Charles Woodmason, "rude fellows," & "57 dogs"

In the last half of the 1760s, “itinerant minister” Charles Woodmason was sent by the Church of England into the Carolina backcountry. He kept a diary. Presbyterian meeting houses by that time had become strongholds of isolationist Scots-Irish settlers. A centuries-long history of being on the receiving end of British oppression, these descendants of persecuted Scots had particularly strong resentments towards the British crown, not to mention the Anglican church. In attempts to deliver his sermons, Rev. Woodmason found himself challenged by many of those who gathered to “listen.”

But the Service was greatly interrupted by a Gang of Presbyterians who kept halooing and whooping without [the] Door like Indians. ...they hir’d a Band of rude fellows to come to Service who brought with them 57 Dogs (for I counted them) which in Time of Service they set fighting, and I was obliged to stop.

—Reverend Charles Woodmason

Woodmason continued to suffer interruptions throughout his efforts to preach, but did not seek legal action against his harassers, “as all the Magistrates are Presbyterians, I could not get a Warrant - if I got Warrants as the Constables are Presbyterians likewise, I could not get them serv’d - If serv’d, the Guard would let them escape.”*

* Charles Woodmason, edited by Richard Hooker, The Carolina Backcountry on the Eve of the Revolution: The Journal and Other Writings of Charles Woodmason, Anglican Itinerant, 1953, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, North Carolina

McDowells & The Scots-Irish Migration

The McDowells were among devout Presbyterian Scots who, beginning in the late 1500s, migrated from the lowlands of Scotland to Ireland. Religious persecutions in the reigns of James VI of Scotland (who later became England’s James I) and Charles I of England provoked many Presbyterians to leave Scotland, particularly in the aftermath of the Ruthven Raid, during which several Protestant noblemen staged an audacious coup d’etat. In August 1582, those nobles met up with James VI while the teenaged King of Scots was out hunting, and invited him to join them at nearby Ruthven Castle. James accepted their invitation and was subsequently held hostage for ten months during which time William Ruthven, 1st Earl of Gowrie, ruled Scotland. After James’s escape in June 1583, Protestants became prime suspects regarding their allegiance to Scotland’s king. Though brought up in the Protestant Church of Scotland, he had been baptized in a Catholic ceremony at Stirling Castle. And he was, after all, the only child of Mary, the devoutly Catholic former Queen of Scots, who had been held in England by Queen Elizabeth I since 1568.
Meanwhile, during this time, the Presbyterian McDowells were still in Galloway, the descendants of Prince Fergus, born around 1095. Nearly five hundred years later in 1575, John McDowell, great-grandfather of the first Joseph McDowell of the line, was born in Galloway. (John's father Uchtred, 1oth of Garthland, had been a suspect in the Ruthven Raid before his summons was deleted by royal warrant in 1584.) By 1595, John emigrated to Ireland as a political exile along with others who would become called Scots-Irish, Scotch-Irish, or Ulster Scots. However, within a few generations Ireland, too, would become unsafe for Presbyterians such as he.

In 1661, at the re-establishment of Episcopacy in Ireland, the newly appointed bishops, with Jeremy Taylor as their leader, turned all the Presbyterian ministers out of their charges upon the ground that they had never been ordained. This ignoring of Presbyterian ordination carried with it a denial of the validity of any official act performed by a Presbyterian minister. For instance, the validity of marriage, involving the questions of legitimacy and inheritance. This wrong was not corrected until 1782. Second, In 1704 the Sacramental Test Act was passed, which required all persons holding any office, civil or military, or receiving any pay from the sovereign to take sacraments in the established church within three months after their appointment. This, of course, excluded all Presbyterians from civil and military offices of every kind.

—Rev. W.A. West

A reason to emigrate arose again, this time coinciding with the rising power and impending rebellion of the American colonies. Calvinists in Ireland in the late 17th and early 18th centuries were caught between an Anglican elite and a burgeoning Catholic majority. They found themselves exploited and discriminated against by landlords, and increasingly taxed by churches to which they did not belong. Under the 1704 Test Act, Presbyterian marriages were no longer recognized, dissenters were denied job opportunities, and, all too often, they were not even allowed to bury their dead unless a funeral service was held within the “Established Church.” 

Archbishop Boulton sent to the Secretary of State in England, a “melancholy account,” as he calls it, of the state of the North. He says the people who go complain of the oppressions they suffer, as well as the dearness of provisions. The whole North, he says, is in a ferment, and the humour has spread like a contagion. “The worst is,” says the Archbishop, “that it affects only Protestants, and reigns chiefly in the North, which is the seat of our linen manufacture.” Writing in March, 1729, he says: “There are now seven ships at Belfast, that are carrying off about 1000 passengers thither”—to America.*

During the same time period, there had also been drought, disease, poor harvests, and industry downturn. Those negative factors could happen anywhere, of course. America would be full of unknowns, especially on the frontier. Many chose to take the risk. McDowells, their families, and friends gathered at the ports and boarded the ships. They disembarked in a new world.

*Source: Joseph A. Waddell, Annals of Augusta County, Virginia, 1901, C. Russell Caldwell, Staunton, Virginia

"A Scotch-Irish Presbyterian Rebellion"

In 1778 an unknown Hessian officer recorded his observations on the Revolutionary War: "Call this war by whatever name you may, only call it not an American Rebellion: it is nothing more or less than a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian Rebellion."

Washington Irving, re: North Carolina settlers

From The Life of George Washington, Volume IV, by Washington Irving, published 1857:

"The original settlers were from various parts, most of them men who had experienced political or religious oppressions, and brought with them a quick sensibility of wrong and a strong appreciation of their rights, and indomitable spirit of freedom and independence. And this part of the state was of a hard Presbyterian stock, the Scotch-Irish, as they were called, having emigrated from Scotland to Ireland, and thence to America, and was said to possess the impulsiveness of the Irishman 
with the large resolution of the Covenanter. The early history of the colony abounds with instances of this spirit among its people. 'They always behaved insolently to their governors,' complains Governor Burrington, in 1731; 'some they have driven out of the country—at other times they set up a government of their own choice, 
supported by men under arms.' It was, in fact, the spirit of popular liberty and self-government which stirred within them, and gave birth to the glorious axiom: the rights of the many against the exactions of the few. It was this spirit that gave rise to the confederacy called the Regulation formed to withstand the abuses of power, and the first blood shed in our country in resistance to arbitrary taxation was at Alamance, in this province, in a conflict between the Regulators and Governor Tryon. Above all, it should never be forgotten that at Mecklenburg in the heart of North Carolina, was culminated the first Declaration of Independence of the British crown upward of a year before a like declaration by Congress."

Origin of the McDowells

From History of the McDowells and Connections, by John Hugh McDowell, pub. 1918, C. B. Johnston, pp. 381, 383:

ORIGIN OF THE McDOWELLS.

By William McDowell. The McDowells are of Pictish origin and natives of Scotland, and away back about 200 B. C. one of them, the first that I can find anything about, had a duel with one of the Kings Habakon. You will find another William McDowell—was governor-general of Scotland in 1293, and had charge of Sterling Castle. You are further aware that this name is as old as the Creation. They are not of Celtic origin, they are not Irish; but the best blood that ever landed upon the American continent. They were early settlers in America. A great many of the McDowells that are in America are from Ireland. They went over there the time of the Cromwell settlement, in Ulster. You will find a great settlement of the McDowells near Belfast, along the Legon River, about fourteen miles from Belfast. You can find out there where the McDowells came from that landed there; some in the County Derry, County Monaghan—all over the north of Ireland. You likewise will find out that in Renfrewshire, Scotland, there are a great many, and in Ayrshire, and in Dumfrieshire, and in Gallowshire; there would be very little difficulty of finding out all about the McDowells in America—the McDowells that came later from Scotland. Sometimes the name is spelled McDowall, but after the Scotch Revolution the settlers in Ireland spelled it McDowell. They are all of Presbyterian, Covenanter origin.

The Backcountry & the Scots-Irish

From The 1780 Presbyterian Rebellion and the Battle of Huck's Defeat, by Sam Thomas, Curator of History, Culture & Heritage Commission of York County:

In the Backcountry, due to their isolation from the coast, past resentments could be put aside—at least temporarily. When war arrived after 1776, at first the Scotch-Irish were rather lukewarm toward the idea of independence from Great Britain. Here they were content to remain neutral so long as they were left alone. The conflict as most of the Scotch-Irish saw it was between the British Crown and the Charleston aristocrats, whom they resented as much as the British officials and so it did not involve them. But the problems between the Backcountry and the Crown finally boiled to the surface in 1780 as "The Presbyterian Rebellion." In 1778 an unknown Hessian officer recorded his observations on the war. "Call this war by whatever name you may, only call it not an American Rebellion: it is nothing more or less than a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian Rebellion." George Washington also remarked on the contribution to the war effort with a tribute to the Scotch-Irish from his headquarters at Valley Forge when he declared, "If defeated everywhere else, I will make my last stand for liberty among the Scotch-Irish . . ." It is this Backcountry Rebellion which is so closely identified with the battles of Kings Mountain, Cowpens, Hanging Rock, and Huck's Defeat.

Scotland to Ireland, the First Migrations

The migration of Protestant Scots to Ulster, Dublin, and other parts of Ireland, occurred mainly during the 17th and 18th centuries. The first major influx of Scots into Ulster came during the settlement of east Down. This started in May 1606 and was followed in 1610 by the arrival of many more Scots as part of the Plantation of Ulster. During the Irish Rebellion of 1641, Irish Catholics attempted to expel the settlers, resulting in inter-communal violence and, ultimately, leading to the death of between 10,000 and 20,000 settlers and an undetermined number of Irish people, over 10 years of war. The memory of this traumatic episode, and the savage repression which followed, poisoned the relationship between the Scottish and English settlers and Irish Roman Catholics, almost irreparably.
The Scots-Irish population in Ulster was further augmented during the subsequent Irish Confederate Wars, when a Scottish Covenanter army was landed in the province to protect the settlers from Irish Catholic forces. After the Wars were over, many of the soldiers settled permanently in Ulster.
Finally, another major influx of Scots into northern Ireland occurred in the 1690s, when tens of thousands of people fled a famine in Scotland to come to Ulster.
The settlers and their descendants, the majority of whom were Presbyterian or Anglican, became the majority in the province of Ulster. However, along with Roman Catholics, Presbyterians and other non-Anglican Protestants were legally disenfranchised by the Penal Laws, which gave full rights only to Anglicans, who were mainly the descendants of English settlers belonging to the Church of Ireland. For this reason, up until the 19th century, and despite their common fear of the dispossessed Catholics, there was considerable disharmony between the Presbyterian and Anglican populations of Ulster. Subsequently, in 1798, many Ulster-Scots joined the United Irishmen and participated in the Irish Rebellion of 1798.

(Source: Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scots_Irish)

More re: Ephraim McDowell

From Historic Families of Kentucky, by Thomas Marshall Green, pub. 1889, R. Clarke:

Ephraim McDowell, who fought at Boyne river, as well as at Londonderry, was already an elderly man, when, with his two sons, John and James, his daughters, Mary and Margaret, and numerous kinsmen and co-religionists, he emigrated to America to build for himself and his a new home. In his interesting "Sketches of Virginia," [William] Foote states that he was accompanied to Virginia by his wife, and that his son John was a widower when he left Ireland; but, as in the deposition of Mrs. Mary E. Greenlee, the daughter of Ephraim, her father, her brother John, her husband, and herself, are designated as composing the party emigrating to Virginia from Pennsylvania, and no mention is anywhere made of her mother, Mr. Foote is probably in error; and the uniform tradition of the family is more likely to be correct—that the wife of Ephraim McDowell died in Ireland, and that John McDowell had never been married until he came to America. The exact date of his arrival in Pennsylvania is not known. The journal of Charles Clinton—the founder of the historic family of that name in New York—gives an account of his voyage from the county of Longford, in the good ship "George and Ann," in company with the "John of Dublin," having many McDowells aboard as his fellow passengers. The "George and Ann" set sail on the 9th of May, 1729. On the 8th of June, a child of James McDowell died, and was thrown overboard; several other children of the same afterward died; also a John McDowell, and the sister, brother and wife of Andrew McDowell. The ship reached land, on the coast of Pennsylvania, on the 4th day of September, 1729. Whether or not the conjecture that Ephraim McDowell was a passenger with his kindred on board this ship at that time is correct, it is certain that about the same time he and his family, and numerous other McDowells, Irvines, Campbells, McElroys, and Mitchells, came over together, and settled in the same Pennsylvania county.
In Pennsylvania, Ephraim McDowell remained several years. There his son, John, was married to Magdalena Wood, whose mother was a Campbell, and, as tradition has it, of the noble family of Argyle. There Samuel, the eldest son of John and Magdalena McDowell, was born, in 1735. There, too, probably, Mary, the daughter of Ephraim, met, was beloved by, and married James Greenlee, a Presbyterian Irishman, of English descent, and said to have been remotely descended from the Argyle Campbells.

Charles Woodmason & the Backcountry Presbyterians

Charles Woodmason, an Anglican itinerant minister, was sent into the Carolina backcountry as a missionary in the 1760s. He stated that the congregation in the Waxhaws was "most surprisingly thick settled beyond any Spot in England . . . Seldom less than 9, 10, 1200 People assemble of a Sunday." With populations centered around the meetinghouses, the churches quickly became religious and social centers in the back country Scots-Irish stronghold.
The Anglican Church, official church of the Carolina colonies, began taking notice of the ever increasing population of Presbyterians in the back country. In an effort to convert them to the "correct religion," a number of Anglican ministers were sent into the area. Charles Woodmason was one of these, and he recorded his observations and judgments of the backcountry residents. The majority of Woodmason's criticism was, as you might expect, reserved primarily for the Presbyterians, whom he referred to as those ". . . Ignorant, mean, worthless, beggarly Irish Presbyterians, the Scum of the Earth, and Refuse of Mankind." Woodmason also made mention of arriving at a Presbyterian meetinghouse which "had a large Congragation [sic] - but according to Custom, one half of them got drunk before they went home" that evening from the service.
The Presbyterians apparently did not think much of Woodmason either. On one occasion, Woodmason was attempting to deliver a sermon to an assembled group, "But the Service was greatly interrupted by a Gang of Presbyterians who kept halooing and whooping without [the] Door like Indians." On another occasion "they hir'd a Band of rude fellows to come to Service who brought with them 57 Dogs (for I counted them) which in Time of Service they set fighting, and I was obliged to stop." When everything had quieted down, Woodmason tried to continue, and again the service was interrupted. He further explained his situation in not seeking charges against this band of ruffians "as all the Magistrates are Presbyterians, [and] I could not get a Warrant—if I got Warrants as the Constables are Presbyterians likewise, I could not get them serv'd—If serv'd, the Guard would let them escape."

(Source: Charles Woodmason, (Richard Hooker, ed.), The Carolina Backcountry on the Eve of the Revolution: The Journal and Other Writings of Charles Woodmason, Anglican Itinerant, Univ. of North Carolina Press, 1953)

The Carolina Backcountry

The Carolina back country was nearly devoid of European settlers prior to 1750, but by the time the American Revolution reached the area in 1780, the back country contained an estimated population of more than a quarter of a million. The largest proportion of these were Scots-Irish Presbyterians, although there were also numbers of English, Welsh, native Irish, native Scots, Swiss, French, and Germans.

(Excerpted from "Historical Properties of York County, South Carolina," © 1995, York County Historical Commission)