Faith & Freedom : The Scots-Irish in America

Faith and Freedom were the consuming watchwords of the Scots-Irish Presbyterians who settled on the American frontier in the 18th century. The noble, high-minded ideals of one of the most influential ethnic strains in American life became the cornerstone of the United States as a nation and was indelibly enshrined in its libertarian all-inclusive Constitution.

Northern Ireland journalist and author Billy Kennedy, in the fifth of the highly popular chronicles on the Scots-Irish diaspora from Ulster to America, considerably widens out the inspiring story of how a highly determined and very courageous God-fearing people stamped their distinctive character on the various facets of American society.

The latest journey extends back 200 years in time when the Scots-Irish pioneers were moving the American frontier to its outer limits; setting up townships that became great centers of population, founding log cabin churches that were to spiral the message of the gospel, and establishing schools, which were to expand into some of the foremost educational institutions in the United States.

From Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Maryland on America's eastern seaboard, the immigrants from Ulster moved in a westerly direction, some stopping to settle the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and the Carolinas; others heading into Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, and Missouri, and their sons and daughters settling Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama in the south; Kansas, Oklahoma, and California in the west.

This book vividly records the human stories of plain ordinary people whose outstanding level of achievement had to be measured against the great pain and suffering that their families endured to survive during the early formative years of settlement on the American frontier.

The legend "Fortune Favors the Brave (Fortuna Audaces Iuvat)"--accurately capsules the raison d'etre of the Ulster-Scots in America. In the words of President Theodore Roosevelt: "They were bold and hardy people who pushed beyond the settled regions of America and plunged into the wilderness as the white advance. The Scots-Irish were the first and last set of immigrants to do this."

Their contribution will forever be marked on the pages of American history!