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Archiver > PA-OLD-CHESTER > 2007-09 > 1190477943


From: "Mal Humes" <>
Subject: Re: [PaOldC] Conistogoe tax rate 1726 (and early Lancaster Countysettlements, Maryland, Ulster Scots, Huguenots, etc)
Date: Sat, 22 Sep 2007 12:19:55 -0400
In-Reply-To: <057f01c7fd13$73d519a0$bf6c0cd8@sandabspkoh6u6>



Sandra noted: "I hadn't realized it was so large an area, but this 1726
assessment
contains many times the number of tax payers in any other twp."

The tax lists probably barely reflect the huge number of people who flooded
that area starting around 1717, and there was another wave that started in
1727. Based on what I have read there could have been even more indentured
servants than land owners in that area at that time. I'll explain more on
that below.

This is the period and area that fascinates me, largely because my four
grandparent's surnames all are rooted back to the Ulster Scots that flooded
southeastern PA in the early 1700s. I've found my interest in early PA
history growing as I try to better understand the context of those early
frontier times and I've spent a few years colleting and trying to absorb and
filter info on this area.

For a primer on this area's Scots-Irish try:
http://www.horseshoe.cc/pennadutch/people/scotirish/scotrish.htm

Keep in mind that this was an era where there was a huge influx settlers
that is barely documented and that quickly began to out-pace the growth of
earlier settlements. It was a time of explosive growth in early PA and began
the shift that eventually caused the Quakers to lose political control.

The area around the Pequea valley initially saw a settlement of French
Huguenots largely via Holland that started circa 1710 with a group centered
around land sold to Marie Ferree and Mathias Slaymaker from the London
Company, south of what is now Paradise. I believe Ferree's group briefly
settled with the Palatines in New York before heading to their new valley. I
get a little confused about the relationships with the Palatines and
Huguenots. The French Huguenots being apparently closely mingled in the
Rhine with German Palatines and also tended to mingle and blend with the
other cultures quickly in America, so it's not as easy to identify them as
it is the clusters of Scots or Germans.

Leacock was later formed just to the north of Paradise, and the Great
Minquas (Indian) Path just to the south of the Ferrees land became the Great
Conestoga Road, running just north of Copper Ridge. With the formation of
Lancaster the Old Philadelphia Pike was built, followed in 1795 by the
Turnpike, and became what is now Route 30.

An interesting book with some history of that area is 'Captives Mansion' by
S.R Slaymaker, detailing 9 generations of the Slaymakers and their White
Chimneys farm that became a notable Inn. The Slaymaker's White Chimneys
manuscript papers at the Lancaster County Historical Society have a lot of
interesting history that sill seems barely touched on by researchers.

See:
Samuel R. Slaymaker II, White Chimneys Collection, MG-268
http://www.lancasterhistory.org/collections/archives/manuscrp/mg-0268.htm
"This collection spans three centuries of Lancaster County and regional
history. The contents include account books, receipts, diaries, family
records, correspondence, deeds, wills, inventories, land drafts, court
papers, Slaymaker Lock Company records, and other family memorabilia."
Some of the finding aids offer a lot of detail:
www.lancasterhistory.org/collections/archives/manuscrp/mg-0268_Series4_Boxes
1to3.html
www.lancasterhistory.org/collections/archives/manuscrp/mg-0268_Series2_Box1.
htm


I've been looking with anticipation at the tax lists in this area for more
signs of the Huguenots and then the early Ulster Scots who flooded the area
in waves. The Slaymakers joined the Presbyterian churches and closely
intermarried with the Ulster Scots families, and also appear to have likely
had connections to the Freemasons as they spread in the Americas in the 18th
century.

>From 1717 to 1727 is when and where the bulk of the first big waves of Scots
Irish came, initially encouraged by James Logan (whose mother was a Hume
with Scots roots). They were encouraged to emigrate to help defend the
western borders where displaced Indians migration from and then traded with
the French in the Ohio Valley. The Scots-Irish also were brought in to help
fill the areas disputed with Maryland to the south. And they tended to move
on fairly quickly, probably in part because of the flood of new immigrants
passing through. The Germans and Palatines stuck around, but the Scots
mostly moved on to the west then north and south. It was also an era where
there were generally close relationships with the Indians who traded heavily
with the settlers and walked freely in the colonial towns and villages until
the French-Indian conflicts brewed in the 1750s.

A good reference on the Ulster Scots migrations is the book, 'The Scotch
Irish, a Social History', by Lames Graham Leyburn, published in 1962 by the
University of North Carolina Press (where Leyburn was a professor). Much of
that book covers Scotland and Ireland history in the 1600s with the second
half covering their migration and settlements in America.

There was a smaller early wave circa 1680s that included two Irish land
settlements in Maryland, one of which was New Munster on the eastern shores
just south of Chester County. That later area became a link to and migration
path for the Irish settlers landing at new Castle and migrating west as the
first huge wave of Ulster Scots started circa 1717. The major waves were
around 1717 and 1727.

In 1717 thousand of families left Ulster. Hundreds of families arrived in PA
in a period of months. Boston saw 55 ships from Ireland in six years, one
with 200 passengers, another with 150. Massachusetts wasn't very friendly to
the Presbyterians and many migrated south.

By the lowest estimates Leyburn cites from many sources he comes up with at
least 200,000 Ulster Scots migrating circa 1717-1775, which averages 3500 a
year, and with general agreement that as many as 6000 came in some years.

"Between the years of 1725-1729 there are records of about 5000 people
migrating from Ulster." In 1729 Logan (land agent for the Penns) noted that
in the last week 6 ships had arrived, and 2 or 3 ships arrived every day.
The PA Gazette in 1728 reported 4500 persons largely from Ireland, and 1155
at Philadelphia. August 14, 1728 cited 2000 Irish people arriving in the
last week and estimated 6000 in the last year.

There quite literally was a swarm, and it's hard to imagine the thousands of
hungry, exhausted immigrants trudging west on primitive roads. It's hard to
imagine the rural communities absorbing and feeding all of these people and
it's obvious why many continued west to squat on unclaimed land. There must
have been many harsh winters as the seasonal agriculture couldn't have kept
up with the pace very easily.

Supposedly about 9/10ths of these early immigrants via Ireland came as
indentured servants. Under the Penn's laws from 1710 these servants were
stipulated rewards after they had served their indenture and were to be
given two suits of apparel, an axe and a hoe, and were entitled to 50 acres
of land. Offhand I think the average period of indenture was about 3 years,
and possibly up to 7 years. The 1726 tax lists should reflect many servants
from the 1717 wave that had recently become free men (or freeman and
inmates).

"In Maryland at one point in the 17th century the number of servants was 6
times that of free men, and in Virginia that proportion was also high,
followed by Pennsylvania." (Kirkland, History of American Economic life,
page 32 - as cited on page 178 of Leyburn's book.)

Ponder that for a moment with regard to tax lists and freeman, etc. There
may have been far more servants working the land in that era than land
owners reflected on the tax lists! And it raises the question of who could
have afforded to hire all the servants or had the land to support them.

This is also where some of my confusion on freeman comes from, with a
citation on page 178 discussing how the indentured servants may have in some
cases suffered harsher treatment in the south than slaves because the slaves
were property for life but the indentured servants were gone in a few years,
but the Quakers were said to have regulated the indentures and used the
labor more intelligently. There's a quote in that context that says:

"Escapades of the servant were generally punished by whipping, and if he ran
away he had to recompense the master for the cost of apprehending them and
then serve double time for his absence. But these punishments were no better
or worse than those for the freemen at the same period. His legal position
gave the servant some protection against cruelty and exploitation, and
courts were entrusted with protection of his rights. Whatever his treatment,
he could look forward to a career of freedom and independence, not to a
lifetime of exploitation."

Also in this era there was a period in the 1720's to late 1730's when little
land was formally granted, so many of the Ulster Scots squatted on land they
were in theory entitled to but the process of granting the land couldn't
keep up with the flood of immigrants.

Add to that the migrations past the legal borders from Indian treaties, then
the flood west as Cumberland and York opened up around 1740, and then the
waves of Indian attacks circa 1750's-60's that left many hundreds of
settlers abandoning land... and there are a few decades from 1717 to 1760's
with many thousands of the Ulster Scots settling with large families and
confusing land records, if any! The disputed borders with Virginia and
Maryland complicated this further.

I would highly recommend that anyone researching Ulster Scots families also
look carefully in the Maryland archives online as there may well be traces
there of settlers who later were rooted in PA, or even briefly settled in
MD/PA/VA before migrations to NC.

The Maryland plats have some great scanned images of early land surveys that
can be difficult to locate (there's a password needed for some of the plats
access, and then searching the plats themselves is very confusing, at least
for me because of the way they are fragmented and can require multiple
database searches. I've had a hard time finding things again after finding
them there before.

Keep in mind that Nottingham was sliced in half and shifted from PA to MD
circa 1763 with the Mason-Dixon line, and the lesser known New Munster
settlement just to the east lost Maryland land at the head of the Elk Creeks
and river to Chester County and PA.

See http://www.aomol.net, which "currently provides access to over 471,000
historical documents that form the constitutional, legal, legislative,
judicial, and administrative basis of Maryland's government." Search for
witches there and find the little discussed witch burnings in Maryland circa
1680's, pre-dating Salem's trials. There are also sordid tales in the legal
records of servants murdering masters and mistresses, and a sad tale of a
servant woman who was sold three times in a few years, bought by a man who
promised marriage, who slept with her then disappeared and supposedly sold
her back to the man he bought her from. She fought for freedom in court and
lost.

The plats info is found here:
http://plato.mdarchives.state.md.us/msa/stagser/s1500/s1529/cfm/faq.html
"How should I configure my system in order to view plats online? .... Access
can be granted with the username: plato and the password: plato# ..."


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