The People of Meigs County
The original settlers of our county were very much like other settlers of the Appalachia region of America in the 18th and early 19th centuries; they were predominantly the Scotch-Irish immigrants from Ulster in Ireland. Ulster, a province in Nothern Ireland that was mostly settled by lowland Scots in the 17th century under the direction of the British monarchy. They were Protestant and mostly poor. Most historians consider them to have been the largest single ethnic group to emigrate and settle in Appalachia.
Many came to America in the 1700s, landed in Philadelphia as indentured servants and after serving their time of indenture, moved inland to search for free land. Various reasons have been offered as to why they moved away from the north – a disdain of the English population of the northeast, or they were forced out, or most of the available land had already been claimed.
Goodspeed Biographies
The Goodspeed Publishing Company of Nashville and Chicago issued A History of Tennessee from the Earliest Times to the Present, together with an Historical and a Biographical Sketch of Meigs County during 1886 and 1887. View the biographies »
