IntroductionAcross the Atlantic
The events of the American Revolution link individuals, families and communities on both sides of the Atlantic. The connections are particularly strong in Ulster from where thousands of people emigrated to America in the decades leading up to the Revolutionary War.
This project looks at the contribution to the American Revolution of families from Cullybackey and the surrounding area. In exploring their lives, we can discover the fascinating story of how people from one part of Ulster played their part in the creation of the new United States. The project has been made possible through funding from the Department for Communities under their USA – NI 250 Fund.
Chapter OneCullybackey at the time of the American Revolution
A village of tradesmen and farmers
In the mid-eighteenth-century, Cullybackey was a small village. Its inhabitants were mainly tradesmen and dealers in various goods. The surrounding area was dominated by family-run farms. Most of the people of the district were the descendants of Scots who had arrived in successive waves of migration over the course of the seventeenth century.
Scottish roots
More than three-quarters of households were Presbyterian, with the majority of families belonging to the Synod of Ulster, though others were Covenanters (Reformed Presbyterians) and Seceders. There were smaller numbers of Anglicans and Catholics, while a Moravian settlement had been established near Galgorm and named Gracehill.
There was only one place of worship in the village of Cullybackey — that of the Presbyterian congregation, which was known as the ‘Sun-Dialled Meeting House’ from the sun-dial, dated 1727, that was placed in its south wall.
Local industries
The linen industry was an increasingly significant part of the local economy. The River Maine was an important source of power for linen mills and bleach greens, including the works established near Cullybackey by the Dickey family of Low Park. Growing numbers of people earned a livelihood as linen weavers. There were also a corn mill and a tuck (woollen) mill at Cullybackey. The nearest markets and fairs were held at Ballymena and Portglenone.
Hearts of Steel
The early 1770s was a time of rural unrest, particularly in County Antrim. A movement called the Hearts of Steel protested against rent increases, evictions and local taxation. Frequently these protests were violent and included the burning of houses and mills. There were several incidents in the Cullybackey area.
On Christmas Day 1772, a ‘malicious and incendiary’ notice was fixed to the meeting house which was intended to ‘excite terror in weak minds and foment that spirit of riot and rebellion’. For many people, the troubles of this period were a further reason for seeking a new life in another part of the world.
Chapter TwoEmigration to America
For many Ulster families, America was looked on a land of religious freedom and economic opportunity. People had been emigrating from the Cullybackey area to the other side of the Atlantic for nearly a century before the American Revolution. Some had settled in New England, while many more emigrated to Pennsylvania. By the early 1770s, South Carolina had become a popular destination for many families from this part of County Antrim.
Testimonials of good character
Prior to leaving, Presbyterian families often requested what was known as a certificate of disjunction, or testimonial, from their local congregation. One local example is the certificate that was issued to John and Ellen Craig, which recorded that they and their six children planned to emigrate to South Carolina. The certificate was signed on 6 November 1773 by Rev. James Cumming, the minister of Ahoghill Presbyterian Church.
The transatlantic voyage
Depending on the weather conditions, the voyage lasted typically 6–10 weeks. Conditions on board were cramped and provisions were often limited. When the John Craig and his family sailed from the port of Larne to Charleston, South Carolina, in the autumn of 1773, they were promised an allowance of 7 pounds of beef, 7 pounds of bread or meal, and 1 pound of butter or molasses per week, along with 2 quarts of water per person each day.
The 1772 migration
While most emigrants went out as individuals, or families, or even in small groups, others departed as part of a larger exodus. In late 1771, Rev. William Martin, the pastor of the ‘Antrim Congregation’ of Covenanters, announced his intention to emigrate to South Carolina and encouraged others to do the same. Many families, including from around Cullybackey, responded and set sail in the late summer and autumn of 1772. At around the same time, the Presbyterian ministers of Cullybackey (Alexander McMullan) and Portglenone (Robert Kirkpatrick) also emigrated to South Carolina.
Chapter ThreeThe path to independence
By the early 1770s, there was an increasingly difficult relationship between the colonists in America and Great Britain. Growing anger at British policies in Colonial America resulted in protests such as the famous Boston Tea Party in December 1773. Many local communities drafted resolutions defending their rights and freedoms.
The Continental Congress
The realisation that a united response was needed resulted in the formation of a Continental Congress, which met for the first time in Philadelphia in September 1774. Needing a reliable Secretary, the Congress turned to Maghera-born Charles Thomson, already well known as one of the most outspoken defenders of the rights of Americans.
War begins
Fighting began in Massachusetts in the spring of 1775 and in June of that year George Washington was appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army.
Patriots and Loyalists
Of those who took a side in the Revolutionary War, the people of Colonial America were divided between the majority who were opposed to British rule and in favour of independence (the Patriots or Whigs) and the minority who wished to maintain the connection with Great Britain (the Loyalists or Tories). This division was also apparent among the Scots-Irish in America — while most were on the Patriot side (overwhelmingly so in many areas), smaller numbers were Loyalists.
Declaration of Independence
By early 1776, most of the delegates at the Continental Congress had abandoned any hope of reconciliation with Great Britain and believed that independence was the only course open to them. On 4 July, the Declaration of Independence was adopted by the Continental Congress.
Treaty of Paris
However, it was to be a further seven years before the Treaty of Paris in September 1783 finally ended the conflict and American independence was recognised by Britain. Four years later, the United States Constitution was written and in 1789 George Washington became the first President of the new nation.
Chapter FourGeorge Washington’s bodyguards
Remarkably, two local men were chosen for George Washington’s elite bodyguard, known as the Life Guard, during the Revolutionary War — Robert Wiley from Cullybackey and James McCrory from near Portglenone. They protected the Commander-in-Chief during some of the most challenging periods of the war.
Robert Wiley
Robert Wiley grew up in Cullybackey and, as a young man, emigrated to America. During the Revolutionary War, he served in the 3rd Pennsylvania Regiment and took part in numerous battles. On Christmas Day 1776, he was involved in the famous crossing of the Delaware, and the next day fought in the Battle of Trenton, an important American victory.
Wiley’s qualities as a soldier were recognised and he was selected for the Life Guard. During a difficult period when supplies were very low, Washington himself had handed out bread to his starving men, among them this son of Cullybackey.
After the war, Robert returned home to the village of his birth. Writing in 1859, the poet and schoolmaster John Given, recalled this old veteran: ‘I remember him as a tall, soldierly fellow, about six feet, and at this time about seventy years of age, with long white locks falling about his neck and shoulders.’
A letter written on Wiley’s behalf by Joseph Dixon of Cullybackey in 1821 can be viewed here →James McCrory
James McCrory was born in 1758 and grew up at Carmagrim near Portglenone in the district known as the Largy. Along with his parents and siblings, he emigrated to America in 1775 and settled in Guilford County, North Carolina.
He enlisted in 1776 and served in the 9th North Carolina Regiment. James was a member of Washington’s Life Guard at Valley Forge in 1777–8, known as the ‘Winter of Despair’ due to the exceptionally demanding conditions. In 1781, he and his brother Hugh were captured by British dragoons and spent some months on a prison ship.
Shortly after the end of the war, James moved to Tennessee and some time later to Alabama.
Photographs of James McCrory’s headstone can be viewed here →Chapter FiveDefiant minister in the South Carolina backcountry: Rev. William Martin
Along with many former members of his congregation in County Antrim, Rev. William Martin settled in the South Carolina backcountry, making his home at Rocky Creek in Chester District, and preaching regularly in meeting houses and in private homes across the region.
A fiery sermon
Following the capture of Charleston in May 1780, the British commander, Lord Cornwallis, sent regular troops and Loyalist militias to the backcountry. An encounter at Waxhaws on 29 May resulted in a massacre when over 100 Patriots were killed and more than 150 were wounded. A fortnight later, on Sunday, 11 June, Martin preached a sermon in which he roundly condemned the actions of the British. Pointing towards Waxhaws, Martin is said to have declared, ‘Go see the tender mercies of Great Britain! Is not this cruelty a parallel to the history of our Scottish fathers, driven from their conventicles, hunted like wild beasts?’
Arrest and imprisonment
News of Martin’s sermon reached the British and orders were issued for his arrest. He was seized in his study and imprisoned. Eventually, in December 1780, he was brought before Cornwallis at his winter headquarters at Winnsboro. Martin remained defiant and, referring to George III, is reputed to have told the British commander, ‘As a king, he was bound to protect his subjects in the enjoyment of their rights. Protection and allegiance go together and where the one fails, the other cannot be exacted. The Declaration of Independence is but a reiteration of what our Covenanting fathers have always maintained.’
Release and return
Whatever punishment Cornwallis may have had in mind for Martin, the minister was released. It seems that he was banished from the district and moved to North Carolina, but returned to South Carolina following the British withdrawal in 1781. It is said that on learning that the British were leaving Charleston, he shouted, ‘and may the devil go with them!’
Chapter SixLoyalists in the Revolution: Colonel John Phillips
A minority of the Scots-Irish remained loyal to the Crown during the Revolutionary War. In the South Carolina backcountry, John Phillips and his family were committed Loyalists. They had emigrated from Ballyloughan in 1770, settling at Jackson’s Creek and helping to establish a Presbyterian congregation.
Opponent of the Revolution
From the outset, Phillips was opposed to the Revolution. In 1778, when he and two of his sons attempted to flee South Carolina, they were arrested and imprisoned in Orangeburg gaol. One of his sons died as a result of the ‘great cruelty’ he was subjected to, but the other was eventually set free. John himself was tried for sedition and sentenced to death. From the window of his cell, he was able to watch as the gallows were erected. Fortunately for him he was released and allowed to return home.
Militia commander
In 1780, Phillips accepted the offer of a position as a lieutenant-colonel in the Loyalist militia established in South Carolina. He commanded the Jackson’s Creek militia and took part in a number of campaigns against the Patriots. His son David served with him until he was captured and ‘most inhumanely murdered’. John’s family was forced to flee for safety to Charleston where two of his children died in a refugee camp.
Banished from South Carolina
The government of South Carolina confiscated John’s property and banished him with a warning that if he reappeared in the state he would be executed. He returned home to Ballyloughan. Even there it was not safe for him as there was an attempt on his life by someone who blamed John for the death of his brother in the war. He died in 1809. It was said of him: ‘So good a soldier and so forward in action was Colonel Phillips that on one occasion he returned from the field of battle with six and another time four musket balls through his hat’.
Chapter SevenSoldiers of the Revolution
Across Colonial America, but in particular in Pennsylvania and South Carolina, men from the Cullybackey area served the Patriot cause, often at great cost to themselves and their families.
Pennsylvania Rifleman: Thomas McCalla
Thomas McCalla was born in Cullybackey in 1756 and, as a youth, emigrated to America. He was living in Pennsylvania when the war began and served initially in the 3rd Battalion of Riflemen and later the 11th Pennsylvania Regiment. He took part in the Battle of Brandywine in September 1777. His home was not far from the field of battle and his wife Sarah dressed the wounds of many injured soldiers. Subsequently, he and his family moved to South Carolina, and Thomas served in the militia.
Photographs of Thomas McCalla’s headstone can be viewed here →Service in South Carolina: Robert Killpatrick
When, in March 1834, Robert Killpatrick applied successfully for a Revolutionary War pension, he was a very old man — he believed he was 95, but acknowledged that he could have been a year or two older than this. However, he knew that he had been baptised in the meeting house in ‘Kullyluckey’, as Cullybackey was recorded on his pension claim. He served on numerous tours of duty in South Carolina and was in regular skirmishes with British troops and Loyalist militias.
Robert Killpatrick’s pension claim can be read here →‘An invincible spirit’: William Wylie
The Wylie family had been living at Moylarg, to the north of Cullybackey, since the early eighteenth century, if not before. In the late 1760s, Peter Wylie and wife and children moved to Chester District, South Carolina. The Wylies were strong supporters of the Patriot cause. Peter’s son William served in the militia in South Carolina. He was described as ‘a man of great bodily strength and an invincible spirit; withal something of a poet, and possessed of a fund of wit and humour.’
More about the Wylie family and the American Revolution can be read here →Pennsylvania Patriot: John Knowles
Born on 4 July 1749 in the parish of Ahoghill, John Knowles enlisted in the Cumberland County militia. His duties included looking after his unit’s pack horses and cattle, and guarding the barracks at Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Although not a frontline fighter, he played an important, though often overlooked, supporting role. After the war, John moved eventually to Tennessee, where he died in 1807. In 1969, the Daughters of the American Revolution erected a headstone over his grave in Mount Pisgah Cemetery.
Photographs of John Knowles’s headstone can be viewed here →Chapter EightPrinter of the Declaration of Independence: Hugh Gaine
Although John Dunlap, a native of Strabane, County Tyrone, is rightly celebrated as the printer of the Declaration of Independence, copies of his broadside were printed by others in the weeks after 4 July 1776, one of them in New York City by Hugh Gaine from Portglenone.
Printer in New York City
Gaine was born into a relatively well-to-do family in Portglenone about 1726. In 1740, he was apprenticed to a printing firm in Belfast. In the mid-1740s, he emigrated to New York City, where he opened a bookshop and set up his own printing business. In 1752, he began publishing a newspaper, The New York Mercury. Gaine’s business was successful and in 1768–9, he was appointed the official printer for the city and colony of New York.
Declaration of Independence
In July 1776, the news that the Declaration of Independence had been adopted in Philadelphia quickly reached New York. When a copy of the Declaration arrived in the city, Hugh had it copied and reproduced the text on the front page of the 15 July issue of his newspaper. He went on to print the Declaration of Independence as a broadside for widespread distribution.
Flight from New York and return
Over that summer and early autumn Gaine was among thousands of people to flee from the city before it was captured by the British. He set up a printing press in New Jersey, but a few weeks later, following an amnesty, returned to New York. After the war, he was one of the founders of the Friendly Sons of St Patrick of New York formed in 1783–4 to aid impoverished immigrants from Ireland and, in 1802, was the first president of the American Booksellers Association.
The Hugh Gaine Papers can be viewed on the website of New York Public Library →
Chapter NineCullybackey families in the new United States
The Revolutionary War had resulted in only a brief pause in the flow of migrants from Ulster to America. Once hostilities ceased large-scale migration resumed. Among the earliest emigrants from Cullybackey to the new United States was the linen manufacturer John Dickey who went on to acquire numerous tracts of land in western Pennsylvania. His son Robert became a successful merchant in New York City.
Exiles of ’98
Many people left Ulster in the years either side of the 1798 Rebellion, including, in 1797, the minister of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in Cullybackey, Rev. William Gibson, and two young members of his congregation, Samuel Brown Wylie from Moylarg and John Black who was originally from Bracknamuckley. Subsequently, Wylie and Black entered the ministry of the Reformed Presbyterian Church in America, serving congregations in, respectively, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and becoming well-known opponents of slavery.
The Arthur family
Cullybackey celebrates its connection to the White House through Chester Alan Arthur, the 21st President of the United States (1881–5), whose father William was born in the townland of Dreen. William Arthur emigrated to North America around 1818 where he became a Baptist minister and a publisher. His son Chester was born in Fairfield, Vermont, in 1829.
Pittsburgh and Arthursburgh
Other Cullybackey Arthurs had preceded William to the United States. James Arthur and his family emigrated to Pittsburgh around 1800 and became involved in the textile industry. Another branch of the Arthur family settled in Dutchess County in the state of New York. In 1823, John Arthur became a postmaster in this county and in 1826 the name of his post office was changed to Arthursburgh (a place-name that still exists).
John Nicholl
John Nicholl was born in Cullybackey in 1784 and first emigrated to America in 1801. He came home in 1817 and opened a shop in Ahoghill, but returned to America in 1818 and began to make clocks, earning a reputation as a skilled craftsman. One of his clocks is at Morven, a mansion in New Jersey built by a signatory of the American Declaration of Independence, Richard Stockton.
You can view a plaque to John Nicholl in Belvidere, New Jersey, here →
Ordinary People — Extraordinary History. The stories of Cullybackey families whose lives helped shape the United States of America.