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History Lesson Part 2

Growing up I always considered myself to be of English, Swedish and German ancestry. I have learned that we are also descended from at least two, and possibly four or more ancient Scottish Clans as well. What follows is a brief outline of our Scottish roots.

"Nowhere beats the heart so kindly as beneath the tartan plaid."
                                                    William Edmunston Ayton

In approximately 700 B.C. a group of Celts migrated from central Europe and settled in the Lowlands of what is now known as Scotland. These people were farmers and fishermen. However, they were also fierce warriors who formed a military alliance to defend against the Romans. It is believed they wore whole body tattoos which led to the Roman name Picti, meaning "Painted Men". They were such good fighters in fact that when the Romans tried to conquer Britain, they found they could not conquer the Picts. Instead, the Romans constructed Hadrian's Wall, an earthen wall that extends across the entire island, to keep the Picts out of Roman occupied territory.

Sometime around 300 A.D. another group of Celtic people known as Scots began migrating to the area from Ireland. They settled around Argyll and eventually spread throughout the Highlands. Although the Scots and Picts apparently fought quite often, neither side gained an advantage. In 563 a priest known as St. Columba brought Christianity to Scotland from Ireland. The Picts were converted from their Pagan practices. Eventually their were intermarriages between the Picts and Scots. In 843 A.D the two sides were united when Kenneth MacAlpine, the son of a Scottish king and a Pictish princess, was crowned King of Scotland. Within a few generations Pictish traditions were abandoned and the Picts, who had left no written record of themselves, were all but forgotten.

Clan is a word of Gaelic origin which means offspring. In the Scottish Highlands the term was used originally used to describe a group of people with a common ancestor. The Clan would appoint a chief whose duty was to protect the Clan's lands. Eventually, other people living on the lands wanted protection and would become members of the Clan as well. Sometimes these other families would adopt the Clan's name. Other times they would not. Families who did not adopt the Clan's name became known as Septs of that particular Clan. Another way a family could become a Sept of a Clan was through marrying a member of the Clan.

The Clan system survived until 1746. In that year the Highland Scots were defeated by the British who declared the Clan system to be illegal. All weapons were forbidden to the Highlanders, as were their tartans, clan dress, clan symbols, clan music and clan gatherings. Even the bagpipe was forbidden as it was considered an instrument of war. The ban of Clans was ended in the 1820's by King George IV who toured Scotland in full Highland regalia. The Clans were revitalized and Clan societies were organized in an attempt to re-establish family ties.

The history of the tartan is as old as the Scots people themselves, dating back to the 5th century when they arrived from Ireland with their "woollen cloth of different colours". In its original form, a rough woollen cloth worn as a plaid, or cloak, the tartan had a highly practical function of providing warmth and shelter from the harsh Scottish weather. Over the years, the plaid became modified into the kilt. In 1747, shortly after the Jacobite rebellion, the Dress Act forbade the wearing of tartans with offenders receiving a punishment of six months imprisonment or transportation. Once the law was repealed, tartans reappeared slowly, mainly as a military uniform. It was not until George IV's visit to Scotland in 1822 that tartans became popular once more. Over the years, each clan or family has developed its own distinctive "sett", distinguished by the number of threads of each colour in the pattern. Nowadays, the tartan has virtually lost its function as a hardwearing cloth for hunting and working purposes, and the more traditional and sombre colours made with vegetable dyes have been replaced by dress tartans with their brighter overchecks. To many Scotsmen and women the tartan is emblematic of something heroic and indefinable, and they continue to wear it with pride. Below are shown examples of tartans of our ancestral Scottish clans.

"Yer canna' get the breeks off a Highlander."

Anonymous

MacNaughton Tartan		Gunn Tartan
Buchanan Tartan		Montgomery Tartan

Before coming to America, many Scottish families moved to the northern section of Ireland, known as Ulster. What follows is a brief history of Ulster and it's Scottish immigrants.

For centuries, England had tried to take over the island of Ireland. There had been attempts to transplant English settlers to Ireland in order to infiltrate the Irish people, but these had failed. Between 1594 and 1603, 20,000 Englishmen were sent to fight the Irish natives. Finally a commander named Lord Mountjoy, who was particularly ruthless, destroyed all the food, houses, and cattle he could find. Starvation and defeats on the battlefields finally made the Irish submit to England. The Gaelic chiefs of Ulster fled the island and went to the continent. The English government, which had just spent 9 years and a lot of money in Ireland, was intent on insuring the Irish would not return.

After the native people fled from Ulster, King James I confiscated between 3 and 4 million acres of their lands. The English and Scottish had also fought for many years. James thought this would be a chance to take care of two problems at once. He would encourage the Scottish people, who were Protestants, to move onto the Irish lands and establish a plantation. The original settlers, who came in about 1609, were English Army officers and wealthy Scottish people who could afford to hire tenants to improve the land. Because the coast of Scotland is only 20 - 30 miles away from Ulster, many other Scots eventually moved to Ulster to live. By 1640 there were an estimated 100,000 Scotsmen living in Ulster.

The English and Scots living in Ulster were becoming very prosperous by this time. This made the native Irish, whose land had been stolen by James I, very angry. They had been forced off of their land and been persecuted for their Catholic faith. In October of 1641 a force of about 9,000 Irishmen attacked Ulster. This began a war which continued until 1650 and claimed 15,000 lives. The war was able to continue for so long because the English were engaged in their own Civil Wars at the time. Finally when the English Civil Wars ended, a force led by Oliver Cromwell came to Ireland. His troops killed both Catholics and Protestants alike. It is believed that over 600,000 people died as a result of this campaign. Also, many of the survivors were deported to the West Indies. When Cromwell's campaign was over, Ulster was finally at peace for the first time in many years.

After Cromwell's death, Charles II became king. He was neither Catholic or Protestant. What he wanted to do was force Scotland to accept the Church of England. This led to more fighting, especially near the border. Many Lowland Scots, and Englishmen as well, fled to Ulster during this period which has become known as "the killing times". This increase in immigration continued through the end of the 1600's.

As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end. What had once been a successful and prosperous plantation began to lose its appeal. High rents, years of drought, and English import and export policies led many in Ulster to look for a better life elsewhere. In 1717, the first wave of 5,000 Ulster Scots came to America. By the time of the American Revolution, nearly 250,000 people had left Ulster to come to America. Our ancestors James Harper and Alexander McNitt and their families were part of this migration in the year 1720.

The name MacNaughton is derived from the Scottish term Mac, meaning "son of" and the Pict word nechtan, which means "little pledges". Clans would pledge their children to neighboring clans in order to keep the peace. Family tradition states that this Clan is descended from a Pict leader who called himself Nechtan and ruled Caledonia between 458 and 482 A.D.

The family originally lived in the lowlands near the Tay River, north of Edinburgh. In 1164 they helped King Malcolm IV, who gave them lands in Argyll, which is in the Scottish Highlands near the present day town of Inveraray. In 1235, King Alexander II needed help controlling residents in the area known as Galloway. The MacNaughton family apparently came to his aid and shortly after, members of the Clan began moving to the Galloway area. It was here that the name was first shortened to MacNaught. Also during the time the family lived in Galloway, they became members of the Church of Scotland, which was Presbyterian. Eventually the British began persecuting the Presbyterians, including members of the MacNaught family, and they moved to the province of Ulster in northern Ireland. Most of the MacNaughts who moved to Ulster settled in the Laggan, or Lowlands, of County Donegal, where they remained for several generations. In 1720 our ancestor Alexander McNitt came with his family to Boston, Massachusetts. As the MacNaughts moved to Ulster and then to America, they again began changing their name, adopting the spellings McKnight, McNett, McNitt, McNott, McNutt, etc.

Clan Gunn also claims to be descended from Picts and Scots. They also claim to be descended from Norse Vikings, tracing their origins to King Olaf the Black of Norway. The surname Gunn is supposedly derived from the Norse word gunnar, which means "war". The family once held extensive lands in Caithness, along the northern coast of Scotland, and Orkney, a group of islands just off the coast. The modern branch of the family stems from George Gunn, the Crowner of Caithness, born in the first decade of the 15th century and slain with several of his clansmen at the Chapel of St. Tears, near Ackergil, in July 1478. Gunn family history states that nine Gunn brothers came to America from Scotland in 1720. It is believed that our ancestor Jasper Gunn was one of these brothers.

It is known that Clan Buchanan has a Sept known as Harper. It is also known that our Harper ancestors came to America from Ireland and are quite probably Ulster Scots. What has yet to be proven is if our family of Harpers is actually a branch of the Harper Sept of Clan Buchanan. I have been in contact with a member of the Harper family whose relatives are currently researching that part of the family's history. If I learn anything more, I will share it at that time. If we are in fact descended from the Buchanans, we will be related to America's 15th President, James Buchanan, with whom I share a birthday, April 23rd.

The name Buchanan comes from the gaelic word Boghchanan, which means "low land belonging to the canon". Family historians state that the clan originated with 'Anselan o'Cahan, son of the King of Southern Ulster, who was forced to flee Ireland and arrived in Scotland in 1016. He offered his services to King Malcolm II and served the King so well that he was granted the lands of Boghchanan in Stirlingshire along the eastern shores of Loch Lomond. The earliest recorded person with this name is Morris of Buchanan, who received a charter in 1282 confirming him as a baron of his lands as well as the small island of Clarinch, whose name became the Clan's battle cry. These lands remained in the posession of the clan for over 600 years. James Harper, our possible connection to this clan, came with his family from Ulster to Casco Bay, Maine, in 1720.

The origins of this clan actually begin in France. William, Duke of Normandy, was a relative of Edward the Confessor, King of England. During a visit to England in 1051 Edward told William he would succeed him as king. At Edward's death English barons elected Prince Harold to be their king instead. William and his army went to England and defeated Harold. This has since been known as the Norman Invasion and William has since been known as William the Conqueror. Among the people coming to England with William in 1066 was Roger de Montgomery, Regent of Normandy.

Roger de Montgomery was a descendant of an ancient Norman family, who held the Castle of St. Foy de Montgomery near Lisieux, in France. Tradition asserts that the name can be traced back to a Roman commander called Gomericus. Montgomery followed King William to England where he was created Earl of Arundel. He was later made Earl of Shropshire, where the county of Montgomery is named after him. There is still a city named Montgomery in Great Britain, but it is found in Wales, just across the border from Shropshire. Roger's grandson Robert was the first member of the family to go to Scotland. He went to Scotland with the first High Steward of Scotland as part of his staff under the reign of Scottish King David I. While there, he obtained a grant of the lands of Eaglesham in Renfrewshire, near present day Glasgow. William Montgomery, our possible connection to this clan, came with his family to America from Ulster in 1718.

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