Scotland's Hidden Gems - the Eyemouth Disaster Memorial
Iain Lundy, Editor

There are memorials dotted all over Scotland – but few are as poignant as the simple granite memorial in the Berwickshire fishing port of Eyemouth, six miles north of the English border. It commemorates what is known throughout Scotland as the Eyemouth Disaster.

On the morning of 14 October 1881, the majority of Scotland’s North Sea fishing fleet had abandoned plans to sail. The forecast was for a deadly European cyclone with hurricane force winds, a weather phenomenon for which the wooden fishing boats would be no match.

But in Eyemouth and other nearby ports, the men ignored the weather warnings and set out to sea at the crack of dawn. Hours later the horrendous weather conditions were tossing their tiny vessels around like matchboxes. Some reached shelter but most never made it. Their vessels either overturned or were dashed on the Hurkar Rocks at the entrance to Eyemouth harbour.

Hysterical women and children looked on helplessly as their menfolk were thrown overboard and swallowed up by the sea only yards away. The scenes at Eyemouth that day were truly awful. Women screamed and fainted, children watched as their fathers drowned before their eyes.

By the time the wind subsided a total of 189 men had perished, 129 of them from Eyemouth alone. The deadly storm had left 93 women as widows and 267 children without their fathers. Of 45 boats which had gone to sea, only 26 had returned. It was the worst fishing tragedy in British history. In Eyemouth it has been known since as "Black Friday."

The reason the skippers ignored the weather was the result of a bitter and often violent dispute between the town’s fishing community and the Church of Scotland. The Church had demanded that Eyemouth skippers pay tithes - or one-tenth of their income - to the local minister. The men who sailed to their deaths that day were not stupid or foolhardy, they were desperate.

Today a granite memorial at the Eyemouth seafront commemorates the tragedy.

The event is still the worst disaster to befall a fishing community anywhere in the United Kingdom.

Scots in the American Revolution

by Robert M. Wilbanks IV, B.A.
Chief Genealogist & Historian, C.S.A.
genealogy@arizonascots.com

Scottish settlement in North America began during the Colonial period as early as the 1630s, with notable large migrations in the 1640s and the late 1740s. Meanwhile, between 1717 and 1775, an estimated 200,000 Ulster-Scots (Scots-Irish or Scotch-Irish) immigrated to North America. The Ulster-Scots were descendants of Lowland Scots and Northern English who settled in the Province of Ulster in Northern Ireland during the “Plantation of Ulster” in the very early 1600s.

The influence of the Scottish and Ulster-Scots is found in many aspects of early American history and culture, such as explorers, traders, music, food, literature, soldiers and statesmen. Meanwhile, the age of Scottish Enlightenment contributed significantly to the early colonial American education, intellectual pursuits, art, science, economics and particularly the philosophies of man, government, sharing a humanist and rationalist outlook on society. While many of the American Founding Fathers had direct connections to Scotland, others were greatly influenced by these teachings of the Scottish Enlightenment.

John Witherspoon and James Wilson were the only Scots to sign the Declaration of Independence, while several other signers had Scottish ancestry. Other Scottish American Founding Fathers included Commodore John Paul Jones, “Father of the American Navy”, Generals Henry Knox and William Alexander, and Hugh Mercer, a soldier under “Bonnie Prince Charlie” at the Battle of Culloden. James Craik, the first Surgeon General, was born in Dumfriesshire. And Patrick Henry’s father was from Aberdeenshire. Nine of the thirteen colonial governors at this time were Scotsmen.

At the time of the American Revolution, the Scotch-Irish are the most notable settlers in the Southern States, and were the core of illegal settlers west of the Proclamation Line, in the Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee Valleys, with names like Jackson, Boone, Crocket, Calhoun, Clinton, Matthews, McDowell, McClellan and many more. Many of these western settlers were drawn into the rebellion as the war spread into the western frontier. Meanwhile, many plantations and independent farms in the back country of Virginia, Maryland and the Carolinas had been financed with Scottish credit, creating a great deal of farmers deep in debt. This incentivized many to fight for separation from England.

Meanwhile, many Scottish Americans with very successful commercial ties to the old country, or bound by clan allegiances, chose to stay true to the crown. The Scottish Highland populations of upstate New York, and the Cape Fear Valley of North Carolina, were centers of Loyalist resistance to the rebellion. A small force of Loyalist Highlanders fell at the Battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge in 1776, and another band of Scottish American Loyalists were defeated by Scots-Irish Patriots at the Battle of Kings Mountain in 1780. Many of these Scottish American Loyalists emigrated to Canada after the war.

This FamilySearch wiki page on Loyalists in the Revolutionary War identifies numerous resources for Loyalist family history research. The FamilySearch wiki also has a page on Finding Your Revolutionary War Ancestor, and more about, and resources related to, the Revolutionary War. Meanwhile, here is the fundamental page about United States Military Records, another page on Scotland Military Records, and a page dedicated to British Military Records Online.

This is another of a series of articles in which I show you the basics of searching for your family history, discussing the use of family records, public records, and online resources nationally and internationally, etc. The previous articles are now available on the Genealogy Section of this website.   See “Genealogy” in the menu options at the top of the web page.

Scots came to the American southwest long before Arizona gained statehood. Many were pioneer miners and prospectors and some even joined the rag tag collection of cowboys that constituted the ‘Wild West’.

Others joined the US Army and, in some cases at least, covered themselves in glory. Two, and perhaps more, Scottish soldiers distinguished themselves as fighting men in what was then the Arizona Territory that they received medals from the government as a tribute to their bravery.

John Thompson was born in Glasgow in 1842 but grew restless in his native land and emigrated as a young man to America. He enlisted as a private in the US Army in Chicago, joined the 1st US Cavalry Regiment, and by the late 1800s was fighting in the Apache Wars which were raging throughout the southwest.

Thompson and his comrades were stationed at Fort Bowie, a now derelict camp near what is known as Apache Pass. His moment of glory came on 20 October 1869 in battle against the Apache in the Chiricahua Mountains. For his bravery in action he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

James Lawrence, from Aberdeen, fought with distinction in the same conflict. He signed up with the US Army in Sacramento, California, and became a Private in Company B of the 8th US Cavalry. During the 1860s he saw action in various parts of the southwest including Arizona and New Mexico.

Lawrence was also awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions near Arizona’s Black Mountains between August and October 1868. His citation read, ‘Bravery in scouts and action against Indians.’