Editorial Reviews:
Pennsylvania and Kentucky are two American states settled primarily at opposite ends of the 18th century by Ulster-Scots Presbyterians. In this fourth of the popular chronicles on this hardy, pioneering breed of people, Billy Kennedy vividly details the stories behind the early settlements and the enduring personalities who came to the fore during a fascinating period of history. William Penn and his Quaker community encouraged the European settlers to move in large numbers to the colonial lands in Pennsylvania from the beginning of the 18th century and the Scots-Irish were among the earliest families to set up homes in Philadelphia, Lancaster, Elizabethtown, Harrisburg, and Pittsburgh. President James Buchanan was a Scots-Irish son of Pennsylvania, one of thirteen Presidents with Ulster family links, and many other illustrious citizens of the Keystone State trace their roots to immigrants who crossed the Atlantic from the North of Ireland. Kentucky, established as a state in 1792, was pioneered two decades earlier by renowned frontiersmen Daniel Boone and a few Ulster-Scots families, such as the WArnocks, the McAfees, the Logans, and the McGarys. Those were dark and dangerous days west of the Appalachian Mountains and through the Cumberland Gap and the bloody conflict between the settlers and the Indian tribes terribly stained the landscape of the Bluegrass State. Gradually, civilized society emerged in Kentucky by the beginning of the 19th century and it was Scots-Irish soldiers, hunters, politicians, lawyers, and plain ordinary farmers who were in the vanguard of bringing this about. This book records for posterity the outstanding contribution of the Scots-Irish in Pennsylvania and Kentucky, and, as with the immigrant settlers in Tennessee, the Shenandoah Valley, and the Carolinas, it is a story well worth telling.
Customer Reviews:
 An Interesting Perspesctive on the Scots-Irish in the USA
I found this book at a Scottish Festival in February and picked it up because my ancestors were Scots-Irish who lived in PA before the Civil War. I thought the book would help me to understand the reasons the Scots-Irish came to America, their migration, and their life. Little did I realize that it would give me genealogical support for 3 of my ancestors, Galbraiths who were founders of a Presbytery in Donegal County, PA.
This book is an interesting read for anyone with connections to either Scotland or Ireland. It gives a better picture of the strength and fortitude of these people, who were driven from Scotland to Ulster Province, and ultimately from Ulster to America. Based on my own genalogical findings, Mr. Kennedy appears to have done his homework with his research. This book is fourth in a series (the previous books are the Scots-Irish in Tennessee, Virginia, and the Carolinas). It is interesting to note that the Scots-Irish, in spite of the derrogatory terms used to describe them, were often gentry who had been driven from Scotland to find a new home in Northern Ireland.
I recommend this for anyone who is interested in learning more about the contribution of the Scots-Irish in building our country. Also, if you are researching your family history, Mr. Kennedy's books will give you a better understanding of the contributions your ancestors made to the growth of our nation.  Research Historian
Billy Kennedy is one of the first writers of Ulster Scot or Scot-irish history to truly understand and document his findings.
First to recognise the tremendous contibution to history by this group.This backbone of America establish a Culture says James T Webb in his "Born Fighting", a culture of the American Military, Police and Firemen and many others we can always count on. Few groups have been reciepents recieve treament by the elitist and history abounds with words like Red Necks, Hill Billy, White Trash, few recognise their contibution starting with Blue Grass, US Constitution and Declaration of Indepedence and the Patriots to make it happen. They are the mainstream that disturbs those who are not. Insults have never detered their commitments.
Billy throughout his series documents the many incidenteds and contributions while in Ulster is part of a team to expand Ulsters part in todays world. Along with Billy's books, Born Fighting by James T Webb is equally recommended.
A Silent Knight sends, thank you  This isn't really history
Billy Kennedy loves to recount every tale @ the Scotch-Irish he finds under every rural outhouse in the hill-billy South--and he never documents where he actually found it! This is not history-its myth & fable to make Scotch-Irish protestants feel warm and fuzzy.
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