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Old November 27th, 2022 #1
jagd messer
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Default "Scotch-Irish."

Ulster Scots History and Culture


When Ulster sailed west the Ulster-Scots contribution to the making of the United States:


Charles Thomson 1729 - 1824, Secretary to the Continental Congress.


Charles Thomson was born in 1729 in Gorteade, near Maghera, County Londonderry, Northern Ireland. A decade later he arrived in America as a penniless orphan, robbed of all he possessed by a rascally ship’s captain.


He rose to prominence in patriot politics in Philadelphia, and between 1774 and 1789 he was Secretary to the Continental Congress. Thomson’s thinking was very close to that of General George Washington. The American Declaration of Independence is written in Thomson’s hand. Although he did not sign the original document, his name (as secretary) appeared on the first published version of the Declaration.


Thomson also designed the first Great Seal of America and it was Thomson who in 1789 conveyed Congress’s invitation to George Washington at his Mount Vernon home in Virginia to become first President of the United States.


A Presbyterian elder, Thomson’s reputation for integrity gave rise to a proverb: ‘It’s as true as if Charles Thomson’s name were to it.’ The Declaration of Independence could be construed as an Ulster-Scots document. It was first printed by an Ulster-Scot, John Dunlap of Strabane, County Tyrone. It was first read in public by the son of an Ulster-Scot, Colonel John Nixon. The large, flamboyant signature of John Hancock, the wealthiest man in New England, President of the second Continental Congress and Governor of Massachusetts, was the only one affixed to the document for a month. Hancock’s ancestors were County Down Presbyterians.


When Ulster sailed west The Ulster-Scots contribution to the making of the United States. Who are the Scotch-Irish? | The wider role of the Ulster-Scots:

ulster-scots.com›uploads/USCNUlsterSailsWest.pdf
The Ulster-Scots and the Frontier. Ulster-Scots played an important part in the extension of the frontier. James Logan of Lurgan, Provincial Secretary of Pennsylvania, encouraged Ulster-Scots settlement in the colony and welcomed them as his ‘brave’.

Ulster-Scots CommunityNetwork. “Confederate Generals: Lee’s Ulster-Scots Commanders”. Belfast, UnitedKingdom. Available online at http://www.ulster-scots.com/uploads/...teGenerals.pdf


27 XI 2022.
 
Old November 27th, 2022 #2
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John Mitchel


Private Willie Mitchel: An Irish Confederate Boy



Many who have read Irish history are familiar with the name of John Mitchel (left), Irish revolutionary, Young Irelander, and publisher of The United Irishman, who was born 182 years ago, on Nov. 3, 1815; however, many are unaware of Mitchel's life in America. During the American Civil War, Mitchel supported the Confederacy. Three of his sons served in the Confederate army and two of them gave their lives in for that cause; one of them was named Willie.]


FROM WILLIE MITCHEL'S early days at university in Paris until that fateful July day by the Codori house on Gettysburg's bloody field, he and his tiny box of insects were apparently inseparable companions. His colleague and fellow infantryman, John Dooley, wrote fondly of Private Willie's relentless pursuit of the intricacies of the special mini-life of bugs, beetles, butterflies and bees. Bees Irish, Tasmanian. American. French. Southern.



https://thewildgeese.irish/profiles/...onfederate-boy Drawn no doubt by the service of his two brothers -- one with Beauregard at Fort Sumter in the 1st South Carolina Artillery, the other in Virginia's illustrious 1st Infantry – Willie found irresistable the allure of active service in a cause that mirrored Ireland's own battle with its more powerful neighbor. Indeed, Willie's father, John Mitchel, himself was caught up in the Southern cause, but by war's end the old rebel and his beloved Jennie Mitchel would pay dearly for their commitment. Two sons would fall, one to lie forever in an unmarked grave somewhere by the Codori farmyard scarcely a hundred yards from the high water mark of the Confederacy; the other, Captain John C. Mitchel (right), would lie in Charleston's Magnolia Cemetery, the outline of the plot a miniature of the famous fort in the harbor.


Willie Mitchel and his father vacated Paris in the autumn of 1862, John to become an editor on the staffs of two Richmond newspapers, Willie to join the 1st Virginia where his older brother, James was serving. John Dooley (author of a diary later to be published as John Dooley, Confederate Soldier, edited by Joseph T. Durkin, SJ, Georgetown U. Press) soon took on the role of Private Mitchel's big brother, but the relationship came to a frightful end as Private Willie Mitchel received a mortal wound while carrying the flag of his regiment (one of several carriers on July 3, 1863) in Pickett's charge, just 200 yards from the Confederacy's High Water Mark.



It could be argued that this obscure private bore the most recognizable Irish name on the field that day, simply because of his father's universal fame. In either army, the Mitchel name was known and revered by all of those who knew and respected John Mitchel's very best friend, the founder and, until recently, the commander of the Irish Brigade, Thomas Francis Meagher. And for good reason: John Mitchel and Meagher were Ireland's most famous rebels, Mitchel receiving 14 years of penal servitude just before the Rising of 1848 (the British law was created ex post facto, specifically to incarcerate John Mitchel), while Meagher would get the death sentence, later to be commuted to exile in Tasmania. With other Irish rebels, Mitchel and Meagher were expected to live out their lives there, among the aborigines and English settlers, on the vast prison island of the evil empire. Mitchel's family would later follow in the felon's track, but not for long. In 1853, after a well-executed escape plan (not unlike that of Meagher, who had escaped to America the year before) John Mitchel and little Willie, then only nine faced the perilous voyage north to San Francisco and freedom.


http://https://storage.ning.com/topo...ofile=original


But little did either Mitchel envision the equally perilous and fateful months, less than a decade later, when America's sons would divide; the Mitchels and Meagher to play out their own version of America's civil war. But the ties between Mitchel and Meagher were never broken. An indication of the esteem in which Mitchel and his sons were held by the Irish of the Union army is illustrated by the action taken by the men of Meagher's brigade when they learned on July 4 that John Mitchel's son had perished in Pickett's charge -- which they had witnessed from a point on the Union line about 250 yards south of the famous "copse of trees" that was the focus of Pickett's Charge. Quite likely the sad intelligence came from Captain John Dooley, who was wounded and now a prisoner, and who had witnessed the fateful wound sustained by his friend, Willie.


As the Irish Brigade (now no longer commanded by Meagher) began the pursuit of Robert E. Lee, with the rest of the Union army, it left behind Quartermaster, Patrick M. Haverty, to find the body of Willie Mitchel, the Confederate volunteer. Haverty never found the body, though a naval surgeon dispatched from Washington for medical duty on the field, appears to have identified a hasty grave made for the young hero. Reportedly, some Confederate companions found the body and wrapped it in a blanket secured by three pins. To one of the pins was attached a simple note, "Private Mitchel, son of Irish patriot."


Does that box of insects keep company with the bones of Willie Mitchel? Might a summer butterfly flit across that burial ground? A bee in the Gettysburg glade below the Clump of Trees? What of Jennie, that Irish mother who lost two of her rebel sons (so touchingly drawn in our own day by Rebecca Moulder O'Conner, her Arizona-based biographer), making her way along the County Down strand as a wisp of Irish breeze carries a tiny voice. Of Willie?


REMEMBERING WILLIE: The green wreath in the picture's center (above) was placed during Remembrance Day, November 1992, at Gettysburg's Stone Wall by the Irish Brigade Assocation and re-enactors from the 1st Virginia Infantry. The ribbon reads "Erin's Warriors, A.N.V." (Lee's Army of Northern Virginia). WGT Photo


Below, behind the wreaths at the famed "Stone Wall" at Gettysburg lies the sweep of the field traversed under intense rifle and cannon fire by Willie Mitchel and the rest of the Confederate divisions of Pickett and Trimble.




Jennie Mitchel was destined to survive all but Captain James Mitchel, the Mitchel's daughter lies in a Paris convent yard, a convert to the Roman church. James lost an arm for the lost cause and later settled in New York, where his son, John Purroy Mitchel (left), became Mayor of New York. John Mitchel was jailed by the Federal government for a time after the war, then returned to Ireland. In 1874 the old revolutionary was elected by the good people of Tipperary to be their Member of Parliament. When the British government declared him ineligible as a felon, Tipperary simply elected him again in 1875, but Mitchel boycotted all things English and refused to take his seat in London, preferring an Irish representative body. He died just days later and is buried in his parent's family plot in Newry, County Down.


Jennie, who was supported by exceptionally generous Irish-American admirers, lived on thru the century, passing away December 31, 1899. Her Celtic cross dominates a large family plot in Woodlawn Cemetery, Bronx, New York. Aside from her Confederate son, James, Jennie Mitchel is surrounded by other Confederate heroes: Generals Archibald Gracie, General Zachariah C. Deas, General Mansfield Lovell, and General Lloyd Tilghman. Nearby lies the body of the last commander of the Irish Brigade, Brigadier Denis F. Burke, who fought in every campaign of the brigade from the Peninsula to Gettysburg and Appomattox.



Private Willie Mitchel: An Irish Confederate Boy - The ... 27 XI 2022.
 
Old November 28th, 2022 #3
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The correct term is Scots-Irish. Scotch is a whiskey.
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Old November 28th, 2022 #4
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Old November 28th, 2022 #5
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Davy Crockett an Ulsterman


The Scots-Irish in Pennsylvania and Kentucky by Billy Kennedy Causeway Press/Ambassador.



A few years ago, some American folk musicians were playing at a loyalist social club in Belfast. The crowd was polite, but largely ignored the flute and banjo players, concentrating on chatting and drinking, until the flautist played an old Appalachian tune which got a response which astonished him. When he reached the chorus, the crowd bellowed: "Hello! Hello! We are the Billy Boys/ Up to our necks in Fenian blood, surrender or you'll die/ For we are the Billy Billy Boys!"

That example of the Ulster Presbyterian diaspora meeting its roots is quite rare. Unlike that of Irish Catholics, the assimilation of the Scots-Irish emigrants from these shores into American society was total. There is a simple reason for this: the 250,000 Ulster Presbyterians who started leaving in large numbers from 1717 played a vital part in the American Revolution, helping to shape what it meant to be American.

The Irish Catholic diaspora, on the other hand, started to arrive in large numbers over a century later. By then, the rules had been written. Refugees from the great Famine were classified at the same social level as emancipated blacks, restricted to manual labour or cleaning the emerging cities.

This book, the fourth in Billy Kennedy's series, tells a more triumphant story. So successful were the Scots-Irish at shaping America that they are largely forgotten by their northern Protestant relatives. No fewer than 13 US Presidents were of Ulster Protestant stock. The legendary figures of Davy Crockett and Sam Houston shared the same lineage as America's balladeer, Stephen Foster. Bluegrass music, the direct precursor of Country and Western, was one gift to American culture, while on the other end of the musical scale the US national anthem, The Star Spangled Banner, was written by yet another Ulster descendant, Francis Scott Key.

The non-conforming Presbyterians, Baptists and Quakers, many of whom left Ireland in reaction to the penal laws, bequeathed to America its laws of separation breaking the bond between (Anglican) church and state, a vital recognition of religious difference, and ultimately freedom of speech. The contribution by these people to the US Bill of Rights was underpinned by the many Scots-Irish who supported the anti-slavery movement. When the 13th amendment to the US constitution abolished slavery in 1865, it was signed by President Andrew Jackson, "of County Antrim stock".

So far, so impressive. Billy Kennedy's research into the founding fathers of Pennsylvania and Kentucky, like his earlier surveys of the Scots-Irish of Tennessee, the Shenandoah Valley and the Carolinas, manages to be surprising and entertaining. These are exercises in popular, even populist, history, aimed at a diaspora market. There are lists and lists of names, very brief biographies, along with the Ulster county of origin. There is also a peculiar obsession with the precise religion of the subject: "President Nixon was a Quaker", "Ulysses Grant was a Methodist".

There is no analysis of why a disparate collection of Ulster planters, uprooted by famine and religious persecution (by Anglicans), became so successful in the virgin plains and verdant valleys of the New World. There is some sense, however, of the hatred they felt towards the English. When the time came to boot out King George's men, many must have been motivated by revenge as much as by the stirring words of Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine. The connection seems obvious between the Ulster Presbyterians who fought and died for American independence and their cousins "back home" who joined the United Irishmen. Belfast was, after all, the site of the first US consulate in Europe.

Perhaps Kennedy is uncomfortable with this. The first chapter helpfully introduces Northern Ireland to (presumably) American readers thus: "Northern Ireland is an integral part of the United Kingdom with a population of 1.6 million." Kennedy also omits to mention that the three US Presidents who have faced impeachment proceedings are of Ulster Stock: Grant, Nixon and the current occupant of the Oval Office, and its adjoining Map Room, Bill Clinton.

Davy Crockett, Ulsterman | Irish Times Products & Services
irishtimes.com›culture/davy-crockett-ulsterman-…


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Old November 28th, 2022 #6
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A hardy and innovative breeds, thankfully Doing better than their kith & kin in their ancestral homeland where demographics and history is going the wrong way.

Volkish have a decent selection of articles on this ethnic group and is achievements.

https://volkish.org/?s=Ulster+Scots

Last edited by ulsterpatriot; November 28th, 2022 at 04:42 PM.
 
Old November 28th, 2022 #7
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Post Good Book

How The Scots Invented The Modern World - https://ulozto.net/file/JNhAZwdrYOb9...hing-in-it-pdf
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Old November 30th, 2022 #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gladiatrix View Post
The correct term is Scots-Irish. Scotch is a whiskey.
One we will be needing lots of to help us cope with the craziness of the world as it is now
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Old December 1st, 2022 #10
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It should be noted, since it can be confusing, that the term Scots-Irish (or Scotch-Irish as is sometimes used) was not meant to imply that they were a mixture of Scottish and Irish. These were Presbyterian Scots that migrated to Ireland and then subsequently emigrated to the Americas. (The Scottish and Irish are genetically very close, as are all of the Celts.)
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Old May 1st, 2023 #11
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Default The Contribution of ULSTER to the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

The Contribution of ULSTER to the UNITED STATES of AMERICA

First published by the Ulster-American Loyalists Association, Los Angeles California in 1976, the Bicentennial Year of the American Revolution.


THE SCOTCH IRISH



NORTHERN IRELAND has a unique relationship with the United States as being the cradle of the Scotch Irish, the pioneers and frontiersmen of early American life.


The part played by these settlers. descendants of low land Scots who had settled in the north of Ireland two hundred years earlier (hence the name Scotch Irish. has tended to be overshadowed by the tremendous 19th century emigration from other parts of Ireland to the United States. Yet the earlier Scotch Irish movement, small though it was by comparison and different in character, made an impact that was without parallel in early American history. From the Scotch Irish (or Ulster Scots as they are called in the British Isles) have been drawn more than a quarter of all the Presidents of the United States including the only three first generation Americans to achieve this office as well as State Governors, generals, writers, administrators, churchmen and teachers. Several signatories of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States were Scotch Irishmen from Ulster.



In the early seventeenth century Ulster was settled by people from Britain In what is usually referred to as "the Plantation of Ulster." These people came mainly from the Scottish Lowlands By the end of the century there were over 100,000 Scots and 25,000 English in the Province. From these people emerged a new strain of Ulstermen the "Ulster Scots" or the "Scotch Irish".


During the years 1717 to 1770 over 250,00 Ulstermen left home with their families to settle in America. There was a constant flow of people crossing the Atlantic from Ulster a flow which at frequent intervals became a torrent. These people did not emigrate solely of their own free will but rather for social and economic reasons.



In the year 1718 five ships sailed from Ulster to America and one group of emigrants founded and settled the township of New Londonderry in New Hampshire. Their educational standards were very high for people of their station in the early 18th century. They were mostly small farmers and labourers who had been living in a comparatively remote province of the United Kingdom.



Ulstermen moved to the New World in such numbers that they became the most important element in the colonial population of America after the English. By the time the United States became independent one American in five was of Scotch Irish, i.e., Ulster stock.



Ideally suited for the new life by reason of their experience as pioneers in Ulster, their qualities of character and their Ulster Scottish background, they made a unique contribution to the land of their adoption. They became the frontiersmen of colonial America, clearing the forests to make their farms and, as one would expect, they had the defects as well as the qualities of pioneers. President Theodore Roosevelt described them us "a grim, stern people, strong and powerful for good and evil, swayed by gusts of stormy passion, the love of freedom rooted in their very hearts' core..." They suffered terrible injuries at the hands of the red men, and on their foes they waged terrible warfare in return. They were also upright, resolute, fearless, and loyal to their friends, devoted to their country. In spite of their many failings, they were of all men the best fitted to conquer the wilderness and hold it against all comers."



They took with them into the wilderness their love of religion and learning, building churches and schools as they established each new settlement or fort. The primitive centres of further learning such as the Log College of Neshaminy in Pennsylvania which they early established achieved a notable reputation as "mothers" of new colleges, their graduates taking the lead in founding new institutions and providing the first presidents who gave them their character. Indeed it was in the field of education that the Scotch Irish made one of their most important contributions to American life.



THE SCOTCH IRISH AND THE WHITE HOUSE



Estimates of the number of Presidents of the United States of Scotch Irish origins vary, depending on the degree of relationship on which the claim is based. For the purposes of their search for ancestral homesteads the Ulster Scot Historical Foundation accepted only those of direct Scotch Irish descent. Even limited in this way the number amounts to eleven; a notable proportion when related to the very small group from which they sprang. They are Andrew Jackson, James Knox Polk, James Buchanan, Andrew Johnson, Ulysses Simpson Grant, Chester Alan Arthur, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, William McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, and Woodrow Wilson.



This list becomes all the more impressive when it is realized that three of the ten, Presidents Jackson, Buchanan and Arthur, were first generation Americans, i.e., Presidents whose fathers were born in Ulster. The United States Constitution lays it down that the President must be American born. In the long history of the United States these are the only three first generation Americans to achieve this high office. Andrew Jackson has left it on record that he only just made it since he was born soon after the ship in which his parents sailed from Ulster reached harbour in America. Three other Presidents, John Adams, James Monroe, and John Quincy Adams are reputed to have family links with Ulster. A further two presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower claimed to have "Scotch Irish" blood in their veins.



THE SCOTCH IRISH AND THE REVOLUTION



The Scotch Irish were the servants and soldiers of the Revolution. President McKinley wrote of them that "they were the first to proclaim for freedom in these United States." President Theodore Roosevelt described them as "the men who before any other declared for American independence:'



Both references are to the Mecklenburg Resolution of Independence adopted by a convention of Scotch Irish which met in North Carolina and which was one of the steps leading up to the Declaration of Independence adopted by the Continental Congress in Philadelphia on July 4, 1976. The latter is now regarded as marking the birth of the American nation, commemorated every year as Independence Day. Its immortal words come ringing down the centuries. "We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness:" While Ulstermen and their descendants were establishing a unique record on the frontier they were also rivalling that record with their contribution to the Revolutionary cause.



In a speech at Springfield, Ohio, on May 11, 1893, William McKinley, Governor of Ohio, later to become the 25th President, and whose ancestors came from Dervock, near Ballymoney, Co. Antrim, said about those Ulster emigrants: "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." McKinley was pointing out that the first encounter of the War of Independence was not at Concord and Lexington, but on the Alamance River in North Carolina when on May 14th, 1771, there was a clash between the Ulster Irish of that region and a British force under Governor Tryon.



Among the signatories of the Declaration of Independence were five Scotch Irish delegates and one Scot with Ulster associations. They were Thomas McKean, Edward Rutledge, James Smith, George Taylor, Matthew Thornton, and Philip Livingstone, a Scot but whose great grandfather had been from County Down.



The Secretary of the Congress which adopted the Declaration was an Ulsterman, Charles Thomson from Maghera, County Londonderry. It was first printed by another Ulsterman, John Dunlap a native of Strabane, County Tyrone, who is also remembered as the founder of the first daily newspaper in America, the Pennsylvania Packet.



One of the four members of Washington's first Cabinet, Henry Knox, came from Ulster. When Washington organized the first Supreme Court lie appointed John Rutledge, son of an Ulsterman, as one of the four Associate Justices under Chief Justice Lay whom Rutledge later succeeded.



As would be expected of frontiersmen, the fighting qualities of the Scotch Irish came to the fore during the struggle for independence and in the subsequent conflicts in America. During the War of Independence General George Washington held in high regard his troops of Ulster origin. Throughout the War a large proportion of his troops were men of Ulster origins In tribute to them Washington said: "If defeated everywhere else. I will make my last stand for liberty among the Scotch Irish of my native Virginia." The great Civil War General, Robert E. Lee considered the Scotch Irish to have made fine soldiers because they had the courage and determination of the Scots with the dash and intrepidity of the Irish.



General Stonewall Jackson
is perhaps the best known of the fighting Scotch Irish and his great grandfather, John Jackson, went to America about 1748. A site at the Birches, County Armagh, is traditionally regarded as his home. Another Scotch Irish military leader was General Sam Houston, first President of the Republic of Texas, and Governor of Tennessee. He was the son of a Major Samuel Houston, veteran of the Revolutionary War, whose ancestors left Ulster for America in 1735.



Frontier fighter and Hero of the Alamo, Davy Crockett, came from Scotch Irish stock too. His father, John Crockett, emigrated to America from Londonderry with his parents in the 18th century.



FAMOUS ULSTERMEN IN OTHER WALKS OF LIFE


In the publishing world. in addition to John Dunlap, who was previously mentioned, who printed the first daily newspaper in the United States, was Horace Greeley, founder of the New York Tribune. Colonel Robert R. McCormick, proprietor of the Chicago Tribune and Harold Wallace Ross, founder of the New Yorker.



Edgar Alan Poe was of Scotch Irish descent as also was the song writer, Stephen Foster, whose great grandfather sailed to America from Londonderry about 1728.



The founder of the American Presbyterian Church, the Rev. Francis Makemie, was an Ulsterman. The Rev. John Rodgers, whose father came from Londonderry, was the first Moderator of the first General Assembly. The second was the Rev. Robert Smith, also from Londonderry.



Andrew Mellon, financier was a descendant of people from Newtownstewart, County Tyrone. Robert Fulton, pioneer of the steam boat, Samuel Morse, inventor of Morse Code, and Cyrus McCormack, inventor of the reaping machine, all had ancestors from Ulster.



In the field of education, descendants of Ulster people and Ulster people themselves were responsible, either wholly or in part, for the foundation of many great educational Institutions of the United States. They founded Log College which gave birth to the University of Princeton, also to Jefferson College, Hampden Sidney College, the University of North Carolina, University of Pennsylvania, and to Washington and Lee University of Virginia. The founder of Lafayette College was of Ulster stock; the first President of Bowdoin and the first President of what later became the University of Nashville were also of Ulster descent.


Recently interest in research of the early settlers and founders of the United States has spread to institutions. particularly universities, where there is a growing realisation that the greatest contribution of the Scotch Irish to America was not in the national leaders they produced, nor even in the possibly decisive part they played in the Revolutionary War, but in the formative influence they had on the American character and way of life.




AMERICAN PRESIDENTS OF ULSTER DESCENT



1. Andrew Jackson. 7th President. 1829 1837. Co. Antrim.
2. James Knox Polk. 11th President. 1845 1849. Co. Londonderry.
3. James Buchanan. 15th President. 1857 1861. Co. Tyrone.
4. Andrew Johnson. 17th President. 1865 1869. Co. Antrim.
5. Ulysses S. Grant. 18th President. 1869 1877. Co. Tyrone.
6. Chester A. Arthur. 21st President. 1881 1885. Co. Antrim.
7. Stephen Grover Cleveland. 22nd & 24th President. 1885 1889,1893 1897.
8. Benjamin Harrison. 23rd 1889 1893. Co. Antrim.
9. William McKinley. 25th 1897 1901. Co. Antrim.
10. Theodore Roosevelt. 26th 1901 1904. Co. Antrim.
11. Thomas Woodrow Wilson. 28th 1913 1921. Co. Tyrone.


Presidents John Adams. John Quincy Adams and James Monroe are reputed to lave family links with Ulster but these are rather tenuous. Presidents Harry S. Truman and Dwight D. Eisenhower claimed to have 'Scotch Irish' blood in their veins.


"I love Highlanders, and I lone Lowlanders, but when 1 cone to the branch of our race which has been grafted on to the Ulster stem I take my hat off with veneration crud with awe. They are, I believe, without exception the toughest, the most dominant, the most irresistible race that exists in the universe at this moment." Lord Rosebery.


"From the near 1718, and all through the century a continuous stream of emigration poured from the North of Ireland, a stream that, at .frequent internals, became a flood... What did they dot What was the nature of their contribution to the United States?" Ulster Sails West, W. F. Marshall.


"In assessing the contribution of the Scotch Irish to American life and culture, three fields stand high on the list: their influence in education, religion and politics." The Scotch Irish: A Social History, James G. Leyburn


"... it is doubtful if we have wholly realised the importance of the part played by that stern and virile people... the men who had followed Cromwell, and who had shared in the defence of Derry, and before any other declared for American Independence."

Winning the West Vol. I, Theodore Roosevelt



In conclusion it must be pointed out that some writers relate truly, as they think, and without any malice of intent, the contribution of "Irishmen" to the making of the United States. There are also those echo nurse an "anti Ulster" bias and set down half truths and argue that an Ulsterman is an Irishman. These writers do so to deliberately deceive and fail to remember that the people they claim as their own would be the first to protest were they able to do so.



The "Irish" who have made such a great contribution to the United States of America are those people of Scottish extraction who emigrated from Ulster and not those who emigrated from Southern Ireland. In fact there was no substantial body of Southern Irish in America until the 19th century.



President Theodore Roosevelt in his History of New York states the truth clearly: "It is a curious fact that in the Revolutionary War, the Germans and Catholic Irish should have furnished the bulk of the auxiliaries (mercenaries) to the regular English soldiers; but the most ardent Americans of all were the Presbyterian Irish settlers and their descendants."



Owen Wister in A Square Deal is even more outspoken in support of the truth and in discrediting the lies and half-truths that, even today, are still being voiced by people who are supposed to be respected politicians: "Americans are being told in these days that they owe a debt of support to Irish Independence, because the Irish fought with us in our own struggle for independence. Yes, the Irish did, and we do owe a debt of support. But it was the Orange Irish who fought in our Revolution, and not the Green Irish."


Maureen Wilcher


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The Contribution of ULSTER to the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
01 V 2023.

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Old May 1st, 2023 #12
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My father's family was Scots-irish. They came to the Southeast U.S. sometime in the 1700s and settled in parts of Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia.
I am related to Davy Crockett somehow.
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Old August 8th, 2023 #13
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Default John Mitchel



John Mitchel (Irish: Seán Mistéal; 3 November 1815 – 20 March 1875) was an Irish nationalist activist, author, and political journalist. Born in Camnish, near Dungiven, County Londonderry[1] and reared in Newry, he became a leading member of both Young Ireland and the Irish Confederation. He was transported to Van Diemen's Land but later escaped to the United Statesin the 1850s, he became a pro-slavery editorial voice. Mitchel supported the Confederate States of America during theAmerican Civil War, and two of his sons died fighting for the Confederate cause. He was elected to the House of Commons of the United Kingdomin 1875, but was disqualified because he was a convicted felon. His Jail Journal[2] is one of Irish nationalism's most famous texts.



Pro-slavery advocacy



Mitchel claimed that slaves in the southern United States were better cared for and fed than Irish cottiers, or industrial workers in English cities like Manchester. He said negroes were "an innately inferior people". Mitchel resigned from the paper and toured as a spokesman for the South. In 1857 in Knoxville, Tennessee, he founded a new paper, the Southern Citizen, to promote "the value and virtue of slavery, both for negroes and white men", advocate the reopening of the African slave trade and encourage the spread of slavery into the American West.[21] He moved the paper to Washington in 1859. When the Civil War broke out in 1861 he moved to Richmond, Virginia, the Confederate capital, to edit the powerful Richmond Enquirer.[27] As a spokesman for the cause of the South, he was the first to claim that slavery and abolition were not the cause of the conflict but simply used as a pretence. Two of his sons died in the war, and a third lost an arm. He equated the Confederacy with Ireland, claiming that both were agricultural economies tied to an unjust union. The Union States and England were "..the commercial, manufacturing and money-broking power ... greedy, grabbing, griping and grovelling".



Mitchel fell out with Jefferson Davis, whom he regarded as too moderate. He described Abraham Lincoln as "... an ignoramus and a boor; not an apostle at all; no grand reformer, not so much as an abolitionist, except by accident – a man of very small account in every way."[28]




Mitchel moved to New York City in 1865 to edit the Daily News. The Tweed Machine put him in prison for a short time but he was released with the assistance of the Fenians. Slavery was dead and Mitchel returned his focus to the issue of Ireland. He founded his third American newspaper, the Irish Citizen in New York City, but the paper failed to attract readers and folded in 1872. In part this was because he used it to criticise the Irish-born Catholic archbishop of New York, John Hughes. Mitchel worked for a time in Paris as financial agent for the Fenians before again returning to the States.



Mitchel's Irish nationalism went over the line into Anglophobia. According to Malcolm Brown, Mitchel hated the Jews and Britain.[29]




John Mitchel - Wikipedia


https://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › John_Mitchel



A statue to Mitchel was also erected by the people of Newry, and is located at John Mitchel Place, an extension of Newry's main street, Hill Street.




John Mitchel 1815-1875

"After twenty seven years in the exile for the sake of Ireland he returned with honor to die among his own people and he rests with his parents in the 1st presbyterian old meeting house green at Newry."


A significant number of Gaelic Athletic Association clubs are named in his honour, including Newry Mitchel's GFC in his home town, John Mitchel's Claudy, Castlebar Mitchels GAA, John Mitchel's Glenullin, John Mitchel's Liverpool and others both north and south of the border, as well as several in England and Australia.

The Unz Review
https://www.unz.com/isteve/lincoln-f...tation-of-ex_6
Lincoln favored self-deportation of ex-slaves his entire life
WebIn 1862, Abraham Lincoln invited a couple of dozen affluent black freedmen to meet with him so he could tell them they ought to leave the country.They were unenthusiastic.In recent decades, historians have typically alleged that Lincoln then grew in racial …

08 VIII 2023.
 
Old August 9th, 2023 #14
jagd messer
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Default Charles Thompson

Charles Thomson secretary of the Continental Congress (1774–1789) throughout its existence

Charles Thompson



Secretary of the United Colonies Continental Congress

September 5, 1774 - July 1, 1776




Charles Thomson was born in the town of Gortede, parish Maghera, County Derry, Ireland, the first week in November, 1729. He was the son of John Thomson, one of the most respectable men of Ulster. His birth occurred at a time when Protestant emigration was robbing Ireland of thousands of her best people. More than twenty thousand left Ulster and settled along the Atlantic seaboard on the destruction of the woollen trade and the enforcement of the Test Act. Froude says:

"And so the emigration continued. The young, the courageous, the energetic, the earnest, those alone among her colonists who, if ever Ireland was to be a Protestant country, could be effective missionaries, were torn up by the roots, flung out, and bid find a home elsewhere; and they found fifty years later had to regret that she had allowed them to be driven." [1]

Students and Teachers of US History this is a video of Stanley and Christopher Klos presenting America's Four United Republics Curriculum at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School. The December 2015 video was an impromptu capture by a member of the audience of Penn students, professors and guests that numbered about 200.

Most of these immigrants sought a home in Pennsylvania, attracted by the reports of its great natural wealth, and by the fact that under the charter of Penn and the laws of the Province, they could enjoy civil and religious liberty.

John Thomson was a widower with six small children, William, Matthew, Alexander, Charles, John and Mary, determined to make a home for them in America. They set sail from Ireland in 1739, expecting to locate in Pennsylvania. The father was attacked with a violent sickness on the voyage, and dying within sight of the shore. His body was cast into the ocean near the capes of the Delaware. His expiring prayer was: "God take them up." The death scene was always very affecting to Charles, and referring to the occasion, he once said: "I stood by the bedside of my expiring and much loved father, closed his eyes and performed the last filial duties to him." The children were now left to the mercy of the sea captain, who embezzled the money which the father had brought with him, while they were turned on shore at New Castle. Their fate was a common one to thousands of immigrants at that time. The ordinary vessel of the eighteenth century was a pest-house of disease and misery. Mittelberger, in his "Journey to Pennsylvania in 1750," describes the sufferings that the Germans endured in crossing the Atlantic, as follows:


On landing at New Castle, the Thomson children were separated and it is quite possible that they were bound to serve as redemptioners.[2] According to some authorities, William drifted to South Carolina, and in the Revolutionary War distinguished himself by his great bravery. Alexander became a prosperous farmer near New Castle. Charles resided for a time with the family of a blacksmith at New Castle, who thought of having him indented as an apprentice. John F. Watson relates:

"He chanced to overhear them speaking on this design one night, and determining from the vigor of his mind, that he should devote himself to better business, he arose in the night and made his escape with his little all packed upon his back. As he trudged the road, not knowing whither he went, it was his chance or providence in the case, to be overtaken by a travelling lady of the neighborhood, who, entering into conversation with him, asked him 'what he would like to be in future life.' He promptly answered, he should like to be a scholar, or to gain his support by his mind and pen. This so much pleased her that she took him home and placed him at school." [3]

The name of the lady who thus befriended Charles Thomson is unknown; but her act of kindness changed the whole course of his life. He was also aided in his education by his brother, Alexander, and he soon became a student in the academy of Dr. Francis Alison, at New London, Chester County, Pennsylvania. In a spirit of gratitude, Charles afterwards presented his brother with a farm in the vicinity of New Castle.

While a student at the New London Academy, Charles Thomson got hold of some loose leaves of the "Spectator," and admiring its style, he so longed to possess the whole work that he walked all night to Philadelphia and returned the next day in time to be present in his classes. He was charmed with the study of Greek, and he actually walked to Amboy for the purpose of visiting a British officer there who had the reputation of being a fine Greek scholar. He was also a biblical scholar Upon graduating the Academy, Thomson became a teacher. While a student, Thomson made the acquaintance of Benjamin Franklin, and frequently sought his advice in regard to the prospects of a suitable vocation in Philadelphia. Being President of the Board of Trustees of the new Academy of Philadelphia,[4] Franklin secure a position for Thomson at the school.8 The Trustees of the Academy held a meeting on December 20, 1750, and the minutes contain the following notice in regard to Thomson:

"Mr. Charles Thomson having offered himself as a Tutor in the Latin and Greek School, and having been examined and approved of by the Rector, is admitted as a Tutor in the Latin and Greek School at the rate of sixty pounds a year, to commence on the seventh day o January next."

Charles Thomson was active in colonial resistance against Britain for decades. During the French and Indian War, Thomson was an opponent of the Pennsylvania proprietors' American Indian policies. He served as secretary at the Treaty of Easton (1758). In 1759, Thomson published a book entitled, "An Enquiry into the Causes of the Alienation of the Delaware and Shawenese Indians from the British Interest." In preparing this work he made a careful study of all the Indian treaties and deeds, and it contains an interesting account of the relations between the various tribes and the English. In the introduction, he speaks as follows concerning the alienation of the Indians from the British interests


It has been to many a Cause of Wonder, how it comes to pass that the English have so few Indians in their Interest, while the French have so many at Command; and by what Means, and for what Reasons those neighboring Tribes in particular, who, at the first Arrival of the English in Pennsylvania, and for a long Series of Years afterwards, shewed every Mark of Affection and Kindness, should become our most bitter Enemies, and treat those whom they so often declared they looked upon as their Brethren, nay as their own Flesh and Blood, with such barbarous Cruelties.


The passage of the Stamp Act brought him into the arena of politics. He was allied with Benjamin Franklin, the leader of the anti-proprietary party, but the two men parted politically during the Stamp Act crisis in 1765. Thomson threw his whole soul into the cause of the colonists, laboring with so intense a zeal that he became known as "The Sam Adams of Philadelphia."


charlesthompson.com 09 VIII 2023.


The main driving forces behind Presbyterian emigration to the ‘New World’ were religion and resentment at government misrule.
 
Old August 9th, 2023 #15
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Further reading:

•Schlenther, Boyd Stanley. "Thomson, Charles". American National Biography Online, February 2000.


Charles Thomson: A Patriot's Pursuit Hardcover –by Boyd Stanley Schlenther, 1 Jun. 1990.

Charles Thomson
 
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