The rich legacy of the Scots

By Haley Ray

Even with directions, it’s easy to miss the graveyard deep down a small, unmarked Carthage dirt road. The worn stones are quiet. The only sounds are the earth beneath your feet and the air in the pines above. The Old Scotch Graveyard is worth the trip. It’s a glimpse into Moore County’s past; a snippet of the people that lived here hundreds of years ago and the world they helped shape.

Here lies Alexander McCaskill

Born on Isle of Skye Scotland

Village of Dunvegan

1760

Brother of Angus

Died March 18, 1840, Richmond County

The grave of Alexander’s brother, Angus, lies right next to his own. Not all the stones are readable; some are crumbling, others have fallen over, some plots are unmarked. The gravestones that are discernable usually provide the Scottish village of the man or woman’s origin. Bill Caudill, director of the Scottish Heritage Center at St. Andrews University, says it was a cultural custom commonly practiced by the early migrant Scots in America.

“This identity is very strong here,” says Caudill. “How many ethnic groups do you know that place on their tombstone where they came from and when they came from there? That’s telling you that these people had a sense of belonging. They were here, and they made a new livelihood for themselves, but they always belonged somewhere else. That’s the sense these people had of who they were, and that they still belonged in Scotland.”

Moore County had a large number of those early Scottish immigrants, most hailing from the Highlands of northern Scotland, and dubbed Highlanders (as opposed to the Lowland Scots of southern cities like Edinburgh). Drive through the village of Pinehurst and plenty of Scottish surnames adorn street signs: McKenzie, McDonald, McCaskill, Blue, Shaw, Ferguson, Caddell. While heavily concentrated in the small boundaries of Pinehurst proper, similar road names are scattered across the Sandhills as a tribute to the old, powerful families.

“There’s a lot of subliminal things, a huge amount of subliminal things that nobody would know if it wasn’t really pointed out for you,” says Caudill. “When I say that, I’m talking about historic sites, old family cemeteries, street names.”

The Scots presence extends deeper than Scottish flags on front porches, a Lion Rampant on a license plate or a few family names on street signs. The depth of the influence is framed by the fact that the North Carolina Scottish settlement was the largest Highland settlement in North America until the latter quarter of the 19th century.

The popular, more romanticized version of this great migration tells of shiploads of rebel-hearted Scots washing up on the shores of Wilmington in the 1740s and spreading throughout North Carolina, opting to settle in the American colonies rather than face persecution by the English after the failed Jacobite rebellion in their homeland. Having defied their king, Highlanders had no option but to flee — North Carolina or bust.

The shiploads of Scottish immigrants who flooded into the Wilmington port followed the Cape Fear River deeper into the state, and into the Sandhills. The motivations behind the large-scale emigration are often misrepresented or misunderstood. The dramatic version of events is referred to in history books as the “Theory of Exile.” Scholars mused that the Brits had a master scheme to exile unworthy residents to the colonies after Prince Charles Stewart failed to reclaim the English throne with Scottish — mostly Highland — support.

But, their great escape from the glens and moors of the Highlands had less to do with vengeful persecution than economic changes and a growing population. Although the aftermath of the Battle of Culloden — the deciding clash between the English and the Jacobites that ended the Scottish rebellion in 1746 — did contribute to the exodus, it doesn’t tell the whole story. Caudill says the exile theory can be credited to the writings of one man, William Henry Foote, a minister who wrote about the history of North Carolina from a Presbyterian perspective. Researchers and historians who dug deeper into the records found that the story of the British transporting large numbers of people to work in the colonies was largely inaccurate.

“It didn’t happen. Simply did not happen,” says Caudill. “First off, the people that were transported were taken to prison after Culloden by the government forces. Most of them, that were not paroled, were taken to places like the West Indies and Barbados. Colonies like that. Because of our trade routes, some of those people perhaps may have ended up here. But most of them, no.”

The dismantling of the exile theory begs the question of why, then, did so many Scots leave their beloved country? Moore County native Douglas Kelly also tackles the question of the Theory of Exile in his book Carolina Scots: An Historical and Genealogical Study of Over 100 Years of Emigration. Both sides of Kelly’s family descended from the Highlander immigrants in North Carolina, and he took an interest in his family history at a young age. He explains that before the Battle of Culloden, the clan system was the operating hierarchy in the Highlands of Scotland. Lowland culture more closely resembled that of Britain, although it retained distinctly Scottish characteristics.

The Scottish defeat at Culloden Moor helped dismantle the traditional clan system, but social and economic changes drove the breakdown, and thus migration out of Scotland. Before the Jacobite Rebellion, clan chiefs were the supreme commanders and owners of the land. Below them were the tacksmen, who were leased “tacks” of land from the chief to sublet to farmers on a year-to-year basis. Kelly says the tacksmen were the wealthy middle class, often relatives of the chief. Peasants and poor farmers, also called crofters, made up the lowest level. Tacksmen were paid a fee from the chiefs for managing the land and to ensure the farmers had the tools they needed to tend it.

“Well before Culloden, as early as the 1740s, there was coming pressure on the upper middle class, on the tacksmen,” he says. “Some of the chiefs and lords were getting advice that they were costing too much. It wasn’t religious persecution.”

Shutting out the tacksmen to save money was discussed in the 1730s, but never actually happened, Kelly says. Still, they knew their position was in jeopardy. Following the Scottish defeat at Culloden, the English enforced the 1746 Act of Proscription, which disarmed the Highlanders and instituted punishment for the wearing of traditional Highland dress, including kilts. There is no doubt the oppression contributed to the pressure and panic clans felt, but it is far from the sole reason for the migration. The Theory of Exile fails to include the rising rents, famine years, and increasing population that had citizens, especially tacksmen, scrambling to charter a ship to the Americas.

“The handwriting was on the wall,” says Kelly. “The tacksmen knew their position was threatened in Scotland economically. They decided to emigrate. North Carolina had a Scottish governor, Gabriel Johnston, at that time. He wanted to get Scottish Protestants to settle his colony because North Carolina was far behind South Carolina and Virginia (in population). They were richer. We were considerably underpopulated, so he wanted to get Scots. He contacted some wealthy tacksmen in Argyll, the McNeals and the Clarks, and told them if they would set up a party of emigrants, a colony, he would give them free land in what is now Fayetteville and Moore County.”

So, Scots boarded ships and crossed the sea. The first colony arrived in 1739, seven years before the battle heavily credited for the relocation. Although there are records of Scots arriving before 1739, this colony marked the start of the governor’s Old World recruiting. In addition to free land, Johnston exempted the incoming settlers from taxation for 10 years and allowed them to serve as magistrates and judges. It was a braw deal. Some of Kelly’s family arrived in this settlement, which docked in Wilmington or Brunswick and took smaller boats up the Cape Fear River into Fayetteville.

The Fayetteville colony was a large one, but eventually the settlers were pushed out to make room for Fort Bragg. There are numerous historic sites on the Fort Bragg base that are no longer easily accessible to the curious visitor. You need to make an appointment with Dr. Linda Carnes-McNaughton, archaeologist and curator of the Fort Bragg Cultural Resources Program. Some sites will always remain off-limits for civilians. Carnes-McNaughton estimates that 80 percent of the Fayetteville colony was Scottish, and the historic sites reflect their presence.

“It was predominatly white European settlers moving into the area,” she says. “So when the Scots came, the first things they built were churches. They built schools because they wanted to continue to educate the next generation. That’s why some of the churches are so old, like Barbecue and Longstreet. Building a church and a school went hand-in-hand.”

The Blue family, of the historic Blue Plantation in Aberdeen, also had large tracts of land in Fayetteville before relocating. Carnes-McNaughton says only the Presbyterian churches still stand, some dating back to 1757. She takes many descendants of settler families on tours, and provides access to old documents, as they piece together their family history.

That Scottish sense of self was strong enough to shape the culture and attitudes of the Sandhills in a way that lingers today. Southern Pines resident Jane McPhaul is a proud descendant of those settlers, and heavily involved with preserving the culture and history of her ancestors. She says that placing a large importance on family, church and education is one legacy they left behind. Kelly, Caudill and McPhaul all believe that the area’s famous Southern hospitality, and a close-knit community, may to some degree be credited to the early Scots.  

“You might more broadly say that this is throughout the South, but there’s a sense of kinship here that is much more akin to what you would find in Scotland of old, as opposed to what you would find in other places,” says Caudill. “Here in Laurinburg, everybody knows who everybody’s family is and how they were related. So there was an extended sense of kinship that sort of likened itself to the clans.”

Kelly, who still has family in the Highlands and has lived in Scotland, grew up in a Presbyterian household, hearing Gaelic, learning to work the fields at the Blue Plantation, and listening to family gossip as a popular form of entertainment — a true Scot tradition. Some of his family from the Isle of Skye came to visit Moore County years ago, which he says really brought the similarities to light. Highlanders broadly define themselves as hospitable to strangers, hardworking and unpretentious — North Carolina traits.

“When they were here, they said the spirit is so much like the Highlands of Scotland. The humor, even the way people walk was similar, so they were amazed,” he says. “This sounds self-serving, but in general there’s a courtesy and kindness. It was always generally non-pretentious.”

Along with the importance of church, family and education, many rituals survive. The Highland Games, in both Laurinburg and Grandfather Mountain, is one popular tradition, attended by Scots and non-Scots alike. Bagpipers play at community events. The Kirkin’ o’ the Tartan, an annual ceremony held in a church to bless the clan tartans, is another. Today, the kirkin’ is continued for descendants to celebrate and honor their national and religious heritage, and it’s a ritual McPhaul habitually takes part in.

“We do the Kirkin’ o’ the Tartan at Brownson Church. We’ve done it at The Village Chapel many times, and many of the churches around here do this,” she says. “We have banners. So you’ll take your tartan banner, and generally the men will walk it down the aisle during the kirkin’. It’s something that’s cherished.”

Many of the original Scottish families remain in the area. One reason may be the family land the settlers likely received from Gov. Johnston. Kelly says that the eldest sons inherited the land and had a strong incentive to remain, keeping the family name in the Sandhills.

Jesse Wimberly, a Highlander descendant and outreach coordinator for the nonprofit Sandhills Area Land Trust, says the unique ecosystem is another reason they remained. Many Scottish immigrants, including Wimberly’s family, made their money by extracting pine, turpentine and tar from the native longleafs for the shipbuilding industry. He says that the flora of the pines wasn’t disturbed by the turpentiners. The diverse environment of the Sandhills also made for good hunting, another tradition they continued from their homeland.

Although the breadth of information available on the original Scottish settlements is seemingly endless, data is still missing. Caudill says there is no exact number on how many Scots arrived on the coast of North Carolina, because ship records are available for just part of two years. Historians can only guess at the number of arrivals, which they place somewhere between 15,000 and 30,000 before the Revolutionary War.

“There’s academics in Scotland who know more about our settlement and community than most history professors at UNC,” says Caudill.

For newcomers to the Sandhills the Scottish influence likely begins and ends with golf, and beloved golf course designer Donald Ross. Less well known is that the Jacobite heroine Flora MacDonald resided in Richmond County in the 1770s with her tacksman husband, Allan. Still revered in song and folktales, MacDonald earned her celebrity by assisting Prince Charles Stewart in escape from the English after the rebellion failed.

Davidson College was founded as a Scottish college in 1837 and two Scots from Fayetteville were the first heads of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Behind the Chick-fil-A on U.S. 15-501 is the grave of Kenneth Black, hanged for housing Flora MacDonald after revolutionaries burned her house to the ground. The MacDonalds, who eventually returned to the Highlands, were loyalists to the crown during the American Revolution, as were many of the Scottish in America.

John MacRae, a Scottish oral poet largely unknown outside of academic circles, resided in Carthage after leaving Scotland in 1774. Caudill has a book of his poetry sitting in his office.

“John MacRae is the only voice of these people in their own language. He wrote poems and songs that were transmitted in the oral tradition that have been collected by folklorists all over the world, wherever there are Gaelic settlements. And they were written in Moore County. And nobody knows about them, except for the scholars,” Caudill says.

McPhaul works to preserve the historic Mill Prong House in Red Springs, and continues the annual family reunion they call the gathering of the clans. She can trace the route her ancestors took up the Cape Fear River. “We honor ancestry, we don’t just know about it,” says McPhaul. “It is a heritage that means a great deal.”

Generations removed, the ties still bind. PS

Haley Ray is a Pinehurst native and University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill graduate, who recently returned from the deserts of Southern California

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