Founding Family of Gatlinburg, Tennessee had Revolutionary Routes
By: Bryan Mccarter
Tags: Tennessee, Emigration, Scotland, Gatlinburg, American History

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Founding Family of Gatlinburg, Tennessee had Revolutionary Routes

Bryan McCarter

bryan@bryanmccarter.com

Three Macarthur brothers leave Scotland

In late 1745, Moses Macarthur and two of his brothers, Alexander & Abraham sailed from their home in eastern Scotland for the Pennsylvania Colony. They did this in a bit of a rush. The brothers were rebels involved in an action that would ultimately cost the lives of many of their countrymen. This must have made their choice to leave easier. Moses’ family were part of a group called the Jacobites. They were rebelling against English rule in Scotland in an on-again, off-again uprising that lasted over 50 years, ultimately failing in 1746 after a final bloodbath and mass execution. The Macarthur brothers (the spelling doesn’t change for a while yet) eventually participated in another rebellion against English rule that ended differently. All three brothers and several of their sons participated in the American Revolution a few decades later. Being a part of that victory must have felt like a kind of deliverance knowing, as the brothers would have, how long their families and many other Scots had been fighting that fight.

This rebellious streak had surprising roots

The seed of rebellion was planted in the minds of Moses’ ancestors in about 1541. Here’s what happened.

Though the name Macarthur, which means ‘son of Arthur’, is about as Scottish as it gets the majority of Moses’ ancestors were not originally Scottish. They were English and came to Scotland after an extended stay in Ireland.

They went to Ireland willingly but under pressure. During the Middle Ages, England began to send some noble families to administer Ireland. Moses’ ancestors were part of this group and ruled parts of Ireland up until the mid-16th century when Henry VIII, King of England (and at that time Lord of Ireland), changed long standing policies regarding how Ireland was ruled and undertook to dismantle the various quasi-royal families, including Moses’ ancestors, who had been the authority in Ireland for much of the middle ages. But in 1541 Moses’ ancestors had their holdings in Ireland largely taken away and their power greatly reduced. With no future security in Ireland they sent their children to live in the sympathetic neighboring kingdom of Scotland though the heads of the families mainly stayed in Ireland.

Although Scotland and England today have the same head of state (Queen Elizabeth II), they were completely separate kingdoms in the 16th century. Sending their children to live in Scotland was an intentional effort to keep them outside of Henry’s sphere of influence, and must have sown the seeds of rebellion that eventually led these families to become Jacobites and revolutionaries.

Once in Scotland, Moses’ ancestors intermarried with Scottish families and settled on the eastern coast, just north of the border with England, mainly in an area called Perthshire.

Life in Scotland

Moses in Perth

Thomas & Janet Macarthur, Moses’ parents, had seven children, an average size family for the time. They were married in 1708 by the Church of Scotland, also called ‘the Kirk’, which is presbyterian. Moses was born on May 16, 1717 and baptized in the same church. Mainland Scotland has two major geographic areas, the Highlands and the Lowlands. Both the geography and culture of these two areas vary substantially from each other. Today, the image most Americans have of Scottish culture is drawn from the culture and history of the Highlands. The kilt, the highland warriors, Scottish-themed characters in entertainment, the Highland Games; all drawn from romanticized stories of the Highlands. Most immigrants of Scottish heritage to the southern colonies in 18th century were either Highlanders or Scots-Irish. That’s not this family though. The Macarthur’s were Lowland Scots.

As Lowlanders, the Macarthur’s in Scotland spoke English and dressed like the English, which means the men wore pants rather than the kilt preferred by their Highland countrymen. And the land they lived on was, literally, low, they weren’t mountain dwellers like the Highlanders. Highlanders generally spoke the indigenous language of Scotland, Scots Gaelic.

Spelling. In Scotland, Moses’ family spelled their last name as “Macarthur”. This is the English version of the Gaelic name MacArtair. In Gaelic, “Arthur” is “Artair”. Say that fast with a Scottish accent and you get something that sounds like McCarter. Moses could not read or write. Later in his life when he began to need legal documents created such as when he began to own property, join the militia or when his will was written, a scribe or clerk wrote his name the way he pronounced it. And, they wrote “McCarter”. All the family documents in Scotland wrote the name as “Macarthur”. Together these facts give a pretty accurate idea how they actually pronounced it.

In Moses’ time, it was common for land owning Scottish families to educate only the oldest one or two sons. The oldest would inherit all the family land and therefore would benefit most from an education. The second oldest sometimes would enter a vocation related to the church or local government and receive a more limited education supporting that endeavor. The other children commonly were not taught to read or write.

Moses’ Family

Moses was part of an established, landowning family in Perthshire. Their life was structured by ancient, feudal traditions that had existed in Scotland for centuries. His father was known as Laird Macarthur and received income from the land he owned (partially from tenants who lived on and worked the land.) Moses’ mother came from a family of similar status and background. Janet’s grandfather was an Earl, and there were various other earls and lairds on both sides. Because of this social position, critical factors are set in motion which led to Moses’ emigration.

Historically, leading members of Moses’ extended family had regular access to the Scottish kings and, even two hundred years on, were still annoyed with England for taking their Irish kingdoms away. They didn’t do much about this, beyond possibly brooding about their lost status, until 1714 when the Scottish royal line died out. The kingdoms of Scotland and England had become combined after Elizabeth I died in 1603 with no heir. Her cousin, the Scottish king James Stuart, inherited the English throne and ruled both. This was good for Scotland and things stayed stable. However, in 1714, Queen Anne, the last of the Stuart line, died childless (despite 17 pregnancies) and the crown passed to the first of the German-born kings to rule England and Scotland, George I. This was a no-go for Scotland and led to the formation of a movement to depose George in favor of the Scottish claimant and his son, the so called Bonnie Prince Charlie. Under prevailing English law, the Bonnie Prince was ineligible due to a religious technicality (he was Catholic.) Supporters of this movement were known as ‘Jacobites’, a name derived from the Latin form of James and meaning ‘supporter of James.’ (Bonnie Prince Charlie’s father was called James.) Early on, some prominent Scots, including members of Moses’ family, publicly declared their alignment with the Jacobites at the Scottish court, meaning their declarations were recorded. Therefore, years later, when the Jacobites entered into open rebellion, the fact these families were Jacobites was easy to discover, possibly making it more dangerous for Moses and his brothers to remain in Scotland. There were several uprisings related to the Jacobite movement, the largest being the last in 1745–46. It was common for Scottish families who supported the cause to send sons to fight in some of the battles. Laird Macarthur sent Moses, Alexander and Abraham.

The Jacobites were more driven by their convictions than by any unified military structure or official government backing. There was an attempt to get support from France, but in the end this did not come through. Despite a lack of organization and funding they did surprisingly well for a while, even invading northern England. But, they were not able to maintain their advances and after a significant win in the Battle of Prestonpans, near the Macarthur home, tides started to shift. The Macarthur brothers left Scotland soon after. Just a few months later, the Jacobites saw their final defeat at the Battle of Culloden in 1746. Reprisals against the Jacobites were severe, many were executed. The brothers got out just in time.

Not just an escape

Although their connection with the Jacobites may have driven the timing of their emigration, I think the limitations of life in Scotland and a sense of adventure would have made their emigration inevitable. Scotland, at that time, followed the law of primogeniture, which meant that the eldest son in any family automatically inherited everything. The brothers were the younger members of the family. Considering both the inheritance law and the fact that all of the land in Scotland was already owned by someone, they knew there was no chance for them, or their future children, to do anything more than help their families work land that could never be fully theirs. The colonies were a place where they could build something of their own.

The Middle Ages era law of primogeniture was on the books in Scotland until 1964.

Success in the colonies

Moses in Pennsylvania

The Macarthur brothers emigrated to the Pennsylvania Colony probably through the port of Philadelphia. They made their way to York County and set up new lives for themselves there as farmers. They would have learned basic farming methods on their family land in Perthshire making this an easier transition. Sometime later, Moses married Catren Bates. Catren’s family came from Massachusetts and her mother was an ancestor of Abraham Lincoln. Catren and Moses went on to have eleven children.

Moses moves to South Carolina

In 1764, after almost twenty years in PA, the Macarthur’s picked up and moved south, probably with other migrants, along the Great Wagon Road. The Crown offered incentives to colonists who were willing to settle in South Carolina and the brothers and their families took advantage of this opportunity as a group. Typically, a free, white, adult male could receive a substantial parcel of land by grant if they agreed to live on it, clear a certain percentage each year and put it under cultivation. The land was totally unimproved and they would not have seen it beforehand. It would also have been covered with old growth forest, clearing it was a major undertaking. Adding to the hardships, there was also substantial risk of attack by indigenous tribes in some locations.

Despite the risks, there were major benefits that would help Moses, and his brothers, achieve the goals they had for their families. In Pennsylvania, there was more competition for land and they had to deal with the effects of the relatively shorter growing season of the North East and its impact on the income their farms could generate. After a certain period of time, they could then sell the land, and, possibly receive a new land grant. Moses took advantage of this opportunity at least three times after moving to the Carolinas. Each farm he owned was about 300 acres. He owned two farms in York District and another 300 acre farm in Ninenty-Six District (near present-day Abbeville). He probably sold the first two farms before moving to Abbeville. His brothers followed a similar approach, always living nearby.

Change in spelling

Together, the brothers and their respective families owned quite a bit of South Carolina in the late 1700s. All of these land transactions meant written contracts and it was during this period the Macarthur brothers became the McCarter brothers — -though probably none of them knew it since they couldn’t read to see the difference.

Family was in the Revolution business

It is unknown why Moses moved to Nintey-Six, but it put him and his family very much in the firing line of the Revolutionary War. Ninenty-Six was an important fortified, frontier town that became the starting point of the Revolution in the southern colonies. The town was occupied by British forces and saw significant action throughout the war. The McCarter’s were patriots from the start, which this put them more in the minority in this part of South Carolina.

Along with Moses, his brothers and their sons, several of Moses’ sons fought in the S.C. Militia during the Revolution. John McCarter, the oldest, was a captain (at least one of his younger brothers served under him.) John’s military career spanned the Revolution and continued for some years after, often involving him in scouting parties and other activities against the Cherokee. He also seems to have been the most accomplished of Moses’ children. In addition to earning a commission, he owned his own land from the time the McCarter group moved to South Carolina and was able to read and write. He may have been the only member of his family to have this skill. His handwriting was excellent suggesting it was something he took pride in.

The second son, William, called “Will”, was also in the South Carolina militia during the War for Independence. William served in several engagements over the duration of the war in locations scattered across the Carolinas. Some of the locations read like vacation destinations today; Edisto, New Bern, Congaree, Santee River. At that time though they were locations of significant battles in the southern campaign. The first engagement Will served in during the Revolution was a small skirmish called the Battle of Black Hole in September 1776. It was a reprisal against a group of Cherokee following a recent attack and a significant battle during a war-within-a-war called the Cherokee War. The Cherokee had sided with the British during the Revolution and there were a number of similar battles. Will also served in the last battle fought in the Carolinas, the Battle of Eutaw Springs.

During one of his militia enlistments Will was promoted to captain. He didn’t hang on to his commission papers though and was unable to prove his rank in later militia enlistments. Years later, when applying for a Revolutionary War soldiers pension he stated that he had thrown his commission papers away. (The War Department was able to confirm his service through the official records and the affidavits of fellow militiamen and he was approved for his pension.) I think this tells us something about Will. In those days, a pensioner had to appear in person to apply for and collect pension payments. Will appeared before the pension board multiple times and recounted his lengthy war experience each time, always stating that he threw away his commission papers. Becoming an officer seems to have been his biggest accomplishment and he threw the proof of it in the garbage. His brother, John, served as a captain throughout the war and had no difficulty proving it. I get the feeling Will was the affable brother who liked to have a good time and John was the buttoned-up one who got things done. Whatever the truth was, they spent a lot of time together and both lived long and adventurous lives. Will’s was a bit more tragic though. He was married twice. His first wife, whose name is lost to history, was killed in an attack, most likely by members of the Cherokee tribe, in 1790. The attack possibly occurred in the Crowder’s Creek area of North Carolina. William and his first wife had three children. The youngest, named James like his uncle, grew up to become part of the first group to settle Gatlinburg (aka “White Oak Flats”.) We will meet him a bit later on.

Moses in Revolution

Though the Lowland Scot McCarter brothers were revolutionaries from the beginning, this was not the case for many of the other Scots in the Carolinas. A significant amount of Highland Scots were loyalists. In addition to this, the British military sent Red Coat Highland troops, always famed warriors, from Scotland to the southern colonies to help fight the rebels. This created a Scot against Scot situation that saw Scots, like the McCarters, being sent to weed out loyalists in the area and eventually led to many loyalist Highland Scots deciding to immigrate to Canada after the Revolution.

Militia not Continental Army

By the start of the American Revolution, Moses was in late middle age, had a large family, and was busy running his newest farm. Many colonists in rural areas who supported the rebellion lived under similar circumstances and joining the Continental Army full time was not a practical option. There were many regional militia groups, however, that could be joined on a part-time basis, working around the demands of an active farm. This is the approach Moses and his sons took. Likely, Moses mainly served near his farm in the Ninenty-Six District. He probably helped protect storage facilities and served in scouting parties. At one point in the war, he may also have served near the South Carolina coast, encamped on the land of the ‘Swamp Fox’, Francis Marion. If he did, he would have been stationed with his sons, John, William & James. At that period Moses as well as his sons William and James were all privates, John, a captain. Reading between the lines of the historical record, Moses does not seem like someone who would take direction well, so being junior to his son John, must have been an interesting situation.

Moses was a progressive family man

Knowing he was near death, Moses did something monumental. Something simple and logical but that at the time was a very progressive action. It would have also been radical in his birth country. Moses left his property to his two youngest sons, and Catren in trust.

The inability for he and his brothers to make their own way in Scotland was one of the main reasons they came to the colonies and he made sure all of his children would be established independently, more or less, even after his death. All of his older children had their own land by this point, by purchase, land grant or marriage. But his two youngest children, Robert & Moses, Jr. were teenagers when he died. Leaving them his property ensured they would do the same. This was a notably different approach than his family took in Scotland and he would have known he was doing something significant. Like Scotland, South Carolina also followed the law of primogeniture (until 1791), so if Moses had not left a will his property would have been divided differently. He probably wanted all of children to feel like they had the means to make their own way in America, since he had not had that in Scotland. Further, he made John his executor. I can see him discussing why his wishes were what they were with John, who would have otherwise inherited most of his property.

Moving to Gatlinburg

William’s son James married Rebecca Ogle in 1800 in Edgefield, S.C. Rebecca’s parents had settled in the area some years before, her father, William (Billy), having migrated from Delaware and her mother, Martha Jane Huskey, from North Carolina. Her father seems to have been a restless soul and a bit adventurous. The South Carolina backcountry was not quite wild enough for him and he spent time on hunting and trapping trips with his Cherokee companions. Some of these trips were in what is now called the Great Smoky Mountains. About 1802, Ogle and company entered an area on the western side of the mountain range that he found too perfect to leave behind. He scouted an area here for a new cabin, and with the help of the Cherokee, felled and prepared several logs for a future cabin. This is an idyllic story. It may also be possible that rather than stumbling on one tract of land in a vast mountain range that he just found particularly compelling, he received this specific spot of land as a grant for his service in the Revolution as a private in the Delaware Militia. Either way, he claimed it and started the construction of the first permanent dwelling in what would become Gatlinburg.

He characterized this spot to his family as “paradise.” The area was, however, completely wild and not yet capable of supporting enough agriculture to sustain his family, so he returned to S.C. intending to prepare enough supplies to keep his family going in their new home until they could make the virgin land ready to farm. My guess is that Billy was a character. Not only had he moved several times up and down the Eastern Seaboard and served in the Revolution, but he was able to convince his Cherokee friends to help him build a house and then do such a thorough sales job on his extended family that they were willing to move to an unknown mountain wilderness even after his death, from malaria, soon after his return. From what I can tell, they had a good thing going in S.C. plus they never had to deal with snow. Before moving to their unassembled cabin in the Smokies, Billy’s widow, Martha, and her children including Rebecca and James McCarter and her brother and his family all swung by his parents place in Virginia for a visit. Billy’s ancestors were long time Delaware residents having first arrived in the 17th century when it was known as New Sweden. His parents had migrated to Virginia after the Revolution. As it turns out, though, both Billy’s parents had died about the same time he did. (It is unclear if Martha and her family were aware of this before they arrived.) I suspect they may have considered re-settling there but in the end, circled back around to that spot Billy had prepared in the Smokies. Between Billy’s death and the rest of the Ogle-Huskey-McCarter parties completion of the cabin about four years passed. The now famous Ogle Cabin was first inhabited in 1807, making it the first permanent dwelling for settlers of European descent in the area.

James and Rebecca McCarter set up their own place a bit down the road in the area which came to be called “Cartertown”. This name has puzzled me, but an examination of the evidence helped me put the pieces together. There is of course a common English name Carter. It is the type of surname that grew out of an occupation. A carter was someone who had a cart they used for ‘carting’ things around for people. This name has no relationship to the McCarter name. But, as noted earlier, the name McCarter is just a phonetic spelling of how Macarthur was pronounced in a Scottish dialect. So why isn’t it McCartertown? Rebecca’s father seems to have dropped the “Mc” when he referred to his daughter and her husband. This dropping of the “Mc” isn’t really a thing with Scottish names, they don’t quite make sense without it, but spelling and literacy were not always of high concern to pioneers, so I’m guessing James let it pass. Similar parallel situations were taking place around this time in other areas, Ireland for one. England was starting to organize its administration of Ireland in a more codified way and began recording the names of all residents of Ireland. They did this in a very Anglo-centric way, including changing the spelling of many Irish names to be more similar to existing English ones and often dropping prefixes in Irish names; like the ‘O’ in O’Leary, recording them just as “Leary”. Irish people were stuck with these false names until after Irish independence in the 1920s. So, I think James & Rebecca’s farm was called Cartertown, because his father-in-law dropped the “Mc”. Billy Ogle was not Scottish, he was English and Scandinavian, so perhaps the quirks of Scottish names didn’t seem important to him. (Double-consonants are hard, I get it.)

James was also a militiaman. After establishing Cartertown, he volunteered for the East Tennessee Militia during the War of 1812 and participated in the Creek Indian War under the command of Andrew Jackson. He may also have served in the Virginia Militia. He died of unknown causes in 1815, shortly after the birth of his youngest child. His wife remarried but continued to live in Cartertown. Other members of James’ family also migrated to Tennessee roughly around the time he did though not all to the Gatlinburg area and not everyone stayed. As far as James’ line goes though, the migration stopped with him and stayed more or less in the same place until my sister and I moved to the coasts about two hundred years later. Historically, this is the McCarter pattern; every two hundred years or so, they pick up and change countries, so I think we were genetically pre-disposed to relocate.

Throughout the story of the Macarthur brothers and their children, one thing that sticks out more than anything else is how they did everything together. Rebellion, emigration, migration; they always did it together even once their extended families grew to include dozens of people. It would have been easy to loose each other in the New World if they had wanted but they stayed close their whole lives.

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Bryan McCarter grew up in East Tennessee, his parent’s families both (very) long standing Sevier County residents. He lived most of his adult life in New York City, but recently moved back south with his family. Bryan works in marketing but has a passion for history, particularly when it connects to his own southern roots.