From Ulster to Lexington

The name "Scotch-Irish" was applied by Irish-American Presbyterians in the late 1800s who wished to disassociate themselves from Irish Catholic newcomers, many of whom were desperately poor and illiterate. Although this name has been applied to the people who settled the Valley of Virginia, these settlers were mostly Presbyterians of Scottish descent coming from a colony in Ulster, Northern Ireland.

Political and religious discontent drove the Scottish from their homeland to Ulster. The situation was exacerbated by economic pressure on the Ulster wool and linen industries, severe droughts, and a period of agricultural failures. The primary wave of immigration to the Valley of Virginia came in 1740-1. The Scotch-Irish moved through Pennsylvania to Virginia because there were greater opportunities in this sparsely inhabited region.

The original settling of the Lexington area was organized in 1737 by Benjamin Borden. He had been given control of 100,000 acres of land which, in 1777, became Rockbridge County. The city of Lexington was founded in 1778, receiving its name from the site of the first battle of the Revolutionary War. Located in a natural corridor of the valley, the town quickly established itself by attracting goods and people. By 1790, local commerce had flourished and a wide range of economic activities such as money-lending, shipping, brokerage, barter, and credit could be found in the stores of Lexington merchants.

The "Indian Threat"

Contrary to popular belief, even in the 1740s, the frontier of the Valley of Virginia was not the kind of wilderness that the colonists of Jamestown and Williamsburg may have encountered a century earlier. Although the men and women who entered the Valley in the 1740s faced an existence fraught with the hardship and dangers of frontier life, by mid-century the Native American tribes had retreated to west of the Appalachians.

The stories of frequent Indian harassment of the Scotch-Irish in the Valley must be assessed with care before they are accepted. Through extensive documentary research, local historians have found that reports of the 1763 and 1765 Indian raids on Kerrs Creek have been grossly exaggerated. In fact, the limited number of arms-related artifacts recovered at Liberty Hall indicates the characterization of the "frontier" nature of life in the Lexington area is erroneous for the second half of the eighteenth century.