The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1906-03-15

In "The Winning of the West, - Vol.
I, Chapter V, under the caption of
"The Backwoodsmen of the Alleghan-
les" President Roosevelt tells of the
important part played by. the Irish
settlers and their descendants in the
revolutionary war. He says:
The backwoodsmen were Americans
by birth and parentage, and of mixed
race; but the dominant strain in their
blood was that of the Presbyterian
Irish-the Scotch-Iri as they were
often called. Full credit has been
awarded the Roundhead and the Cav
alier for their leadership in our his
tory; nor have we been altogether
blind to the deeds of the Hollander
and the Huguenot; but it is doubtful if
we have wholly realized the import
ance of the part played by that stern
and virile people, the Irish, whose
preachers taught the creed of Knox
and Calvin. These Irish representa-
tives of the Covenanters were in the
west almost what the Puritans were in
the northeast, and more than the
Cavaliers were in the south. Mingled
with the descendants of many other
races, they, nevertheless, formed the
kernel of the distinctively and in
tensely American stock who were the
pioneers Of our people IN their march
westward, the vanguard of the army
OF fighting settlers, who with ak and
rifle won their way from the Alleghan-
les to the Rio Grande and the Pacific.
Among the dozen or so most prom
inent backwoods pioneers of the west
and southwest, the men who we're the
leaders in exploring and settling the
lands, and in fighting the Indians,
British, and Mexicans, the Presbyter-
ian Irish stock furnished Andrew
Jackson, Samuel Houston, David
Crockett, James Robertson; Lewis,
the leader of the backwoods hosts in
their first great victory over the
northwestern Indians; and Campbell,
their commander in their first great
victory over the British.
The Presbyterian Irish were them
selves already mixed people.
Though mainly descended from Scotch
sancestors-who came originally from
both lowlands and highlands, from
among both the Scotch Saxons and
the Scotch Celts,-many Of them were
of English, few of French Huguenot,
and quite number of true old Miles,
ian Irish extraction.
They did not begin to come to
America in any numbers till after the
opening of the eighteenth century; by
173O they were fairly swarming across
the ocean, for the most part in two
streams, the larger going to the port
of Philadelphia, the smaller to the
port of Charleston. Pushing through
the long settled lowlands of the sea-
coast, they at once made their abode
at the foot of the mountains and be-
came the outposts of@civilization.
From Pennsylvania, whittier the great
majority had come, they drifted south
along the foothills, and down the
long valleys, till they met their breth-
rem from Charleston who had pushed
up into the Carolina back country.
In this land of hills, covered by un-
broken forest, they took root and
fourished, stretching in broad belt
from north to south, a shield of
sinewy men thrust in between the peo-
pie of the seaboard and the red war
riors of the wilderness. All through
this region they we're alike; they had
as little kinship with the Cavalier as
with the Quaker; the west was won by
those who have been rightly called
the Roundheads Of the south. the same
men who, before any others. declared
for Americana dependence.
The two facts of most Importance to
remember in dealing with our pioneer
history are, first, that the western
portions of Virginia and the Caro-
llnas were peopled by an entirely
different stock from that which had
long existed in the tide-water regions
OF those colonies; and secondly, that,