carefully restored in the 1980s. Even though few flowers were blooming, and the fruit trees were just beginning to bud, the gardens, sculptures, and duck-filled ponds were charming. In an alternate universe, this is the Atholl where I would have grown up, not the Athol with a lake my sister and I lovingly referred to as Dead Man’s Pond.

After an hour, the stop in Blair Atholl became much more than a novelty. It was a place I would enjoy visiting no matter what the village was called. Had I not grown up in Athol, there’s a good chance I wouldn’t have stopped here and experienced Blair Castle.

I later discovered that the 9-acre Hercules Garden that I was smitten with was being laid out at the same time that Athol, Mass., was being named. Before British settlers arrived in North America, the Nipmuc Nation Tribe already had a name for the region: Pequoiag. However, when the town was incorporated in 1762, John Murray, a politician and native of Blair Atholl, chose the name Athol because the rolling hills reminded him of his Scottish hometown. Murray was reported to be a distant cousin of the Duke of Atholl. So, a cousin of royalty bestowed Athol with its name. Very classy.

Or so I thought.

As it turns out, Murray was neither noble nor royal. He was given the paperwork to register the town’s name as Paxton, not Athol. He took it upon himself to change it. Why? Because he was a slippery, duplicitous miscreant. Another town in Worcester County got the name Paxton. We got stuck with Athol.

“He was a scoundrel,” said state Representative Susannah Whipps, an independent from Athol whose family has lived in the town for seven generations. “John Murray was a loyalist, and he got chased out of Massachusetts because he sided with the British during the Revolutionary War.”

When news of Murray’s disloyalty to the Colonies and continued love of the Crown became known, a mob of hundreds gathered at his home. According to records in the Loyalist Collection at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, he fled to Boston. All of his property was seized, and he was banished to Canada. In 1780, the Massachusetts General Assembly denounced him as a traitor.

“He was a shyster, a real shady character. So this might change your entire story,” Whipps said, sensing my disappointment at the news. “I would hate for you to write about Athol with this great sense of nobility. Maybe we’re still paying John Murray’s debt of dishonesty with the name. Also, I don’t want you to give us a better reputation than we actually deserve. I kind of like the scandal of it.”

Murray’s face appears on Athol’s official town seal. A traitor who could be best described as “odious” is Athol’s founding father. That’s one way to look at it.

But I prefer to think of Athol and its direct connection to the beauty of Scotland. In 1703, Queen Anne created the title Duke of Atholl, and in 1844, Queen Victoria granted the duke permission to raise Europe’s only legal private army (the unit had previously disbanded). The army, called the Atholl Highlanders, is still active today, although it’s purely ceremonial and is best known for its bagpipers. The Highlanders have marched in Athol twice and are coming back in April 2025 to celebrate Athol’s famed River Rat parade, along with traveling to perform in New York City and Washington, D.C.

The current Duke of Atholl doesn’t reside in Blair Castle; he lives in South Africa, but the 30-room castle is open for viewing. You can tour the ornate structure (tickets to tour the castle and gardens are $22) or take a whiskey tour to learn about Blair Castle’s illicit distilling past and sample some hooch (tickets are $75). If you fall in love with the castle and surrounding area the way I did, you can even stay at the Atholl Estates. There are lodges, cabins, and huts available. You can also camp there.

The walls of the 755-year-old castle are filled with portraits of past dukes, earls, viscounts, lords, ladies, and marquesses. An audio tour, which you can download before visiting, explains hundreds of years of history and rooms of well-curated artifacts. I’m not a descendant of the Duke of Atholl, but I felt a kinship walking through the castle.

This is where it all began for humble Athol. All giggling aside, if my hometown was going to be named after a location on Earth, I’m glad it was this beautiful place.

Christopher Muther can be reached at christopher.muther@globe.com. Follow him @Chris_Muther and Instagram @chris_muther.