The Scotch-Irish by James G. Leyburn

Author:James G. Leyburn [Leyburn, James G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, United States, General
ISBN: 9780807888919
Google: 21nqCQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
Published: 2009-11-15T00:32:02+00:00

Pennsylvania: The Great Valley

filling up of the countryside. The geographical feature that most distinguishes southeastern Pennsylvania, the Great Valley, sweeps in a wide and gentle arc from the Delaware River toward the southwest. The Appalachian range makes a kind of natural outer boundary to a region containing some of the richest farmlands of the continent. Through this Great Valley flow rivers large and small, with the Susquehanna almost bisecting the region. Pioneers had only to traverse gently rolling hills to find themselves in still another smiling valley. This southeastern quarter of Pennsylvania nearest the Delaware ports was naturally the first part of the Province to be settled. With Penn’s capital as the hub, Scotch-Irish and German pioneer settlements went, almost like spokes on a wheel, to the beckoning frontier, until they had reached the rim, the Appalachians.

To the three original counties along the Delaware (Philadelphia, Chester, and Bucks) the proprietors thought it wise in 1729 to add a fourth, Lancaster. Here was evidence not only of the path taken by settlers, but of the density of their numbers. For many years Lancaster embraced the whole of Pennsylvania west of Chester. The map shows the dates only of first Scotch-Irish settlement. It can be seen how the Scotch-Irish followed the river valleys (where German settlers had not forestalled them), keeping north of the disputed border line of Maryland.* The provincial government organized still further counties as the frontier was filled up: York in 1749, Cumberland in 1750, and Bedford in 1771, not to mention other counties to the north of Philadelphia.

Only one “spoke” of Ulster migration radiated directly northward from the hub. Certain groups of Scotch-Irish in the years from 1728 to 1730, before the path westward had become almost de rigueur for their fellow-countrymen, followed the Delaware River up into (present) Bucks and Northampton counties. This region had the advantage of being accessible by ship; but English and German settlers dominated this portion of Pennsylvania and early had taken up the best lands. Yet this district is famous in Scotch-Irish annals as the home of the Tennent family, where, at Neshaminy, William Tennent opened his Log College, forerunner of all Presbyterian institutions of higher learning in the country. (See below, p. 277.)

* The boundary was finally fixed in 1767, when Mason and Dixon completed their four years of work on the historic line; and, as a chronicler of Lancaster county notes, the Scotch-Irish were sent by the Proprietors toward the Maryland border, where “these sturdy, brave and independent men from a turbulent homeland” might be “almost happy in constituting the frontier line against encroaching Maryland Catholics.” (Klein, Lancaster County, I, 82)

As long as the Ulster settlements were in the present counties of Chester and Lancaster,* pioneers were within reach of markets and supply centers at Philadelphia. When later migration pushed on westward, however, the frontier village of Lancaster rapidly grew into an important town, specializing in crafts and trades useful to pioneers. It became the point of departure for immigrants

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