An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America. J. P. Maclean
and nineteen names, all but thirteen of which were in a fair and vigorous hand. Governor Shute gave such general encouragement and promise of welcome, that on August 4, 1718, five small ships came to anchor at the wharf in Boston, having on board one hundred and twenty Scotch-Irish families, numbering in all about seven hundred and fifty individuals. In years they embraced those from the babe in arms to John Young, who had seen the frosts of ninety-five winters. Among the clergy who arrived were James McGregor, Cornwell, and Holmes.
In a measure these people were under the charge of Governor Shute. He must find homes for them. He dispatched about fifty of these families to Worcester. That year marked the fifth of its permanent settlement, and was composed of fifty log-houses, inhabited by two hundred souls. The new comers appear to have been of the poorer and more illiterate class of the five ship loads. At first they were welcomed, because needed for both civic and military reasons. In September of 1722 a township organization was effected, and at the first annual town meeting, names of the strangers appear on the list of officers. With these emigrants was brought the Irish potato, and first planted in the spring of 1719. When their English neighbors visited them, on their departure they presented them with a few of the tubers for planting, and the recipients, unwilling to show any discourtesy, accepted the same, but suspecting a poisonous quality, carried them to the first swamp and threw them into the water. The same spring a few potatoes were given to a Mr. Walker, of Andover, by a family who had wintered with him. He planted them in the ground, and in due time the family gathered the "balls" which they supposed was the fruit. These were cooked in various ways, but could not be made palatable. The next spring when plowing the garden, potatoes of great size were turned up, when the mistake was discovered. This introduction into New England is the reason why the now indispensable succulent is called "Irish potato." This vegetable was first brought from Virginia to Ireland in 1565 by slave-trader Hawkins, and from there it found its way to New England in 1718, through the Scotch-Irish.
The Worcester Scotch-Irish petitioned to be released from paying taxes to support the prevalent form of worship, as they desired to support their own method. Their prayer was contemptuously rejected. Two years later, or in 1738, owing to their church treatment, a company consisting of thirty-eight families, settled the new town of Pelham, thirty miles west of Worcester. The scandalous destruction of their property in Worcester, in 1740, caused a further exodus which resulted in the establishing the towns of Warren and Blandford, both being incorporated in 1741. The Scotch-Irish town of Colerain, located fifty miles northwest of Worcester was settled in 1739.
Londonderry, New Hampshire, was settled in April, 1719, forming the second settlement, from the five ships. Most of these pioneers were men in middle life, robust and persevering. Their first dwellings were of logs, covered with bark. It must not be thought that these people, strict in their religious conceptions, were not touched with the common feelings of ordinary humanity. It is related that when John Morrison was building his house his wife came to him and in a persuasive manner said, "Aweel, aweel, dear Joan, an' it maun be a log-house, do make it a log heegher nor the lave;" (than the rest). The first frame house built was for their pastor, James McGregor. The first season they felt it necessary to build two strong stone garrison-houses in order to resist any attack of the Indians. It is remarkable that in neither Lowell's war, when Londonderry was strictly a frontier town, nor in either of the two subsequent French and Indian wars, did any hostile force from the northward ever approach that town. During the twenty-five years preceding the revolution, ten distinct towns of influence, in New Hampshire, were settled by emigrants from Londonderry, besides two in Vermont and two in Nova Scotia; while families, sometimes singly and also in groups, went off in all directions, especially along the Connecticut river and over the ridge of the Green Mountains. To these brave people, neither the crown nor the colonies appealed in vain. Every route to Crown Point and Ticonderoga had been tramped by them time and again. With Colonel Williams they were at the head of Lake George in 1755, and in the battle with Dieskau that followed; they were with Stark and lord Howe, under Abercrombie, in the terrible defeat at Ticonderoga in 1758; others toiled with Wolfe on the Heights of Abraham; and in 1777, fought under Stark at Bennington, and against Burgoyne at Saratoga.
A part of the emigrants intended for New Hampshire settled in Maine, in what is now Portland, Topsham, Bath and other places. Unfortunately soon after these settlements were established some of them were broken up by Indian troubles, and some of the colonists sought refuge with their countrymen at Londonderry, but the greater part removed to Pennsylvania—from 1730 to 1733 about one hundred and fifty families, principally of Scotch descent. In 1735, Warren, Maine, was settled by twenty-seven families, some of whom were of recent emigration and others from the first arrival in Boston in 1718. In 1753 the town received an addition of sixty adults and many children brought from Scotland.
The Scotch-Irish settlement at Salem in Washington county, New York, came from Monaghan and Ballibay, Ireland. Under the leadership of their minister, Rev. Thomas Clark, three hundred sailed from Newry, May 10, 1764, and landed in New York in July following. On September 30, 1765, Mr. Clark obtained twelve thousand acres of the "Turner Grant," and upon this land he moved his parishioners, save a few families that had been induced to go to South Carolina, and some others that remained in Stillwater, New York. The great body of these settlers took possession of their lands, which had been previously surveyed into tracts of eighty-eight acres each, in the year 1767. The previous year had been devoted to clearing the lands, building houses, etc. Among the early buildings was a log church, the first religious place of worship erected between Albany and Canada. March 2, 1774, the legislature erected the settlement into a township named New Perth. This name remained until March 7, 1788, when it was changed to Salem.
The Scotch-Irish first settled in Somerset county, New Jersey, early in the last century, but not at one time but from time to time.
These early settlers repudiated the name of Irish, and took it as an offense to be so called. They claimed, and truly, to be Scotch. The term "Scotch-Irish" is quite recent, but has come into general use.
From the three centers, Worcester, Londonderry and Wiscasset, the Scotch-Irish penetrated and permeated all New England; Maine the most of all, next New Hampshire, then Massachusetts, and in lessening order, Vermont, Connecticut and Rhode Island. They were one sort of people, belonging to the same grade and sphere of life. In worldly goods they were poor, but the majority could read and write, and if possessed with but one book that was the Bible, yet greatly esteeming Fox's "Book of Martyrs" and Bunyon's "Pilgrim's Progress." Whatever their views, they were held in common.
The three doors that opened to the Scotch-Irish emigrant, in the New World, were the ports of Boston, Charleston and New Castle, in Delaware, the great bulk of whom being received at the last named city, where they did not even stop to rest, but pushed their way to their future homes in Pennsylvania. No other state received so many of them for permanent settlers. Those who landed in New York found the denizens there too submissive to foreign dictation, and so preferred Pennsylvania and Maryland, where the proprietary governors and the people were in immediate contact. Francis Machemie had organized the first Presbyterian church in America along the eastern shore of Maryland and in the adjoining counties of Virginia.
The wave of Quaker settlements spent its force on the line of the Conestoga creek, in Lancaster county. The Scotch and Scotch-Irish arriving in great numbers were permitted to locate beyond that line, and thus they not only became the pioneers, but long that race so continued to be. In 1725, so great had been the wave of emigration into Pennsylvania, that James Logan, a native of Armagh, Ireland, but not fond of his own countrymen who were not Quakers, declared, "It looks as if Ireland were to send all her inhabitants hither; if they continue to come they will make themselves proprietors of the province;" and he further condemned the bad taste of the people who were forcing themselves where they were not wanted. The rate of this invasion may be estimated from the rise in population from twenty thousand, in 1701, to two hundred and fifty thousand in 1745, which embraced the entire population of that colony. Between the years 1729 and 1750, there was an annual arrival of twelve thousand, mostly from Ulster. Among the vessels that helped to inaugurate this great tide was the good ship "George and Ann," which set sail from Ireland on May 9th, 1729, and brought over the McDowells, the Irvines, the Campbells, the O'Neills, the McElroys, the Mitchells, and their compatriots.
Soon after the