1683/1684 - Thomas Ferguson and the forgotten Scotch-Irish emigrants of Charleston, South Carolina?

The more you read the more you find. Numerous reputable sources refer to a Sir Richard Kyrle, who was based in County Cork but was also Governor of South Carolina and who was involved in an Ulster emigration led by a Thomas Ferguson in 1683 or 1684. 

This website lists some surviving primary records of the Ferguson venture - " Mr. Thomas Ferguson and other families from the north of Ireland, being desirous of settling in Carolina, in compliance with their request, some small river to be reserved for them for seven years. Instructions thereupon”. The land grant which they were attracted to seems to have been formalised in 1702, to a Hugh Ferguson.

The settlement appears to have been where the Ashley River meets the Cooper River. You can see ‘Ferguson’s’ marked on the 1733 map shown above, just outside the town walls. Interestingly, Dr Mark Jardine’s wonderful blog refers to a shipload of Covenanter prisoners being banished to the Carolinas from Scotland in 1684.

The first Presbyterian church in Charlestown was organised in 1685, its congregation made up of people from Scotland and also some who had come down from New England. The original building was just outside the town walls; it is long-gone but there are today a number of Presbyterian churches in the same area as Ferguson’s settlement. American Presbyterianism, its Origin and Early History (published 1885, online here) features a map which shows a lot of Presbyterian activity in New England, and with Charleston as an outlier much further south.

A 1710 letter refers to ‘five British Presbyterian’ ministers active in Charleston. In June 1714 the records of the General Synod of Ulster refer to a Rev John Jarvie, ordained by the Presbytery of Belfast, being onboard a ship sailing from Belfast Lough ‘bound for South Carolina; the seamen and passengers amount to the number of 70”. This ship arrived in Charleston in summer 1714.

So, another important story which needs some scholarly attention, another very early connection. 

• NB the primary source reference mentioned above is "Papers in the State Paper Office London: 1684, July 11. Craven and others, to Sir Richard Kyrle. Mr. Thomas Ferguson and other families from the north of Ireland, being desirious of settling in Carolina, in compliance with their request, some small river to be reserved for them for seven years. Instructions thereupon. 4 folios; p. 38"