James N. Irvine: My Immigrant Ancestor

by Donald D. Erwin

James N. Irvinewas born December 2, 1709 in Aberdeen, Scotland, probably at Drum Castle, and died February 27, 1770 on the Second Broad Creek near Salisbury, Rowan County, North Carolina. He married Agness Patterson about 1738 in Ulster, Northern Ireland. She was born about 1717 in Ulster and died in 1800 in Rowan County, North Carolina.

Irvine family records and traditions seem to indicate that most members of the early generations tended to remain in the general area of the town of Aberdeen, or in Aberdeenshire (Aberdeen County) in Scotland. It was not until the first half of the eighteenth century that adventure and opportunity in the Colonies began to tempt younger members of the family. It was also true that the time was long past when family wealth could support all members of the extended Irvine families. One can only suppose that it was in this type of atmosphere when our immigrant ancestor decided to make a new life for himself and his family in the New World.

It was about 1737, as religious and political tensions continued to mount in Scotland that would soon fester and explode in the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, that Alexander of Artamford and Crimond – who had recently inherited Drum Castle and had become the 16^th Laird – sent James N. Irvine, one of his sons, to Ulster in Northern Ireland. James had been in some difficulty as a political activist, and he was directed to stay with the Edward Irvine family until his reputation waned somewhat in Aberdeenshire.

Oliver Cromwell died in 1658, but during his protectorate the economy of Scotland had collapsed. Even though they could now practice Presbyterianism without fear, many thousands of Lowland Scots families, including several Irvine families from around Aberdeen, moved to Ulster. They all tended to maintain their names, customs and religious faith, as well as their Scots identity. Some prospered initially, but the English systematically repressed Irish industry and commerce, and when their hopes and dreams of prosperity failed to materialize they looked to the New World for a new start. Starting about 1729, and for the next fifty years or so, great shiploads of families, Irish as well as Scots-Irish, poured out of Belfast and Londonderry.

It was in this economic atmosphere, while staying with the Edward Irvine family, that James met Agness Patterson, a young Scots-Irish beauty who immediately turned his head. Their relationship blossomed, and when James learned of Agness’ father’s intention to emigrate to the Colonies he knew he would have to act quickly. James sent a message to his father, requesting permission to marry. Alexander immediately returned a dispatch indicating that he opposed the marriage, pointing out his responsibility as the head of the family to negotiate the best marriage terms and arrangements. He further demanded that James return to Aberdeen at once.

Despite his father’s adamant disapproval, however, James and Agness were soon married. They had decided that they would join Agness’ family, the Edward Irvine family, and others, and travel with them to America. Alexander was furious at his son’s defiance, but he nonetheless soon relented and allowed James and his now pregnant wife into the Drum family enclave in Aberdeenshire. After the birth of Joseph, their first child, in 1738, the young family traveled back to the home of Agness’ parents in Northern Ireland to prepare for their impending departure.

James’ father objected to the marriage, but tradition has it that his anger was compounded when he learned that James planned to abdicate his Drum estate responsibilities and emigrate to the Colonies. James was the sixth of nine children, but was the second of three sons. Normally he would not have been in line to inherit any of the lands or titles of his father, but Thomas, the oldest son, died at three years of age. Thus, under normal conditions, he would have been the one chosen to take on the responsibilities of the estate at some point. He was not, however, listed as the heir apparent of Drum, and subsequent Drum documents seem to insinuate that he was dead. It is probable that James and his father had a huge falling out as a result of his plans, and that he was disinherited. In that era, in England and Scotland—if the anger of the parent was severe enough—being disinherited was the same as being declared dead. On the other hand, James was obviously not penniless, for he was able to book passage to Pennsylvania for himself and his family, as well as purchase land when they arrived there. The old Laird may have softened up enough to give James sufficient cash to get started in the New World, but with the admonishment, “Don’t come back!” James’ named his second child Alexander—undoubtedly in honor of his father—so perhaps he was not angry with his father in return.

It was probably in late 1739 or early 1740, after sixty to seventy days at sea, that James N. Irvine—with wife Agness and infant son Joseph—arrived in William Penn’s colony with the Pattersons and his Irvine relatives. The trip across the Atlantic in a sailing ship, prior to the clipper-ship era—was a miserable experience. Gottlieb Mittelberger, who arrived in Philadelphia in 1750, described his voyage: “…bad drinking water and putrid salted meat, excessive heat and crowding, lice so thick that they could be scraped off the body, seas so rough that hatches were battened down and everyone vomited in the foul air, passengers dying of dysentery, scurvy, typhus, canker and mouth-rot.” Tradition has it, however, that the Patterson and Irvine families arrived in Philadelphia intact. They had apparently survived the scurvy and various diseases that were so common aboard the ships of the era, perhaps by luck, but more likely because they were able to afford better accommodations than the average emigrant.

 

William Penn (1644-1718) was the son of Admiral Sir William Penn, a British sea-fighter of distinction. Young Penn went to Oxford, and while there he met a Society of Friends minister who converted him. It is thought that his conversion occurred about 1662 when he was eighteen years old. One can easily imagine William arriving home and telling his father that he had become a Quaker, and that Quakers would not fight at all, no matter what the provocation. Sir William gave his son a good beating and kicked him out of the house. He soon relented, however, and sent his son to Paris where – he thought – the nightlife would get his mind off religion. This course of action was not successful though, for young William remained firm in his Quaker beliefs.

The Colony of Pennsylvania was established in 1682. It came about as a result of a small fortune that William Penn received when his father, Admiral Sir William Penn, passed on. The old admiral had been a close friend of Charles II, King of England, and part of William’s inheritance was a £16,000 debt that Charles II owed his father. When William sought to collect a deal was made to offset the debt with a huge grant of land south of the Duke of York’s Delaware colony. In March 1681 William received the proprietary province that bears his name, as well as a charter from Charles II guaranteeing his perpetual possession of it. Unfortunately, however, the new province of Pennsylvania did not have a coastline, so in 1682 Penn went to England and convinced Charles to carve Delaware out of Maryland and give it to him as well.

Pennsylvania, which Penn liked to call the “Holy Experiment,” attracted many settlers, and during the next few years the colony was successful, but it was not growing fast enough for Penn. So, beginning in 1717, he began inviting other Europeans to come to his colony and enjoy religious freedom. Penn wrote and published an article in English, French, Dutch and German describing the colony he proposed to build. He invited honest, hardworking settlers to come, promising them religious freedom, representative government, and cheap land. Settlers poured in—Quakers from England, Wales and Ireland; Scots-Irish Presbyterians, Swiss and German Protestants; Catholics and Jews from many countries of Europe. Scots-Irish pioneers were some of the first to answer his call, and many thousands flowed into his colony in the next fifty years or so. Africans were also brought to the Pennsylvania colony, and in 1700 slavery was recognized in Pennsylvania, but the black population was never large.

Penn kept his promises to the settlers. As for the Indians, chiefly the Delaware-Lenape, Penn treated then fairly and paid them for their land. Penn was a hands-on administrator, and when it was necessary to return to England to face some legal difficulties, discord developed in the colony. During his later years, and after his death in 1718, Penn’s wife Hannah was instrumental in keeping the colony intact and its citizens satisfied and contented.

Penn personally laid out the town of Philadelphia in 1682. The area he selected was no wilderness though. Several hundred Swedes and Finns, survivors of the short-lived colony of New Sweden, were already there. And, as a result of the food that they produced, Philadelphia had no early pioneering hardships. By 1700—as a result of the diverse demography produced by William Penn’s early advertising—Philadelphia had become very cosmopolitan and had replaced New York as the cultural center of the colonies.

In all, William Penn spent less than four years in the colonies. Yet his colony continued to grow and prosper after his death. In fact by the 1740s and 1750s the Middle Colonies—Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey and New York—were all very prosperous, and Philadelphia, located on the Delaware River, was the largest and busiest seaport in America.

 

From the start most of the people in Penn’s colony made their living by farming, but—unlike the pioneers in New England—they did not settle in small farming villages. As a result of the generally peaceful nature of the local Indians—except on the western frontier—newcomers tended to build their farm homes on their farms. It was the above described scenario that the Pattersons and Irvines found when their ship tied up in Philadelphia. It was a tremendous relief for the weary travelers to finally get their feet on land again. Philadelphia was a bustling city, with longshoremen unloading and loading the tall ships, and merchants hawking their wares in the crisp autumn air. It must have been an exciting scene for them, and a big contrast to the drollness and poverty of the Old World. After the long sea-voyage the Pattersons and the Irvines families were eager to begin settling in. Winter was just around the corner and there was much to do. Although William Penn had died some twenty years before, and the initial cheap land had become somewhat more expensive, the new pioneers were able to purchase tracts of undeveloped land near the growing Scots-Irish settlement in Chester County.

Even though it is likely that James had no first-hand knowledge of farming it is probable that his Irvine relatives and in-laws helped in the beginning. Even so, farming in colonial Pennsylvania would have been bone-numbing hard work. The first task—assuming that he purchased raw land—was to clear it. Of course he would have cut down a few trees for his log house, but he would ultimately need at least twenty or so acres to raise enough vegetables, corn, and other grains for his family and his animals. As time passed he would have cleared more land in order to raise corn and other grains to sell. He may have started out with just one horse or mule, but a serious farmer would have had at least one team of horses or oxen.

Visualize, if you can, how much labor it would take to remove just one tree that was perhaps eight inches in diameter. First he would have had to cut down the tree, then (assuming he had that team of horses or oxen) drag it away with his work animals. The next step would be to dig a big hole around the stump, cut off the roots with his pre-double-bitted-ax, drag the stump away, and then fill in the hole. All of this—without a bull dozer, dynamite or a chainsaw—would take a couple of days at least…for just one tree. The bottom line was that most of the early settlers did not remove the stumps, and some even followed the lead of the natives and girdled the trees at the base (cut through the bark all around the tree), then built a fire around the tree to hasten it’s death. After the tree died, sunlight could then reach the ground.

After he had a small plot cleared he would have had to prepare the soil for planting. The modern steel plow had not been invented yet, so he would have used a plow with a wooden mould board and an iron point, very inefficient by today’s standards. His harrow would probably have been made of wood also, with hard wood points to break up the dirt clods, but hoes and wooden hand rakes may have been used as well. The frontier farmer used a hand-scythe to cut his wheat and oats, then he had to place the grains on hard-packed earth and beat them with a bundle of twigs or similar item in order to separate the grain from the chaff—no threshing machines for almost another hundred years.

Few white colonists became full-time hunters, but most had a weapon of some sort, and supplemented their bland mush and porridge diets with venison and wild turkey. The famous Kentucky rifle had its beginning in Pennsylvania in the early 1700s. German settlers began lengthening and lightening the short-barreled Bavarian hunting rifle into the sleek and deadly favorite of future Daniel Boones. It weighed less than ten pounds, and took less lead and powder. Early settlers often treated the cattle and hogs brought from the Old Country almost like game. Turned loose to fend for themselves—except the family milk cow of course—the animals often grew as wild as the deer they supplanted. Hogs especially multiplied rapidly, feeding on acorns. Often it was necessary to “hunt” ones own livestock.

After a time James leased an existing mill and began to earn a modest income from it, in addition to the cash received from his farm surplus. It is not known what type of mill he operated, but it would have been on the bank of a fast-flowing stream or river. It would have been powered by a water wheel, probably an undershot type. Through gears, the revolving shaft of the water wheel drove a vertical spindle that in turn turned the top stone of a pair of stones in the mill above. James’ mill would have ground corn for corn meal—the basic ingredient for mush, a common staple on the frontier—and wheat for flour. By changing the mill stones oats could have been rolled also, both for animal feed and for oat bread and breakfast porridge. He would have processed his own grains, but his cash income would have been generated by custom milling for others.

We know little else about the first ten years or so that James and his family lived in Chester County, but we can only assume that he prospered. By 1750 Philadelphia’s population had increased to 25,000, New York had a total of 15,000 residents, and the new port of Baltimore had nearly 7,000 inhabitants.

James Irvine and Agness Patterson had a total of eleven children. They were:

1. Joseph Erwin, b. 1738in Aberdeen, Scotland
2. Alexander Erwin, b. about 1740, Chester Co., PA; died Burke Co., NC; married Margaret Patton, January 21, 1786, Salisbury, Rowan Co., NC
3. Elizabeth Erwin, b. about 1742, Chester Co., PA; died Burke Co., NC; married William Dobbins, September 8, 1768, Rowan Co., NC. He was born about 1738 in Chester Co., PA.
4. William Erwin, b. about 1743 in Chester Co., PA; died September 22, 1815, Salisbury, Rowan Co., NC.
5. James N. Erwin, Jr., b. 1746, Chester Co., PA; died September 1794, Sandy Creek, Natchez, Adams Co., MS.
6. Agnes “Nancy” Erwin, b. about 1747, Chester Co., PA; Salisbury, Rowan Co., NC.
7. Isaac Erwin, b. about 1750, Chester Co., PA; died 1810, Copiah, Wesson Co., MS; married Margaret Robinson, 1773, North Carolina.
8. John Erwin, b. 1752, Salisbury, Rowan Co., NC; died 1840 in Giles Co., NC.
9. Jane Erwin, b. 1753, Salisbury, Rowan Co., NC; died in North Carolina; married Richard Graham, October 20, 1779, Rowan Co., NC.
10. Mary Erwin, b. 1758, Salisbury, Rowan Co., NC; died in North Carolina.
11. Isabel Erwin, b. 1759, Salisbury, Rowan Co., NC; died February 25, 1823, Sandersonville, Washington Co., GA; married John Johnston, December 11, 17

Joseph, the first child, had been born in Scotland, but the next six children – Alexander, Elizabeth, William, James, Jr., Isabelle and Isaac – were born in Pennsylvania; Alexander about 1740 and Isaac about 1750.