OFF TO PHILADELPHIA AND BEYOND: ch6

OFF TO PHILADELPHIA AND BEYOND: ch6

Chapter 6

OFF TO PHILADELPHIA AND BEYOND

Seemingly put off by the unfavourable reception given to those of their race who had preceded them in the New England states, the vast numbers of Ulster emigrants, who set off later in the 18th Century. headed for provinces farther South. Pennsylvania was the most popular, although large numbers were to sail for Virginia and the Carolinas. In Pennsylvania, especially, they were assured of religious freedom. one of their motives for leaving Ulster, The founder of that large state, William, the son of Admiral Penn, had become a Quaker in 1607. His land had been given to him by James Duke of York. as payment of a debt to his father. He was determined to use it for what has been termed “The Holy Experiment.” Within it’s boundaries non-resistance to violence was to be the unbreakable rule. He had based his whole life on one simple biblical injunction “There is faith that overcomes the world”. and this was to be the practical application of it. To new settlers he offered 50 acres of land to each person, 200 additional acres at 1 penny an acre, 5,000 acres with a planned town for £100. Those who came could worship as them deemed fit.
James Logan, a Quaker from Lurgan, in County Armagh in Ulster. had emigrated

early in the 18th century. He became Secretary to the Penns. descendants of the founder. Impressed by the courageous behaviour of his fellow countrymen at the end of the 17th century, he suggested to his employers “It might be prudent to plant a settlement of such men as those who had formerly so bravely defended’ Londonderry and Enniskillen as a frontier in case of any disturbance,” With this purpose in mind, the Pennsylvania authorities began to advertise in Ireland to persuade and try to encourage such people to come to the Quaker State. They did not call in vain. That the Ulster folk who responded had their own ideas as to their purpose when they reached there will become apparent later. Philadelphia was their main port for landing, but the smaller places of Newcastle and Chester received many also. The first large numbers arrived in 1724 and crowded boats from Ulster came in at intervals during the next fifty years. So vast was the movement of people, mostly families, that, about 1774, Benjamin Franklin recorded that 1 person in every 3 of the Pennsylvanian population was of Ulster blood.

In the Quaker State at that time there were around 350,000 people. Dunaway, the historian, well called it “the seedbed and nursery of their race.” From the ports on the Delaware these adventurous travellers pushed on beyond the settled Eastern towns towards the West and the mountains – and the Indians. In 1730 Secretary Logan was to comment, “The common fear is that if they thus continue to come, the Scotch lrish will make themselves proprietors of the Province.” When he rebuked them for settling on the Conestoga manor, a tract of 15,000 acres reserved by the Penns for themselves, they reminded him that he had invited them to come and “It is against the laws of God and nature that so much land should be idle while so many Christians wanted it to labour to raise their bread.” Later, were they, in very large measure to perform, with great courage and fortitude, the part for which Logan had deemed they would be most useful – namely as a strong barrier against Indian attacks. But this they were to do in their own way without as they found, any help from the Quaker Assembly that sought to control the country.

In spite of the fact that on the frontier the Ulster Scots suffered terrible casualties, (in 1762/63 over 2,000 of them were killed or carried off by merciless foes), the Pennslvanian government agencies would send neither weapons nor ammunition for their defence. Many urgent pleas were sent by the hard-pressed frontiersmen, but they always fell on deaf ears. At one time a wagon-load of the mutilated dead bodies of men, women, and children, victims of savage Indian attacks, was sent to Philadelphia (the city of brotherly love foes). Even this failed to stir the authorities into giving them any assistance. No wonder Roger Thompson in his book “The Golden Door” was to comment most critically on the Quakers’ behaviour, pointing out that their pacifism was almost akin to negation of their responsibility.

In spite of these daunting hardships and dangers, more and more Ulster Scots reached the frontiers, and pressed on to occupy the lands in Western Pennsylvania. Later many were to journey on along the flower-banked valleys, between the Blue Ridge and the Appalachian Mountains, into Virginia. There to link-up with their kinsfolk from that state and the Carolinas to venture out into the barely explored regions beyond the mountains. Years afterwards they and their hardy descendants were to penetrate to the upper reaches of the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers to found the states of Kentucky and Tennessee.

Two of the leading early Ulster explorers in this Westwards venture were John Harris, after whose son the town of Harrisburg was named, and his son-in-law John Finley. They reached as far as the Ohio River. Finley in 1752 went to Ohio Falls in North Kentucky. He and Daniel Boone were the earliest pioneers into this unexplored, unfriendly country. Although most of the early Scotch-Irish settlers in Virginia came in by way of Pennsylvania, many arrived at the Maryland ports. Again their numbers were large their influence subsequently great. The object of the authorities in the coastal regions in encouraging them to come was the same as farther North-occupation of land as a barrier against Indian attacks. Large grants had been made to important individuals by the British. government and they organised the bringing in of suitable settlers usually through agents.

One of the most successful of these agents was an Ulsterman called James Patton. He had served in the British Navy and clearly was an extremely resourceful man, He planned boldly. Building a passenger boat, he set to work efficiently, It has been recorded that he crossed the Atlantic 25 times, taking from Virginia animal pelts and bringing back would-be settlers. Among those that arrived were many who would distinguish themselves greatly, especially in the ferment of the Revolutionary period.

There were the Prestons related to Patton, who provided several army officers for the Rangers. That was the force so prominent in defence of the settlements against the Indians, and who later fought so well against the British. Then there were the Breckinridges – one of whom, John, later settled in the Kentucky area and became Attorney-General of the United States. His sons were celebrated two men that did much towards the settlements of their fellow Ulstermen in the Carolinas were Henry McCulloch and James Pringle. In 1736 the former obtained some 64.000 acres in North Carolina and brought in 4,000 settlers from Ulster. That these came most willingly is shown by the fact that within a year their on and cultivation of the land was well under way. James Pringle, following the example of the Bannside clergymen earlier in the century, petition with many names signed on it to the Council of South Carolina, requesting payment of their boat fares, on condition that they would settle in that 5S directed. The Councillors agreed and granted them a site 20 miles. This actually had been laid out for settlement and Pringle and the other settlers arrived soon afterwards in a sailing from Belfast. They named the town Williamsburg in memory of William of Orange. The idea suggested by Pringle led Council’s offering a similar bounty of passage money and tools to future. These offers were readily taken up, and there are records of over 1,000 emigrating in one year to that Province, mostly landing at Charleston. They did not stay in the coastal area, but moved inland to the higher land beyond the Fall Line, called the Piedmont. “So it was that in all the coastal States from South Carolina right up to Maine was an almost continuous barrier of frontier people, mostly Ulster Scots, ring the more settled towns in the East against Indian attacks.

It is interesting to reflect that among those who kept a look out in that dangerous region, or made sure that muskets were serviceable in the wooden forts within the stockades, and, at times, scratched the ground to produce crops of Indian corn ,from the seed-corn often carried in wallets, or felled or ringed the trees in the dense forests to make a clearing for crops or animals, were men or ancestors of men who would reach the highest positions in the land. Their hard hazardous life fitted them for the frustrating, demanding, but rewarding days of the revolutionary period. Looking even further ahead, their prowess in Indian warfare, fought out with such deadly determination, ensured that, when their descendants would confront and fight against each other in the bitter Civil War there would be no quarter given on either side.