The leading industries comprise manufactures of tweeds, hosiery, clogs, baskets and leather, besides the timber trade, nursery gardening and the making of machinery and iron implements. Dumfries markets for cattle and sheep, held weekly, and for horses, held five times annually, have always ranked with the best, and there is also a weekly market for pork during the five months beginning with November. The sea-borne trade is small compared with what it was before the railway came.
Although Dumfries was the site of a camp of the Selgovian Britons, nothing is known of its history until long after the withdrawal of the Romans. William the Lion (d. 1214) made it a royal burgh, but the oldest existing charter was granted by Robert II. in 1395. The town became embroiled in the struggles that ended in the independence of Scotland. It favoured the claims to the throne, first of John Baliol--whose mother Devorgilla, daughter of Alan, lord of Galloway, had done much to promote its prosperity by building the stone bridge over the Nith--and then of the Red Comyn, as against those of Robert Bruce, who drew his support from Annandale. When Edward I. besieged Carlaverock Castle in 1300 he lodged in the Franciscan monastery, which, six years later (10th of February 1306), was the scene of the murder of Comyn (see ROBERT THE BRUCE). From this time to nearly the close of the 16th century the burgh was exposed to frequent raids, both from freebooters on the English side and from partisans of the turbulent chiefs--Douglases, Maxwells, Johnstones. The Scottish sovereigns, however, did not wholly neglect Dumfries. James IV., James V., Mary and her son each visited it. James VI. was royally entertained on the 3rd of August 1617, and afterwards presented the seven incorporated trades with a silver gun to encourage the craftsmen in the practice of musketry. The competition for this cannon-shaped tube, now preserved in the old town hall, took place annually--with a great festival every seven years--until 1831. John Mayne (1759-1836), a native of Dumfries, commemorated the gathering in an excellent humorous poem called "The Siller Gun." Though in sympathy with the Covenanters, the town was the scene of few incidents comparable to those which took place in the northern parts of the shire. The Union with England was so unpopular that not only did the provost vote against the measure in the Scottish parliament, but the articles were burned (20th of November 1706) at the Market Cross by a body of Cameronians, amidst the approving cheers of the inhabitants. In both 1715 and 1745 Dumfries remained apathetic. Prince Charles Edward indeed occupied the town, holding his court in a building afterwards known as the Commercial Hotel, levying £2000 tribute money and requisitioning 1000 pairs of shoes for his Highlanders, by way of punishing its contumacy. But, in a false alarm, the Jacobites suddenly retreated, and a few years later the town was reimbursed by the State for the Pretender's extortions. The most interesting event in the history of Dumfries is its connexion with Burns, for the poet resided here from December 1791 till his death on the 21st of July 1796. The house in which he died is still standing.