(Jody Gray) This document is "wordy" because I'm not just interested in "building a family tree", I'm interested in learning the history. Originally, my goal was to write a "tribute" to Nimrod Adams and Nancy Etchison as early frontier pioneers and to present my theory that they were "Ulster-Scots" aka "Scotch-Irish". I was not able to trace Nimrod or Nancy Etchison back any farther. However, I followed Nancy Etchison-Adams' 1826 migration from North Carolina to Indiana; in Kentucky the families of George Allender and Isaac Adams joined the group. In Indiana, three of Nancy Adams' children marry three of George Allender's children and Edward Payne Adams, son of Isaac Adams and Nancy Ann Polk, marries the granddaughter of George Allender. Nancy Ann Polk is the descendant of Robert Bruce Polk, emigrant from Donegal, Ireland to Maryland. George Allender migrated from Virginia to Kentucky. By "connecting the dots" my ancestors follow the history of the Ulster-Scots.
**The Legacy of Nimrod Adams and Nancy Etchison.
*(Jody Gray) Nimrod Adams and Nancy Etchison have been given a birth year and a marriage year, and, locations. I do not know how these “vitals” were determined. There are no church or government records to be found. I believe everything that is known about them (except for land patents and censuses) came from the genealogy book, The Descendants of George Allender, published in 1914: One Adams descendant indicated that Nimrod Adams was a trader who traveled to many points west of North Carolina. His death was published in the Western Carolinian, a newspaper of the area of Forks of the Yadkin, Rowan County, North Carolina, in the June 8, 1824 issue. The first record of Nimrod Adams in Rowan County, North Carolina was in 1809 when he appeared on a tax list. The 1810 Federal Census of Rowan County showed 6 children while the 1820 Census listed 8 children. On April 24, 1820 Nimrod and Nancy purchased land in Posey Twp, Rush Co, Indiana.
Google Search: meaning of the name Nimrod: *https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimrod Nimrod. The first biblical mention of Nimrod is in the Table of Nations. He is described as the son of Cush, grandson of Ham, and great-grandson of Noah; and as "a mighty one in the earth" and "a mighty hunter before the Lord".
Idiom. In modern American English, the term is now commonly used to mean a dimwitted or a stupid person, a usage first recorded in 1932 and popularized by the cartoon character Bugs Bunny, who sarcastically refers to the hunter Elmer Fudd as “nimrod”, as an ironic connection between “mighty hunter” and “poor little Nimrod”, i.e. Fudd. (Jody Gray) When I discovered we had an ancestor named Nimrod, I called my brother because I remembered (when we were teenagers) he referred to someone as a “nimrod”.
While researching another branch of my family, I came across information on people referred to as “Ulster-Scots”, Adams and Etchison were among the surnames. I researched the Ulster-Scots online and purchased two books and a DVD. I believe, the reason “vital” information for Nimrod and Nancy remains a mystery is because they were among the first settlers of North Carolina, there were no churches or courthouses. Many of the Ulster-Scots pioneers were squatters, who did not believe in property ownership.
*I believe, I found a description of Nimrod Adams and his life in the book, From Ulster to Carolina; The Migration of the Scotch-Irish to Southwestern North Carolina.
The book traces the Ulster-Scots immigrants from Pennsylvania. (pg 38) Map, shows the predominant migration routes south and west from Pennsylvania and Northwest from Charleston, South Carolina. *1749, “Irish Settlement,” Rowan Co, NC. (Jody Gray) We know nothing of the parentage of Nimrod Adams, his ancestors could have been part of this migration pattern. We know that Nimrod was given a birth year of 1774, Rowan Co, NC.
(pg 34) Pennsylvania: A First American Home.
Mobility and the Land. The goal of most immigrants was to obtain land, but for the Scotch-Irish, at least, not necessarily to own it. A common grievance raised against them by colonial authorities was their habit of squatting on land and not bothering to claim it officially and pay for it… Many Scotch-Irish farmers… adhered to the traditional Ulster ways, which combined cropping with herding and hunting, did not require large amounts of the best soils, and in fact encouraged movement as land and game wore out.
(pg 37) 1757, Edmund Burke, English writer: “The number of white people in Virginia is ... growing every day… by the migration of the Irish who, not succeeding so well in Pa as the more frugal and industrious Germans… take up new ground in the remote regions of Va, MD, SC. These are chiefly Presbyterians from the northern part of Ireland, who in American are generally called Scotch-Irish.”
(pg 39) The Great Valley of Virginia. ...land was cheap and there were no settled Indian populations. The colonial govt of Virginia was eager to encourage settlement there to create a buffer against nomadic Indians… a strong surge of Ulster immigration after 1727, combined with Virginia's policy of granting large tracts of land to speculators… Two large tracts were granted to men who specifically sought out the Scotch-Irish settlers. In 1736 William Beverly received the 11,491-acre Beverly Manor in what would become Augusta Co. These two tracts in the higher and hillier southern end of the Shenandoah Valley became, after SE Pennsylvania, a second home for the Scotch-Irish and contained the heaviest concentration of Ulster settlers in the American colonies.
(pg 41) The Carolina Piedmont. The route that most Scotch-Irish traveled to the Carolinas followed the Valley of Virginia to the Staunton River. There it turned east with the river, passing through the Blue Ridge Mountains. The route then crossed the Dan River into North Carolina and led into the new lands between the Yadkin and Catawba rivers…
(pg 43) The earliest settlers on the creeks and river bottoms west of the Yadkin River appeared in 1746. This time the Scotch-Irish preceded other ethnic groups and obtained the best land. Of the three settlements that grew up before 1750, the “Irish settlement” at the head of the Second Creek of the South Yadkin River was the largest and was predominately Scotch-Irish. By 1749 there were some 14 families in the Irish Settlement, led by James and George Cathey. That settlement was possibly the first English-speaking one in North Carolina situated so far from a navigable river. ...growth was rapid… over the next 15 yrs. [The 1820 Census, lists Nimrod Adams, Battalion 3 or Forks of the Yadkin, Rowan Co, North Carolina.]
(pg 46) Presbyterianism and Politics on the Frontier. From the 16th Century, Presbyterianism had shaped the lives of the Scotch-Irish. It formed a part of the mental outlook they brought to the America’ and played an important role in the early communities they built…
…(he) feared the effects of the wild American frontier on the settlers, warning their lives were “regulated by the wildness of the neighborhood”; they became “ferocious, gloomy, and unsocial… no better than carnivorous animals of a superior rank, living on the flesh of wild animals.” -Letters from an American Farmer (1782)
(pg 48) Conflict on the Frontier. ...Presbyterian clergy were closely associated with the spirit of independence and resistance to British rule.
The Rev. Charles Woodmason, a Church of England clergyman, was alarmed by the growing resistance to British rule that he witnessed in the Carolina Piedmont, in 1767: “Not less than 20 Itinerant Presbyterian, Baptist and Independent Preachers are maintain’d by the Synods of Pa and New England to traverse this Country Poisoning the MInds of the People -Instilling Democratical and Commonwealth Principle into their minds… Especially that they owe no Subjection to Great Britain -That they are free People -They they are to pay allegiance to King George as their Sovereign -But as to Great Britain or the Parliament, or any there, that they have no more to think of or about them them than the Turk or Pope…
Scotch-Irish frontier communities had little reason to love the British government. It was the same government that had oppressed them in Ulster both economically and in religion. The Scotch-Irish brought with them from northern Ireland a suspicion of government and an attitude of resistance. By the 1760s the Scotch-Irish were caught up in armed struggle. Conflict between frontier communities and the colonial govt in eastern North Carolina arose from the pioneers’ beliefs that their interests were being ignored. Their resentment was expressed in the unsuccessful armed Regulator movement of 1771. Moreover, as populations grew in the backcountry, more settlers looked further west to the foothills and mountains. Their ambitions were blocked by Indians such as the Cherokees who lived there…
The most serious periods of conflict between whites and Indians along the North Carolina frontier occurred during the French and Indian War in the early 1760s and in the early years of the American Revolution…
...War stayed out of the South until 1780, when Cornwallis laid siege to Charleston… In Sept 1780 men from Virginia, the Watauga settlements, and the Yadkin-Catawba region gathered at Quaker Meadows…
The Battle of Kings Mountain was significant for the NC frontier in other ways as well. It ended the last serious threat of military disturbance in the mountains and made it a relatively peaceful and stable place for settlement… opened the way for a new surge of settlement into a rapidly westward-moving frontier.
(Jody Gray) According to one of his descendants, Nimrod Adams was a trader. The Book provides an example of a traders life:
(pg 61) Map, The Drovers’ Roads.
(pg 60) Roy Merrens points out that during the 1780s, when Piedmont settlers were driving large numbers of cattle to northern markets… In southwestern North Carolina, hogs were the most common livestock raised…
(pg 62) But the agricultural economy of the mountain frontier was never one of isolated subsistence. From the beginning, merchants penetrated the mountain frontier, and the settlers maintained some connection… to the outside market economy. The experience of James Patton, the weaver from County Derry, offers a valuable insight into the commercial aspects of the frontier economy. Patton knew little about farm work and had no taste for it… in 1789 he had accumulated enough money to purchase a stock of dry goods and set out as a drummer, or traveling merchant, for western North Carolina… his new career carrying merchandise south to the North Carolina mountains and driving livestock north to the cities of Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia.
…”I intended to go to Philadelphia to dispose of my furs, and purchase goods to enable me to buy a handsome drove of cattle… I stopped at Staunton, Augusta Co, Virginia, and employed three hatters to work up a part of my fur into hats… I returned to North Carolina with my hats in boxes… I purchased all the cattle I was able to pay for… and started for Philadelphia… (stopped at Staunton, Virginia) and took on the balance of furs which I had left there. I purchased in Philadelphia as many goods as I was able to pay for, and returned to North Carolina with two wagons, one loaded with goods, and the other with my mother and family [who had arrived shortly before from Ireland].” Letter from James Patton, describing his commercial ventures in 1792. (Jody Gray) Nimrod Adams is said to have married Nancy Etchison in 1793. The first record of Nimrod in Rowan County, NC was 1809 when he appeared on a tax list. He was listed in the 1810 and 1820 Census.
(pg 63) Other market commodities that he bought from mountain farmers included furs, feathers, beeswax, and roots for medicine such as ginseng and snakeroot. Among the goods he carried into the mountains were cotton clothing and fabrics, buckles, buttons, and silver lockets. Other merchants brought hardware; cotton cloth; shoes; drugs; bonnets; silk goods; and a wide range of books, including Bibles, histories, biographies, almanacs, dictionaries, and books of etiquette…
During his life Patton saw economic activity grow from the late 1780s, when there was little money available in the mountains, to the 1830s, when his inventories of trade goods reveal a significant expansion of commerce… Patton’s narrative records the steady if not rapid development of the southwestern counties since the 1790s and the emergence of an economy of small farms increasingly engaging in commercialized mixed farming.
Descriptions of Scotch-Irish pioneers:
(pg 64) “I doubt not that those (Scotch-Irish) pioneers, who came to the South and gave all their strength and devotion to the fabrication of such civilizations as we have were grim and determined stiff-necked and opinionated and fearless people. It is probably easier to admire them than it would have been pleasant to live with them. I spent my earliest days among them and I have no doubt that their attributes had been transmitted almost unmodified to them by their ancestors for generations after generations. They were and they are undemonstrative, apparently without affection and superficially cold. But they generally have opinions, right or wrong, and they are altogether willing, if not anxious, to stand by their opinions to their last breaths. I scarcely think our government could have come into being without them.” -Personal correspondence of J.K. Hall, describing in 1941 his Scotch-Irish ancestors in North Carolina (Pennsylvania Historical Society, Philadelphia).
*(Jody Gray) Nimrod Adams died 5/21/1824; published, 6/8/1824 in the Western Carolinian. I found a Probate File for Nimrod Adams, deceased 1824, Rowan, NC. It contains information about a judgement obtained by William Etchison against Caswell Harbin administrator of the estate of Nimrod Adams (years involved 1825 and 1827). Note: the Etchison’s of this case may be related to Nancy Etchison but there is no verifiable record of her parentage. 7/2/1825, any constable is commanded by C Harbin to take the bodies of Ely B and G Riley Aythcherson aka Etchison and safely keep them… to have them before some Justice of the Peace… to answer to Wm Aythcherson for a plea of debt. The first document in the file shows a bill submitted, 2/21/1827, by a witness for travel expense -it appears the claim was made in 1825 and the final court appearance was made in 1827.
It appears that Nimrod Adams had no will. In The Descendants of Nimrod Adams, it is stated that his son Sylvester Adams and his son-in-law Isaac Hardin bought several items from his estate, in 1824. Although Nimrod Adams is listed in the 1810 and 1820 Censuses as Head of Household, there is no record of land purchase.
*(Jody Gray) Following the movement of Nancy Adams and her family:
In 1826, after the death of her husband, Nancy Adams (age 51) joined a group migrating to Indiana. Her daughter Easter had married Miles West, a minister, in 1815; their last child was born in Rowan Co, NC in 1826, Easter (age 31) died that same year in Lawrence, IN; according to Ancestry.com member family trees Miles remarried that same year. Elizabeth married Isaac Hardin in 1824; she died in 1837 (age 37) in Perry, IN. Sylvester married Sarah Maxwell in 1826, he remained in NC, his son Benjamin was born in 1837 in Perry, IN; according to the 1840 Census he was living in Union, IL.
John, Stephen, Sarah, Jesse and Nimrod Jr went with their mother to Indiana. Three of her children married in 1830: John married Lavina Kenion in Rush Co, IN and purchased land there in 1831; before 1838, John moved his family to Union Co, ILL. Stephen married Lydia Allender, most records show them living in Henry Co, IN. Sarah married George Allender Jr, they lived in Rush Co, IN, Sarah died in 1835 (age 27). Jesse purchased land in Rush Co, IN 1833 and married Emilia Allender in 1835. Nimrod Jr married Sarah Spencer in 1836.
When Nancy and her family arrived in 1826, Indiana had only been admitted to the Union for 10 years. They first arrived in Daviess County -founded in 1818, settlement [had] began along the White River providing farmers a convenient means to transport their crops for sale. According to family letters, Nancy moved on to Mount Pleasant, Perry Co, IN -Perry County was formed in 1814, two years before Indiana was admitted to the Union. The Ohio River made it a focal point and settlers were drawn here due to plentiful supplies of natural resources. They moved on to Rush County, Indiana and settled there -the territory was ceded to the U.S. by treaty at St. Mary’s in 1818 and offered to purchasers in 1820.
The 1830 Census for Rush Co, IN. lists Nancy Adams as Head of Household. Recently married Stephen and John and their new brides likely lived with Nancy until they settled on their own land; youngest sons, Jesse and Nimrod Jr. The female, under age 5, was probably a grandchild. [Rush County was founded in 1822]. Nancy (age 60) purchased 40 acres of land 5/20/1835 [President, Andrew Jackson].
The 1840 Census for Rush Co, IN. lists Nancy Adams (age 65) as Head of Household; also residing with Nancy 2 ‘unknown’ females, one 15-19 and one 20-29 (likely, grandchildren). This is the last census listing Nancy Adams as Head of Household. She is not listed on any of her children’s 1850 censuses (Nimrod Adams Jr does not have a 1850 Census). Most likely this is why she was given the 1850 death date; I have found no death record for her. According to her Find a Grave Memorial Page, she is buried at Stanley Cemetery, Arlington, Rush Co, IN; there is no photograph of her tombstone; there is a notation that most of the tombstones are down and some of the graves were moved when the cemetery was no longer maintained.
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Indiana History of Indiana. The region entered recorded history in the 1670s when the first Europeans came to Indiana and claimed the territory for the Kingdom of France. After France ruled for 100 yrs [1770s] (with little settlement in this area), it was defeated by Great Britain in the French and Indian War (Seven Years’ War) and ceded its territory east of the Mississippi. Britain held the land for more than twenty years, until after its defeat in the American Revolutionary War [1783]. At that time, Britain ceded the entire trans-Allegheny region, including what is now Indiana, to the new United States.
The United States government divided the trans-Allegheny region into several new territories. The largest of these was the Northwest Territory, which was progressively divided into several smaller territories by the United States Congress. In 1800, the Indiana Territory was the first new territory established from a portion of the Northwest Territory. The territory grew in population and development until it was admitted to the Union in 1816 as the nineteenth state, Indiana. Following statehood, the newly established state government laid out on an ambitious plan to transform Indiana from a segment of the frontier into a developed, well populated, and thriving state. The state's founders initiated a program that led to the construction of roads, canals, railroads, and state-funded public schools. Despite the noble aims of the project, profligate spending ruined the state's credit. By 1841 the state was near bankruptcy and forced to liquidate most of its public works. By its new constitution of 1851, the state enacted major financial reforms and made most public offices filled by election rather than appointment, and greatly weakened the power of the Governor. The ambitious program of Indiana's founders was realized as Indiana became the fourth-largest state in terms of population, as measured by the 1860 census.
(Jody Gray) “Good News - Bad News” They didn’t want slavery, but they established barriers to immigration of free blacks to their state. And, then there’s the removal of the Native American tribes, and the Potawatomi Trail of Death.
Founding. [The territory grew in population and development until it was admitted to the Union in 1816 as the nineteenth state, Indiana.]
Pennington and Jennings were at the forefront of the effort to prevent slavery from entering Indiana… a ban was placed in the new constitution.But, persons already held in bondage stayed in that status for some time. That same year Indiana statehood was approved by Congress. While settlers did not want slavery, they also wanted to exclude free blacks, and established barriers to their immigration to the state… slavery was finally extinct by 1830.
As the northern tribal lands gradually opened to white settlement, Indiana's population rapidly increased and the center of population shifted continually northward…
Early development. The National Road reached Indianapolis in 1829, connecting Indiana to the Eastern United States… the state took on the motto "Crossroads of America"... In 1832, construction began on the Wabash and Erie Canal, a project connecting the waterways of the Great Lakes to the Ohio River…
...The Panic of 1819 caused the state's only two banks to fold. This hurt Indiana's credit, halted the projects, and hampered the start of new projects until the 1830s, after the repair of the state's finances…
During the 1840s, Indiana completed the removal of the Native American tribes. The majority of the Potawatomi voluntarily relocated to Kansas in 1838. Those who did not leave were forced to travel to Kansas in what came to be called the Potawatomi Trail of Death, leaving only the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Indians in the Indiana area. The majority of the Miami tribe left in 1846, although many members of the tribe were permitted to remain in the state on lands they held privately under the terms of the 1818 Treaty of St. Mary's. The other tribes were also convinced to leave the state voluntarily through the payment of subsidies and land grants further west. The Shawnee migrated westward to settle in Missouri, and the Lenape migrated into Canada. The other minor tribes in the state, including the Wea, moved westward, mostly to Kansas.
By the 1850s, Indiana had undergone major changes: what was once a frontier with sparse population had become a developing state with several cities. In 1816, Indiana's population was around 65,000, and in less than 50 years [1860], it had increased to more than 1,000,000 inhabitants.
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Road National Road aka Cumberland Road was the first major improved highway in the United States. Built by the federal government between 1811 and 1837, it connected the Potomac and Ohio Rivers and was a main transport parth to the West for thousands of settlers. When rebuilt in the 1830s, it became the second U.S. road surfaced with the macadam process pioneered by Scotsman John Loudon McAdam. (see, below)
Construction began heading west in 1811 at Cumberland, Maryland, on the Potomac River. After the Financial Panic of 1837 and the resulting economic depression, congressional funding ran dry and construction was stopped at Vandalia, Illinois…
...Beyond the National Road's eastern terminus at Cumberland and toward the Atlantic coast, a series of private toll roads and turnpikes were constructed, connecting the National Road (also known as the Old National Pike) with Baltimore, then the third-largest city in the country, and a major maritime port on Chesapeake Bay. Completed in 1824, these feeder routes formed what is referred to as an eastern extension of the federal National Road.
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Loudon_McAdam John Loudon McAdam, born in Ayr, Scotland; second son of the Baron of Waterhead. The family name was traditionally McGregor, but was changed to McAdam (claiming descent from the Biblical Adam) for political reasons in James VI’s reign (1603-1625, the king who promoted the Ulster Plantation scheme, which began in 1606). He moved to New York in 1770 and, as a merchant and prize agent during the American Revolution, made his fortune working at his uncle's counting house. He returned to Scotland in 1783 and purchased an estate at Sauchrie, Ayrshire.
...McAdam had also been appointed surveyor to the Bristol Turnpike Trust in 1816, where he decided to remake the roads under his care with crushed stone bound with gravel on a firm base of large stones. A camber, making the road slightly convex, ensured rainwater rapidly drained off the road rather than penetrate and damage the road's foundations. This construction method, the greatest advance in road construction since Roman times, became known as "macadamisation", or, more simply, "macadam".
(Jody Gray) I researched McGregor Clan changing their name to McAdam, thinking that maybe McAdam morphed into Adams; I found nothing.
*https://books.google.com/books?id=7tE4AQAAMAAJ&pg=PR665#v=onepage&q&f=false *History of Rush Co, IN: From the Earliest Time to the Present, with biographical sketches… pub. 1888. “opens” to INDEX, Biographical Sketches. Edward P. Adams, an honored old citizen of Posey Twp, b. 8/21/1822, Scott Co, KY, son of Isaac and Nancy Ann Adams with whom he came to this State and settled upon a tract of land near Morristown in the Southern part of Hancock Co… abt 1843, they came to Rush Co and settled within the present limits of Posey Twp. He m: 2/7/1847, Elizabeth Six, b. 10/22/1820, Fleming Co, KY to John and Mary Six (natives of KY). In 1826 her parents came to Rush Co and settled in the woods of Posey Twp, her childhood spent within 5 miles of her present home. They had 11 children. Methodist Episcopal Church, an uncompromising Republican.
Connections, my Ancestry.com Family Tree: I have Edward Payne Adams and Elizabeth Six in my tree. The mother of Elizabeth was Mary Allender, daughter of 4th GGF George Allender.
The ancestors of George Allender emigrated from England to Hampshire Co. VA (before the birth of George in 1772). James, brother of George Allender, inherited ‘Moveable Plantation’ when their father died in 1813. George had emigrated to Kentucky by the time of his marriage to Elizabeth Overly in 1795. In 1826, George’s family migrated to Indiana with the same group as Nancy Adams; three of their children intermarried in Indiana.
*(Jody Gray) Conclusion: When I read that in 1826 Nancy Adams joined a group that migrated to Indiana, I viewed it as a logical move after the death of her husband in 1824. Upon further research, I noticed other members of my Kentucky family tree had been among the families that joined the 1826 migration. I wondered what was “going-on” in 1826 that caused this large migration. I found no historical event. It appears the only thing these people had in common was Scotch-Irish descent.
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scotch-Irish_Americans Scotch-Irish Americans. Migration: From 1710 to 1775, over 200,000 people emigrated from Ulster to the original thirteen American colonies. (Pennsylvania, Virginia, Carolinas, “the Appalachian region”, Ohio, Indiana “the Midwest”)...The typical migration involved small networks of related families who settled together, worshipped together, and intermarried, avoiding outsiders. (Jody Gray) for more of the article, Scotch-Irish Americans, see, Other Resources.
*Lineage of Edward Payne Adams (husband of 1st cousin 4x removed, Elizabeth Six; granddaughter of 4th GGF George Allender) goes back to Robert Pollok 1597-1625 Derry, Cavan, Ireland m: Jean Crawford. Robert Bruce Polk aka Pollock b. 1625, Donegal, Ireland d. 1703, Somerset, Maryland m: Magdalen Porter Tasker (both historical characters in Ireland). Ephraim Polk b. 1671, Donegal, Ireland d. 1718, Somerset, Maryland m: Elizabeth Williams. Ephram Polk II b. 1709, Somerset, Maryland d. 1791, Sussex, Delaware m: Mary Coverdale. Ephraim Polk III b. 1758, Sussex, Delaware d. 1814, Scott, Kentucky (fought in the revolutionary war, age 18, served as a private in Capt. Joseph Rhode’s company of the Philadelphia militia) m: Rhoda Morris. Nancy Ann Polk b. 1796, Scott, Kentucky d. 1850, Shelby, Indiana m: Isaac Adams b. 1799, Scott, Kentucky d. 1851, Shelby, Indiana.
The Adams Sept of Gordon claims its heritage from Sir Adam du Gordon. Sir Adam was a close ally of Robert the Bruce [King of Scotland] and carried the Declaration of Arbroath to the Pope. The Bruce granted Sir Adam Huntly and its surrounding regions.
During the Reformation (I am still researching this, and if anyone can shed light on this please do), the Gordon clan remained loyal to the Catholic church, but many clan members joined the growing Presbyterian church. In the early 1600's King James created a Plantation in Northern Ireland (Ulster). King James hoped to populate the region with Protestants (mostly Scottish Presbyterians) to "tame" the "wild Irish." Among those were my Gordon/Adams ancestors. Ireland attracted many settlers seeking refuge from land clearings and poverty.
However, Ireland presented its own troubles. There were numerous conflicts with the native Irish. King James, King Charles I and Charles II introduced "Anglican" forms of worship and "episcopal" governance to the church, which greatly distressed the Ulster Scots. The settlers were also troubled by the English Civil War, Cromwell's invasion of Ireland and the Jacobite uprisings following the rise of William and Mary to the throne. The settlers also had several lean years of harvest and, worst of all, English mercantile policies crippled the Irish woolen industry. As a result, large numbers of the Ulster Scots emigrated to America. The settlers had little money and were drawn to the western frontier where land was cheap - and extremely dangerous. The existing settlers were quite content to have the new "Scotch-Irish" (as they were known in America) settlers serve as a buffer between them and the Indians. The Indian attacks on the Scotch-Irish settlements were relentless and bloody, but the settlers fought back, pressed on and settled into Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Ohio and beyond. My ancestor, Samuel Adams - not of Boston fame - bravely explored Kentucky at the age of 18, settled first in Kentucky, then became one of the first settlers in Indiana - raising corn for Gen. William Henry Harrison's army.
*Ancestry.com Documents:
*Robert Bruce Polk Bio Info, was a Captain in Col. Porter’s Regiment, which served under Cromwell. Porter married Magdalen Tasker, youngest of the two children of Col. Tasker, a distinguished Chancellor of Ireland, whose seat was “Castle Hill,” near the village of Ballindrate… “Moueen,” another estate belonging to Col. Tasker… in the parish of Lifford… consisted of six hundred acres. These he divided between his two children, Barbara Keys… and Magdalen. Magdalen first married Col. Porter, who died not long afterward… she next married Robert Bruce Polk (Pollok), a Captain in his regiment and an intimate friend, it is said.
Magdalen was related to the Countess of Mornington… aunt to the Dukes of Wellington.
Capt. Robert Bruce died (1703-4) as shown by his will date of May 6, 1699, probated June 5, 1703-4 on record at Annapolis, Anne Arundel County, Md.
...The will of Magdalen, dated 1726 is of record in Somerset County, Md…
*Polk-Tasker. Daughter of William Polk, Chief Justice of the Court of Appeals, Maryland. The pedigree of this lady is of some historic interest. From annals still extant the Polk family is sprung from the old feudal Barons of Polk (Pollock) represented by Fulbert the Saxon in A.D. 1075, during the reign of David I. of Scotland. Along this line, down the centuries, we find a Robert Bruce Polk, husband of Magdalen Tasker, a lady descended from a French family and heiress of the estate of “Mowning or Morning Hall,” in the barony of Ross, County Donegal, Ireland. Magdalen Tasker was closely related to the Countess of Mornington, aunt of the Duke of Wellington. The union of Bruce Polk with Magdalen Tasker met with ill favor, and the young couple cast in their lot with the pioneers of sunny Maryland. The purchased a large tract in Somerset County and named it “White Hall.” The sons married daughters of the Knox family. Bruce Polk’s oldest grandson eventually migrated further south to North Carolina. From this stock cam the Polks of North Carolina and Tennessee. James Knox Polk, President of the United States, was a direct descendant of this branch. The second of the oldest remained in Somerset County, inherited “White Hall,” and from him in the generations sprang the charming lady destined to make Mr. Lowe’s house his happy fireside, his home, a noble poem.
*Robert Bruce Polk -coming to America: In 1680, Colonel William Stevens, one of the founders and original Commissioners of Somerset County, Maryland, sent a letter to the Presbytery of Donegal in Ulster, asking that a “godly minister” be sent to look after the needs of the people in Somerset…
...Colonel Stevens’ letter arrived at a moment of great travail and no doubt had a profound impact on the Presbyterians of Donegal as a whole. Following the restoration of Charles II in 1160 a number of repressive measures were taken against Presbyterians in Ulster which made their situation as least as difficult as that of the Catholics, a fact sometimes lost in view of the present day Protestant ascendancy in Northern Ireland. They had struggled thru [sic] the Ulster Plantation, the Catholic uprising of 1641, the Cromwellian devastation and plantation of Ireland, the restoration of Charles II, and faced the prospect of a Catholic restoration of James II. In 1670 there had been an aborted plot called Blood’s Rebellion in which a number of Presbyterians were implicated. Most noteworthy for our story was Reverend William Trail, minister from Ballendrait near Lifford, the home of the Tasker family… Rev. Trail was accused on purely circumstantial evidence of complicity in the plot and set to Dublin for lengthy interrogation on his religious beliefs. He was released unconvicted by with strengthened faith and returned Lifford, only to be held in prison during 1682. The affair was highly resented by the Presbyterians and gave them every reason to see their future prospects in Ulster as very bleak…
Thus it is easy to see the letter found a very attentive audience in Donegal… The Presbytery sent not just one but four able and dedicated ministers with a clear vision to establish the Presbyterian faith in the New World… Makemie arrived in Somerset around the spring of 1683 and stayed at the home of Colonel Stevens… The subsequent Presbyterian impact on the American frontier as it pushed down the great wagon road through Pennsylvania into [the] valley of Virginia and the Carolinas, and afterwards west beyond the Appalachians can truly trace its roots back to this precursor arrival in Somerset.
Along with these ministers it is certain that some of the Presbyterian families of Donegal also elected to cast their lot with the New World… Among these would appear to be the families of Knox, McKnitt, Wallace, Alexander, White, Galbraith, Caldwell, Gray -and Polk. Certainly Robert and Magdalen came within a few years of Makemie and Traille… An interesting passage appears in a letter of Edward Randolph, a Virginian official, writing in 27 June 1692: “I hear he has continued Major King to bee ye Navall Officer in Somerset County on ye eastern shore, a place pestred with Scotch and Irish. About 200 families have within ye 2 years arrived from Ireland and settled in your County besides some hundred of family’s there before.”
Robert Polke’s first appearance in Maryland colonial records was with the patenting of the tracts Polks Lott and Polks Folly in March 1687/8. It is likely that the family arrived some time before then… Probably the best estimate for the date of arrival of Robert and Magdalen Polke/Pollock and their family in America would be about a year before they patented land -my guess would be 1686.
*Polk Story: Magdalene Tasker b. Circa 1635, d. Before 3/20/1726 /27.
Magdalene Tasker inherited Moneen, lying in the parish of Lifford near Strabane… consisting of 600 acres and Broomfield Castle on River Dale near Londonderry, Ireland. She was the daughter of Col. Roger Tasker who was the Chancellor of Ireland whose seat was Castle Hill near the Village of Ballendrate… Magdalene and her sister, Barbara were the only children of Col. Roger Tasker. They were said to have beautiful singing voices. Moneen was left to Magdalene’s son Joseph. He went to Ireland and sold it to his Aunt Barbara Tasker Keyes… Magdalene was related to the Countess of Mornengton… aunt of the Duke of Wellington, and she was also of French descent. The first five children were born in Ireland.(m: circa 1657 at Ireland).
(Ephraim Polk III)
North America, Family Histories: (lineage book, pg 129) Ephraim Polk (1758-1814) served as private in Capt. Joseph Rhodes’ company, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania militia. He was born in Sussex County, Delaware; died in Scott County, Kentucky.
North America, Family Histories: (lineage book, pg 285) Mrs. Elizabeth Tyner White Porter. Wife of Frank E. Porter. Descendant of Ephraim Polk… Granddaughter of John White and Amanda Adams, his wife. Gr-Granddaughter of Isaac Adams and Nancy Polk. Gr-Gr-Granddaughter of Ephraim Polk and Rhoda Morris.
(Nancy Ann Polk)
Brief Bio of Ann (Nancy) Polk Adams: Nancy Ann Polk Adams was the daughter of Ephraim Polk and Rhoda Morris of Delaware and Scott Co, KY. The Polks came to Kentucky in 1793 from Sussex Co, Delaware, Rhoda Morris Polk’s parents were Daniel Morris Jr. and Ann Polk. Daniel Morris Jr. was a relative of Robert Morris a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Her father Ephraim Polk fought in Rev. War probably from State of Delaware and was Veteran of War of 1812 in the Defense of New Orleans, LA, from State of Kentucky.
She married around 1819 Scott Co, KY to Isaac Adams son of Moses Adams and Mrs. Sarah (?) Munson of Scott Co, KY.
Ann (Nancy) Polk 1796: Polk Family and Kinsmen. Family of Nancy (Polk) Adams.
Ann (Nancy) Polk, (third child of Ephraim 3d and Rhoda Morris Polk), born at the old homestead on Lain’s Run, in Scott County, Kentucky, August 9, 1796, died in Shelby County, Indiana, March 11, 1850. Isaac Adams was also born in Scott County, August 13, 1799, and died in Shelby County, October 8, 1851. Isaac and Nancy Polk were married in Kentucky, in 1819, and emigrated with other kinsmen to Indiana in the fall of 1826, settling on Blue River.
In the spring of 1840 Isaac Adams and family removed to Rush County, and in 1848 to Shelby County, Indiana. Thence they removed to Hancock County. Most of their eleven children were born in Kentucky.
The following record is from the family Bible of Ephraim Polk 3d, which was inherited by his daughter, Nancy Adams, and taken by her to Indiana:
Ephraim Polk 3d, d. March 24, 1814, in Scott County, Kentucky.
Ephraim Polk, Jr. d. May, 1801; drowned in spring.
Rhoda Polk d. October 23, 1839, in Scott County, Kentucky.
Ephraim Polk (son of Ephraim and Rhoda Polk), d. September 3, 1840, in Springfield, Illinois.
*Isaac and Nancy Adams were the parents of Edward Payne Adams; husband of (1st cousin 4x removed) Elisabeth Six, granddaughter of 4th GGF George Allender (3 of his children married 3 of the children of Nancy Adams). The families of Nancy Adams, George Allender, and Isaac Adams were all in the group that migrated from North Carolina and Kentucky in 1826
*(George Allender)
How Allenders settled in America: Joseph William Allender was born in England, believed to be the son of a Thomas Allender. He came to America with a land grant from the King for 245 acres in Virginia… Joseph William married a Virginia girl named Elizabeth Crestene(1752-1815) and had 3 sons and 1 daughter. He named his plantation “Moveables” and left it to his youngest son, James, upon his death in 1813. James married Sarah Alderton. Meanwhile, Joseph William Allender’s two oldest sons, George (Jorge) and William, had migrated to Fleming County, Kentucky… His older son George married Elizabeth Overly (1778-1863) and eventually George would move his wife and family to Rush County, IN, in 1826 where they lived out their lives.
Their oldest child, Mary Allender, would marry John Six. From that union came six children, one of whom was named Elizabeth, like her grandmother. Elizabeth Six would marry Edward Payne Adams from Scott County, KY, who had recently moved to Rush County. Edward and Elizabeth Adams had a daughter named Hettie, the last of their 11 children, most of whom died in childhood. Hetty (Adams) would marry Johnson Adams Fancher and they would have two children, a daughter named Anna Frances and a son, George. Anna married Orwin Fern Downey in 1908 and they would have six children. Orwin Fern as tragically killed by an interurban train in January 1930. Their youngest was daughter Alta, born in 1926, who would marry Richard Wainscott of Shelby County, IN. They were my parents. (Jody Gray) notes, Johnson Adams Fancher *what we refer to as “middle name” was once a way for the women to honor their patriarchal or matriarchal surnames. So, most likely, Johnson Adams Fancher had Adams family lineage. The only time I have seen (so far) the names Fern and Alta are the daughters of Merle and Minnie Merkley.
George Allender died on September 6, 1852, at the age of 80. He and his wife, Elizabeth Overly Allender, had 14 children, and a book was written documenting the genealogy of his family: History of George Allender family 1914 by E. A. Willis - extended research available online: http://www.genealogy.com/users/t/a/u/Donna-Tauber/File/0002page.html
*message: appears to be missing… (Jody Gray) I have other links to Donna Tauber for “Descendants of George Allender”. See, George Allender, Documents: Web Links for George Allender.
*Other Resources.
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nine_Years%27_War_(Ireland) Nine Years War. Against English rule in Ireland. Led to the Flight of the Earls and the Plantation of Ulster.
Migration: From 1710 to 1775, over 200,000 people emigrated from Ulster to the original thirteen American colonies. The largest numbers went to Pennsylvania. From that base some went south into Virginia, the Carolinas and across the South, with a large concentration in the Appalachian region. Others headed west to western Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and the Midwest.
...According to the Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, there were 400,000 U.S. residents of Irish birth or ancestry in 1790 and half of this group was descended from Ulster, and half from the other three provinces of Ireland…
...A few generations after arriving in Ireland, considerable numbers of Ulster-Scots emigrated to the North American colonies of Great Britain throughout the 18th century (between 1717 and 1770 alone, about 250,000 settled in what would become the United States)... but three-quarters of all emigrants leaving from 1700 to 1776; 70% of these Protestants were Presbyterians. Other factors contributing to the mass exodus of Ulster Scots to America during the 18th century were a series of droughts and rising rents imposed by often absentee English and/or Anglo-Irish landlords.
American Settlement: Scholarly estimate is that over 200,000 Scotch-Irish migrated to the Americas between 1717 and 1775. As a late arriving group, they found that land in the coastal areas of the British colonies was either already owned or too expensive, so they quickly left for the more mountainous interior where land could be obtained cheaply. Here they lived on the first frontier of America. Early frontier life was extremely challenging, but poverty and hardship were familiar to them. The term hillbilly has often been applied to their descendants in the mountains, carrying connotations of poverty, backwardness and violence; this word has its origins in Scotland and Ireland.
...From 1717 to the next thirty or so years, the primary points of entry for the Ulster immigrants were Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and New Castle, Delaware. The Scotch-Irish radiated westward across the Alleghenies, as well as into Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The typical migration involved small networks of related families who settled together, worshipped together, and intermarried, avoiding outsiders.
American Revolution: The United States Declaration of Independence contained 56 delegate signatures. Of the signers, eight were of Irish descent. Two signers, George Taylor and James Smith, were born in Ulster. The remaining five Irish-Americans, George Read, Thomas McKean, Thomas Lynch, Jr., Edward Rutledge and Charles Carroll, were the sons or grandsons of Irish immigrants, and at least McKean had Ulster heritage.
*https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Space:Adams_Family_History wikitree. Adams Family History. Scottish Immigrants to America.
Origins of the Surname: The origins are in Annandale, Scotland in the 13th century. The meaning: Patronymic of the Hebrew personal name of Adam, which may be from the Hebrew adama for "earth."
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Scottish_clans List of Scottish clans. Adams, Cockburn, Davidson, Fleming, Fletcher, Forester, Gray, Hamilton, Kerr, Moffat, Pollock, Seton, Troup. (Jody Gray) names in Red Font are surnames found in my Gray-Piper Family Tree. When you “click-on” the name it opens to a Wikipedia page.
*http://www.scotclans.com/scottish-clans/clan-adam/ Scot Clans. Clan Adam. Region: Lowlands. Historic Seat: Blair Adam estate, Kinross-shire. Clan Chief: Non, armigerous clan. (a Scottish clan, family or name which is registered with the Court of the Lord Lyon and once had a chief who bore undifferenced arms, but does not have a chief currently recognized as such by Lyon Court.
*Blog Post (Historical Misc): Ulster and Scots-Irish Surnames. Related Links at the end of the page. http://historicalandmisc.blogspot.com/2016/03/ulster-and-scots-irish-surnames.html *
*Blog Post (Historical Misc): Ulster Sails West. http://historicalandmisc.blogspot.com/2016/03/ulster-and-scots-irish-surnames.html * ...from the year 1718, and all through that century a continuous stream of emigration poured from the North of Ireland, a stream that, at frequent intervals became a roaring flood. This great outflow was almost entirely Protestant, mainly Presbyterian.
Why? ...There was religion. After the siege of Derry, a certain amount of toleration was granted to Presbyterians, out of gratitude for services rendered by them during the war. But there were still grievances that were unredressed. The validity of Presbyterian marriages was denied. Dissenters were barred from teaching in schools. They were compelled to serve as church-wardens. They were often not allowed to bury their dead without the funeral service of the Established Church (of England). Moreover, in the reign of Queen Anne, the Sacramental Test for all office-holders was restored (only members of the Church of England were allowed to hold office), and there was considerable interference with Presbyterian ministers and Presbyterian worship.
...We begin with 1718, for it was the year that what had been a tiny trickle became a flowing stream. In July and August of that year five ships from Ireland anchored in Boston Harbor.
...Moreover, it is interesting to note that they did not regard themselves as Irish. In fact, nothing infuriated them more that to be classed as Irish. “It made my blood boil,” said William Smith, “to hear ourselves called a parcel of Irish.” They protested violently when American people and America officials described them in this way. They were, they said with great indignation, people of the Scottish nation in Ulster who had given their strength and substance and lives to uphold the British connection there, and it was hard, in this new land, to be identified with the very people to whom they had always been opposed.
The next point to consider is –where did all these people go to after their arrival in America? ...All of them had one thing in common: they were the pioneers on the road to the West. They had no notion of settling down in East Coast towns to be navies and laborers, politicians, publicans and policemen. The Ulsterman’s urge was towards the backwoods and the Indian border. President Theodore Roosevelt in his “Episodes from the Winning of the West” writes: “It is doubtful if we have fully realized the part played by this stern and virile people. They formed the kernel of that American stock who were the pioneers of our people in their march westward.” And Charles Hanna, in his work on the Scotch-Irish, refers to them as “that indomitable race, whose pioneers in unbroken ranks from Champlain to Florida formed the advance guard of civilization in its progress to the Mississippi, and first conquered, subdued, and planted the wilderness between.”
These Ulstermen, indeed, went far afield... They went from Pennsylvania up the valley of the Shenandoah, and down the Holston river into Tennessee. A native of the latter State has declared: “An overwhelming majority of the early settlers of our State was Scotch-Irish. Every Tennessean descending from our first settlers is to be put down as of this people if he cannot prove his descent to be otherwise. No Church other than theirs, the Presbyterian Church, was founded in East Tennessee for sixty years after its first settlement.”
Pg 20-21 ...Thomas Jefferson, United States President said that the Irish held the valley between the Blue Ridge and the North Mountain, and that they formed a barrier there which none could venture to leap. You can read about that in Mary Johnston’s novel, “The Great Valley.” They went on through Virginia in great numbers to the Carolinas. In 1735 Henry McCullock, an Ulsterman, was granted 64,000 acres in North Carolina, and to these lands he brought between 3,000 and 4,000 of his countrymen. The historian of South Carolina says that there was no country gave them so many of their inhabitants as Ireland. The historians of Georgia says that its prosperity is largely due to the Ulster people and their descendants, and from them, he adds, the blood was scattered throughout the South and South-Western States. “Kentucky was first settled by Ulstermen from Virginia and North Carolina...
The Revolution
...They were eager to fight in that war, and they were the first to proclaim it. Here is what President McKinley said about them in 1893: “They were the first to proclaim for freedom in these United States: even before Lexington the Scotch-Irish blood had been shed for American freedom" ...The reference by President McKinley to the Ulster bloodshed before Lexington is explained by the fact that the first encounter between British and Americans was not at Concord and Lexington, but on the Alamance river in North Carolina on May the 14th, 1771, between the Ulster-Irish of that region and a British force under Governor Tryon.
The well-known American historian Bancroft... “The first voice publicly raised in America to dissolve all connection with Great Britain came, not from the Puritans of New England, nor from the Dutch of New York, nor from the Cavaliers of Virginia, but from the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. The reference here, as in McKinley, is to the Mecklenburg Resolutions of Independence. These Resolutions were adopted by a convention of the Ulster-Irish which met in North Carolina some time before the issue of the well known Declaration drafted by Jefferson. The Resolutions were drafted and proposed by Dr. Ephraim Brevard, of Huguenot-Ulster descent…
Throughout the whole war General Washington made no concealment of his high regard for the American troops of Ulster origin. He vowed that if the worst came to the worst, he would fight his last battle by their side... “If defeated everywhere else,” said the great leader, “I will make my last stand for liberty among the Scotch-Irish of my native Virginia.” ...
...the list men of Ulster origin who have held the great office of President of the United States is even more impressive. Up till the present time [book published in 1951] there have been thirty-one Presidents. Very nearly half of these, either on the paternal or maternal side, have had the Ulster blood: John Adams, John Quincy Adams, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, James Knox Polk, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses Grant, Chester Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson.
*
*Blog Post (Adams-Merkley):
*Robert (Bruce?) Polk, Errors.*
*Blog Post (Adams-Merkley):
*Robert (Bruce?) Polk, Errors.*
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