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Subject: [RHEA] 2nd install of Summary of Rhea research article
Date: Sat, 28 Jul 2001 01:55:32 -0500
Where were they born, and when did they arrive in the Colonies and in Augusta County?
This author and other researchers are certain that they were of Scotch-Irish ancestry, and emigrated from Northern Ireland. The date of their arrival in America is unknown. There is a strong stream of Ulster Scots throughout the eighteenth century, especially in the yers 1717-1718, 1727-1728, 1740-1741, and 1771-1773. The famine of 1740-1741 occasioned a ten year exodus that could have included the Reah/Reagh family. It is firmly established that the Scotch-Irish of the Valley of Virginia disembarked mainly at the ports of Philadelphia and Baltimore. Before moving southward, some lived temporarily in the Cumberland Valley, and in the present Pennsylvania counties of Chester, Lancaster, York, and Dauphin. See: Dunway, Wayland F., The Scotch-Irish of Colonial Pennsylvania, (Chapel Hill, NC: the University of North Carolina Press, 1944). 34, 38.* The brothers, and ostensibly their father, Archibald, arrived in Augusta County between September, 1742, and September, 1746. Archibald's name did not appear on the roster of militia in 1742 (Draper Manuscript Collection, IQQ10-17).* but he was named in a court martial held in September, 1746 [Ref.7]
What is known about their ancestors? Most of the published information on the topic is not supported by documented evidence. Throughout the literature, statements are found affirming a connection between the Rheas and the Campbells of Scotland. In 1893, C. Luther Coyner wrote that his grandmother, Elizabeth (Rhea) Coyner, "descended on her father's side from Archibald, 3rd Duke of Argyle," and that John Rhea, the congressman from Tennessee, was a brother. As is pointed out in [Ref.22], very few of his comments about Elizabeth's background have survived close examination. The 3rd Duke, who was also the 12th Earl of Argyll, held that post from about 1743 until his death in 1761, rather late dates to be an ancestor of brothers who were born approximately 1725 to 1730.
Pat Hall
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