An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America. J. P. Maclean
supporter of the government of James on his accession to the British throne.
In the meantime other forces were at work. Seeds of discontent had been sown by both Henry VIII, and his daughter Elizabeth, who tried to force the people of Ireland to accept the ritual of the Reformed Church. Both reaped abundant fruit of trouble from this ill-advised policy. Being inured to war it did not require much fire to be fanned into a flame of commotion and discord. Soon after his accession to the English throne, James I caused certain estates of Irish nobles, who had engaged in treasonable practices, to be escheated to the crown. By this confiscation James had at his disposal nearly six counties in Ulster, embracing half a million of acres. These lands were allotted to private individuals in sections of one thousand, fifteen hundred, and two thousand acres, each being required to support an adequate number of English or Scottish tenantry. Protestant colonies were transplanted from England and Scotland, but chiefly from the latter, with the intent that the principles of the Reformation should subdue the turbulent natives. The proclamation inviting settlers for Ulster was dated at Edinburgh, March 28, 1609. Great care was taken in selecting the emigrants, to which the king gave his personal attention. Measures were taken that the settlers should be "from the inward parts of Scotland," and that they should be so located that "they may not mix nor intermarry" with "the mere Irish." For the most part the people were received from the shires of Dumbarton, Renfrew, Ayre, Galloway, and Dumfries. On account of religious persecutions, in 1665, a large additional accession was received from Galloway and Ayre. The chief seat of the colonization scheme was in the county of Londonderry. The new settlers did not mix with the native population to any appreciable extent, especially prior to 1741, but mingled freely with the English Puritans and the refugee Huguenots. The native race was forced sullenly to retire before the colonists. Although the king had expressly forbidden any more of the inhabitants of the Western Isles to be taken to Ulster, yet the blood of the Highlander, to a great degree, permeated that of the Ulsterman, and had its due weight in forming the character of the Scotch-Irish. The commotions in the Highlands, during the civil wars, swelled the number to greater proportions. The rebellions of 1715 and 1745 added a large percentage to the increasing population. The names of the people are interesting, both as illustrating their origin, and as showing the extraordinary corruptions which some have undergone. As an illustration, the proscribed clan MacGregor, may be cited, which migrated in great numbers, descendants of whom are still to be found under the names of Grier, Greer, Gregor, etc., the Mac in general being dropped; MacKinnon becomes McKenna, McKean, McCannon; Mac Nish is McNeice, Menees, Munnis, Monies, etc.
The Scotch settlers retained the characteristic traits of their native stock and continued to call themselves Scotch, although molded somewhat by surrounding influences. They demanded and exercised the privilege of choosing their own spiritual advisers, in opposition to all efforts of the hierarchy of England to make the choice and support the clergy as a state concern.
From the descendants of these people came the Scotch-Irish emigrants to America, who were destined to perform an important part on the theatre of action by organizing a successful revolt and establishing a new government. Among the early emigrants to the New World, although termed Scotch-Irish, and belonging to them we have such names as Campbell, Ferguson, Graham, McFarland, McDonald, McGregor, McIntyre, McKenzie, McLean, McPherson, Morrison, Robertson, Stewart, etc., all of which are distinctly Highlander and suggestive of the clans.
On the outbreak of the American Revolution the thirteen colonies numbered among their inhabitants about eight hundred thousand Scotch and Scotch-Irish, or a little more than one-fourth of the entire population. They were among the first to become actively engaged in that struggle, and so continued until the peace, furnishing fourteen major-generals, and thirty brigadier generals, among whom may be mentioned St. Clair, McDougall, Mercer, McIntosh, Wayne, Knox, Montgomery, Sullivan, Stark, Morgan, Davidson, and others. More than any other one element, unless the New England Puritans be excepted, they formed a sentiment for independence, and recruited the continental army. To their valor, enthusiasm and dogged persistence the victory for liberty was largely due. Washington pronounced on them a proud encomium when he declared, during the darkest period of the Revolution, that if his efforts should fail, then he would erect his standard on the Blue Ridge of Virginia. Besides warring against the drilled armies of Britain on the sea coast they formed a protective wall between the settlements and the savages on the west.
Among the fifty-six signers of the Declaration of Independence, nine were of this lineage, one of whom, McKean, served continuously in Congress from its opening in 1774 till its close in 1783, during a part of which time he was its president, and also serving as chief justice of Pennsylvania. The chairman of the committee that drafted the constitution of the United States, Rutledge, was, by ancestry, Scotch-Irish. When the same instrument was submitted, the three states first to adopt it were the middle states, or Delaware, Pennsylvania and New Jersey, so largely settled by the same class of people.
Turning again specifically to the Scotch-Irish emigrants it may be remarked that they had received in the old country a splendid physique, having large bones and sound teeth, besides being trained to habits of industry. The mass of them were men of intelligence, resolution, energy, religious and moral in character. They were a God-fearing, liberty-loving, tyrant-hating, Sabbath-keeping, covenant-adhering race, and schooled by a discipline made fresh and impressive by the heroic efforts at Derry and Enniskillin. Their women were fine specimens of the sex, about the medium height, strongly built, with fair complexion, light blue or grey eyes, ruddy cheeks, and faces indicating a warm heart, intelligence and courage; and possessing those virtues which constitute the redeeming qualities of the human race.
These people were martyrs for conscience sake. In 1711 a measure was carried through the British parliament that provided that all persons in places of profit or trust, and all common councilmen in corporations, who, while holding office, were proved to have attended any Nonconformist place of worship, should forfeit the place, and should continue incapable of public employment till they should depose that for a whole year they had not attended a conventicle. A fine of £40 was added to be paid to the informer. There were other causes which assisted to help depopulate Ulster, among which was the destruction of the woolen trade about 1700, when twenty thousand left that province. Many more were driven away by the Test Act in 1704, and in 1732. On the failure to repeal that act the protestant emigration recommenced which robbed Ireland of the bravest defenders of English interests and peopled America with fresh blood of Puritanism.
The second great wave of emigration from Ulster occurred between 1771 and 1773, growing out of the Antrim evictions. In 1771 the leases on the estate of the marquis of Donegal, in Antrim, expired. The rents were placed at such an exorbitant figure that the demands could not be met. A spirit of resentment to the oppressions of the landed proprietors at once arose, and extensive emigration to America was the result. In the two years that followed the Antrim evictions of 1772, thirty thousand protestants left Ulster for a land where legal robbery could not be permitted, and where those who sowed the seed could reap the harvest. From the ports of the North of Ireland one hundred vessels sailed for the New World, loaded with human beings. It has been computed that in 1773 and during the five preceding years, Ulster, by emigration to the American settlements, was drained of one-quarter of the trading cash, and a like proportion of its manufacturing population. This oppressed people, leaving Ireland in such a temper became a powerful adjunct in the prosecution of the Revolution which followed so closely on the wrongs which they had so cruelly suffered.
The advent of the first Scotch-Irish clergyman in America, so far as is now known, was in 1682, signalled by the arrival of Francis Makemie, the father of American Presbyterianism. Almost promptly he was landed in jail in New York, charged with the offense of preaching the gospel in a private house. Assisted by a Scottish lawyer from Philadelphia (who was silenced for his courage), he defended the cause of religious liberty with heroic courage and legal ability, and was ultimately acquitted by a fearless New York jury. Thus was begun the great struggle for religious liberty in America. Among those who afterwards followed were George McNish, from Ulster, in 1705, and John Henry, in 1709.
Early in the spring of 1718, Rev. William Boyd arrived in Boston as an agent of some hundreds of people who had expressed a desire to come to New England should suitable encouragement be offered them. With him he brought a brief memorial to which was attached three hundred