194 The Winning of the West 



stock. 3 Of course, in each case there was also a 

 very considerable movement directly westward. 4 



3 Campbell MSS. 



"The first settlers on Holston River were a remarkable race 

 of people for their intelligence, enterprise, and hardy adven- 

 ture. The greater portion of them had emigrated from the 

 counties of Botetourt, Augusta, and Frederick, and others 

 along the same valley, and from the upper counties of Mary- 

 land and Pennsylvania ; were mostly descendants of Irish stock 

 and generally, where they had any religious opinions, were 

 Presbyterians. A very large proportion were religious, and 

 many were members of the church. There were some fami- 

 lies, however, and among the most wealthy, that were ex- 

 tremely wild and dissipated in their habits. 



"The first clergyman that came among them was the Rev. 

 Charles Cummings, an Irishman by birth, but educated in 

 Pennsylvania. This gentleman was one of the first settlers, 

 defended his domicile for years with his rifle in hand, and 

 built his first meeting-house on the very spot where he and 

 two or three neighbors and one of his servants had had a 

 severe skirmish with the Indians, in which one of his party 

 was killed and another wounded. Here he preached to a very 

 large and most respectable congregation for twenty or thirty 

 years. He was a zealous whig, and contributed much to 

 kindle the patriotic fire which blazed forth among these 

 people in the Revolutionary struggle. " 



This is from a MS. sketch of the Holston Pioneers, by the 

 Hon. David Campbell, a son of one of the first settlers. The 

 Campbell family, of Presbyterian Irish stock, first came to 

 Pennsylvania, and drifted south. In the Revolutionary war 

 it produced good soldiers and commanders, such as William 

 and Arthur Campbell. The Campbells intermarried with the 

 Prestons, Breckenridges, and other historic families; and 

 their blood now runs in the veins of many of the noted men 

 of the States south of the Potomac and Ohio. 



4 The first settlers on the Watauga included both Virgin- 

 ians (as "Captain" William Bean, whose child was the first 

 born in what is now Tennessee ; Ramsey, 94) and Carolinians 

 (Hay wood, 37). But many of these Carolina hill people were, 



