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��TJ4E GRANITE MONTHLY.
��1689, the Scotch ancestors of the first settlers of Windham, either in Scotland or in Ireland, suffered persecutions un- paralleled. To James Second the Scotch Presbyterians were the legiti- mate objects of hate. The fires of persecution were rekindled ; the sword was again unsheathed and bathed in the blood of thousands of slaughtered saints. In consequence of this perse- cution, thousands of Scotch fled from Scotland to the Scotch settlements of Ireland, and joined their countrymen there. Among those who thus fled to Ireland for refuge, were the parents of many of the settlers of Windham.
In 1688-89 occurred the memorable siege of Londonderry, Ireland. Many Scotchmen from Scotland rallied to aid the Scotchmen then residing in that city. That defence has become im- mortal in song and story. On the 30th of July, 1689, the city was relieved. Then the joy and gratitude of its starving inhabitants were unutterable. The watch-fires of a " hundred circling camps " made bright the night. The discharge of the enemy's artillery, fly- ing shot and screaming bombs, com- bined with the answering peals of joy- ous defiance sent forth by the ringing bells of the city, made that night one of awful grandeur, of fear, and of su- premest joy. On the 31st the enemy withdrew, and so closed the memora- ble defence of the city.
Many of those persons who were young at the time of the siege were the sturdy men who, in 17 19 and later, helped to found this settlement of Londonderry and Windham. They made a new departure, and for relig- ious liberty founded this settlement in the American wilderness. P>om those sturdy defenders are descended the McKeens, Morrisons and Cochrans, and many others. They came in manhood's strength, prepared the rude habitations, broke the ground, scattered the grain which the rich and virgin soil would bring forth into abundant har- vests.
Then the <-'/^/ people came — men who were stalwart and strong during the
��defence of the city — and shared with them the joys as well as the perils of the new life in the wilderness. Many settlers came direct from the bonnie blue hills of Scodand. Such was the nationality, and such the education derived in the school of war, trouble and adversity of the early settlers, and the characteristics thus developed en- abled them to triumph over all obsta- cles in the hard life in the wilderness. Probably no people who ever landed in America have been so much misun- derstood and misrepresented as the Scotch settlers of Windham, London- derry, and other places colonized by this same Scotch race. The ignorance of other classes in relation to them and their history has been unbounded. They were called " Irish " when not a drop of " Irish " blood flowed in their veins. They were called " Roman Catholics," when they hated that sect almost to ferocity ; when they had rolled back the papal forces, had en- dured the horrors of starvation, shed their blood in mountain fastnesses and on many battle-fields, to uphold the Protestant faith, and had " ventured their all for the British crown against the Irish Papists." They were of Scotch blood, pure and simple ; the blood of Erin did not flow commingled in the veins of the hardy exiles who, one hundred and sixty and more years ago, struck for a settlement and a home in this wintry land.
Then let every descendant of the first settlers distinctly remember that his ancestors were Scotch, that he is of Scotch descent, and that the terms Scotch-English or Scotch-Irish, so far as they imply a different than Scotch origin and descent, are a perversion of truth and false to history.
��CHAPTER II.
��FIRST SETTLEMENTS.
��Though Windham had been visited by white people as early as October, 1662, when a grant of land was laid out to Rev. Thomas Cobbett, of Ips- wich, Mass., — on Cobbett's pond — it
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