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People from Ulster began to
sift into the colonies of this western world during the latter quarter of
the seventeenth century, and in the first quarter of the eighteenth they
began to come in considerable numbers. Before the year 1700, a good many
of them had settled in the general region round Philadelphia, but it was
not till some years later that they became an important element in the
population. Probably their earliest settlements of consequence were in New
England. The first of my own name and blood settled in New Hampshire about
1718. They formed communities at various points and exerted a considerable
influence in New England. Many of the foremost men in the history of that
section had this blood in their veins. Dr. Perry, Professor of History in
Williams College, read an elaborate paper before the Scotch-Irish Congress
at Pittsburgh in 1890, setting forth with much fulness of detail, the
achievements of this race in New England. His paper shows that the
children of the Scotch-Irish have no cause to blush when the achievements
of their ancestors are brought into comparison with those of the Pilgrims
of Plymouth Rock, even in that part of the land. At the same time these
men of Ulster never came to New England in sufficient numbers to give
their own distinctive type to society in that general region. They were
strong in certain communities only. They were in quest of more fertile
lands than could be found about Massachusetts Bay. Their main ports of
entry were Newcastle and Philadelphia, and from those points they soon
became a powerful element in Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and
Maryland. They had a strong craving for rich land, and when they found it
they were determined to have it, no matter how many or how great the
difficulties in the way. Hence the stream of migration flowed into the
Cumberland Valley, into the Shenandoah, on into the Valley of Virginia,
and thence into the Carolinas, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and by
degrees into the entire south-west. Another powerful stream flowed
directly westward to the Alleghenies, and over them and passed on into
what is now southwestern Pennsylvania, and thence westward into Ohio, and
so on towards the setting sun. The earliest settlements west of the
Monongahela date about 1770. No doubt adventurous hunters and explorers
had penetrated the wilderness earlier than that, but permanent settlements
were not established till about that time. My own paternal
great-grandfather came over the mountains from York County and settled on
Miller's Run, twelve miles southeast of the present city of Pittsburgh, in
1774-5. The original plantation on which he then settled is still owned by
some of his lineal descendants. At that time Fort Pitt was but a shabby
frontier post, and the whole region round about was an almost unbroken
wilderness, swarming with wild beasts and still wilder men. But at that
time the people began to come who had been chosen and qualified by
Almighty Providence to subdue that goodly land and possess it. The heir
was coming to his inheritance; the Hebrew was facing his Canaan; and while
he clearly foresaw the magnitude of the undertaking, he believed himself
fully equal to it. He did not for one moment quail before his mighty task.
Within a very few years these people had their settlements here and there
all over the territory included within the bend of the rivers. A little
later, they crossed the Ohio, driving the Indians before them, and from
there spreading westward, always leading the migration, pushing boldly on
to the frontier, penetrating the wilderness and subduing it; and so on in
the course of time, into Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, and at length clear
through to the Pacific Coast, where their influence has been powerfully
felt from the beginning of the American occupancy. In the year 1905, there
was in Portland, Oregon, a splendid exposition celebrating the great
exploring expedition of Captains Lewis and Clark across the continent a
hundred years ago. One of these redoubtable men certainly was of this
race, and both of them probably were. It has been ascertained that the
majority of the most famous frontiersmen of the forest, the plains and the
mountains of the entire central and western part of this country have been
of this blood. Twenty years before the opening of the last century, Col.
George Rogers Clarke, a Scotch-Irishman, comissioned by Governor Patrick
Henry of Virginia, another Scotch-Irishman, organized and led the great
military expedition which redeemed the whole Northwest Territory, out of
which five great states have been carved. The settlements of these people
did not follow the wave of conquest; they were themselves the earliest
wave. No other people ever broke the way for them; they broke it for
themselves and for others who followed. They were predestined and born
pioneers of the first order, conquerors of unfriendly nature and
unfriendly men. Emerson tells us that the earth belongs to the energetic
man. According to this criterion, these people certainly proved their
title. They opened the way for weaker and less resolute men. With
unflinching fortitude they faced the wilderness and the savage. There was
nothing of either the coward of the sluggard in their nature. For the most
part, they were a lean, sinewy, strong-boned, heavily-muscled breed; tough
and hardy, sound of lung and limb, with nerves of steel and a digestive
apparatus that might have excited the envy of a grizzly bear; not in the
least afraid of hard work, severe privation, or great peril, if only they
could get on in life; not very easy to live with unless one agreed with
them and fell into their ways. They were overcomers by nature, by training
and by equipment. Nobody ever overcame them, while they never failed to
overcome all who stood in their way. They conquered the forest, the
savage, the French, the British; they took whatever land they wanted, and
held it against all comers. Wherever they settled, they remained.
From their first coming to
our shores they exerted in proportion to their numbers, an extraordinary
influence on the fortunes of the country, especially previous to and
during the struggle for Independence. From the first they were the
steadfast and strenuous champions of civil and religious liberty in the
colonies. They were not foolish, fretful and fussy agitators. They were
utterly free from fanatical impulses and visionary theories; cool,
calculating, practical, hard-headed. They wanted liberty, and were bound
to have it at whatever cost; liberty of conscience, of worship and of
political action, but they did not want license or anarchy. Patrick Henry
spoke not only from his own heart, but from the heart of his race when he
cried, "Give me liberty, or give me death." But it was liberty regulated
by just laws. Bancroft, the great historian of the United States says,
"The first voice publicly raised in America to dissolve all connection
with Great Britain, came not from the Puritans of New England, nor from
the planters of Virginia, nor from the Dutch of New York, but from the
Scotch-Irish Presbyterians." The great Declaration made by these people at
Mecklenberg was more than a year earlier than the one made in
Philadelphia. The Westmoreland Resolutions also antedated that most famous
document. During the war the Scotch-Irish were incomparably the most
effective element in Washington's army. They were exceedingly influential
in the Continental Congress, and in the various colonial assemblies. So
far as appears there was not a Tory among them. In the darkest hours,
times that tried men's souls, when multitudes were ready to give up, they
stood stalwart and resolute. Their ministers preached and prayed, and in
not a few instances, organized companies and regiments and led them to
battle. The battle of King's Mountain for instance, which drove Cornwallis
and the British forces from the entire southern country, was fought almost
exclusively by these Scotch-Irish, nearly every regiment being commanded
by a Presbyterian elder.
That battle was peculiar in
this, that every man of the enemy was either killed or captured. Not a
single man got away. Undoubtedly in preparing for the great struggle and
during its continuance, the men and women of this blood had a share far
out of proportion to their numbers. In the councils of the colonies, in
the Congress, in the army, in creating public opinion and keeping it
alive, they were the active, intelligent, resolute and uncompromising
champions of the movement for independence. Here may be quoted the words
of Col. A. K. M'Clure, the famous Philadelphia editor: "It was the
Scotch-Irish people of the colonies that made the declaration of 1776.
Without them it would not have been thought of except as a passing fancy.
The action of the Continental Congress voiced the teachings of the
Scotch-Irish people of the land. They did not falter, they did not
dissemble, they did not temporize. It was not the Quaker, not the Puritan,
not the Cavalier, not even the Huguenot or the German ; it was the
Scotch-Irish of the land whose voice was first heard in Virginia.
In the valley of Virginia,
in North Carolina, in Cumberland and Westmoreland counties in
Pennsylvania, the Scotch-Irish had declared that these colonies are and of
right ought to be free and independent. They had taught this not only in
their public speeches, but at their altars, in their pulpits, at their
firesides, and it was from these that came that outburst of rugged and
determined people that made the declaration of 1776 possible. They were
its authors, and they were ready to maintain it by all the moral and
physical power they possessed. They meant that Scotch-Irish blood was
ready to flow on the battle field, and come weal or woe, they would
maintain it with their lives." The influence of these people on the
subsequent course of American history, upon the industries, the commerce,
the inventions, the educational, philanthropic and charitable institutions
of the country, and especially upon its religious development, has been
equally remarkable. But it does not fall within the scope of this book to
follow this general history further. Let it be said, however, that we have
reason to be proud of the heroism of our ancestors. It may be true of many
of us that the best part of us is underground. |
