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Archiver > Scotch-Irish > 2002-11 > 1036765051


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Subject: [Scotch-Irish] Colonial New Jersey Immigration
Date: Fri, 8 Nov 2002 06:17:34 -0800


Yo folks, it's hard to get a good grasp of immigration to the
American colonies. That's not our fault -- it's not a topic that
until recently has attracted many scholars. They are the fellas who
would note major trends, etc. Bailyn, in his introduction to his
book "Voyagers to the West" (a study, based on emigration records
generated briefly in the 1770's in Britain), says that too and goes on
discussing the amazing lack of scholarly attention into who came,
where, and why. (The scholars, shifting through unpublished
records, publish at least the 'big picture' in easy to find and
read books -- and let us genealogists know where the unpublished
records hide.)

Bernard Bailyn's book "The Peopling of British North America:
An Introduction" makes the same point. It should probably be required
reading for all on this list <grin>.

I know all us genealogists think we have all the answers, (me
especially!) yet he says (p 17) "The shifts of population within the
colonies seem strange, irrational." He goes on to mention how in the
1770's North Carolina was busy supplying settlers to Kentucky (KEY: If
it's in KT, maybe it came from NC!), while it itself was being
"deluged by emigrants from Pennsylvania, Virginia, Scotland,
and Germany." This is of course ho hum to us genealogists <grin>.
We've memorized this stuff!

Bailyn does go into the more obscure
group migrations: Conn. families to northeastern PA and the far
north of the Vermont-New York border as well as the Gulf of Mexico!
New Jerseyites settling in Natchez -- along with folk from PA
and North Carolina. He says "Germans and the Scotch-Irish could
be found in almost every colony." So..."could my ancestor in X
be S-I"? YES, YES! By all means, YES!

To research in New Jersey, you do this. Sub "New Jersey" for an
X -- a variable -- that is the place holder for any place you
are researching. Go to www.familysearch.org and upload the free
guide on the place. It'll give you a notion of the early settlement.

In any case with New Jersey, though it is now one place, back in
the colonial times, it was several different groups of poeple with
different histories. You need to focus on the history of the folk
in YOUR area of interest.

To quote Bailyn "The Peopling..." (see above) p 96: "The Jersey
had been settled by widely different groups entering from different
directions." He discusses Dutch from Manhattan, New Englanders in
the north east, English Quakers in the west, Swedes, moving east
from Delaware across the coastal plain, hundreds of Scots "clients
of the Scottish East Jersey proprietors", who settled in Perth Amboy
and fanned out inland." With New Jersey, RED FLAGS should go off
when researching Scottish surnames, as it was one of the few places
where you had significant numbers of colonial Scots (there were not
many. Here I quote David Dobson In "Scottish Emigration to Colonial
America" though he also says that the Scottish element was 'probably
far greater" than is generally realized. (pp 2-3). There's knife
edge for the family historian to walk! The problem is that we
do not have good records of migrating Scots, so you can't count them.
(I do not say this, the experts who have published on the topic
do. If you wish to refute it, you can do so here if you supply
some evidence but by all means publish your work and get the fame
you deserve and ensure your work will live on and be findable by
the rest of us).

Then surf the net, being aware that anyone can build a webpage.
So it might not be true, what you read. Look for websites that
are done by historical societies and/or PROVIDE SOURCES. Not only
does the ability to provide a reference indicate that the person
might know what they are doing, but it also gives you another
place to look. Oh, the reference should be a book or manuscript.
NOT another webpage. That's not a good reference at all -- and
that includes ours.

Check Leyburn of course.

Dobson's book on colonial Scots is not read enough: "Scottish
Emigration to Colonial America-1607-1785" (University of Georgia
Press, 1994). It made me realize that I could not really be on
stable ground in researching the "Scotch Irish" in the colonies
if I didn't understand what Scots had settled directly. Lots of
people 'assume' an ancestor with a Scottish surname was an Ulster
Scots, but perhaps not. They cannot be separated by surname or
habit. The largest emigration destination for Scots in the early
1600's was Ulster. Ulster Scots have the same surnames as their
cousins who stayed in Scotland, just as English in South East
England have the same surnames as their Puritan cousins in New
England. He has a whole section on East Jersey and the Delaware
Valley -- it was that important to Scots migration (Not Ulster
Scots; he doesn't cover them in this book and Leyburn covers
SI in New Jersey in less than a page).

What Dobson does point out is a couple books with more detailed info
including George Pryde Insh's "Scottish Colonial Schemes". He
says the Scottish settlement in east Jersey owes much to William
Penn and the Quakers. Apparently he formulated plans for a Quaker
colony in East Jersey in the 1670's when Penn was in the Netherlands
and the Rhineland with Arent Sonneman, a Quaker who latter settled
in Scotland. The Sonneman family, Thomas Rudyard, and Robert
Barclay of Urie were prominant Scots proprietors in East Jersey. A list
of people settled in West Jersey after 1664 includes 3 Scots who were
all Quakers.

Dobson says (all this on pp47-48) "There were very few
Scots in Pennsylvania or West New Jersey; their main colonizing
effort was soon to occur in East New Jersey." In 1674 New Jersey
was split into two -- and this increased the differences between
the two Jerseys.

What I got from reading this was also a sense of how wrong my
notions can be: that there were Quakers, and they were ENglish,
and Scots, who were PResbyterian, etc. Nooo!! here we have lots
of Scottish Quakers. Should you find them in your 'tree, he
tells us that "Quakerism in Scotland was then highly localized
in areas such as Aberdeenshire, Edinburgh, " etc and many
left in the 1680's for New Jersey -- so he tells you where to
look for them in Scotland!

BUT not all were Quakers. Dobson also says that influential Scots like
Robert Barclay of Urie, George Scot of Pitlochie, and Robert Gordon of
Gordonstoun requested and got 'substantial numbers' of Covenantor
prisoners and criminals" Beteen 1683 and 85 at least 3 vessels carring
emigrants from Scotland to East New Jersey were positively
Id'd when Dobson wrote this bok. He gives a lot of detail. It is
clear to that a lot more could be found in the papers of these
three or four merchant/proprietors.

P 50 says on May 7, 1688 the original indentured servants
were given land grants. On he goes with excellent details of
ships which in 1684 brought settlers from Scotland to Perth
Amboy. The Henry and Francis arrived on Sept 5, 1685,
sailing from Leith for East New Jersey, with settlers under the
leadership of George Scott of Pitlochie. They included Archibald
RIDDELL, a Covenanting mininster who had been imprisoned at
the famous Bass Rock, and a number of others he names. A quarter
of the group died en route, including Scott. The prisoners on
board refused to indent -- and were supported in this by the New
Jersey law courts! This suggests juicy legal proceedings full
of data for genealogists.

On P 51 we are told that in March of 1685 a fellow
wrote to the Earl of Perth, who had sold him land in New Jersey,
complaining. He said: "the camione ground and riverside ar
takin up by Quakers, Independents, Presbiterians, Anabaptists,
and in a word all the scourings of hell."

Dobson then embarks on an analysis of the social networks of
Quakers in the late 17th century: they played in several colonies
and all the home countries, networking among co-relgionists across
ethnic and national boundaries.

So don't assume if it has a Scottish surname it is a Presbyterian
Ulster Scot. Statistically there were far more of these in the
colonies but our own individual ancestor may have been a Scottish
Quaker, a Covenantor prisoner, a Baptist Ulster Scot, a Quaker
Ulster Scot, etc, etc.

Apparently key to figuring out what he was is burrowing into local
history to see who was there in your timeframe and where they
came from. A study of major landowners, land speculators and
proprietors will suggest what records to search when all else
fails (unless you can find these papers published and indexe).

Leyburn identifies New Jersey as a stronghold of Presbyterianism
in colonial America -- due to the Scots, not the Scotch Irish. (P245).
He describes the Scottish proprietors and the fondness that Scots,
especially lowlanders and Covenantors, had for the place. Perth
Amboy was the original place of settelment. THOUGH after 1746 he
says that Jacobite highlanders also came over. After 1760 many
other Scots emigrated to New Jersey.

Leyburn says "Few Scotch-Irish were to be found as settlers in
New Jersey" not because of any bigotry, etc, but because the province
was not a favorite market for indentured servants. However it played
a centrist role in our social history because of the Scots
Presbyterians. It produced ministers who then joined the Scotch Irish
on their southward and later westward trek.

New Jersey??? Just don't assume anything in New Jersey or that
a Scottish surname there suggests Ulster as an origin. You need
to research the individual to find out for sure.

Linda Merle


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