Samuel Alexander Kelsey

Info below on son's immigration.

Samuel KELSO - b. 1720, Scotland; d. Aug. 16, 1796, Chester Co., SC; bur. Fishing Creek Cemetery. He probably left Scotland for Ireland in the mid 1740s. Samuel, sword maker, with his wife and seven children ages 6 to 17, arrived at Charlestown, SC on Dec. 22, 1767, on board the 'Earl of Donegal,' Duncan Ferguson, Master.

The ship had departed from Belfast on Aug. 14, 1767, with 291 passengers. Samuel received 400 acres of land (100 to head of household, and 50 for each additional member), and children George and Jannet, both over 16, received 100 acres each.

The land grant, for land near Long Canes, Craven Co., SC, was made Sep. 12, 1768. By 1770 the Fishing Creek Presbyterian Church was established at Rock Hill, with the KELSOs as prominent members. Samuel, his wife, and their seven children are listed in the Jun. 8, 1775 visitation of their church. During the Revolution, on Aug. 18, 1780, The Battle of Fishing Creek was fought near the church. Samuel, then aged 60 and with poor hearing, was abused and threatened by the Tories for not answering their questions. Samuel married about 1749 in Ireland.

Susannah MILLS - b. 1721; d. Sep. 12, 1804, Chester Co., SC; bur. Fishing Creek Cemetery. The MILLS family also migrated from Scotland to Ireland, and thence to America. Susannah was perhaps the sister of John Mills (d. Nov. 9, 1815 at age 83), and aunt of Col. John MILLS (d. Mar. 19, 1795 at age 38), who migrated first to PA, and then to Chester Co., SC, and were buried in the Fishing Creek Cemetery.

"Samuel Kelso was a swordmaker by profession. I believe, but have no proof, that  he was at the Battle of Culloden in Scotland, which is why he was deported to  Ireland after the battle. Upon coming to America he resumed his profession as a  swordmaker. He fought on the side of the colonists during the Revolutionary War  and most likely made swords for the colonists. There is a book about him called  "Samuel Kelso/Kelsey, 1720-1796: Scotch-Irish immigrant and revolutionary  patriot of Chester County, South Carolina : his origin, descendents, and ...  Stevenson, McAlexander and other families" by Mavis Kelsey which I have read. It  is out of print but can be ordered through Interlibrary loan."  Ellen Gonzalez FAG Member #: 47263726

Samuel Kelso Sr. (1720-1796) and his wife Susannah Mills Kelso, (1723-1804) are first recorded in America in the Council Journal, Charlestown, Province of South Carolina, pp.312-325, 22 December 1767, as Irish Protestant passengers on board the ship "Earl of Donegal", Duncan Ferguson, Master.

Also aboard were several other families from County Antrim, already related or to become related to the Kelsos. These include the Bells, Whites, Browns, McKenneys, Taylors, Harbisons, Gastons, Walkers, Grays, Boyds, Cunninghams, Knox, and perhaps others. These families came on the encouragement and bounty enacted by the General Assembly of South Carolina, 25 July 1761, who levied taxes between 1761 and 1768 for a fund to provide a bounty to emigrating Protestants. The bounty paid their ship's passage, warrant, plat, grant of land, provisions and tools to get them started. One hundred acres was given to the head of household plus 50 acres for each remaining member. 100 acres was also allotted to each child over 16 years of age. Anyone coming from another colony was entitled to the same family rights.

The grants were for land at or near Long Canes, or in Craven Count y. (Ref.: Compilation, Original Lists of Protestant Immigrants to South Carolina, 1763-1773, compiled by Janie Revill, Genealogical Publishing Company, Baltimore, 1968). Long Canes is in the Fishing Creek area, and Samuel Kelso's grant issued 12 September 1768, eventually became part of York County and passed to his son Samuel Kelsey, Jr., in 1795.

In 1818 John Kelsey, son of Samuel Kelsey, Jr., sold this original grant of land to Dewitt Allen. These transactions prove the identity of three succeeding generations. These documents also demonstrate how the Kelso family gradually changed the spelling to Kelsey. See abstract of these grants at end of this chapter.

Samuel Kelso Sr., (later Kelsey) was probably born in 1720 in Scotland. Hannah Wylie (1821-1882) , granddaughter of Isabella Kelso and William Wylie , both of whom were among these immigrants, states that Susannah Kelso was a Mills and that the families were expelled from Scotland in the "War of Forty" (?Battle of Culloden, 1745) and went to Ireland. Family tradition among the Wylies places them in Ayrshire, Scotland, which is also the ancient home of the Kelsos. A descendent of Robert Kelso (Kelsey), Thomas Boston Kelsey, says the Kelso family always lived at Kelso Kirk in Scotland.

At any rate, Samuel Kelso Sr. was a Scotchman from an ancient family whose ancestry dates back to 900 A.D. which family in 910 A.D. owned Ayr and much of Southern Scotland, and endowed Kelso Abbey in 1200. The abbey is now a splendid ruin in the town of Kelso, Roxboroughshire. The Kelsos
became Presbyterians, were persecuted during the 1600's, and after the Battle of Culloden the survivors had left for Ireland or America - so that today the family is virtually extinct in Scotland. However, they are still numerous in North Ireland where Rev. Herbert Kelso is attempting to organize a family society. (See chapter on Early Kelsos in Scotland and North Ireland.)

It seems well established that Samuel Kelsey Sr. whether born in Scotland or County Antrim, Ireland, married in Ireland, c. 1749 to Susannah Mills. Our Mills family moved from Scotland to Ireland, then most of the family migrated to New Jersey and Pennsylvania, before moving to the Southern Colonies. A brother of Susannah Mills, Col. John Mills, migrated first to Pennsylvania and then to Chester County, South Carolina (See Mills family.). Samuel Kelsey (1720-96) and Susannah Mills Kelso had their seven children in Ireland before migrating to America.

Our Kelsey family moved into a wild, almost vacant land, recently inhabited by hostile Cherokee Indians. Samuel Kelso's original 400 acres was "vacant on all sides". Within the previous four to seven years, from 1760 to 1763 the Indians had massacred or driven out the majority of the few settlers whose log houses were their only protection. (Ellet's: Women of the Revolution V.3, p. 85-97; and Howe: History of the Presbyterian Church in South Carolina). The provincial government was paying a bounty for Cherokee scalps and was bribing the otherwise peaceful Catawba Indians to attack the Cherokees. The Cherokee frontier was within twenty miles of the Kelso land grant. In reality the
settlers had pushed the Indians off their communal land and had occupied it, felling and burning timber, clearing land, building log houses, depleting the game supply with dogs, guns, traps and fish nets. Our Uncle Archibald Gill established his famous fishery on the Catawaba River.

Living conditions were extremely rigorous. The essentials of life; food, clothing and shelter were hard to come by. Starving and freezing were not unknown. The death rate was very high. Travelers passing through described abject squalor as a way of life.
In spite of all the hardships the settlers started churches and schools under brush arbors immediately upon their arrival. They managed to bring some books. A bitter loss was the books of Samuel Kelso and Rev. John Simpston. The books were destroyed by the Tory Huck when his men rifled their houses. Samuel Kelso managed to
save a Bible brought from Ireland, which passed on to the Wherry descendants. This Bible was probably lost in a house fire in East Texas in 1937. Early descriptions of church goers at Fishing Creek indicates that each emigrant woman had carefully preserved her best dress, carrying it in a trunk on a crowded ship from Ireland, then in an ox cart to the frontier. Some women walked up to four miles on Sunday wearing their only finery to service
under the arbor, even before a log church was constructed.

The settlers had their beloved Fishing Creek Presbyterian Church before 1770. Samuel Kelso lived in the immediate vicinity of the church. Services at Fishing Creek Church were held by strict tradition. The church was not only torn asunder by Tory and Whig factions during the Revolution, but by the traditional and the innovative exponents of the ritual. This included bitter controversy concerning the songs and methods of taking collection. (Howe's History of the Presbyterian Church in South Carolina.) The church was thus closed during the American Revolution. The church was finally re-established in 1798 on land owned by George Kelsey (q.v.). The Battle of Fishing Creek, 18 August 1780, was fought near the church. The minister, Rev. John Simpson, was away fighting under Capt. John McClure when the British soldiers rifled his house while his wife and children hid in the nearby woods.

The notorious Tory, Capt. Huck of New York, came through the community harassing all. Hannah Wylie, (q.v.)
relates how Huck and his gang went to the Samuel Kelso house, robbing and destroying the swords he and his sons had been manufacturing. They abused and threatened to kill Samuel for not answering questions, he being deaf and hardly able to hear them. His daughter, Isabella Kelso Wylie was at the house while young Samuel and George Kelso and her husband William Wylie were at war.

Huck and his men killed the Strong boy while he was trying to conceal the family valuables. The people of the community were so aroused by this cruel act that a militia party was rapidly formed. A month later they surprised the Huck encampment at Bratton's field, York County, and slaughtered 89 of his men, including Huck. The Americans vied with each other for the privilege of killing Huck. The Americans lost one man.

This was said to be the first victory for the colonists. A month after that, the British were annihilated at King's Mountain about 30 miles from Fishing Creek Church. This victory was said to be the turning point of the American Revolution.

After the Revolution Samuel Kelso and his sons and daughters were listed in the 1790 census of Chester District, South Carolina, all living in the same neighborhood.

White Males 16 older| White Males under 16 | Females | Others Free | Others Slaves
Samuel Kelso 1 0 1 0 0
Widow Pagan 0 1 3 0 0
Widow Gill 0 3 3 0 0
Samuel Kelso Jr. 1 2 2 0 0
George Kelso 1 1 3 0 0
David Morrow 1 2 1 0 0
William Wylie 2 1 1 0 0
Samuel Kelso died 16 August 1796 and is buried at Fishing Creek Church. His wife Susannah is buried in the adjoining grave. The tombstones are standing to this day and are inscribed thus:
One tombstone (John Kelso/Died Sept. 15, 1776/Aged 15 years/ (Susannah Kelso/his mother/Died Sept. 12, 1804.

One tombstone (Samuel Kelso/Died Aug. 16, 1796/aged 76/ (Jannet Kelso/his sister/Died July 30, 1776/ aged 66 years words.
(From Samuel Kelso/Kelsey Book 1720-1796 Revolutionary Patriot of Chester County, South Carolina)

Samuel KELSO - b. 1720, Scotland; d. Aug. 16, 1796, Chester Co., SC; bur. Fishing Creek Cemetery. He probably left Scotland for Ireland in the mid 1740s. Samuel, sword maker, with his wife and seven children ages 6 to 17, arrived at Charlestown, SC on Dec. 22, 1767, on board the 'Earl of Donegal,' Duncan Ferguson, Master. The ship had departed from Belfast on Aug. 14, 1767, with 291 passengers. Samuel received 400 acres of land (100 to head of household, and 50 for each additional member), and children George and Jannet, both over 16, received 100 acres each. The land grant, for land near Long Canes, Craven Co.,