My Scots Irish Ancestors Immigrated to Pennsylvania, then Virginia ... and Some Got Taken Captive by the Shawnee!

 Chasing History: Exploring My Ancestral Roots - Blog Post #32 By Tonya Graham McQuade

My Great Grandmother Fleeta Jackson Brandt

In my previous post, I discussed why the “Ulster Presbyterians” emigrated from Scotland and England to settle in Ireland, some of the reasons they eventually decided to leave Ireland, and how and why they ended up in Pennsylvania. In today’s post, I will look more specifically at some of my own relatives on my mom’s side who were part of this migration: the Archers and the Renicks. In a future post, I will discuss the Jacksons and Hamiltons, who also immigrated from Ireland - but they were part of the “Irish Quakers" (also mostly from England and Scotland). My Great Grandmother Fleeta Jackson Brandt (1890-1968), my mom’s maternal grandmother, descended from all of them.

Please note the following abbreviations:

• GGP’s - Great Grandparents
• GGF - Great Grandfather
• GGM - Great Grandmother

Fleeta was born in Marion County, Illinois, where her family had lived for several generations. Between 1900 and 1910 (according to Census records), her parents moved to St. Louis, Missouri. There she met and in 1908 married her husband, Frank Anthony Brandt (1887-1931), who lived on a neighboring street. One of her sisters also married one of his brothers. My husband Mike and I drove through their old neighborhood with my parents when we visited St. Louis in April 2022, but their houses on Chouteau Avenue and La Salle Street were no longer standing. In their place sat a park.

Frank and Fleeta eventually moved to Chicago, Illinois, where they raised their seven children in a Catholic home. So, somewhere along the line, Fleeta's ancestors must have converted from their Presbyterian and Quaker roots. Perhaps Fleeta herself did when she married Frank, whose father Frank Virgil Brandt (1857-1923) immigrated from the Kingdom of Bavaria in modern-day Germany -  which had a Catholic majority - in 1881/2. It was Fleeta’s great-great grandparents who first moved to Illinois from their birthplaces of Kentucky and Maryland; and it was their Ulster Presbyterian great grandparents who immigrated from Ireland to first Pennsylvania, then Virginia.

Another photo of Fleeta

John and Eleanor Archer (two of my many 10th GGP’s - did you know we all have 4,096?) lived in Warwickshire, England, in the mid-1500’s, where their families had been for several generations. However, my 9th GGP’s moved to Ireland at some point, for my 8th GGF was born there in 1636. Sampson Archer, my 7th GGF, was born in Tyrone County in Northern Ireland in 1696, so his parents obviously moved north and joined the Ulster community. Those last three generations all immigrated to America, for my 7th, 8th, and 9th GGP’s all died in the Colony of Virginia. Most likely, they arrived in Philadelphia and lived there for a time, then traveled along the Great Wagon Road to the western frontier of Pennsylvania and later Virginia, as was typical of many of the Ulster Presbyterians (1).

The Great Wagon Road used by Settlers in the 1700’s

The earliest Archers appeared in America in 1665, but the ones from whom I directly descend - Sampson Archer and Rebecca Thompson Archer - arrived with their family in 1737 and eventually took claim to 1000 acres near Natural Bridge, VA. Two of their daughters - Elizabeth and Sarah (my 6th GGM - we only have 256 of those) - married Renicks. Sarah (1742-1811) married William Renick (1737-1807), my 6th GGF; and her sister Elizabeth (1722-1809) married Capt. Robert Rennick (1710-1757), William’s uncle. A bit confused? Believe me, I’ve been down many bewildering rabbit holes in my research!

William and Robert both descended from my 8th GGP's George Renick (1675-1737) and his wife Margaret (1682-1747), who immigrated with their family to Pennsylvania around 1720. They lived in the Philadelphia area until the late 1720’s, eventually settling in Paxtang (aka. Paxton) Township, Lancaster County, Virginia, near the Susquehanna River (in modern day Dauphin County, VA). George and Margaret were both born in Enniskillen, Fermanagh, Northern Ireland, and both died in Paxtang, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. 

With them from Ireland they brought three sons - William, Thomas, and Robert - and one daughter, Elizabeth. I trace my line through William. (Unfortunately, every Renick relative seemed to name one of their sons “William,” which makes it even more confusing!) The Renicks were active in the Abington Presbyterian Church near Philadelphia through the 1720s. It was there that sister Elizabeth married Robert Poage/Polke in 1723. In 1728, however, according to church records, Rev. Malachi Jones excommunicated George Renock and his wife, son-in-law Robert Polke, son William and wife, and Henry Jamison for some reason (it didn’t take much in those days). It must not have been too serious, because by 1733, he was serving as an elder of the Paxton church and attended the Donegal Presbytery. (Obviously, the Presbyterian Church kept detailed records). 

Based on an early land record, George Renick and his sons first acquired land along the Susquehanna River in the area of Paxton Township in 1730. The record reads: "An Early Settler on the Susquehanna: Whereas George Renick, late of Iniskillen, having about eleven years since arrived in the province with the first settlers of Donegal, yet has never obtained leave to settle on any of the proprietor's lands, without which leave he never would presume to attempt it, and being now desirous that himself and three sons, William, Thomas, and Robert and his son-in-law, Robert Polke, might be allowed to settle down on some tract together in one neighbourhood, I therefore think it advisable that pursuant to his request he and his said sons and son-in-law be suffered to enter on the quantity of one thousand acres, near Susquehanna, between Sohataroe and Pextan, and that the same may be marked out to him and his said sons in a regular tract by the surveyor of Lancaster county or his order at the said George's charge, upon this express condition, that he and his said sons and son-in-law shall comply with such terms as shall be proposed by the proprietors or their agents, when lands in those parts shall be granted, or otherwise shall quietly quit the same. Dated at Stenton, the 25th day of January, 1730.”

William’s siblings - Thomas, Robert, and Elizabeth - all moved to Virginia in the 1740’s. The details for William get a bit murky here - as he either died in 1741 in Paxton or lived until 1797 and died in Hampshire, West Virginia. Obviously, it can’t be both, but researchers definitely disagree on the specifics. His son William Renick, my 6th GGF, and his wife, Sarah Archer, married in Pennsylvania in 1761, then soon after moved to Frederick County, Maryland, where most of their children were born. Their youngest daughter, however, Rachel Ruth Renick (my 5th GGM), was born in Barren County, Kentucky in 1783. A 1799 land survey shows that William had been granted 200 acres there. After Rachel married James Gerald Black, Jr. in 1805, the Renick and Archer names no longer appear in my family tree. James (whose ancestors were also from Scotland) and Rachel Black eventually settled in Tonti Township, Marion County, Illinois.

One of the more interesting stories I have run across in my ancestry research relates to my 6th GGM's sister Elizabeth “Betsy” Archer being captured by the Shawnee, along with her seven children, in 1757, at which time they also killed and scalped her husband Robert. Once they arrived in the Ohio Valley, she and her children were separated from each other, and they lived among the tribe for the next seven years until a treaty required the tribes to return their white prisoners in 1764. One of her sons was raised alongside Tecumseh! Here’s what I learned …

Location of August County, Virginia

By the mid-1700’s, Capt. Robert Renick and his wife Elizabeth were living on the James River in Augusta County, in an area that is now part of West Virginia. They had seven children: William, Robert, Thomas, Joshua, Betsy, Nancy, and Margaret). Carving out a life at this time on the Allegheny frontier was difficult enough, but the French and Indian War (1754-1763) was also underway, which pitted the North American colonies of the British Empire against those of the French, each side being supported by various Native American tribes. Men were being drafted from Augusta County to join the command of a young Major George Washington in response to Virginia’s governor “hearing complaints from our frontier in Augusta County of many parties of Indians, etc., robbing and ill treating our people” (2). Renick was one of those men who served in the Virginia militia and was apparently among those wounded in the Braddock Expedition in July 1755, which I will explain a bit more in my next post where I discuss the French & Indian War..

It was in the midst of this war that the following episode took place. I came across this story in various forms on Ancestry.com, shared from the Annals of Augusta County, the book Chronicles of Border Warfare, by Alexander Scott Withers, news reports from the time period, and even historical markers as shown above (3). Here I share the version I found most clearly presented (4):

Elizabeth Archer, daughter of Rebecca Thompson and Sampson Archer, had come from northern Ireland in 1737 with her family, who took claim to 1000 acres near Natural Bridge, VA. In 1741, Elizabeth married Robert Renick, who had settled in Augusta County, VA, in 1740. They lived in what was then the Virginia frontier.

Virginia records show that on June 10, 1740, Robert Renick received a patent to 400 acres of land on the Buffalo Lick Branch in Augusta County, VA, and on November 10, 1757, obtained a patent to 90 acres on Purgatory Creek, a branch of the James River.

Robert Renick joined the Virginia militia and quickly advanced through the ranks. He was granted 300 acres in Orange County, Virginia, in 1745. As a Captain of Horse (cavalry), he was active in warfare with the Indians.

On July 25, 1757, a band of about 60 Shawnee Indians stole past the fort, which was near the Renicks' wilderness home, and captured Elizabeth and her children Joshua, William, Betsy, Margaret, Nancy, Thomas, and Robert. The Shawnee went on to a neighboring house where Robert was visiting, and killed and scalped him in view of the children.

The Shawnee and their captives then embarked on a long journey to the Miami Valley Indian town in Ohio. Elizabeth carried her son Robert, who was about eighteen months, the greater part of the way to Chillicothe, Ohio. But his incessant crying irritated the Indians, and they killed him by dashing his head against a tree.

On arriving at the towns on the Scioto River, the children and Mrs. Renick were separated, divided up among their captors, and scattered. Elizabeth was pregnant at the time. Soon after reaching the Indian towns, she gave birth to a male infant and named him Robert, after his murdered father and little brother.

Elizabeth's son Joshua, who was about five years old, was taken to Piqua and raised by Tecumseh's parents. Joshua became the companion of Tecumseh and his brother, the Prophet. He ignored the pleas of his relatives to return to civilization, remained with the Indians and became a Miami chief. He took an Indian wife, amassed a considerable fortune, and died near Detroit in 1810, according to one account.

In the autumn of 1764, Colonel Henry Bouquet was the commander of Fort Pitt (Pittsburgh). To subdue the ongoing Indian uprising, he led a force of nearly 1500 militiamen and regular British soldiers from the fort into the Ohio Country.

On October 13, 1764, Bouquet's army reached the Tuscarawas River. Shortly thereafter, representatives of the Shawnee, Seneca, and Delaware came to Bouquet to sue for peace. Bouquet then moved his army from the Tuscarawas River to the Muskingum River at modern-day Coshocton, Ohio. This placed him in the heart of tribal lands and would allow him to quickly strike the natives' villages if they refused to cooperate. As part of the peace treaty, Bouquet demanded the return of all white captives, in exchange for a promise not to destroy the villages or seize any of their land.

In compliance with this stipulation, Elizabeth Renick was ransomed with two of her sons, William and Robert. Betsy, her daughter, had died on the Miami. Her son Thomas returned in 1783, but soon after left and settled on the Scioto, near Chillicothe.

The return of the captives caused much bitterness among the tribesmen, because many of them had been forcibly adopted into Indian families as small children, and living among the Native Americans had been the only life they remembered. Some white Indians managed to escape back into the native villages; many others were never exchanged. However, Bouquet managed to return more than 200 white captives to the settlements back east.

Elizabeth Renick had to contend with children who didn't know her, who didn't know each other, who had adopted Indian ways, and who feared leaving the tribe. William Renick became a soldier and spent his life fighting Indians. He served in an expedition that resulted in the Battle of Point Pleasant, where the Shawnee leader Cornstalk was killed.

Elizabeth Archer Renick was brought to Staunton, VA in 1767, and lived out her days in the area where her home had been attacked.

The Indians delivering up the English captives to Colonel Bouquet 

near his camp at the forks of Muskingum in North America in Nov. 1764 (5)

What made this story even more interesting to me is that for many years, I have taught the book The Light in the Forest, by Conrad Richter, which deals with very similar events. In my next post, I will give a bit more background about the French & Indian War, Colonel Bouquet’s treaty, and how The Light in the Forest relates. But I've got one more historical doozy: as if the family story I just related isn't crazy enough, one of my 6th GGM's on my father's side was ALSO captured, along with her sister and brother, by the Shawnee and Delaware tribes in 1758, and her parents were killed in what became known as the Seybert Massacre. I'll talk about that in my next post as well. Stay tuned!

Endnotes:

1. Mires, Charlene. “Great Wagon Road.” Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia, https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/great-wagon-road/.

2. Secrest, Betty Harrison. Settlers by the Long Grey Trail: Some Pioneers to Old Augusta County, Virginia, and Their Descendants of the Family of Harrison and Allied Lines. B.H. Secrest, 1975. Pg. 201.

3. Fillmon, Tim. “Cartmill's (Cartmell) Gap Historical Marker.” The Historical Marker Database, https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=206612. 

4. “Elizabeth Archer Renick.” History of American Women, https://www.womenhistoryblog.com/2008/12/elizabeth-archer-renick.html.

5. Canot, Pierre Charles and Benjamin West. “The Indians delivering up the English captives to Colonel Bouquet near his camp at the forks of Muskingum in North America in Nov. 1764." Philadelphia, 1766, Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/resource/pga.05601/.

Tracing my "Ulster Presbyterian" Roots from Ireland to Pennsylvania

Chasing History: Exploring My Ancestral Roots - Blog Post #31

By Tonya Graham McQuade

Some of my ancestors come from Fermanagh, Antrim, Cavan, Derry,

Donegal, and Tyrone in Ulster in Northern Ireland

This summer, my husband Mike and I had the opportunity to visit Ireland and Scotland, where many of our ancestors originated. We were both excited to see places our ancestors had lived, as well as learn more about what their lives might have been like and why they might have chosen to brave the journey across the sea to come to America so long ago. While in Dublin, we learned more about the “Great Famine” of 1845-1852 that caused more than one million deaths and led more than a million people to emigrate from Ireland, mostly to the United States. However, while it’s likely some of Mike’s “McQuade” relatives as well as my “Graham” ancestors said their goodbyes to Ireland as a result of the “Great Famine”, that’s not the story for most of my “Irish” ancestors. 

According to my DNA results on Ancestry.com, my highest DNA match is Scotland - 43% - with very little Irish. So, something confused me. When I look at my family tree, I see quite a few relatives who immigrated from Ireland. Weren’t they Irish?

As it turns out, most were not. They were actually from Scotland and England, but moved to Northern Ireland for both religious and political reasons. Many were Scots Irish Presbyterians; others were “Irish Quakers.” Both groups moved to Ulster in Northern Ireland from the lowlands of Scotland and various parts of England in the 17th century, and many immigrated to Pennsylvania in the early 1700’s. I decided I wanted to learn more about them, and as I did so, I made some very interesting discoveries.

My next series of posts will explore the following topics:

1. Who were the Ulster Presbyterians, and why did so many settle in Pennsylvania?

2. Where do my own Ulster ancestors - the Renicks, Archers, Jacksons, and Hamiltons - fit in?

3. How were these immigrants impacted by the French & Indian War (1754-63); and what were the circumstances and results of my 6th great grandmother’s sister and her five children being captured by Shawnee, who also killed and scalped her husband? 

4. How does all this relate to a book I teach my juniors, Conrad Richter’s The Light in the Forest, which we discuss as part of our Native American unit?

5. Who were the Irish Quakers;  and why did they move first to Ireland, then Pennsylvania; and how am I related to Rev. Thomas Lightfoot, Sir Anthony Jackson, and Presidents Andrew Jackson and  Richard Nixon (not the greatest presidential connections, I know)? 

6. What was the Great Famine? Why did so many people leave Ireland during this time, where did they go, and where do the Grahams fit into this story?

Many of my earliest Scots Irish ancestors on my mom’s side - the Renicks, Archers, Jacksons - first settled in Pennsylvania in the early 1700’s after leaving Northern Ireland. Others, including the Hamiltons, settled in Virginia in the 1600's, but I will focus here on the Ulster contingent. As it turns out, after landing in Philadelphia, they were among the first Scots Irish to settle in western Pennsylvania, along the banks of the Susquehanna River.

According to The Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia: “As the prototypical “peoples in motion” of their time, the Scots Irish moved first from the Scottish Lowlands to Ulster during the seventeenth century at the behest of the English, who desired them to act as a Protestant colonizing force among Ireland’s native Catholics. After 1700, when faced with deteriorating economic conditions and mounting religious and political persecution as dissenting Protestants (not members of the official, state-sponsored Church of Ireland) in Ireland …  they chose to migrate again. This time, the Scots Irish came to America, migrating as servants and free people, individuals and families, and sometimes as political exiles and refugees.”

Sign from EPIC Emigration Museum in Dublin, Ireland

The text reads:: "Many Irish people looked for livelihoods in Europe and North America. Catholics found employment in European armies, while the first waves of emigration to North America were largely Ulster Presbyterians, seeking religious freedom and economic improvement."

Now, it doesn’t take much study of Irish history to recognize the tension - politically, religiously, culturally, and economically - that has existed between Ireland and Great Britain throughout the centuries. This tension has frequently erupted in violence, wars, oppression, purges, restrictions, exclusions, and deep-seated hatred. The disagreements between Catholics and various Protestant sects as the Protestant Reformation swept Europe played a huge role in all of this, with each group at different times exerting its power over the other. Religious tolerance and freedom certainly did not reign supreme, and many were charged with heresy and killed - often in atrocious ways.

One time this tension reached a climax was in the Nine Years’ War between England and the Gaelic (native Irish) earls, led by Hugh O’Neill, the second Earl of Tyrone, and Rory O’Donnell, the Earl of Tyrconnell. After their defeat at the Battle of Kinsale in October 1601, the Gaelic earls sought help from Catholic Spain, but ultimately, they were defeated. The war ended with the Treaty of Mellifont in March 1603 (read more HERE), and Gaelic earls had to give up their titles, Brehon laws, private armies, much of their land, and control over lesser lords, as well as swear an oath of loyalty to the English throne. This they did, but then in 1607, during the “Flight of the Earls,” many of those same earls fled Ireland for Spain, Rome, and the Spanish-controlled Netherlands, never to return - marking the end of the old Gaelic Order in Ireland. 

This set the stage for the “Plantation of Ulster,” which began in 1609 during the reign of King James I and involved the organized colonization (aka. plantation) of Ulster by English-speaking Protestants (or planters) from Southern Scotland and Northern England. King James, you see, was the first king of a united England and Scotland, and he wanted to extend that rule to Ireland. How did he get that title? He was the son of the Catholic Mary, Queen of Scots, who was executed and replaced with her protestant son James, making him King James VI of Scotland. Then, when Queen Elizabeth I died without an heir, he - as next in line - became King James I of England as well. 

So, my ancestors were among those who settled in various parts of Ulster after the Gaelic earls and their families were driven from their native land - a realization that definitely leaves me with a mix of emotions. Family research (and history itself) is certainly a mixed bag of good and bad, happy and sad, harmonious and haunting and harrowing. Some of my ancestors immigrated for political or economic reasons; others, because they experienced religious persecution where they were living. Whichever the case, the colonized land in Ulster, an estimated half a million acres in size, was confiscated from the native Gaelic chiefs in the counties of Armagh, Cavan, Fermanagh, Tyrone, Donegal, and Londonderry - and that's where my "Irish" ancestors lived. But then, all of us live on land that once belonged to Native Americans. Indigenous groups around the world have been pushed out of their homelands.

As explained online, King James and his assistants “saw the plantation as a means of controlling, anglicizing, and ‘civilizing’ Ulster. The province was almost wholly Gaelic, Catholic, and rural and had been the region most resistant to English control. The plantation was also meant to sever Gaelic Ulster's links with the Gaelic Highlands of Scotland. The colonists (or ‘British tenants’) were required to be English-speaking, Protestant, and loyal to the king…. The Scottish settlers were mostly Presbyterian Lowlanders and the English mostly Anglican Northerners. Although some ‘loyal’ natives were granted land, the native Irish reaction to the plantation was generally hostile, and native writers lamented what they saw as the decline of Gaelic society and the influx of foreigners” (read more HERE).

John Knox Statue in St. Giles Cathedral in Edinburgh,

Scotland, on High Street along the "Royal Mile"

Scottish Presbyterianism traces its roots to John Knox - who also leaves me with very mixed feelings after our visit to Edinburgh in Scotland. We visited St. Giles Cathedral, where he is proudly celebrated, and toured a house across from the cathedral called the “John Knox House” where he lived for a time. I had learned about him before when I was studying church history and learned about Presbyterianism, which places an emphasis on the sovereignty of God, the authority of scripture, and justification by grace through faith. For many years, I attended Presbyterian churches (after having grown up Catholic). Still, hearing how the Catholics and Presbyterians attacked and killed each other - and how John Knox branded Mary, Queen of Scots, a “whore” and repeatedly called for her execution - couldn’t help but make me question his methods and whether anyone would know he was a Christian by the love he showed to others (John 13:35). 

St. Giles Cathedral, founded in 1124 by King David I, 

has been a working church for almost 900 years

As Presbyterians began to experience more persecution in Scotland for not being part of the Anglican Church of England, they began to look for other places to live, and Ulster - with its many land grants - provided that opportunity. Remember, this is around the same time the Pilgrims and Puritans also decided to leave England as a result of religious persecution. As early as 1636, a group of Ulster Presbyterians - in communication with Puritan leader John Winthrop - set out for America on the ship Eagle Wing, but bad weather caused them to turn back. They viewed the weather as a sign from God that they were not meant to leave Ulster and did not try to set out in large numbers again until 1718.

In the meantime, the 1662 Act For Encouraging Protestant-Strangers And Others To Inhabit and Plant in the Kingdom of Ireland inspired others - including French Huguenots and German Moravians - to immigrant to Ireland. The Act especially sought "Merchants, Traders and Dealers of Ability to exercize a Traffic as of skilful Artificers, Artizens and Workman for the making and working all Sorts of Manufactures" because so much of Ireland had been destroyed and depleted by wars (read more HERE).

So, why did so many Presbyterians - an estimated 200,000 before the start of the American Revolution - eventually choose to leave Ireland? And why did they choose to go to Pennsylvania? Apparently, for several reasons. 

One reason was the 1704 Test Act, which stated that those wishing to hold civil or military office had to prove they had taken communion in the Church of Ireland (tied to the Church of England), which effectively barred Presbyterians. The Test Act also refused to recognize marriages conducted by Presbyterian ministers and considered children born of such marriages illegitimate. Another cause for anger was the tithes demanded by the Church of Ireland. Memories of the 105-day long Siege of Derry led by the Catholic James II in 1689 and his Jacobite supporters, during which an estimated 15,000 people died of fever, starvation or were killed, also contributed. 

By 1718, many believed it was time to emigrate - and 319 Ulstermen, including nine Presbyterian ministers, addressed a petition to Samuel Shute, Governor of Massachusetts, asking for a place to do so. Known as the Shute Petition, “it declared their ‘sincere and hearty inclination to transport ourselves to that very excellent and renowned plantation.’ The petition was carried to New England by Rev. William Boyd, the minister of Macosquin Presbyterian Church near Coleraine [in Londonderry]…. On his arrival in Boston in July 1718 Boyd met with the local authorities. They were keen to have new settlers, especially people used to farming and frontier life; the colonial government thought that Ulster settlers could be placed on the outer reaches of their colony” (see SOURCE).

 The 1718 Shute Petition is on display at the New Hampshire Historical Society

Soon after that, the Rev. James McGregor led his own family and many others from his congregation in Ulster to America. In his farewell sermon he said they were leaving “to avoid oppression and cruel bondage, to shun persecution and designed ruin, to withdraw from the communion of idolators and to have an opportunity of worshipping God according to the dictates of conscience and the rules of His inspired Word” (see source above).

So, why did so many Scots Irish Presbyterians settle in Pennsylvania? For one, many Presbyterians already lived there; in fact, the first "Presbytery" was organized there in 1706 by Rev. Francis Makemie, who is considered the "Father of American Presbyterianism." He had arrived in 1683 to begin planting Presbyterian churches in the American colonies.

Furthermore, according to the essay "Scots Irish," by Judith Ridner: “Pennsylvania had much to offer them. Because of the value proprietor William Penn (1644–1718) had placed on religious tolerance in planning his colony, Pennsylvania had a pluralistic society where these Scots Irish Presbyterians would no longer be stigmatized as dissenters. The colony’s economy, anchored by the rapidly expanding port city of Philadelphia, was also growing rapidly. An expanding flaxseed trade with Ireland during the eighteenth century, one closely tied to the immigrant trade, offered immigrant Scots Irish merchants abundant commercial opportunities in Philadelphia and encouraged farm families to continue the linen production they had done in Ireland in America. The growing colony and its practice of purchasing lands from Indians also offered newcomers abundant rural lands and a generally peaceful climate in which to settle. Finally, with Philadelphia as the headquarters of the Presbyterian Church in America, the Delaware Valley also offered Scots Irish Presbyterians the promise of a spiritual home” (see SOURCE).

So, where specifically do my ancestors fit in? This post is already far too long, so tune in next time to hear about the Archers, Renicks, Jacksons, and Hamiltons!