The Scotch Irish in Donegal, Derry, and Neshaminy, Pennsylvania, after 1718
After the development of Londonderry, Rutland, and Pelham the New England Scotch Irish spread gradually into other towns, Windham, Antrim, Peterborough, Colerain, Blandford, Palmer and many more. Upon each they left a mark of thrift and piety. From these towns the more venturesome moved westward into New York, and one of their settlements, Cherry Valley, became famous later as the scene of an Indian massacre. Receiving fewer immigrants from Ireland to swell their numbers than like communities at the South received, the Scotch Irish of New England had less power, both to exercise in civil affairs, and to aid them to maintain their transplanted faith. If they may be said to have been unfortunate in this respect they have been peculiarly favored in their historians. Londonderry, Windham, Peterborough and Pelham are represented by local histories that treasure the Scotch Irish tradition. The life of Judge Jeremiah Smith, and the family histories of the Blairs, Smiths and Morrisons, are typical of the record of Scotch Irish life that New England has preserved. If it be true that history must achieve vitality to reclaim a dead past, we may say, viewing these vital his torical works, that New England in the days of the Scotch Irish pioneers still lives. Of the Scotch Irish at the South much of this can also be said with equal emphasis. Theirs is a record of influence still to be traced in history.
A southern stronghold of Presbyterianism was in the neighborhood of Newcastle, Delaware. The narrow tongue of land between the upper shore of Chesapeake Bay and the Delaware Eiver is shared by Maryland and Delaware. Maryland s portion includes the Elk Eiver and is known as Cecil County. Delaware s portion is called Newcastle County, with Wilmington, its chief city, at the mouth of Christiana Creek. North of these two counties and across the Pennsylvania line are Lancaster and Chester counties (all known as Chester County from 1682 to 1729), extending from the Delaware Eiver to the Susquehanna Eiver. This territory, south a few miles from Philadelphia, became the mecca for Scotch emigrants from Ireland. These emigrants pushed up through Newcastle County to cross the Pennsylvania line, hoping to escape from Maryland and its tithes.1 Unfortunately at this very time the exact line of the boundary was in dispute between Lord Baltimore and the heirs of William Penn, and many of the settlers flocked in and preempted land in dispute, without obtaining right or title. To add to the confusion the Penn family were in a state of domestic discord, so that their agent James Logan allowed very few grants in any place after the year 1720. An exception was made however in the case of the Scotch Irish, people who, said Logan, "if kindly used, will I believe be orderly, as they have hitherto been, and easily dealt with; they will also, I expect, be a leading example to others. " These grants were made for a settlement which was called Donegal.
At this early period when the business of sending runners into the rural communities in Ireland to stimulate emigration had not begun, we must not ex pect to find any noticeable increase in the number of ships entering the Atlantic ports. At Boston trading vessels from Dublin were not infrequent visitors, but aside from servants their passengers were few. At Charleston the number of ships en tering the port scarcely varied between the years 1714 and 1724, except for a falling off when the pirates injured commerce in 1717-18, and a tempo rary increase in 1719.
Few Scotch Irish came to New York in the early part of the eighteenth century because the Governor of New York and New Jersey, Lord Cornbury, dealt harshly with dissenters. The Eev. Francis Makemie and the Eev. John Hampton visited the city on a missionary tour to New England in January, 1706-7. Makemie was refused permission to preach in the Dutch Church, but conducted a service openly at the home of William Jackson in Pearl Street on Sunday, the 19th. He was arrested and thrown into prison for preaching without a license. Makemie petitioned for a speedy trial, but the legal proceedings were permitted to drag on until the seventh of June when a verdict of not guilty was brought in. The financial burden of imprisonment and trial, amounting to more than eighty three pounds, fell entirely upon Makemie, although he is known to have had firm friends in New York. His sureties John Jolmstone, gentleman, and William Jackson, cordwainer, both recorded in 1703 as resi dents of the South ward, no doubt had listened to this famous sermon; and we know of four others who were present: Captain John Theobalds, John Vanhorne, Anthony Young and one Harris, Lord Cornbury s coachman. The Governor, soon after the trial, was removed from office and imprisoned for debt. Late in 1718 the News-Letter furnishes evidence of the arrival of passengers from Ireland at the port of New York. Whether Celts or Scots we have as yet no information. But in forty years we find the Scotch Irish in New York to be wealthy and of great political influence.
Philadelphia seems to have had a considerable immigration from Dublin, Belfast and Glasgow from the time of the arrival of the first Quakers in 1682. What are we to think of over seventy passengers from Waterford, Ireland, who arrived in the ship Cezer, Matthew, Cowman, commander, in July, 1716, or of fifty passengers from Cork in March 1718?
Again, of what character were the one hundred and fifty passengers which the Elizabeth and Margaret, after a voyage of twelve weeks from Dublin, left at Philadelphia in August, 1718! Were these people Presbyterian Scotch Irish? A few may no doubt have claimed their faith and their blood, but I cannot but believe that up to the year 1719 most of the passengers were English and Celtic servants and mechanics, with a number of prosperous Scotch and English Quakers. Very few Ulster weavers and farmers came to the South until word reached Ireland late in 1718 that Boyd, the Bann Valley envoy, had found serious difficulty in obtaining land in New England for settlement. In 1719 hundreds of Scotch Irish immigrants turned to lands in Chester County and to the fields south of the Pennsylvania line for their homes.
The Scotch Irish migration of Presbyterians to Chester County2 began in 1719 and thus came long after the English-Irish migration of Quakers which had begun in 1682. These Presbyterians became of sufficient influence in Chester County in 1722 to ob tain the name Donegal for their township. Chief among them at this time were :
James Galbraith, Senior, and his sons Andrew,
James and John
Robert Wilkins and his sons Thomas, William,
Peter and John
Gordon Howard and his sons Thomas and Joseph
Peter Allen
James Roddy
James and Alexander Hutchinson
John and Eobert Spear
Hugh, Henry, and Moses White
Robert McFarland and his sons Robert and James
James Paterson
Richard Allison
Patrick Campbell
Robert Middleton
Thomas Bayly
Jonas Davenport
James and Samuel Smith
James Kyle
James and Thomas Mitchell
John and Benjamin Sterrett
Joseph Work
Ephraim Lytle
David McClure
Samuel Fulton
Alexander McKean
Robert and Arthur Buchannan
James Cunningham
William Maybee
William Hay
Henry Bailey
John Taylor
William Bryan
John and Malcom Karr
Edward Dougherty
John and Hugh Scott
The place names in old Chester County, Pennsylvania, such as Derry, Donegal and Toboyne, suggest that the early emigrants came for the most part from lands west of the Eiver Foyle.
These pioneers built their log cabins in the pleasant meadows and woodlands near John Galbraith's mill, and in due time they gave of their prosperity to maintain a well-built " ordinary" or tavern, for which the same thrifty John obtained a license in 1726. Here Rebecca, his daughter, was born, to be come at the age of eighteen the wife of Colonel Ephraim Elaine whose untiring efforts as Commissary of Provisions kept body and soul together through the terrible winter at Valley Forge. Thus the Scotch Irish of Donegal were to have their influence upon the greater events of the world.
The fine old church at Donegal became a center of religious influence. Its plain walls, high windows, and great gambrel roof symbolizes the plain man ners and large hearts of its worshippers. Beneath the even turf within the graveyard wall these pio neers now lie, protected from the summer s heat by spruce and cedar. The heirs of their blood and brain are building the great west, while strange hands trim the sod, and children with unfamiliar names play among the ancient head stones.1 After the Galbraiths and their friends had moved west ward or had become less dominant in their influence other men of the same race came into prominence, the Semples, Andersons, Lowreys, Pedans, Porters, and Whitehills.
Donegal was only one of four townships along the east bank of the Susquehanna, all of them Scotch Irish settlements, which extended south and north of the present city of Harrishurg. Perhaps the most interesting of these is Derry since its ancient meeting house brings to the present generation a flavor of those pioneer times. Built on the "bar rens of Derry " as early as 1729, its walls were of hewn oak logs, two feet thick, covered by rough hemlock boards, and sheathed within with yellow pine and cherry. The nails and fastenings were primitive examples of hammer and anvil ; the thirty eight panes of glass over the pulpit were set in pewter, and the communion service was of the same metal mugs and platters sent over from London by sympathizing dissenters in 1733.
The pulpit was small and crescent shaped, with narrow steps leading up from the east side. Along the wall were stout pegs on which to sling the musk ets of the male worshippers. Close by the meeting house was the session-house with the pastor s study, and a few rods away within a neat wall about God's acre slept the dead.
Derry, early known as Spring Creek, received its first settlers about 1720. As the Scotch Irish be gan to increase in numbers a Presbyterian minister was needed, and in 1726 the Eev. James Anderson of Donegal gave one fifth of his time to Derry, and an other fifth to Paxtang.
One of the founders of the -church was James Galbraith whose father James had crossed the ocean, some say, as early as 1718. The younger James had fallen in love with Elizabeth Bertram, the daughter of a clergyman from Bangor, County Down, who came to the church at Derry. Elizabeth s mother, Elizabeth Gillespie, tradition claimed, had a fine estate in Edinburgh. James settled on Swatara Creek, next to the farm of three hundred and fifty acres which the Derry people had deeded to their minister upon his arrival. Here a prosperous farm and grist-mill brought food and clothing for James s growing family and for his aged father, who came to dwell under his roof.
Another settler, David McNair, came over from Donaghmore, County Donegal, the ancestral town of the Rev. William Homes of Martha's Vineyard. David's nephew became governor of Missouri. In the Derry grave yard lie the Boyds, Campbells, Chamberses, Clarks, Harrises, Hayses, Logans, Martins, Mitchells, Moodeys, McCords, Roans, Rodgers, Snoddeys, Thompsons, Wilsons and Wallaces.
In Hanover township were William Crain, John Barnett, William Allen and others. At Paxtang were John Wiggins, John Gray, Robert Elder, John Forster, Matthew Cowden, Hugh McCormick and Thomas Rutherford. The last mentioned emigrant left a record of his birth and marriage in old Tyrone.
Across the river in Allen township lived the fam ilies of Wilson, Wallace, Parker and Linn, as well as Andrew Gregg who is said to have had a brother David amid the ungracious rocks of New Hampshire, another brother Samuel in Massachusetts, and a brother John in South Carolina. A study of the marriages in the various families given in Dr. Egle ? s Scotch Irish genealogies, will yield names of many neighbors along the banks of the Susquehanna.
North of Philadelphia the Presbyterians, chiefly Dutch settlers with a few Welshmen, had worshipped at Neshaminy Creek, Bensalem, and other near-by towns since 1710. The Neshaminy records are of especial interest in 1722 when persons from "Eerlant" (Ireland) were recorded as admitted by certificate.
These persons were :
William Pickins and his wife (Margaret?)
George Davis and his wife
Hugh White and his wife
Andrew Reed and his wife
John Anderson and his wife
Moses White and his wife
Humphrey Eyre and his wife
Israel Pickins
Matte Gillespie
Joanna Bell (or Jane who married George
Logan?)
Thomas Foster, his wife, daughter Margaret
and the rest of his children; also his wife's
brother, George Logan
Neshaminy became famous in the annals of the Presbyterian Church as the site of the Log College in which the Rev. William Tennent trained young men for the ministry. Tennent had married in Ire land a daughter of the Rev. Gilbert Kennedy, a fine type of the sturdy old Scotch Irish clergy, a man whose tomb still remains to record his ancient blood and virile inheritances. Tennent's four sons brought to America great zeal and much needed high standards of ministerial culture.
In looking over the map of Pennsylvania we find that these townships, Donegal, Paxtang, Derry and Hanover (near the Susquehanna), and Drumore, Colerain, Fallowfield and Sadsbury (along Octorara Creek, which marks the western line of Chester County after 1729), together with the Brandywine farms a little north of Wilmington, the Neshaminy lands north of Philadelphia, and Allen township, ten miles west of Easton, comprise the earliest settle ments of the Scotch Irish in Pennsylvania. The settlers who first occupied these fertile lands entered America at the ports of Philadelphia and New castle.
At Philadelphia the Eev. Jedediah Andrews had begun about 1701 to preach in the "Barbadoes store." His followers were Presbyterians, and to his church came the strangers of that faith. From Philadelphia the immigrants spread out over the county of Lancaster.1 From Newcastle as another center they pushed along the Christiana to its contributing sources, White Clay Creek and Red Clay Creek.
Along the banks of these creeks, and down the Brandywine and the Elk, the Rev. George Gillespie, a Scotch preacher, had ridden from house to house on his lonely circuit as early as 1713, when he was stationed at the church at the head of the Christi ana.1 Scotch and English chiefly composed the con gregations until between 1718 and 1720, although the presence of ministers from Ireland would seem to suggest an occasional layman also from Irish soil. On White Clay Creek were the Steels, Gardeners and Whites, of early importance, although their church of that name was not founded until 1721.
The purchasers of land for the joint church at Lower Brandywine in 1720 were John Kirkpatrick, James Houston, James Mole, William Smith, Mag nus Simonson, Ananias Higgins, John Heath and Patrick Scott. The surnames of the members of the Upper Octorara Church before the middle of the eighteenth century were :
Alison, Blelock, Boggs, Boyd, Boyle, Clingan, Cochran, Cowan, Dickey, Filson, Fleming, Gardner, Glendenning, Hamill, Henderson, Heslep, Hope, Kerr, Kyle, Liggett, Lockhart, Luckey, McAllister, McNeil, McPherson, Mitchell, Moody, Park, Rich mond, Robb, Rowan, Sandford, Scott, Sharpe, Sloan, Smith, Stewart, Summeril, Wiley, Wilkin, and Wil son.
The Rev. Samuel Young, a successor of Gillespie in this field, came to the Elk River in 1718, having preached at Magherally in County Down for four teen years. He had been ordained by Armagh Pres bytery in 1703.
The following extracts from a very long letter written by Robert Parke, an Irish Quaker of the original Chester county, Pennsylvania, to his sister in Ireland, describe life in the colony in 1725. Mr. Parke makes it evident that there was no disap pointment upon their arrival in America, when he writes: "There is not one of the family but what likes the country very well and wod If we were in Ireland again come here Directly it being the best country for working folk & Tradesmen of any in the world. . . My father bought a Tract of Land consisting of five hundred Acres for which he gave 350 pounds, it is Excellent good land but none cleared, Except about 20 Acres, with a small log house & Orchard Planted. " A little later he contrasts the farmer's labor in Pennsylvania with his work in Ireland: "We plowed up our Sumer's fallows in May & June, with a Yoak of Oxen & 2 horses & they goe with as much Ease as Double the number in Ireland. . . Dear Sister I desire thee may tell my old friend Samuel Thornton that he could give so much credit to my words & find no Iffs nor ands in my Letter that in Plain terms he could not do better than to Come here, for both his & his wife's trade are Very good here, The best way for him to do is to pay what money he Can Conveniently Spare at that side & engage himself to Pay the rest at this Side & when he Comes here if he Can get no friend to lay down the money for him, when it Comes to the worst, he may hire out 2 or 3 Children. . . I wod have him Procure 3 or 4 Lusty Servants & Agree to pay their passage at this Side he might sell 2 & pay the others passage with the money." Parke closes his letter with a touch of brotherly gallantry :
"I wod not have thee think much at my Irregular way of writing by reason I write as it offer'd to me, for they that write to you should have more wits than I can Pretend to."