Emigration to America

Early Scots emigrants settled in the 1680s in east New Jersey, and at Charlestown, in South Carolina. American colonial administrations continued to encourage Scottish migration up to Independence, by which time Scots were prominent in most American professional groups, including doctors, educators, and preachers. 

Princeton University, founded in 1746, originally had close links to the ‘New Light’ Presbyterian Church, and was noticeably Scottish in its organisation and staffing. John Witherspoon (1723-94) was a minister in Paisley when he accepted the post of sixth president of the college in 1768. He helped the college structure its courses along the lines of those at St Andrews where he had gained a PhD. As the representative for New Jersey he was one of the men who signed the US Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia in 1776.

Other well known American Scots include; the founder of the US navy John Paul Jones (1747-92); the conservationist John Muir (1838-1914); the industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919); and the inventor of the telephone Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922).

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