Thanks to Robert McMaster for the above post.

Some notes…

Tarwaithe does exist, not only as a farm but apparently (as mentioned above by Megan L) also as a location. The annual Strichen Festival of traditional music (in late May, if anyone would like to go), put on by the Buchan Heritage Society, gives the following address for the festival : South Tarwathie, Strichen, Fraserburgh, Aberdeenshire.

Yes it is actually Mormond Hill (I've seen it; it's bare and quite unimpressive except for the large collection of communication antennas atop it), but the Scroggie poem spells it Mormon (whether in error by Scroggie or in the re-typing by Dwight Rettie [see below], or because the spelling of the place later changed, I don't know).

As far as I know, it's not impossible that Scroggie went to sea as a youth, but, as others have noted, there is no evidence of it.

The US Library of Congress has a copy of Scroggie's "The Peasant's Lyre" with the text retyped in 1986 by Dwight Rettie, who apparently obtained the book as a remainder from a library in Aberdeen, Scotland. I wonder if the various publications (here and elsewhere) of the Scroggie poem were taken directly from the original text of "The Peasant's Lyre" or were taken from the Library of Congress' 1986 retyped publication of the original book, available online, which retyping introduces the possibility of an error in transcription by Rettie.

Opposite the Contents page is written the following:

The text of "The Peasant's Lyre" was given to Dwight Faw Rettie (b.1930) of Arlington, Virginia, by the Aberdeen Public Library in Aberdeen, Scotland. Dwight is the son of James Cardno [1904-69] and Lois Chloey Morris Rettie (b.1908), both born in Fossil, Oregon. Research on sometime poet George Scroggie has not yet turned up very much, but Lois has information that by recent marriage, at least, the Retties and the Scroggies are related.

Of special interest among those poems is "Farewell to Tarwaithe," because Tarwaithe is the name of the long time family farm and the birthplace of Dwight's grandmother Jane Cardno near Strichen, Aberdeenshire. In 1986 the farm was still home to a family member, Margaret Jane Miline Murray, widow of James Cardno Murray, second cousin to Dwight. The farm has, however, been sold to a neighbor.

Scroggie's poem was set to a popular tune of the 1850s and has been variously recorded....

... The text of the book was re-typed by Dwight, except for the cover page and the markings on page 4. Minor changes in layout were made; however, spelling and punctuation are Scroggie's.