The Scots-Irish in the Shenandoah Valley

The beautiful Shenandoah Valley alongside the majestic backdrop of the Blue Ridge Mountains is the idyllic setting for the intriguing story of a resolute people who tamed the wilderness of the American frontier. The Ulster Presbyterian stock, or the Scots-Irish, as they were known, created a civilization in the Shenandoah during the 18th century that was to be the springboard for further frontier advance and settlement to the West. These hardy Calvinist families had endured extreme hardships in the bleak homelands they left behind in the north of Ireland, and, after overcoming nightmarish conditions on board wooden ships in the long journey across the Atlantic Ocean, they set about planting their roots with an industrious zeal that is so manifestly peculiar to their tradition and culture. From Pennsylvania to the Valley of Virginia and the Carolinas they moved out and were successful in pushing the American territories west to Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Kansas, Ohio, Texas, Nebraska, Oregon, and the California coastline. In the Shenandoah Valley, the Scots-Irish were real achievers and leaders in their community, church and state. American President Woodrow Wilson came of their ilk; so too did distinguished American Civil War General Thomas Jonathan "Stonewall" Jackson and J. E. B. Stuart; innovative farm reaper inventor Cyrus McCormick; celebrated author Mark Twain (Samuel Langhorne Clemens), and the soldier/statesman General Sam Houston, the Governor of Tennessee and Texas. The Ulster-Scots were a breed of people who could move mountains; they did it literally with their bare hands 200 years ago, standing up to the arbitraty diktats of monarchs and prelates and winning the day for freedom and liberty of conscience.