Robert Stewart, Jr.

Robert was still in Ireland until at least 1755 according to the will of his brother James who died in 1756. He married Helen Gale?

AMERICA: Scottish Covenanters began to migrate to America beginning in the year 1717, when preacher William Tennant, founder of Log College, the first Presbyterian seminary in North America, brought his family to the Philadelphia area.

In North America, Scottish Covenanters became known as members of the Reformed Presbyterian Church. They were among the most vocal agitators for independence from Great Britain and volunteered in large numbers as soldiers in the revolutionary armies. The Covenanters were opposed to slavery, and in 1800 the Reformed Church voted to outlaw slave-holding among its members.

PENNSYLVANIA - William Penn was an English Quaker born in London in 1644. After the death of his wealthy father he was given a grant of land as payment for a debt owed to his father. This land included all of Drumore Township which originally included the areas which now make up East Drumore, Colerain, Little Britain and Fulton Townships. Drumore Township was confirmed by the magistrates' court in 1729. The divisions were made from 1738 through 1883.

With the Reformation was launched by Martin Luther and King Henry VIII people began to exercise freedom of conscience and contemplate for themselves what a true religion would be. The problem with this is that a myriad of diverse variants of religion popped up and war and power was transferred back and forth like a hot potato. Diversity of religion brought confusion and warfare for centuries including an English Civil War until all religions were banned except the Church of England.

At one point in this wild seesaw of social upheaval, up-turned law and monarchy due to the great diversity of religions, the Quaker sect was invented, and of course, were necessarily discouraged by the crown because each new religion brought new conflicts.

In 1680 William Penn Jr. a wealthy Quaker, petitioned Charles II for a tract of land in the new Americas. Charles II owed the Penn family a considerable amount of money, so, in 1681, to erase his debt, he gave William Penn the largest tract of land in the colonies between New York and Maryland with a plan to help end war in England by having the various competing religions move to the Americas in the hope of bringing peace to England.

Penn left England with a group of Quakers to colonise the land which he named Pennsylvania. Penn established a policy of religious tolerance when he permitted non-Quakers to buy Pennsylvania land. This rural area soon also became home of the Pennsylvania Dutch, German Mennonites, and Amish among others. The diversity worked as long as they were all Christian and most importantly, each sect maintained relatively separate communities with their own variations in laws, language, customs, and geography to prevent conflict, as none of these groups could share the same laws. Indians and French maintained their own turf as well. Separation of communities was the key.

Lancaster County is located on the south boundary of Pennsylvania where is borders Maryland. The nearest cities to it are Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington and New York. The area stretches from the Mason Dixon line in the north to York County on the Susquehanna River in the south. York County is significant in its direct connection with Dromore Ulster.

The main occupation in Pennsylvania was the farming of corn and wheat and milk dairies in the colonial era, as it still is today. Yoked oxen wearing sleigh bells war favored for farm work and transportation wagons in early days.

Dromore Pennsylvania is the twin township of Drumore Ireland.

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SCOTS in ULSTER and AMERICA: During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, in order to promote a Protestant Ireland, which was staunchly Catholic, Protestant Queen Elizabeth I decided to colonize Northern ireland with Scottish Protestants. This region was called Ulster. However, after her death Scotland and England returned to a Catholic monarch and a long an horrible war endured for generations. From 1610 onwards, during a period of Catholic rule, there was a new rush of Scottish settlers to Ulster by the more prosperous Lowland Scots, mostly dissenters of the Protestant Calvinistic faith who made a Covenant to not return to Catholicism. The Covenanters were declared illegal and rounded up, imprisoned and many lost their life during the "Killing Times." Those who could flee, fled for Ulster or to America.

In 1680, another wave of emigration of Scots to Ulster or America ensued when the power base of the kingdom changed yet again, with the rise of King James II bringing a resurgence of Catholic power. The English, however, did not want a Catholic monarch, so they rebelled and invited William of Orange to become king. William was the Protestant husband of Princess Mary, the daughter of King James, and in 1689, William of Orange, f agreed to contest the throne of England. In 1691 he finally defeated James's forces and restored power and privilege back to Protestants.

When William suddenly died, due to a fall from his horse in 1702, he was followed by his daughter Anne, who was a weak and ineffectual girl. The High Anglican Protestant Church seized the opportunity to enact legislation against both Catholics and any variant Protestants who were Dissenters from the one state Church of England. The Test Act required magistrates and others in authority to renounce their faith and take the sacraments of the Established Church of England. This discriminated against Presbyterians who were told they could not sanctify marriage, officiate at burials or teach their faith.

Leaving for the New World

Thus began a significant migration of Scottish people to America from Scotland itself or the Scots of Ulster that lasted about 60 years. While the Catholics of Ireland were mostly poor, the Protestants were mostly affluent middle classes, who constituted 25% of the population and economy. Some 250,000 Protestants (mostly Presbyterian) emigrated to America after land was offered for sale in Pennsylvania. In 1717 the first ship, "The Friends Goodwill", left Larne harbour for Boston Harbor with 52 passengers. In the year 1717 5,000 left from Belfast, Larne, Londonderry and Newry for ports such as Baltimore, New York and Philadelphia. There were also many who left Scotland directly during the Killing Times, after the Battle of Culloden, after the Highland Clearances, and a series of emigrations for other reasons too, such as natural occurrences like drought or motivated by excessive land lease charges. The rise in land lease taxation caused the emigration of 1771-1775, with 30,000 leaving in 1775 alone.

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SCOTSMAN JAMES LOGAN - William Penn's representative in business affairs was an Ulster Scots Quaker named James Logan, who was born in Lurgan, County Armagh Ulster.

William Penn appointed Logan as land agent for the sale of land in Pennsylvania. It would have been Logan (directly or indirectly) who sold land in Pennsylvania to our ancestor, Robert Stewart. When Penn returned to England, he made Logan Clerk of the Council of Pennsylvania and Secretary of the Province. Logan, along with the assistance of Edward Shippen, Dr. Griffith Owen, and Thomas Story were responsible for all sales of Pennsylvania land to prospective buyers in Europe. The land they sold was mostly virgin forest owned by Penn. Logan was also placed in charge of Indian affairs.

Logan adopted William Penn's methods of treating the Indians with respect, patience and friendship. However, in 1717, Logan became apprehensive about an Indian war.

Logan wrote in 1720:

"At the time we were apprehensive of the Northern Indians. I therefore thought it would be prudent to plant a settlement of such men who formerly had so bravely defended Enniskillen and Londonderry as a frontier in case of any disturbance. These people, if kindly dealt with will be orderly, as they have hitherto been and will I expect be a fine example to others"

Logan's agents went to Ulster to seek out prospective colonists. Many of the Ulster Scots settlers were selected because they were veterans of Cromwell's English civil war of in Ulster. Logan sold to the Ulster Scots, a virgin tract of land called Caster County, which shortly became called Lancaster County.

Near the Conestoga trading post he laid out a new town called Donegal as an Ulster Scots garrison against Indian troubles. Drumore was a farm community situated not too far away near the Maryland border. There, the Ulster Scots supported the fur traders, created a safety buffer against any French or Indian warfare, with their Presbyterian farm community that served as a buffer between the Quaker city of Philadelphia and the Indians as well as the French.

The French traders who visited the Conestoga Trading Post had been a problem because they had encouraged the local Indians to oppose American colonists. Logan calculated that the best way to deal with the French was to promote fair trade at Conestoga with the French. Introducing families as settlers always had a pacifying effect that mobile male traders and lone frontiersmen could never achieve.

Scotsman Logan and the other Ulster Scots also worked hard to keep the peace by discouraging the Pennsylvania Indians from warring with other Indians too. Shortly after the Scots were introduced into the area, the Treaty of Albany with the Iroquois Indian peoples was made certifying the success of Logan's Indian policy. The Scots families had helped to pacify the border by building towns and roads, and providing trading opportunities to the Indians and French alike, creating a prosperous and peaceful stability to the region with their appearance of strength, durability and fair treatment, while preserving their turf.

The Indians were semi-nomadic and had an ancient culture of different family groups raiding upon other Indian family groups to steal one another's harvests or reducing one another's men by hunting turf wars. Thus Indians were hostile toward each other and there was no unified Indian nation or law whatsoever. The Indians engaged war parties who employed raids upon each other as an economic tactic to their survival. When Europeans arrived, the Indians raided European camps too in order to steal horses, guns and other European tools. Putting Scotsmen on the American frontier resulted in reducing the Indian raids on settlers.

The Scots were true pioneers, as these lands were then the frontier boundaries of the extent of new settlements in America. The Scots were mainly located on what became the Great Pennsylvanian Wagon Road cutting directly through Lancaster County. It was a hard life settling a wilderness, establishing farms, building towns, while defending against any raiding Indians.

The region of Drumore became mainly agricultural due to the soft rolling farmland and good soil. It is fertile land well-watered by the Susquehanna, Octorara and Muddy Run rivers. The Susquehanna is a mighty river, a mile wide in places. The oldest building in Drumore is the Chestnut Level Presbyterian Church. The first church was destroyed accidentally in a fire in 1729. The present church, built in 1750, was substantially renovated in 1833.

By the end of the 18th century almost 14% of all the settlers in America were Scots or Ulster folk, mostly in the state of Pennsylvania, but also in Tennessee, Kentucky and the Carolinas. Today, there are about 20 million Americans who claim Scottish ancestry.

Pennsylvania is second only to Delaware in the formation of the Union of American States and was the driving force in the War of Independence.

The emigration of the Ulster Presbyterians in the 18th Century provided key colonists who influenced and shaped the growing British colony into the United States of America. The Scottish had a tradition of preserving some independence from the English. They had lived mostly as independent clans with their own laws and economy since time immemorial, whereas the majority of English people had been subjugated under the Norman feudal system and were less economically independent than the clans of Scotland.

Catholicism taught "God will provide" while Protestantism taught, "God helps those who help themselves."

The old English feudal system taught noblesse oblige where the barons had a responsibility to the common people, which encouraged a sense of dependency on leaders and entitlement of both, whereas the old Scottish clan system made the private family responsible for economic success and demanded self-reliance, The Scottish clans voted for their leaders, while the Norman feudal system of England transferred power by the laws of primogeniture, which conferred power to the first-born. People raised in the feudal-based plantation system believed that the owners owed the common man something. The Scotsmen taught self-reliance to their people and Don't Tread on Me independence. They understood that they lost freedom with dependency and taught the principle that rights were earned by self-reliance and responsibility for oneself, while dependency in the feudal system taught entitlement and loss of freedom with loss of economic self-reliance. Thus, the English people who had lived under the feudal system since the Norman era, re-learned the principle of freedom in the equation of self-reliance and responsibility from their Scottish brethren in America, which their common ancestral Britons had all once enjoyed.

The Scotsmen were the first in Britain to invent the principles of the Enlightenment and the Scots were key players in the Scientific Revolution. The Scottish also invented many of the core legal principles that made up the U.S. Constitution based on clan principles of economic independence and rights. They were perhaps the most important players in American Independence, and were rightly called 'God's Frontiersmen'.

Once the American frontier was pacified by the Scotsmen, James Logan, a fine scholar and mathematician, turned his attention to Scottish Enlightenment pursuits in science, Logan imparted values of the Scottish Enlightenment to Benjamin Franklin who was Logan's protege and a frequent visitor to his home.

REVOLUTIONARY WAR:

Just as in Scotland, the Scottish people in America were a powerful voice and force in favoring independence from a feudal system.

"Presbyterianism is at the bottom of this whole conspiracy, it has supplied it with vigour and will never rest until something is decided upon" Lord Dartmouth writing from New York 1776

"Call this war by whatever you may, only call it not an American rebellion: it is nothing more than a Scots Irish Presbyterian Rebellion" British Officer writing in 1778

(NOTE: The term "Scots Irish" does not indicate they were Irish. It means they were Scottish. The term refers to the waves of Protestant Scotsmen who moved to Ulster in Northern Ireland during the last few centuries. However these Scotsmen were not Irish, nor Catholic, nor are they today legally part of Ireland. They were Scots who were living in Ulster on the Irish island, that's all. They do however, share prehistoric ancestors as ancient Britons, but have very different histories and different culture. Today, Ulster Scots is the term that is best used. The Ulster Scots are the most prosperous sect on the Irish island.)

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As they established each new settlement.. they would first build a fort for protection from the Indians and then they would build a church and a school.

The Rev. Francis Makemie emigrated from Ulster and arrived in America in 1683. He organised the first Presbyterian Church in America and became the "Father of American Presbyterianism". It was thus an Ulsterman who started American Presbyterianism and in the years that followed, Ulstermen played a tremendous part in the spread of Presbyterianism in America. Nearly 300 ministers of Ulster extraction served in the ministry of American Presbyterian churches in the period 1680-1820.

In the field of education the Ulster Scots settlers made one of their most important contributions to American life. They founded schools all over the country. One of the most notable was the Log College which was established at Neshaminy in Pennsylvania by William Tennent. This was in fact the forerunner of Princeton University.

In every aspect of American life the Ulster Scots emigrants played a significant role. The first daily newspaper ever issued in America was printed by an Ulsterman, John Dunlap from Strabane, and another Ulsterman Horace Greeley founded the New York Tribune.

But the Ulster Scots contribution was particularly strong in the political field and in the battle for independence and liberty. There the Ulster influence was decisive and the Ulstermen were firmly on the side of independence. Professor James G. Leyburn said of them: "They provided some of the best fighters in the American army. Indeed there were those who held the Scots-Irish responsible for the war itself".

On 2 July 1776 the American Continental Congress voted for independence. Two days later on 4 July it published the Declaration of Independence. Representatives from the 13 American colonies had come to the Congress in Philadelphia and the mood was defiant and confident. This was the most crucial event in American history for it marked the birth of the American nation and Ulster Scots were closely associated with it.

The original Declaration of Independence document is in the handwriting of an Ulster Scot, Charles Thompson, who was secretary of the Congress and who was born in Maghera. It was first printed by an Ulster Scot, John Dunlap of Strabane. It was first read in public by the son of an Ulster Scot, Colonel John Nixon. The first signature on it was that of John Hancock, president of the Congress, whose ancestors came from County Down, and at least seven of the other signatories were of Ulster Scots extraction.

One of the forerunners of the Declaration of Independence was the Mecklenburg Declaration of Independence which was adopted by a convention of Ulster Scots which met in North Carolina on 31 May 1775. President William McKinley, himself of Ulster Scots descent, wrote of these men that "they were the first to proclaim for freedom in these United States". Another local declaration was issued by Ulster Scots in New Hampshire.

The Scottish men played a major role during the American War of Independence which lasted from 1775 to 1783. Twenty-five of the American generals were of Ulster Scot descent as was half of the revolutionary army. One famous force of regular soldiers was the Pennsylvania Line, which was composed almost entirely of Ulster Scots and the sons of Ulster Scots.

The turning point in the war was the Battle of King's Mountain in South Carolina on 7 October 1780. A body of American militiamen defeated a British force twice its size and took 1,000 prisoners. The five colonels in the American force were all Presbyterian elders of Ulster stock and their men were of the same race and faith.

President Theodore Roosevelt made this comment on the Scottish contribution to the war: "in the Revolutionary war . . . the fiercest and most ardent Americans of all were the Presbyterian Irish settlers and their descendants". He described those Scots as "a grim, stern people, strong and simple, . . . the love of freedom rooted in their very hearts' core".

The Scottish colonists brought with them a love of freedom and in America's hour of crisis they fought to defend freedom. They had traveled far across the sea but their courage, convictions and commitment were undiminished.

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STEWART - The main family ancestry book says that Robert was the son of John and the brother of Samuel and Hugh, who moved to America. Robert came to America after his brothers and was said to have made many journeys across the sea, perhaps as a merchant or in the British navy.

If Robert had been in the Navy and his other sons holding favored positions, it would indicate that they were royalists, not revolutionaries.

However, it is known that Robert owned a substantial stone quarry in Pennsylvania at the Maryland border. It is said that Robert had a Royal Grant for the quarry rights, but we are not sure at this writing if Robert Stewart was Protestant or Catholic. We do not know yet if Robert was from a Covenanter line against King James or a Jacobite supporter of King James. If he received his stone quarry grant from the crown he probably was not part of the farming community of Drumore.

Robert's wife is not mentioned at all, and no dates given. One source says a Robert Stewart was buried in Baltimore. Or perhaps Robert just never returned to America, and at some point remained in England.

Robert had one son in America called Hugh and an older son in England who had four sons of his own. Family letters said that Robert's son Hugh received a letter from the brother in England, who was in the service to the Crown as Purser in the English Royal Navy; and that his four sons also had excellent positions with the crown. The brother who wrote invited Hugh to return to England to receive an appointment of some sort too, but Hugh chose to remain in America.

Royal Naval Pursers were warranted by the Admiralty but did not require professional qualifications. However, a financial surety bond was required. The duties were to control the "purse" or financials of the ship and oversee the acquisition and purchase of all supplies, and issue of all supplies as needed to ship and crew, including victuals and other consumables. The Purser was one of the five standing officers of the ship. (A standing officer was permanently assigned to a ship.) The Purser's position presented many opportunites to the canny to enrich himself, often at the expense of the crew. This was a fact known to all. Sometimes the Captain assumed the role of purser too, to control the finances of the ship's purse.

Robert's wife is not known or mentioned. A "second wife" was mentioned in family letters. However, his son Hugh was born when Robert would have been advanced in age, it would thus be more likely that Hugh was a late child.

This Robert may have lived principally in Europe, and conducted business with his father and two brothers who had moved to America, as it was said he sailed many times to America. However, Robert did have ownership of a quarry in Pennsylvania. Since there is no mention of Robert's wife, she may have died, but why would the name be lost? Robert did have other un-named other sons, who were the brothers (or perhaps half-brothers) of his son Hugh in America. Hugh is said to have been born in the colonies.

Family letters say Robert's son Hugh was so estranged from his father that he would not speak about it. He may have been estranged due to conflicts arising from another marriage by his father, or other unknown dispute. Some propose that the estrangement was due to the son's marriage to Margaret Roxburgh. It may also have been a religious differences, perhaps one being Catholic the other becoming Protestant, which created extreme political divisions. Certainly there is a generation where our Stewart line moved from Catholicism to Protestantism. They may have see-sawed in loyalties too, with difference between brothers and multiple generations.

Family papers indicate that this Robert provided his American son Hugh a comfortable inheritance, thus the son was not so estranged that he did not receive an inheritance of property from his father Robert. Papers say Robert had invested in a fine stone quarry on the Schuylkill River, which his son Hugh profited from. The will of Hugh (Robert's son) shows that Hugh died a man of considerable acreage of land with comfortable wealth, in part due to anything he inherited from his father Robert, Hugh's own enterprises, and the dowry of his wife, Margaret Roxburgh-Smith.

Robert is said to distantly descend from Stuart kings.