They suffered also from
the restrictions laid upon their industries and commerce by the
English government. These restrictions, and later the falling in of
leases, rack-renting by the landlords, payment of tithes for support
of a church with which they had no connection, and several other
burdens and annoyances, were the motives which impelled emigration to
the American colonies from 1718 onwards. Five ships bearing seven
hundred Ulster Scots emigrants arrived in Boston on August 4, 1718,
under the leadership of Rev. William Boyd. They were allowed to select
a township site of twelve miles square at any place on the frontiers.
A few settled at Portland, Maine, at Wicasset, and at Worcester and
Haverhill, Massachusetts, but the greater number finally at
Londonderry, New Hampshire. In 1723-4 they built a parsonage and a
church for their minister, Rev. James MacGregor. In six years they had
four schools, and within nine years Londonderry paid one-fifteenth of
the state tax. Previous to the Revolution of 1776 ten distinct
settlements were made by colonists from Londonderry, N.H., all of
which became towns of influence and importance. Notable among the
descendants of these colonists were Matthew Thornton, Henry Knox, Gen.
John Stark, Hugh McCulloch, Horace Greeley, Gen. George B. McClellan,
Salmon P. Chase, and Asa Gray. From 1771 to 1773 "the whole emigration
from Ulster is estimated at 30,000 of whom 10,000 were weavers."
In 1706 the Rev.
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