The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1906-03-15
President Roosevelt in His 1.-THE Winning of the
West Lauds the Irish Settlers of Pennsyl-
vania, Virginia and the Carolinas.
The Irish and Their Descendants Were the Mainsta1
of the Cause of the Revolution in the
- South and on the Frontier.
Splendid Race Of Brave Men Who Were Intensel,
Patriotic and Feared Neither the British
Nor Their Indian Allies.

except for those in the Carolinas who
came from Charleston, the immigrants
of this stock were mostly from the
north, from their great breeding
ground and nursery in western Penn
sylvania. "
That these Irish Presbyterians were
a bold and hardy race is proved by
their at once pushing past the settled
regions, and plunging into the wilder
ness as the leaders of the white ad-
vance. They we're the first and last
set of immigrants to do this; all
others have merely followed in the
wake of their predecessors. But, in
deed, they we're fitted to be, Americans
from the start; they were kinsfolk of
the Covenanters; they deemed it re-
ligious duty to interpret their own
Bible, and held for divine right the
election of their own clergy. For
generations their whole ecclesiastic
and scholastic systems had been
fundamentally democratic. In the
hard life Of the frontier they lost
much of their religion, and they had
but scant opportunity to give their
children the schooling in which they
believed; but what meeting houses
and school houses there we're on the
border were theirs. The Irish school
master was everywhere a feature of
tearsEsW estern society," The numerous
families of colonial English who came
among them adopted their religion if
they adopted any. The creed of the
backwoodsman who had creed at all
was Presbyterianism, for the Episco-
pacy of the Underwater lands obtained
no foothold in the mountains, and the
Methodists and Baptists had but just
begun to appear in the west when the
Revolution broke out.
= X x x X
In chapter VII of the same volume,
relating to the first settlers of the
Watauga commonwealth, l769-1774,
Mr.. Roosevelt again pays tribute to
the hardy Irish pioneers:
They were a sturdy race, enterpris-
ing and intelligent, fond of the strong
excitement inherent in the adventur-
Gus frontier life. Their untamed and
turbulent passions, and the lawless
freedom of their lives made them
population very productive of wild,
headstrong characters; yet, as whole,
they were a God-fearing race, as was
but natural in those who sprang from
the loins of the Irish Calvinites.
Their preachers, all Presbyterians,
followed close behind the first settlers,
and shared their toll and dangers:
they titled their fields, rife in hand,
and fought the Indians valorously.
They felt that they were dispossessing
the Canaanites, and we're thus work
ing the Lords will in preparing the
land for a race which they be-
lieved was more truly his chosen peo-
pie than was that nation which
Joshua led across the Jordan. They
exhorted no less earnestly in the bare
meeting-houses on Sunday, because
their hands were roughened with guild
ing the pillow and welding the ak on
weekdays; for they did not believe
that being called to preach the word
of God absolved them from earning
their living by the sweat of their
brows. The women, the wives of the
settlers, were of the same iron temper.
They fearlessly fronted every danger
the men did, and they worked quite
as hard. They priced the knowledge
and learning they themselves had
been forced to do without; and many
q backwoods woman by thrift and in
dustry, by the sale of her butter and
cheese, and the calves from her COWS,
enabled her husband to give his sons
good schooling, and perhaps to- pro-
vide for some favored member of the
family the opportunity to secure a
really frst-class education.
On page 1914, same volume, the fol-
lowing foot-notes appear:
The first settlers on Holston River