America's First True Westeners

Germans immigrated to America in the early 1700s in the upper Hudson River Valley, moving to Pennsylvania soon after.  Unable to afford high prices of farmland in the East, they found the Susquehanna River Valley more to their liking.  Referred to as the "Pennsylvania Dutch" they also settled the Potomac River Valley in Virginia, in a town called Winchester.  During the 1750s the Pennsylvania Dutch settled in North Carolina.  By that time they had German settlements from New York to the Carolinas.

The Scotch-Irish were a sturdy peasant people who had lived in northern Ireland for generations. When the English threatened their economy and religion, they cleared the forests and fought the Catholics in the name of the Presbyterian faith before coming to the New World.  Some of them came to New England, but most came to inland Pennsylvania, settling beyond the Germans in Juniata River Valley in western Pennsylvania (then northern Carolina).

During 1732-1754 the population in North Carolina doubled due to German and Scotch-Irish settlers.
The Scotch-Irish continued west to the Tennessee River.  They were skilled pioneers, determined to make a life for themselves in the New World. They were America's first true western pioneers.  They were democratic in spirit, fierce in battle and eager to move beyond the next river, or mountain to meet the unknown challenge there.

The Scotch-Irish brought frontieering to maturity.   Generations of wilderness skills handed down, skilled with the ax and rifle, fishermen, hunters, and farmers,  they lived so simply that some mistook them for Indians - but they were successful with boldness not found among other settlers.

If  the colonists were  going to move over the Appalachians into hostile Indian territory, they would need boldness.  By the mid-18th century when British settlers were ready to move into the Ohio Valley, French trappers had already staked their claims to half the continent.

Next time...and the wars begin
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Today in Pioneer History: "On this day, September 3, 1777, the American flag is flown in battle for the first time, during a Revolutionary War skirmish at Cooch’s Bridge, Maryland.