Pioneers of the Old Southwest | Page 6

to 1752, that he had
shown no joy over the King's "glorious victory of Culloden" and that
"he had appointed one William McGregor, who had been in the
Rebellion in the year 1715 a Justice of the Peace during the last
Rebellion [1745] and was not himself without suspicion of disaffection
to His Majesty's Government." It is indeed possible that Gabriel

Johnston, formerly a professor at St. Andrew's University, had himself
not always been a stranger to the kilt. He induced large numbers of
highlanders to come to America and probably influenced the second
George to moderate his treatment of the vanquished Gaels in the Old
Country and permit their emigration to the New World.
In contrast with the Ulstermen, whose secular ideals were dictated by
the forms of their Church, these Scots adhered still to the tribal or clan
system, although they, too, in the majority, were Presbyterians, with a
minority of Roman Catholics and Episcopalians. In the Scotch
Highlands they had occupied small holdings on the land under the sway
of their chief, or Head of the Clan, to whom they were bound by blood
and fealty but to whom they paid no rentals. The position of the Head
of the Clan was hereditary, but no heir was bold enough to step forward
into that position until he had performed some deed of worth. They
were principally herders, their chief stock being the famous small black
cattle of the Highlands. Their wars with each other were cattle raids.
Only in war, however, did the Gael lay hands on his neighbor's goods.
There were no highwaymen and housebreakers in the Highlands. No
Highland mansion, cot, or barn was ever locked. Theft and the breaking
of an oath, sins against man's honor, were held in such abhorrence that
no one guilty of them could remain among his clansmen in the beloved
glens. These Highlanders were a race of tall, robust men, who lived
simply and frugally and slept on the heath among their flocks in all
weathers, with no other covering from rain and snow than their plaidies.
It is reported of the Laird of Keppoch, who was leading his clan to war
in winter time, that his men were divided as to the propriety of
following him further because he rolled a snowball to rest his head
upon when he lay down. "Now we despair of victory," they said, "since
our leader has become go effeminate he cannot sleep without a
pillow!"*
* MacLean, "An Historical Account of the Settlement of Scotch
High.landers in America."
The "King's glorious victory of Culloden" was followed by a policy of
extermination carried on by the orders and under the personal direction

of the Duke of Cumberland. When King George at last restrained his
son from his orgy of blood, he offered the Gaels their lives and exile to
America on condition of their taking the full oath of allegiance. The
majority accepted his terms, for not only were their lives forfeit but
their crops and cattle had been destroyed and the holdings on which
their ancestors had lived for many centuries taken from them. The
descriptions of the scenes attending their leave-taking of the hills and
glens they loved with such passionate fervor are among the most
pathetic in history. Strong men who had met the ravage of a brutal
sword without weakening abandoned themselves to the agony of
sorrow. They kissed the walls of their houses. They flung themselves
on the ground and embraced the sod upon which they had walked in
freedom. They called their broken farewells to the peaks and lochs of
the land they were never again to see; and, as they turned their backs
and filed down through the passes, their pipers played the dirge for the
dead.
Such was the character, such the deep feeling, of the race which entered
North Carolina from the coast and pushed up into the wilderness about
the headwaters of Cape Fear River. Tradition indicates that these
hillsmen sought the interior because the grass and pea vine which
overgrew the innercountry stretching towards the mountains provided
excellent fodder for the cattle which some of the chiefs are said to have
brought with them. These Gaelic herders, perhaps in negligible
numbers, were in the Yadkin Valley before 1730, possibly even ten
years earlier. In 1739 Neil MacNeill of Kintyre brought over a shipload
of Gaels to rejoin his kinsman, Hector MacNeill, called Bluff Hector
from his residence near the bluffs at Cross Creek, now Fayetteville.
Some of these immigrants went on to the Yadkin, we are told, to unite
with others of their clan who had been for some time in that district.
The exact time of the first Highlander on the Yadkin cannot be
ascertained, as there were no court records and the