Marlboro County ScArchives History - Books .....Chapter XXIII Scottish Settlers, Continued 1897
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/sc/scfiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com January 5, 2007, 4:44 pm

Book Title: A History Of Marlboro County

CHAPTER XXIII.
SCOTTISH SETTLERS-Continued.

  About the beginning of the struggle between the Colonies and the mother
country there left the Isle of Skye, (as tradition says) an old man with nine
sons. Whether Ian McRae foresaw the strife, and wished to be a witness and
participant, or whether he thought the king would soon quiet the little "family
fray," does not appear. But the six months voyage upon the deep buried old Ian,
amid the seaweeds; but from the nine ruddy boys who landed upon the North
Carolina coast there has come, it is supposed most, if not all, of the name in
Marlboro, and many in Marion and the adjacent counties in North Carolina. "A
little silver cup of peculiar shape," with an inscription in Gaelic, with the
name "Ian," is yet sacredly preserved as a relic of one of the progenitors of
the family. One of the nine brothers, Christopher, lived and reared a large
family of sons and daughters, where Mr. Charles Crosland now resides.

  John L. Alexander and Colon, Mrs. Sallie Weatherly, Polly McRae, Katie Battle,
Barbara Peterkin and Christian Bristow are remembered among them, several of
whom have many representatives in the country to-day.

  Another brother of the nine was that good old man, Roderic, who settled in the
woods, opposite where Mr. James Wright now lives. It is said that when he first
"pitched his tent" there the country was so wild and sparsely settled that he
"had to build a strong house of heavy logs for his sheep, and fasten it securely
to keep them from destruction by the wolves." Of this old man's family, John D.,
and Duncan D., who was a popular Tax Collector, are remembered with the sisters,
Mrs. Alford, the mother of our fellow citizen, Jacob, and his sisters, Mrs. W.
C. McLeod, Mrs. John Meekins, Mrs. Hugh McLucas, Mrs. Margaret Spears, and the
first Mrs. Jessie Peterkin, all of them ladies of fine character who have left
their impress upon their children, or others placed under their care.

  Another of the nine was a grandfather of the brothers, Alex, and Murdoch, of
the Red Bluff community-men well known for their worth and honorable position in
society. Still another was the father of the late John T. McRae, who lived just
across the line in Marion, a few miles below Donohoe. He was the father of Mrs.
Philip McRae, Mrs. Duncan Carmichael, and has descendants among us to honor his
memory. A daughter, Miss Katie, leaves with those that surround her interesting
traditions of the family. Among these it is told that in the absence of
Christopher, named previously, who was the grandfather of our late fellow
citizen, Jno. A. McRae, "A band of Tories was seen approaching the house, and
Mrs. McRae, with an infant three weeks old, seized her baby, and with young
Roderic, but fourteen years old, ran off and spent the night in the woods."
Another story is that as a band came stealthily to the McRae house, they were
too near for the inmates to flee, or to conceal their valuables. "But one of the
women placed the silver spoons in her dress bosom, and conscious that she was
observed, seized a hank of thread and stuffed that in after the spoons, and when
the intruders demanded what she had thus hidden away, she drew out the yarn, and
hurled it into the face of one them, saying 'I think you might allow a poor
woman to keep her own thread,' and the Tory threw it back, saying 'You are so
smart you may keep it.' The beds were ripped open and the feathers scattered in
the search for treasure. The excellent Mrs. M. C. McLeod remembers some of those
spoons. Mrs. McLucas and Mrs. Spears each inherited a spoon, and she thinks that
Mrs. Bristow and Mrs. Sallie Peterkin have one each."

  Another of the original nine brothers died a young man at the house of
Roderic. Where the others settled is not known, but it is very clear that other
McRaes came early to this region of the country. Upon the banks of Three Creeks
there lived and died one named James McRae, whose wife, an excellent lady, was
also a McRae, aunt to General McQueen. Mrs. Thompson now lives at the old place
where Duncan, Philip, James, Colon, Jno. R. Katy, and Mrs. Murchison, if no
more, were reared to maturity. A mile or two distant lived another old
Scotchman, Charles McRae, generally called "Squire," a local Methodist preacher.
The older people may remember him as an old man nearly if not quite as old as
Roderic. Our excellent fellow citizen, Hugh McCollum, is a grandson of this old
man. His sons, Farquar and Charles T., have their representatives also in the
country. What was the relationship between these, or to the large family, it is
not known. But like other Scottish people, they seem to have brought their
native prejudices with them to the New World. If a marriageable young woman
could be found in their own or some kindred clan, who was not too close kin, she
was preferred to a stranger in whose veins might flow the blood of foe or alien;
and hence from the earliest day of their landing upon American soil, they have
married and intermarried until almost every McRae is kin to every other McRae.
Yet many another name has been enamored with the charms of Scottish daughters,
and managed by art and solemn promises to win them to other names and homes,
where yet they have never failed to leave their own Scottish characteristics.

  It was a fortunate thing for these pages that a love affair brought together a
granddaughter of Roderic McRae and a young scion of a "Laird McLeod of Skye";
and thus traditions of the two families have been united and treasured in one
intelligent mind and retentive memory. And from the pen of Mrs. M. C. McLeod
there has been culled much of this chapter. She is the loved and honored widow
of Major D. M. D. McLeod, who fell upon the bloody field of Gettysburg, the idol
of his regiment.

  The Isle of Skye used to be under the control of three "Lairds." One of these
was a McLeod.

  For a time the McLeods and McDonalds lived side by side as loving as brothers,
but it came to pass that a McDonald married a Lady McLeod, and afterwards
deserted her, a feud arose, war was waged, blood was shed, the McDonalds were
worsted and fled to a cave for security. The McLeods built a fire at the cave's
mouth, and smoked their enemies to peace, or to death, rather. A son of one of
these Laird McLeods married a lady of noble birth, Miss Jane Hunter, and sailed
with a brother Alex, his wife and three children, for the ports of America. This
Lady Jane Hunter, before her marriage, was some time at Court. She had two
brothers, eminent physicians, who took up an unfinished work of Harvey's on
blood circulation, and prepared a work which made a sensation in the medical
world. One of these brothers is said to have been appointed ship's surgeon under
Commodore Anson, on a voyage around the world, and while upon this cruise the
specimens and curiosities collected became a nucleus of a splendid museum
bearing his name in Glasgow, his native city. While upon this voyage, the vessel
touched upon the North Carolina coast, and a party went as far as Anson County,
which, it is claimed, received its name in honor of the Commodore.

  The McLeod who married Lady Hunter was an adventurer, had a vessel and was
called a Commodore. Some years before the Revolutionary War he brought his wife
and three children to Wilmington, North Carolina, and while absent on a cruise
about 1775, or 1776, his wife died. This sad intelligence reached the Commodore
when off St. Helena and so overwhelmed him with grief that he soon died;
whereupon the sorrowing brother, Alex, went to Scotland and induced two maiden
sisters, Betsy and Isabella, to come over and take charge of the three children,
John, Daniel and Isabella. Sometime after the war the aunt, Isabella, and the
three young people came to the neighborhood of Hunt's Bluff, in Marlboro. John,
the elder brother, set up a store, and soon died of fever, Daniel married Miss
Catharine Evans and reared a large family; John, William, Daniel and Donald
McDiarmid were the sons that attained manhood's estate. When the latter was born
a Scottish bachelor friend of the family asked to give the child his name,
Donald McDiarmid. The parents consented, and when a few years later he made his
will he bequeathed a fund to be used in giving the boy a "collegiate education."
So it came to pass that D. M. D. McLeod was graduated at the South Carolina
College, taught school for a while, loved and married Margaret C. Alford; went
to the war in command of a company, became Major, and fell greatly lamented at
Gettysburg.

  Mr. McDiarmid sleeps in the graveyard at Old Salem. The daughters of Daniel
McLeod were the following; Betsy, who married Rev. Wm. R. Smith; Mary, who
became the wife of Col. James R. Bethea, of Marion; Isabella, who married Daniel
Horn, of Cheraw, and subsequently moved to Georgia; and Ellen, who married a Mr.
Mcintosh, of Georgia. Sisters and brothers all, except an old friend, Daniel,
have passed away. Many pleasant memories crowd the mind of the writer as he pens
these lines-memories of Uncle McLeod, Aunt Katie and Aunt Isabella, who had
changed her name to Bodiford, who, now in old age, crippled and infirm, had
found a home in the house of her brother. Whatever the religion of the McLeods
in Scotland they were Methodist here. Prayer and praise ascended from the family
altar, and if "Uncle McLeod was  absent, Aunt Isabella led in  the prayer." They
had built a little log house in the woods not far from where Berry Alford now
lives, and called it "McLeod's Meeting House." They had preaching there and a
little society which ultimately united with Mossy Bay and formed Parnassus. The
writer remembers to have attended service there more than a half a century ago,
when the McLeods did most of the singing, and Charles McRae the preaching. On
one occasion, when visiting the McLeod boys, other boys of the neighborhood
joined us on Saturday afternoon, and somehow we got into the old "meeting
house." One of the boys found a window shutter that yielded to his ingenuity and
swung open when eight or ten chaps found themselves inside. Some fellow
transformed himself into "Uncle Charley McRae," entered the pulpit and began a
senseless harangue which he called preaching. The rest of us, seated around the
altar, encouraged him with "amens," clapping of hands, and an occasional
"hallelujah," when suddenly the door opened and the portly form of Uncle McLeod
stepped inside. The reader can imagine how quickly the congregation dispersed
without "the benediption." The writer was not so swift in action and was fairly
caught and began to weep in earnest, but the laughter of the old man soon
reassured him, and we two closed up the house and returned to the dwelling. It
was late before some of the boys reported at home.

  The McLucases have been a long time in the country. Two brothers, Daniel and
John, came with their young families from Scotland. We have no information
further as to Daniel. But John has left an excellent family behind him. Two
sons, John and Hugh, are both well remembered as good citizens, Hugh married a
daughter of that grand old Scotchman, Roderick McRae, who furnished so many
wives to the Marlboro men, who have left so salutary an influence upon others
than their own children. John D. McLucas, of Marion, and Roderick, of McColl
section, of Marlboro, are sons of this worthy pair, and several daughters of
fine character are perpetuating the virtues of their descent.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from:

A HISTORY OF MARLBORO COUNTY,
WITH
TRADITIONS AND SKETCHES OF NUMEROUS FAMILIES.

REV. J. A. W. THOMAS, AUTHOR.

A wonderful stream is the river Time
  As it runs through the realms of tears 
With a faultless rhythm and a musical rhyme,
And a broader sweep and a surge sublime
  As it blends with the ocean of years.
                        —TENNYSON.

ATLANTA, GA.:
THE FOOTE & DAVIES COMPANY,
Printers and Binders.
1897.


File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/sc/marlboro/history/1897/ahistory/chapterx31gms.txt

This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/scfiles/

File size: 12.5 Kb