Margaret Cochran Corbin - First female Revolutionary War heroine.

Margaret Cochran Corbin (Captain Molly) 1751 - 1800

Margaret Corbin was the first woman to fight in the American Revolutionary War. On November 16, 1776 she and her husband, John Corbin, both from Philadelphia, along with some 600 American soldiers, were defending Fort Washington in northern Manhattan from 4,000 attacking Hessian troops under British command. John and Margaret crewed one of two cannons the defenders possessed. After her husband was killed, Margaret took over firing his cannon until she was seriously wounded. Three years later, she became the first woman in the United States to receive a pension from Congress.

In 1751, Margaret Corbin was not born into a life of luxury and ease, but into a hardy Scotch-Irish (Ulster-Scots) family on the frontier in what was then, Cumberland County. In June of 1756, during the 'French & Indian War' her father Robert Cochran was killed and scalped during the 'Ft. Bigham Massacre' in the Tuscarora Valley, while her mother and her brother, were also taken captive by the Indians during the same attack and never returned. Orphaned at five years old, Margaret and another brother, John, were raised by a maternal uncle. 

Fort Bigham was located between forts Granville & Patterson

Margaret grew up to be strong and tall, she was five feet, eight inches in height. She met a Virginian farmer named John Corbin, and in 1772 they got married. They lived in Franklin County.

 Four years later, during the outbreak of the Revolutionary War John Corbin joined a unit in the army; the Pennsylvania Artillery, Continental Line. Margaret went too. She became a camp follower. Camp followers were women, men, and children who followed after a group of soldiers. They helped by carrying bundles, cooking for the soldiers, mending and washing their clothes, and caring for the sick and wounded. When there was a battle most camp followers stayed in the camp. Margaret went to the battlefield to help her husband.  

Fort Washington, New York

On November 16, 1776 John’s division was stationed at Fort Washington, New York. This was an important fort on Manhattan Island. John was stationed at a pair of cannons on Forest Hill. The fort was attacked by Hessian troops (German auxiliaries) under British command. When John Corbin was hit and killed, Margaret took his place at the cannon, she continued loading and firing the cannon by herself until finally she was severely wounded by grapeshot which tore apart her shoulder, mangled her chest and lacerated her jaw. The fort was eventually captured by the British, the wounded American soldiers were later paroled.

Margaret Corbin gravely wounded at the Battle of Washington Fort

'Captain Molly', as she became known, never fully recovered from her wounds. She was left disfigured and without use of her left arm for the rest of her life.  In 1779, the Continental Congress granted her a pension ("half the pay and allowances of a soldier in service") due to her distinguished bravery. She continued to be included on regimental muster lists until the end of the war in 1783. Margaret Cochran Corbin died near West Point, New York prior to her 50th birthday. 

Margaret's burial & memorial site at West Point

In 1926, the Daughters of the American Revolution had her remains moved from an obscure grave and re-interred with full military honours at West Point military academy where they also erected a monument to her. She was the only Revolutionary War veteran honored in this way.  Near the place of the battle, in Fort Tryon Park in New York City, a bronze plaque commemorates Margaret Corbin "the first American woman to take a soldier's part in the War for Liberty". 

The Scots-Irish & the American Declaration of Independence.

“Signed by Order, and on behalf of the Congress JOHN HANCOCK, PRESIDENT Attest. Charles Thompson, Secretary."

That phrase (above) at the end of the Declaration of Independence should serve as a reminder to all of the debt owed to the Scots-Irish who played such vital parts towards the setting up of their Free and Independent States. 

These were to be the only two signatures on that historical document for many days; that of the President of Congress, John Hancock whose ancestors came from County Down in Northern Ireland, and that of Charles Thompson, born in Co. Londonderry, Northern Ireland, who's penmanship drafted the original document.

The first printed copies of the declaration were known as the Dunlap Broadsides. Dunlap was born in Co. Tyrone, Northern Ireland. It was first read in public by the son of an Ulster Scot, Colonel John Nixon.

The historic Declaration contained sentiments closely identified with the aspirations of the Presbyterian immigrant stock from the north of Ireland who settled in the American colonies during the 18th century. A significant assertion was: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator, with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”.

Apart from JOHN HANCOCK & CHARLES THOMPSON, at least five other signatories were Scots-Irish... 

THOMAS McKEAN, leading Delaware signatory of the Declaration, was the son of William McKean, an Ulster emigrant from North Antrim who came to Pennsylvania via Londonderry as a child and later married Letitia Finney, whose family had also emigrated from Ulster.

GEORGE TAYLOR, a signatory for Pennsylvania, emigrated from Co Antrim as a 20-year-old in the 1720s and he settled in the Scots-Irish dominated Chester county.

JAMES SMITH, another Declaration signatory from Pennsylvania, emigrated from the north of Ireland as a 10-year-old at about 1719 and, like George Taylor, he also settled with his Presbyterian family in Chester county.

MATTHEW THORNTON, signatory from New Hampshire, landed on American soil as a four-year-old in the passage of five ships carrying 120 Presbyterian families from the Bann Valley (Coleraine-Ballymoney-Aghadowey-Macosquin).

EDWARD RUTLEDGE, whose father Dr John Rutledge left Co Tyrone in the north of Ireland in 1735, was and a signatory of the Declaration from South Carolina.

Other Declaration signers - WILLIAM WHIPPLE, ROBERT PAINE and THOMAS NELSON - are also believed to have some Ulster links.

Flag of Mecklenburg County, N.C.

A forerunner to the American Declaration of Independence was the Mecklenburg Declaration, signed at Charlotte in North Carolina on May 20, 1775 by 27 leading citizens in the region, 18 of whom were of Ulster-Scots Presbyterian origin.This Carolina backcountry document fearlessly staked the claim for American independence, with the signatories declaring themselves a free and independent people. Similar patriotic sentiments were expressed at the time by Scots-Irish settlers at Abingdon, Virginia, at Pine Creek in western Pennsylvania and at Hanna’s Town in south-western Pennsylvania.

Famous quotes regarding the Scots-Irish and the American war of Independence...

W. McKinley - Scots-Irish were first to proclaim for freedom in United States

T. Roosevelt - It's doubtful if we wholly realise the part played by the Scots-Irish.

T. Roosevelt - The most ardent Americans of all were the Presbyterian Scots-Irish.

Hessian Commander - This war is nothing more or less than a Scots-Irish rebellion.

Indentured Servitude in colonial America.

A great many Ulster-Scots (Scotch-Irish) went to America during the colonial period as Indentured Servants. This was in lieu of payment of passage which could sometimes be the equivalent of three years earnings for a farm labourer. It's estimated almost half of European emigrants to America in the colonial period were indentured. These contracts lasted on average three to seven years in which the unpaid servant (or rather his labour) was owned by whomever buys it on arrival at port. 

The ancient connection between Scotland, Ulster & Appalachia.

"Scotland and Northern Ireland have many ancient bonds that have endured throughout the aeons of both recorded history and back into the dark shadows of the misty primaeval. The oldest and least known is that they are closely related geologically, both being made up of tertiary basalt, a type of black igneous rock, and carboniferous limestone, a sedimentary rock with marine origins. 

Moreover, Ulster, Ireland's northern-most province, and western Scotland are actually part of the same prehistoric mountain chain, a chain that is millions of years old and that once included the Appalachian Mountains of North America. This geologic connection is quite ironic when one considers that the same stock of people came to live in all three locales in the historic era: the Scots in Scotland, the Ulster Scots in Ulster, and the Scots-Irish, as they came to be known, in America."

E. Estyn Evans, The Personality of Ireland.


UPDATE: There is now an International Appalachian Trail for walkers that stretches across eastern USA, Canada, Ulster, Scotland & western Europe. See the website for the Ulster stretch here... www.walkni.com/iat/

President Obama talks about Ulster's contribution to America.

US President Barrack Obama (himself, partly of Irish Protestant ancestry) talks about the men and women of Ulster who emigrated to America and helped found the United States...

 

'God's Frontiersmen - The Scots-Irish Epic'

In 1988 Channel 4 (UK) in co-operation with Ulster Television produced a four episode mini-series and accompanying book entitled 'God's Frontiersmen - The Scots-Irish Epic' by Rory Fitzpatrick.  The TV production was part drama, part documentary exploring the Ulster-Scot journey from Scotland to Ulster and then for many, onto America. The series containing around 3.5 hours of video was released on VHS in 1989 and possibly on DVD a little later. Both the book and the video are worth trying to track down for anyone interested in Scots-Irish / Ulster-Scot history.

the hardback book

Presented below are a series of clips from TV series plotting part of that journey.... Thanks to YouTube user BickyBox for uploading these clips!


Clip 1
The introduction to 'God's Frontiersmen'. This opening clip looks at an infamous section of the Anglo-Scots border communities who comprised part of the plantation settlers in Ulster; The riding families or Border Reivers.

Playlist of over 70 videos relating to Scots-Irish / Ulster-Scots on YouTube...

watch videos above or click below...

Forged in Ulster video playlist.... click here.

Forged In Ulster's YouTube playlist of over 70 videos relating to Scots-Irish / Ulster-Scots on . History, music & culture from Ulster, America & beyond.

Free eBook... DONALD MCELROY SCOTCH IRISHMAN

Free E-Book: Donald McElroy Scotch Irishman, a novel by W.W.Caldwell, 1918

A short excerpt from this novel by Willie Walker Cadwell...

CHAPTER I

The life story of most men, who have lived earnest and active lives, would doubtless be worth the hearing, if the various influences and the many vicissitudes which compose it could be separated and skillfully rearranged into some well wrought design. As I look back upon my own life, it seems to me full of interest and instruction, yet I suppose not more so than that of many another; wherefore, were personal experiences and conclusions the sum of it, I should hesitate to write them down, lest those events and struggles which to me have seemed notable and significant, should prove in the telling of them to have been but commonplace incidents to which all are liable. Because of the accident of my birth in the year 1754, however, I have lived through a period which will be ever memorable in the history of the world—a period so crowded with worthy deeds and great men, especially on this continent, that there is small danger its interest will be soon exhausted. Do not conclude that I intend to venture upon a tale of the American Revolution; only a master's hand can fill in with due skill and proportion so wide a canvas, and that story waits. Where my own life's story has been entangled with some of the events of that struggle I must touch upon them, and the real purpose of my narrative—which is to chronicle for future generations the noble part played in the great drama of the nation's making by a certain worthy people—will require me to review briefly a few of the battles and campaigns of our war against autocracy.

The Scotch-Irish - A poem from 1890

A poem by Mrs. Kate Brownlee Sherwood, of Canton, O.  First published in The Scotch Irish In America 1891.

The Scotch-Irish

From Scot and Celt and Pict and Dane, 
And Norman, Jute, and Frisian,
Our brave Scotch-Irish come; 
With tongues of silver, hearts of gold, 
And hands to smite when wrongs are bold,
At call of pipe or drum.

"We're nothing like THOSE Kennedys!" - Book review of 'The Other Irish'

From the Huffington Post...

Book review of 'The Other Irish' by Karen McCarthey.
by: Court Stroud

Click to buy at Amazon

"We're nothing like those Kennedys. They're Catholic!" my petite, schoolmarm grandmother chided through pursed lips. Her terse reply startled me since Kennedy was her maiden name. I never mentioned the matter again, but often wondered why my query upset her so much.

Stephen Colbert: The Scots-Irish are not Irish!

In an interview with author Nell Irving Painter, Comedy Central's Stephen Colbert puts his opinion across albeit with tongue planted firmly in cheek:

“Scots-Irish are not Irish. There’s no Irish blood in Scots-Irish people.  They are Scots Presbyterians who were given land in Ireland. They took our land, and drove my people across the River Shannon, where we were forced to farm rocks by Oliver Cromwell, and I will see him rot in hell before you call Scots-Irish people Irish!”

Stephen Tyrone Colbert is of Irish Catholic heritage. He grew up in South Carolina, his wife is of Scots-Irish heritage. He once quipped; "I am in a mixed-race marriage. I’m Irish, and my wife is Scots-Irish. Somehow we make it work.”

So was Stephen's tongue in cheek statment correct?... I guess it all depends on your point of view. Certainly the early Scots-Irish families that settled in colonial America had only lived in Ireland for a couple of generations before moving on, and still today in Northern Ireland many Ulster-Scots don't regard themselves as Irish.... But, Scots have been migrating to-and-fro between Ulster and south western Scotland for thousands of years. In fact the first human settlers in Ulster were from the land now known as Scotland so these people of northern Britain were indigenous to Ulster. The inhabitants of both lands shared the same ancestors. The Y-DNA gene pattern called M222, the so called 'Niall of the Nine Hostages' marker is most common in Northern Ireland and Lowland Scotland. It can be found in many Ulster-Scots and is proof of the close genetic similarities of the people of  Ulster and the Lowlands of Scotland.

Many of the early Scots-Irish / Ulster-Scots settlers in America did indeed regard themselves as Irish. Having been born in Ireland their nationality was certainly Irish even though they were ethnically & culturally Scottish. These Scots-Irish even created the tradition of St. Patrick's day parades in America. This was in a time before the emergence of Irish Nationalism deemed  that one had to be a Catholic and a Gael to be considered Irish.

So were the Scots-Irish actually Irish? Well, what do you mean by Irish? Are you talking nationality? ethnicity? culture? citizenship? In my opinion it's all down to interpretation. Of the many ethnic groups, tribes or cultures which have existed on the island of Ireland over the millennia, not one has exclusivity on the term 'Irish'.

The Scots-Irish origins of St. Patrick's day parades in America.

the first Irish society in America was formed by Ulster  Presbyterians

It is usually assumed that Irish Catholics were the first to bring the traditions of St. Patrick's day to America and were the first to hold parades on that day to celebrate their Irishness. That assumption is wrong... 

In 1737 the Charitable Irish Society was formed in Boston by Scots-Irish Ulster Presbyterian colonists. The Society was set up with the purpose to assist newly arriving fellow immigrants from Ireland in the traumatic process of settling in a strange new country.  In March 17th of that year they decided to mark St. Patrick's day with a dinner at a local tavern followed by a modest parade through the streets. This was to be the first St. Patrick's Day parade in America, and most likely the world (Ireland didn't commemorate Patrick with parades until the 1930's). The Charitable Irish Society is the oldest Irish organisation in America and it is still in existence. It was exclusively Presbyterian until 1804 when the society became non-denominational. Today, understandably, it's membership is mostly made up of Catholics. 

greeting card  featuring the St. Patrick's flag of Ireland.

It is often wrongly cited that the first St. Patrick's Day parade was held in New York but the first records of celebrations for the Irish apostle in that city come from 1762 (25 years after the Boston event). An Irish Protestant called John Marshall invited Friends to his house at Mount Pleasant for a party to celebrate the day. His guests marched as a body to the party thus forming the first unofficial "parade". 

In 1766, the first proper St. Paddy's day parade in New York was held when soldiers from the British Army's Irish regiments met at the Crown & Thistle tavern in Manhattan, drank a toast to King George III and then paraded through New York with the "playing of fifes and drums, which produced a very agreeable harmony." before heading back to the pub for more drinks.  These were Irish Protestant soldiers, as Catholics were forbidden from joining the army until 1778. Today, Irish regiments in the British Army still mark St. Patrick's day with a parade. 

British colonial troops in NYC

 Also in 1766 the New York Gazette reported on a notable March 17th celebration at the house of a gentleman by the name of Mr. Bardin. Among the toasts raised on the evening were; "The prosperity of Ireland!", "Success to the Sons Of Liberty in America!" and "The glorious memory of King William of Orange!". 

On 17th March 1780,  in honour of his large contingent of Irish soldiers, General George Washington issued a General Order to give his troops the day off for St. Patrick's day. Over one third of the Continental Army were of Irish descent or Irish born, the vast majority of whom were Scotch-Irish Presbyterians. Soldiers from within these ranks had formed a society called The Friendly Sons of St. Patrick in 1771 of which George Washington was an honorary member. The original society was largely Scots-Irish in membership with some Anglo-Irish Episcopalians and three Irish Catholics, one of whom they elected as their first president; General Stephen Moylan. The Friendly Sons held the first St. Paddy's celebrations in Philadelphia in 1771 where the organisation had been formed. They also organised the official St. Patrick's day parades in New York city from 1784 into the 1800's.

The Friendly Son's membership was originally mostly Scots-Irish (Ulster-Scots)

On March 17, 1812, in Savannah Georgia, thirteen men founded the Hibernian Society, dedicated to aiding  largely Catholic destitute Irish immigrants. A few months later, the group, now up to 44 members, adopted a constitution and the motto, "non sibi sed alis" (not for ourselves, but for others). Not one charter member was a Catholic. One year later, on March 17, 1813 the group held the city's first St Paddy's day parade. They marched in procession to a Presbyterian church. 


It's a similar story with Canada's oldest parade; Montreal’s St. Patrick’s Day parade was first held in 1824.  Soon after, the St. Patrick's Society was born in the city, it's membership was overwhelmingly Protestant. In 1856, many of the members left and formed the Irish Protestant Benevolent Society.  However, the first recorded celebration of St Patrick's Day in Canada was in 1759, again by Irish Protestant soldiers serving with the British army, this was  following their conquest of part of New France, a French colony in North America.

The Canadian Irish Protestant Benevolent Society

From the mid 1800's, as Catholic immigrants from Ireland started to outnumber their Protestant counterparts the parades started being organised and controlled by the exclusively Catholic Ancient Order of Hibernians, which was formed in New York in 1836. The parades became less secular and took on a Catholic, Nationalist political outlook. Non-denominational societies such as The Friendly Sons, The Charitable Irish & the Hibernian Society became more Catholic & Gaelic, moving away from their Protestant origins. Thanks though, to it's Irish Protestant beginnings in America, St. Patrick's Day celebrations remained less serious than in Ireland, where it was considered a day of holy obligation. In fact, until the 1970s the bars in Dublin were closed on March 17.

St. Patrick stained glass window in Armagh's Protestant cathedral.

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Another common misconception today is that Irish-Americans are predominately Catholic. This is an easy assumption to make as in the last 160 years the overwhelming majority of  Irish immigrants to the USA have indeed been Catholic... But in fact more than half of the 40 million Americans who claim Irish heritage are Protestant in faith. One of the main factors for this is that  in the colonial period 30 percent of all immigrants from Europe arriving between 1700 and 1820 came from Ireland and the great majority of those were Presbyterians from Ulster. 

To give perspective on this; in 1790, when Fr. John Carroll was ordained as the first Roman Catholic bishop of the USA, there were approx 30,000 practising Catholics (around 1% of the population) and 22 priests in the new United States. This number represented Catholics of all nationalities (English, Irish, Dutch, German etc.). At the same time there were around 200 practising Presbyterian ministers from Ulster alone and an estimated 250,000 Scots-Irish.

Although they didn't come in numbers as huge as the later Catholic wave of immigration the  descendants of these early Scots-Irish arrivals have been multiplying ever since. A study in the 1970's showed that  83% of Irish-American Protestants have been in America for four generations or more compared to only  41% of Irish-American Catholics. 

Patrick, apostle of Ulster

There seems to be a growing trend in America for people of Irish Protestant heritage to wear orange on St. Patrick's day in recognition of their faith & heritage. In the video clip below from The Simpsons, the Orange & the Green fight it out on St. Paddy's Day!

Saint Patrick's story is essentially an Ulster story. According to the legends it was Ulster where he was enslaved as a boy, that is where he returned to as a man. It's where he built his first church, it's where he evangelized and it is where he lived & died. Today, St. Patrick's grave stone can be viewed in the grounds of Down Anglican Cathedral in Downpatrick, Ulster... not far from where he built his first house of Christian worship in Saul, Co. Down.

St. Patrick mural in an Ulster-Scots district of Belfast.