, Allegheny, and Washington counties.
In 1773 they penetrated to and settled in Kentucky, and were followed
by a stream of Todds, Flemings, Morrisons, Barbours, Breckinridges,
McDowells, and others. By 1790 seventy-five thousand people were in
the region and Kentucky was admitted to the Federal Union in 1792. By
1779 they had crossed the Ohio River into the present state of Ohio.
Between the years 1730 and 1775 the Scottish immigration into
Pennsylvania often reached ten thousand a year.

SOME PROMINENT SCOTS AND SCOTS FAMILIES

Lord Bacon expressed his regret that the lives of eminent men were not
more frequently written, and added that, "though kings, princes, and
great personages be few, yet there are many excellent men who deserve
better fate than vague reports and barren elegies." Of no country is
this more true than the United States. An examination of the
innumerable early biographical dictionaries with which the shelves of
our public libraries are cumbered, will show that the bulk of the life
sketches of the individuals therein commemorated are vague and
unsatisfactory. In nearly every case little or no information is given
of the parentage or origin of the subject, and indeed one work goes so
far as to say that such information is unnecessary, the mere fact of
American birth being sufficient. However pleasing such statements may
be from an ultra patriotic viewpoint it is very unsatisfactory from
the biological or historical side of the question, which is
undoubtedly the most important to be considered. The neglect of these
items of origin, etc., makes the task of positively identifying
certain individuals as of Scottish origin or descent a very difficult
one. One may feel morally certain that a particular individual from
his name or features (if there be a portrait) is of Scottish origin,
but without a definite statement to that effect the matter must in
most cases be left an open question. One other cause of uncertainty,
and it is a very annoying one, is the careless method of many
biographers in putting down a man's origin as "Irish," "from Ireland,"
"from the north of Ireland," etc., where they clearly mean to state
that the individual concerned is descended from one of the many
thousands of Scots who settled in Ulster in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. Notwithstanding this uncertainty the proportion
of men of undoubted Scottish origin who have reached high distinction,
and whose influenc