om Ulster came to the colony. One of the principal encouragers
of the Scottish colony in New Jersey was George Scot or Scott (d.
1685) of Pitlochrie, who had been repeatedly fined and imprisoned by
the Privy Council of Scotland for attending "Conventicles," as
clandestine religious gatherings were then called in Scotland, and in
the hope of obtaining freedom of worship in the new world he proposed
to emigrate "to the plantations." To encourage others to do the like
he printed at Edinburgh (1685) a work, now very rare, called "The
Model of the Government of the Province of East New Jersey, in
America; and Encouragement for Such as Design to be concerned there."
Scot received a grant of five hundred acres in recognition of his
having written the work, and sailed in the _Henry and Francis_ for
America. A malignant fever broke out among the passengers and nearly
half on board perished including Scot and his wife. A son and daughter
survived and the proprietors a year after issued a confirmation of the
grant to Scot's daughter and her husband (John Johnstone), many of
whose descendants are still living in New Jersey.
Walter Ker of Dalserf, Lanarkshire, banished in 1685, settled in
Freehold, and was active in organizing the Presbyterian Church there,
one of the oldest in New Jersey. The Scots settlers who came over at
this period occupied most of the northern counties of the state but
many went south and southwest, mainly around Princeton, and, says
Samuel Smith, the first historian of the province, "There were very
soon four towns in the Province, viz., Elizabeth, Newark, Middletown
and Shrewsbury; and these with the country round were in a few years
plentifully inhabited by the accession of the Scotch, of whom there
came a great many." These Scots, says Duncan Campbell, largely gave
"character to this sturdy little state not the least of their
achievements being the building up if not the nominal founding of
Princeton College, which has contributed so largely to the scholarship
of America."
In 1682 another company of nobles and gentlemen in Scotland arranged
for a settlement at Port Royal, South Carolina. These colonists
consisted mainly of Presbyterians banished for attending
"Conventicles." The names of some of these immigrants, whose
descendants exist in great numbers at the present day, included James
McClintock, John Buchanan, William Inglis, Gavin Black, Adam Allan,
John Gait, Thomas Marshall, William Smith, Rober
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