December 7, 2020
Ulster Migration to America: 1715 - 1775
Between 1717 and 1775 the Scot-Irish of Ulster migrated in large numbers to America. More than 250,000 Scot-Irish left Ireland during this time period and many risked the 8 weeks on the ocean to make it to America - most sailing into Philadelphia.
Most historians identified 3 major causes for this migration: 1) during this 58 year period there were repeated problems with drought and famine; 2) the cost imposed by the landowners onto the tenant farmers rose dramatically while the lure of free land in America became a magnet not to be ignored; and finally, 3) religious and political persecution made the status quo unbearable.
Robert Hamilton probably sailed from one of four Ulster ports - Belfast, Larne, Londonderry, or Portrush - and probably landed in Philadelphia in 1775 or 1776. From there he would have traveled to Lancaster, PA to live with an uncle who was a blacksmith. One family historian suggests Robert arrived in America at the Port of Baltimore in 1774 and then made his way to Lancaster. Without documentary evidence it seems that Philadelphia (where the majority of Scot-Irish arrived) and its proximity to Lancaster becomes the more logical place.
Unfortunately we do not have any documentary evidence of the date or ship he left Ireland on, nor the date he arrived in Philadelphia, or when he did finally reach his uncle in Lancaster. Nor do we know why Robert Hamilton left Banbridge in County Down when he was 15 years old. And while there are no written records to confirm the answers to these questions, there are apocryphal Hamilton family stories that fill in this time period.
One family member, Henry Sallee Hamilton (1834-1914), wrote Memoirs of the Hamilton Family: 1777 - 1911, a history of the Hamiltons in America. Henry was a great grandson of Robert Hamilton and was born seven years before his death in Brown County, Ohio. Henry was a Civil War veteran enlisting at Quincy, IL in Sept. 1861 and mustering into the Missouri Volunteers (3rd Regiment Cavalry, Co B) about 3 months later in Palmyra, MO. Henry’s younger brother, Warren, was a veteran of the IL 35th Regiment and died fighting at Chickamauga, GA on September 19, 1863.
Henry Sallee Hamilton
Henry’s account of Robert Hamilton would seem to benefit from oral history - his father, Robert Hamilton and Robert’s grandson, was born in 1810 in Trumbull County, Ohio and would have known his grandfather until his death in 1841 . Henry’s father lived until the 1880’s and could have provided Henry with invaluable information. Henry’s history is quoted by Donna Zurcher and she shares his account:
In the year 1777 while the revolutionary war was in progress Robert Hamilton - a boy about 16 years old living in County Down and town of Banbridge in the north of Ireland - for some boyish reason ran away from home a stowaway on a vessel and made his way to Baltimore Md. Family tradition says he concealed himself in a barrel on board the vessel and thus made his way across the ocean….. Henry continues his remembrance of Robert Hamilton’s time in the Continental Army and his imprisonment in or near Philadelphia when his “….brother had quite a talk with him (the brother has been described as a British officer) and gave him advice about his enlistment with the (rebel army). Henry comments that this is the only time he ever heard that his g grandfather had communication with a member of his family from Ireland.
Henry continues: At the close of the war he went to Pennsylvania. From this incident I have always thought he belonged to PA Troops as he had no friends or relatives save such friends as he made during his enlistment. Shortly after the war he married and settled down in PA. He had two sons - William and Alexander - who later settled near Dayton, Ohio.
Henry’s final comments (as presented by Zurcher) are: ….His (Robert Hamilton his g grandfather) wife died and he married again and (had) a son by his last wife (and) was the grandfather of the (this) writer. His name was Joseph Hamilton and he settled near Georgetown in Brown County Ohio when quite a young man. He died long before I was born but my grandmother (Deliverance Hannah, d. 1867) who lived to old age used to tell me when (my father was) a boy about their trip down the Ohio River and about their troubles with the Indians along the way. After leaving Pittsburg they did not dare to land until they reached Brown County Ohio (Ripley Ohio) where there was quite a settlement.
Henry Sallee Hamilton’s remembrance seems to be based mostly on oral history, testimony from contemporaries of Robert Hamilton, and memory. Much of what Zurcher shares from Henry’s ‘memoir’ is rich in anecdotes, but there are some very glaring inaccuracies. An example. Henry refers to his grandfather (Joseph) as the “son of his last wife” (Ann Hays). Joseph is the third (or 4th) child born to Susanna (nee Keen or Keane) in 1786 in Lancaster, PA. Joseph was four years old when his mother died (perhaps in child birth with George, both of whom died in 1790). Two years later Robert Hamilton married his second wife, Ann Hays, in Washington Co., PA near Waynesburg and had a final child in 1795, William Hays Hamilton (1795-1887).
Not surprisingly, Henry would trust his grandmother’s (Deliverance Hannah) information as accurate. She knew Robert Hamilton from at least 1808 - 33 years - when she married Joseph Hamilton in Trumbull County, Ohio and all of the Hamilton siblings and families. They all moved to Brown County Ohio around 1815. So she should have known that her husband Joseph’s birth mother was not his stepmother Ann. Additionally, Joseph’s sister, Elizabeth Dunn, lived in the same county and was alive up until Henry and his parents moved to Missouri in the 1850’s. Henry was nearly 20 years old when they left Brown County.
Another inaccuracy is the timing of Robert Hamilton’s beginning enlistment in fighting for independence. Henry suggests his great grandfather entered the fight in 1777 after he arrived in America. Yet documentary evidence that Robert was a drummer for the Lancaster County Flying Camp 1st Regiment in August, 1776 can be found in the Pennsylvania Archives (more on this in the next section).
One cannot fault the information Henry had available. He was one of the few who can be found that had contemporaneous access to information regarding Robert Hamilton. Yet these possible inaccuracies do demonstrate that looking back more than 200 years have many pitfalls and the written record should dictate the record where it can be documented.
Another family member with Robert Hamilton insights and quoted by Donna Zurcher in her Hamilton history is found in a 1934 letter from g grandson Charles K. Hamilton (a grandson of William Hays Hamilton) to his cousin and Robert’s gg granddaughter, Charlotte Tannehill, a niece of Henry Sallee Hamilton. Zurcher quotes the following from the letter: “…He (Robert Hamilton) was determined to run away from Ireland…His mother knowing that he was fully determined to go to America finally gave her consent and he came across the great ocean with a young blacksmith, who soon after (reaching America) joined the American ranks and was followed by grandfather. Being considered too small to carry one of the heavy guns he found service with General Anthony Wayne and served him as a tent guard, having as a gun one cut off to suit his size. Here it was his opportunity to meet many of the leading men of the Revolutionary Army, including Gen. George Washington. He later joined a regular company and fought throughout the War.”
Again Charles’s account is rich in the kind of detail one finds in anecdotes. Given that he probably gathered this information in talks with his grandfather, William Hays Hamilton (1795-1887), one would tend to give a bit more credence to some of the detail. Some of this can be explained in other ways. Robert at first was a drummer boy. Perhaps his age prohibited his involvement in taking up arms (more on this in next section). “He came over with a young blacksmith”. We know Robert was a blacksmith after the War in Lancaster and other locations as he made his way to Ohio over a 30 year period. Did he go to an uncle, a blacksmith, in Lancaster? Or did he learn the art of blacksmith in Ireland or from his companion? So many questions and no definitive answers.
Before closing I want to briefly share my doubts about his landing in Baltimore and not in Philadelphia. We do not have a set date, but it is fairly certain it was before 1777 which Henry Sallee Hamilton claims as the date of his arrival.
When you compare this transportation map, if you accept Robert’s destination is Lancaster, going to Baltimore made little sense. Consider these three factors: 1) sailing to Philadelphia via the Delaware River probably reduced the sailing distance by approximately 350 miles over Baltimore coming up the Chesapeake; 2) overland transportation was clearly better from Philadelphia to Lancaster; and, 3) Philadelphia was considered the primary entry point in the middle colonies for the Scot-Irish, many of whom were destined to move further inland into the Appalachians in Pennsylvania and Virginia.
In conclusion, we know Robert Hamilton of Banbridge, Ireland came to America in 1774, 1775, or 1776. He more than likely arrived in Philadelphia. He did complete the first leg of his journey in Lancaster, PA where he joined the Lancaster County, PA 1st Regiment Flying Camp as a drummer. And this is where we will resume with his story.
Books, Articles, Authors Used for this Post:
How the Scots Invented the Modern World, by Arthur Herman.
The Other Irish: The Scots-Irish Rascals Who made America, by Karen F. McCarthy.
Robert Hamilton’s Families, Vol. 1, by Donna Zurcher.
How the Irish Won the American Revolution:
The Forgotten Heroes of America’s War of Independence,
by Philip Thomas Tucker, PhD.
America’s Revolutionary Mind: A Moral History of the American Revolution and the Declaration That Defined It, by C. Bradley Thompson, 2019.
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