Yep, that's the stock I come from.
The McElwaynes were actual "Scots-Irish". They started out as one of the Lowland clans in Scotland, in Ayrshire, and were transported for being troublesome by James to the Ulster Plantations in Northern Ireland. After about a hundred years there, they came to America around 1720, landing in Lewes, Delaware. The family spread west from there, ending up in the Shenadoah valley amongst the Germans coming down the valley from Pennsylvania.
During the Revolution, a 14 year old Tunis Mucklewain (a few years on the frontier changed the spelling to the more phonetic version - folks back then couldn't write or read much, so names got spelled more like they sounded) joined the militia, and was an "Indian Spy" on the frontier - pretty much a scout patrolling for signs of indian incursions. One of the patrols he regularly ran was a 60 mile circuit in Tygart's Valley, in what would become West Virginia. He'd run the route, looking for sign on the travel trails, and report to the 3 forts in that valley if he found any, so they'd know to "fort up" and make sure they had dry powder and plenty of lead.
After the war, he married a nice German neighbor girl of his named Catherine Propst, and they headed into the wilderness - life had got too crowded in the Shenandoah by then, and once you've hunted men who were hunting you right back at the ripe old age of 14, you didn't fear much else the wilderness had to offer.
I dunno where the McCunes came from. Family legend says they came from Ireland around 1748, but since that was shortly after the Battle of Culloden in Scotland, I've always wondered if they might not have been Scots instead of Irish. I know they were a mean bunch, mean as rattlesnakes.
The O'Briens came from Ireland, I know not when, but Adam O'Brien was born here, in 1727...; or maybe 1740, in the wilderness. That bunch came originally from County Clare, in the west of Ireland. He was another rowdy one. Ran into the wilderness while the Proclamation of 1763 was in effect, so he did it illegally, but I don't think he much cared about that. Law didn't seem to bother him much. He lived in a hollow sycamore tree for a year or so. He was married 4 times, and didn't always bother to divorce one before he took on the next. I think he had about 18 kids altogether, among all 4 wives, and at one time he had one wife in the settlements and another in the wilderness.
O'Brien was written up in an article in "The Southern Literary Messenger", the author having a chance meeting with him at a "road house" (tavern) named "Gandy's" some time in the 1820's or 1830's I reckon. He was in his 90's at that point, and walking from his home all the way to Clarksburg "to ferret out a land title" - a 125 mile or so walk one way, just him and his hound dog. His main complaints seemed to be sheriffs and preachers - he said the preachers would come in and set the folks agin one another, getting the one half to pester the other half to look after their souls, and the sheriffs would steal the coverlets from your wife's bed and throw you out of your own house into a raging snow storm. That's how one of his wives died. She had a flu when the sheriffs came around and threw them out of their house. He got her to a nearby empty cabin, but it didn't have but half a roof on it, and before he could get it patched up, she died of pneumonia. According to Adam, he'd rather take his chances among the Indians and the panthers than among preachers and sheriffs, because the latter two "had no natural feelin' ", He didn't have much passion for "civilzation".
He died, it's said, at the ripe old age of 106. I've got his pay records from his participation in Dunmore's War in 1774. He was paid 2 shillings six pence a day, for 130 days during that expedition. That pay rate indicates he was either a sergeant of a scout - regular privates got paid 1 shilling six pence a day.
The Wrights came over around 1634, to Massachusetts... but there is one of that particular family (an Essex family) listed on the roll of Raliegh's Lost Colony of Roanoke in 1587, so some of them were here considerably earlier. Sadly, the Wrights seemed to stay in trouble with the Puritans in New England - drinking, fighting, and womanizing, which I take it the Puritans frowned upon - so they followed the sun and headed south and west into the wilderness, too.
The Griffiths came from Wales in the mid-1700's, three brothers, looking for a fresh start in a new land.
The Starchers (originally Statzers - that phonetic spelling thing rears it's head again) came from Germany, via Pennsylvania, and down into the Shenadoah Valley when they Germans settled the Shenandoah.
The Millers and the Tanners came from either Germany or England, I know not which. The Tanners were another rough bunch, but I've not been able to track them back beyond Clay County, WV - probably VA, or maybe still a colony, when they arrived there.
There's scads more, but you get the drift - I'm a mongrel, with progenitors from all over the place, who all coalesced in the Central Appalachians. Once here, they took up mountain life with relish. Abner Vance shot a man from his horse while he was riding across Clinch River for "debauching his daughter". Abner was hanged for that in 1816 in Abingdon, VA.
"Barbara Allen" was still pretty popular here when I was a kid, but it was called "Barbry Allen" in these parts. I can still hear my uncle Junior singing it. Abner Vance wrote his own death ballad while he was in jail awaiting execution, but there are several versions of it floating around now, and no one knows which, if any, is the original. It has the unimaginative title of "The Ballad of Abner Vance".
The Moccasin Gap mentioned in the video is not far from here. I go through Little Moccasin Gap every time I take Grace to her pain doctor in Abingdon, and Moccasin Gap is just west of there, going through the Clinch Mountain on the road to Kentucky that used to be called "The Wilderness Road". June Carter, Johnny Cash's wife, was raised not far from it. Her family still has singings in their barn on some Saturday nights at the Carter Family Fold.
Yup, we're all mongrels here from all nationalities, but the one thing a lot of us still have in common, as mentioned in the video, is an earned distrust of government, and a bad attitude for anyone coming along and trying to run our business for us. That often still turns out poorly for them.
Now you know why I say "I'm a mongrel, sprung from horse thieves, moonshiners, killers and malcontents".
.
The McElwaynes were actual "Scots-Irish". They started out as one of the Lowland clans in Scotland, in Ayrshire, and were transported for being troublesome by James to the Ulster Plantations in Northern Ireland. After about a hundred years there, they came to America around 1720, landing in Lewes, Delaware. The family spread west from there, ending up in the Shenadoah valley amongst the Germans coming down the valley from Pennsylvania.
During the Revolution, a 14 year old Tunis Mucklewain (a few years on the frontier changed the spelling to the more phonetic version - folks back then couldn't write or read much, so names got spelled more like they sounded) joined the militia, and was an "Indian Spy" on the frontier - pretty much a scout patrolling for signs of indian incursions. One of the patrols he regularly ran was a 60 mile circuit in Tygart's Valley, in what would become West Virginia. He'd run the route, looking for sign on the travel trails, and report to the 3 forts in that valley if he found any, so they'd know to "fort up" and make sure they had dry powder and plenty of lead.
After the war, he married a nice German neighbor girl of his named Catherine Propst, and they headed into the wilderness - life had got too crowded in the Shenandoah by then, and once you've hunted men who were hunting you right back at the ripe old age of 14, you didn't fear much else the wilderness had to offer.
I dunno where the McCunes came from. Family legend says they came from Ireland around 1748, but since that was shortly after the Battle of Culloden in Scotland, I've always wondered if they might not have been Scots instead of Irish. I know they were a mean bunch, mean as rattlesnakes.
The O'Briens came from Ireland, I know not when, but Adam O'Brien was born here, in 1727...; or maybe 1740, in the wilderness. That bunch came originally from County Clare, in the west of Ireland. He was another rowdy one. Ran into the wilderness while the Proclamation of 1763 was in effect, so he did it illegally, but I don't think he much cared about that. Law didn't seem to bother him much. He lived in a hollow sycamore tree for a year or so. He was married 4 times, and didn't always bother to divorce one before he took on the next. I think he had about 18 kids altogether, among all 4 wives, and at one time he had one wife in the settlements and another in the wilderness.
O'Brien was written up in an article in "The Southern Literary Messenger", the author having a chance meeting with him at a "road house" (tavern) named "Gandy's" some time in the 1820's or 1830's I reckon. He was in his 90's at that point, and walking from his home all the way to Clarksburg "to ferret out a land title" - a 125 mile or so walk one way, just him and his hound dog. His main complaints seemed to be sheriffs and preachers - he said the preachers would come in and set the folks agin one another, getting the one half to pester the other half to look after their souls, and the sheriffs would steal the coverlets from your wife's bed and throw you out of your own house into a raging snow storm. That's how one of his wives died. She had a flu when the sheriffs came around and threw them out of their house. He got her to a nearby empty cabin, but it didn't have but half a roof on it, and before he could get it patched up, she died of pneumonia. According to Adam, he'd rather take his chances among the Indians and the panthers than among preachers and sheriffs, because the latter two "had no natural feelin' ", He didn't have much passion for "civilzation".
He died, it's said, at the ripe old age of 106. I've got his pay records from his participation in Dunmore's War in 1774. He was paid 2 shillings six pence a day, for 130 days during that expedition. That pay rate indicates he was either a sergeant of a scout - regular privates got paid 1 shilling six pence a day.
The Wrights came over around 1634, to Massachusetts... but there is one of that particular family (an Essex family) listed on the roll of Raliegh's Lost Colony of Roanoke in 1587, so some of them were here considerably earlier. Sadly, the Wrights seemed to stay in trouble with the Puritans in New England - drinking, fighting, and womanizing, which I take it the Puritans frowned upon - so they followed the sun and headed south and west into the wilderness, too.
The Griffiths came from Wales in the mid-1700's, three brothers, looking for a fresh start in a new land.
The Starchers (originally Statzers - that phonetic spelling thing rears it's head again) came from Germany, via Pennsylvania, and down into the Shenadoah Valley when they Germans settled the Shenandoah.
The Millers and the Tanners came from either Germany or England, I know not which. The Tanners were another rough bunch, but I've not been able to track them back beyond Clay County, WV - probably VA, or maybe still a colony, when they arrived there.
There's scads more, but you get the drift - I'm a mongrel, with progenitors from all over the place, who all coalesced in the Central Appalachians. Once here, they took up mountain life with relish. Abner Vance shot a man from his horse while he was riding across Clinch River for "debauching his daughter". Abner was hanged for that in 1816 in Abingdon, VA.
"Barbara Allen" was still pretty popular here when I was a kid, but it was called "Barbry Allen" in these parts. I can still hear my uncle Junior singing it. Abner Vance wrote his own death ballad while he was in jail awaiting execution, but there are several versions of it floating around now, and no one knows which, if any, is the original. It has the unimaginative title of "The Ballad of Abner Vance".
The Moccasin Gap mentioned in the video is not far from here. I go through Little Moccasin Gap every time I take Grace to her pain doctor in Abingdon, and Moccasin Gap is just west of there, going through the Clinch Mountain on the road to Kentucky that used to be called "The Wilderness Road". June Carter, Johnny Cash's wife, was raised not far from it. Her family still has singings in their barn on some Saturday nights at the Carter Family Fold.
Yup, we're all mongrels here from all nationalities, but the one thing a lot of us still have in common, as mentioned in the video, is an earned distrust of government, and a bad attitude for anyone coming along and trying to run our business for us. That often still turns out poorly for them.
Now you know why I say "I'm a mongrel, sprung from horse thieves, moonshiners, killers and malcontents".
.