The colony was further increased by a small remnant of the
ill-fated expedition to Darien. One of the vessels which left Darien
to return to Scotland, the _Rising Sun_, was driven out of its course
by a gale and took refuge in Charleston. Among its passengers was the
Rev. Archibald Stobo, who was asked by some people in Charleston to
preach in the town while the ship was being refitted. He accepted the
invitation and left the ship with his wife and about a dozen others.
The following day, the _Rising Sun_, while lying off the bar, was
overwhelmed in a hurricane and all on board were drowned. This Rev.
Archibald Stobo was the earliest American ancestor of the late
Theodore Roosevelt's mother. In the following year (1683) the colony
was augmented by a number of Scots colonists from Ulster led by one
Ferguson. A second Scottish colony in the same year under Henry
Erskine, Lord Cardross, founded Stuartstown (so named in honor of his
wife). Another colony from Ulster was that of Williamsburgh township
(1732-34), who named their principal village Kingstree.
There were settlements of Scots Highlanders in North Carolina, on the
Cape Fear River, as early as 1729; some indeed are said to have
settled there as early as 1715. Neill McNeill of Jura brought over a
colony of more than 350 from Argyllshire in 1739, and large numbers in
1746, after Culloden, and settled them on the Cape Fear River. Cross
Creek, now Fayetteville, was the center of these Highland settlements,
and hither came the Scottish heroine, Flora MacDonald, in 1775.
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