John Wayne, Scots-Irish Icon

In one interview in the early 1950's John Wayne described himself as 'just a Scotch-Irish little boy.' John Wayne, or as he was known before his fame, Marion Morrison, was born in Winterset, Iowa. His family emigrated from County Antrim, Ireland, in 1799. The Morrison family, like many Scots-Irish families in Counties Antrim and Donegal, were of Hebridean origin.  The Morrisons were Scottish Gaels that came to Antrim from the outer Hebrides.  Scottish Highlanders and Hebrideans were called Redshanks circa 1520 through the 1600s and many of them migrated to Ulster in the 1500s and 1600s.  They also emigrated to the Colonies very early and became part of the Scots-Irish society there.

John Wayne's immigrant ancestor was Robert Morrison born in 1782, son of John Morrison. The Morrison family were active in the United Irishmen movement and their decision to emigrate was brought about by a British warrant issued for the arrest of Robert Morrison.

Robert Morrison and his mother arrived in New York City, in 1799. Like so many Scots-Irish the Morrison family had a tradition of being strong willed, opinionated, and carried a well developed sense of right and wrong.  Following the path of other Ulster settlers, the Morrisons pulled up stakes many times and followed the frontier west. The first wave of Ulster settlers headed west and south and people the Southern Uplands and the hill country of Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas. The Morrison were part of a second wave of Scots-Irish that moved along the rivers west into Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, and Iowa. They became the Mid West Scots-Irish.

John Wayne is arguably the most famous and most successful actor in history, quite an accomplishment for a Scots-Irish boy from Winterset, Iowa. He was a complex man, his family very Presbyterian, yet John Wayne often described himself as a 'cardiac Catholic.' He lived his life as a Christian with noticeable Presbyterian focus and drive, yet his wife Pilar was Roman Catholic, as were all his children. John Wayne himself converted to the Catholic Church officially just days before he passed away.

John and Pilar Wayne



John Wayne's childhood home in Winterset, Iowa











© 2017 Barry R McCain

Henry McWhorter

Henry McWhorter 1760-1848 was born in New Jersey son of Gilbert McWhorter (1742 -1767) who was a linen-weaver by trade, hailed from Northern Ireland and settled in New York. His father died leaving his mother in extreme poverty with six small sons; James, Henry, John, Thomas, Robert and Gilbert, all born between 1760-1765 and later known as the “The Orange County McWhorter Boys.” Since times were hard, the children were bound out. Henry was apprenticed to a millwright. He enlisted as a Minuteman at age 15 to fight in the Revolutionary War. After his term of service expired, he volunteered six more times in a 22 month time span. His brothers Thomas and James served in the same regiment with him under Sergeant Hugh McWhorter (1735-1812), their uncle and brother of their father.

Afterwards, he lived in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, where he married Mary Fields in 1783. In 1786, the couple moved to Hampshire County, (West) Virginia. Three years later, Henry sought a home in the wilds of McKinneys Run a branch of Hackers Creek in Harrison County, (West) Virginia.

In 1793, the McWhorters moved again, this time building a log house near West’s Fort on the south bank of the murky Hackers Creek, where they reared three sons. A mill was erected on the creek near his cabin home, and the place became known as McWhorter's mill, which is now known as Jane Lew, West Virginia. To this mill came the settlers from a radius of many miles to get their corn ground. And it is a traditional fact that at one time the settlements were suffering from a scarcity of breadstuff, and parties came from distant settlements and offered him over $1.00 per bushel for all the corn stored in his mill, which offer he refused, giving as his reason that if he did so his neighbors and friends would suffer.

Henry's brother, John, died in 1797 at the age of 35, one month before his daughter Hannah was born. His widow was left with seven young children. Henry went by horseback to New Jersey to visit his people and having no daughter of his own, offered to take Hannah, the little daughter of his dead brother home with him. He did and raised her as his own.

Eventually, a saw mill was added on the property as the population in the West’s Fort area grew. Henry was a Methodist and was a class leader for 50 yrs. Very often the services were held in his home, as there was no church there at the time.

Henry made frequent trips to Fort Pitt in flat boats, via the West Fork and Monongahela Rivers, exchanging furs, jerked venison, etc., for ammunition and other home necessities. On one of these trips he was accompanied by Jesse Hughes, the most noted Indian scout and fighter in Western Virginia.

Three generations of the McWhorter family were born in their cabin during the forty years they lived on Hacker’s Creek. The family was forced to leave the homestead in 1827 and return to McKinney’s Run after a series of security debts put the family in a bad financial situation. It was there that Henry died in 1848. Henry was buried on his farm beside his wife, in the quiet country cemetery where sleep six McWhorter generations.

His eldest son, John (1784-1880), became a barrister and never married. The second son Thomas (1785-1815), inherited part of the home farm on McKinney's Run and was a prosperous farmer, and the third and youngest son, Walter (1787-1860), inherited with his brother Thomas, the homestead on McKinney's Run in Harrison County. He was a Major in the militia, a noted athlete and never met his equal in wrestling, jumping or foot racing. He fathered 17 children.

The McWhorter log homestead and the mill were sold to Edward Jackson, a cousin of Stonewall Jackson. The cabin remained in the Jackson family for many years. In time it became the property a Jackson descendent who decided to turn the cabin back into the hands of the descendants of the original owner and builder of the condition that the cabin be removed and preserved. With leadership provided by Minnie McWhorter, a great-great-granddaughter of the pioneers, the cabin was moved to Jackson’s Mill and dedicated there on August 14, 1927. The cabin was rededicated by the McWhorter Family Association to the state of West Virginia on July 24, 1993.

Source; John Stewart, Longhunter 1744-1770

 

BBC Radio Ulster, Kist o Wurds program

Barry R McCain

(Update.... a Rugby match on BBC is running long, our program rescheduled for  Wednesday 30th at 19.30 hour UK time and that is 1:30 PM CDT.   The show can is archived for a couple of weeks so can be streamed during that time also.  But on a brighter note, at least Ireland is winning the rugby match)

My BBC interview will be on today, evening in the UK, at 1:30 PM (13:30) on BBC Ulster Radio.  The program is the Kist o Wurds program and I was interviewed by Alister McReynolds, well known writer and personality in Northern Ireland.  (and a friend of mine)

Here is the link:   BBC Ulster Radio

This link should go to the program page from which you can click on a link to live stream the show.

The Kist o Wurds program focuses on Ulster Scots history, culture, and language.  It is a very good program, and a great way to discover an interesting aspect of Irish life and society.  This is my second time on the program.  I was also interviewed by them when I started my Finding the McCains book project.  This interview was done as the book is finished now and out at bookshops and on Amazon.  It is always enjoyable to talk with the lads and lassies back in Ireland and Northern Ireland.

Portrait of David Crockett

One could make a very good case that David Crockett is the most famous Scots-Irish man that there has been to date.  (Though Neil Armstrong would also be in the running).   The portrait above was done in 1834 by New York painter Samuel Stillman Osgood (1808-1885). On a lithograph printed by Childs & Leman, Philadelphia, David Crockett wrote: "I am happy to acknowledge this to be the only correct likeness that has been taken of me. David Crockett."

The Laggan Redshanks

Mongavlin, the Castle of Iníon Dubh


 In the sixteenth century Scottish Highlanders settled in the Laggan district of east Donegal. They were called Redshanks.  The history of the Laggan Redshanks has many fascinating elements which include Clann Chaimbeul and their dynamic leader the fifth Earl of Argyll, Gaelic sexual intrigues, English Machiavellian manoeuvres, and the Redshanks themselves.  This book not only tells the fascinating story of how a Highland Scottish community became established in the Laggan, but also includes the surnames of the Redshanks and notes of their origins in Scotland, which will be of interest to family historians and genealogists.

 

This book has the complete Portlough Muster roll taken in 1630 and includes notes on each of the surnames.  It is available from Amazon as a paperback and Kindle version.

Link to Amazon:  The Laggan Redshanks

I have been asked many times about Highland Scottish surnames among the Scots-Irish.  Over the years as I worked with primary sources I did indeed notice within early Scots-Irish settlements there was a considerable Highland Scot presence.  One part of the story concerns the migration of Highlanders from mid-Argyll and Lennox to east Donegal circa 1569 to 1600.  This migration was sponsored by Clann Chaimbeul.  After the Plantation began in 1609 these Highlanders remained on their lands in the Laggan district.  Their experiences with the New Order in Ulster was different than other Redshank (Highland Scots) communities living in Ireland.  One reason was these particular Redshanks were of the Reformed faith.  Clann Chaimbeul, under the fifth Earl of Argyll were early converts to the Reformed faith.  While they retained their Gaelic language and culture they did in time become part of the general Ulster Scots community in the Laggan. When the Ulster Migration began in 1718 they were on the first ships that left for the Colonies and throughout the eighteenth century they continued to migrate in great numbers.  In the New World they were part of the people that became what we call today, the Scots-Irish.    

 

Ricky Skaggs

'My family on my mother's side were Scots-Irish - they were the Fergusons who left Limavady and East Donegal for America in the early part of the 18th century. They eventually moved to Kentucky where I grew up with a real taste for bluegrass music which has its origins in the north of Ireland and Scotland.   Rickey Skaggs

Senator John McCain

 John McCain with Taoiseach Bertie Ahern

Senator John McCain descends from a McCain family that emigrated from Ulster to the American Colonies in the early 1700s.  His family first appears in tax records in 1722 in the Donegal  township in the Pennsylvania Colony.  The McCain family are not typical Ulster Scots, in that they are of Highland Scottish origins and migrated from mid Argyll to east Donegal, to the St Johnston area, before the Plantation of Ulster which began in 1608.

There was a large movement of Highland Gaels to east Donegal beginning in the late summer of 1569.  The exact year the McCain family settled in Donegal is not known, but they last appear in mid Argyll in 1570.  These Highland Gaels were called Redshanks in those days and the group that settled in the Laggan district in eastern Donegal were associated with Clan Chaimbeul alliances and high level marriages to the Ó Dónaill clan there.  There are Scots-Irish from Derry, Donegal, Tyrone, and Antrim origins, that are of Highland Scottish origins, usually from mid Argyll, the Lennox district around Loch Lomond, or the southern Hebrides.

Senator McCain’s family settled in Mississippi in the 1830s and are known there as the Teoc McCains.  Teoc is the small community in Carroll County, Mississippi that grew up around the plantation of this branch of the McCain family. Teoc is a Choctaw Indian word, a shortened form of Teoc Tillila which means Tall Pines. Their patriarch, William Alexander McCain, named his plantation Waverly, but the Choctaw name stuck and the area is called Teoc to this day.

Senator McCain’s second cousin is the author Elizabeth Spencer. In her memoir Landscapes of the Heart she writes of her days spent at Teoc and her McCain kin. She has a fascinating bit of oral history relating to the McCain family. It is a romantic story of the McCains as  Highland Scots, being supporters of Mary Queen of Scots and leaving Scotland after her downfall in 1568.

During the course of the McCain Family DNA Project, DNA results and primary sources located provided support to the family's oral history.   The historical McCains are linked to Mary Queen of Scots' primary supporter and military commander, Giolla Easpuig Caimbeul, the 5th Earl of Argyll.   The McCains lived on his lands and were captains and tacksmen for the Earl.  It was the Earl that arranged the migration of Redshanks to the St Johnston area to accompany his cousin, Fionnual Ní Dhónaill (née Mhic Dhónaill) who was the wife of Aodh Mac Manus Ó Dónaill.  Fionnula Ní Dhónaill is better remembered by her nickname, Iníon Dubh.  She became a major player in Irish history and was the mother of Aodh Ruadh Ó Dónaill.   In Ulster Senator McCain's family first appear in written records living on the lands of Iníon Dubh. 

John Wayne, Scots-Irish Icon

In one interview in the early 1950's John Wayne described himself as 'just a Scotch-Irish little boy.' John Wayne, or as he was known before his fame, Marion Morrison, was born in Winterset, Iowa. His family emigrated from County Antrim, Ireland, in 1799. The Morrison family, like many Scots-Irish families in Counties Antrim and Donegal, were of Hebridean origin.  The Morrisons were Scottish Gaels that came to Antrim from the outer Hebrides.  Scottish Highlanders and Hebrideans were called Redshanks circa 1520 through the 1600s and many of them migrated to Ulster in the 1500s and 1600s.  They also emigrated to the Colonies very early and became part of the Scots-Irish society there.

John Wayne's immigrant ancestor was Robert Morrison born in 1782, son of John Morrison. The Morrison family were active in the United Irishmen movement and their decision to emigrate was brought about by a British warrant issued for the arrest of Robert Morrison.

Robert Morrison and his mother arrived in New York City, in 1799. Like so many Scots-Irish the Morrison family had a tradition of being strong willed, opinionated, and carried a well developed sense of right and wrong.  Following the path of other Ulster settlers, the Morrisons pulled up stakes many times and followed the frontier west. The first wave of Ulster settlers headed west and south and people the Southern Uplands and the hill country of Alabama, Mississippi, and Arkansas. The Morrison were part of a second wave of Scots-Irish that moved along the rivers west into Ohio, Kentucky, Illinois, and Iowa. They became the Mid West Scots-Irish.

John Wayne is arguably the most famous and most successful actor in history, quite an accomplishment for a Scots-Irish boy from Winterset, Iowa. He was a complex man, his family very Presbyterian, yet John Wayne often described himself as a 'cardiac Catholic.' He lived his life as a Christian with noticeable Presbyterian focus and drive, yet his wife Pilar was Roman Catholic, as were all his children. John Wayne himself converted to the Catholic Church officially just days before he passed away.

John and Pilar Wayne



John Wayne's childhood home in Winterset, Iowa