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In the fall of 1773,
James Whitelaw, a young Scottish surveyor in the colony of New York,
received his first letter from home. His father had written him a
loving and detailed account of the welfare of his family, friends,
and parish. Although the letter spoke primarily of the world
Whitelaw had left behind, buried in the heart of it was one line of
enquiry: We are longing for a letter to hear how you are taken with
that new world of yours; whether it be a Canaan or a barren
wilderness.
What Whitelaw thought of his new home, and how well or poorly he and
his fellow Scots adapted to it, illuminates an important and
understudied aspect of creolization in frontier New England. This
particular study considers a group of Scots from the western
Lowlands, both single adults and families, who planned and created
an agricultural settlement in the Connecticut River Valley at
Ryegate (in modern-day Vermont) in 1773. They called themselves the
Scotch-American Company of Farmers (SACF).
Careful scrutiny of their records illuminates
heretofore-underutilized evidence of the enduring cultural legacies
of Lowland Scots in rural New England. Furthermore, this same
evidence reinforces and more clearly describes the depth of their
economic and social absorption into the existing rural community, as
described in more general studies of Scottish emigration. While such
a project would usually compare several Scottish communities,
several factors prevent this, namely the small number of large
Lowland settlements in New England, and the difficulty of comparing
Lowland and Highland social structures. However, we can gain much by
a different method of investigation. By studying the socio-economic
change from their birth communities to their new American home, we
can see the degree to which the community maintained or abandoned
traditions and practices from a shared starting point. It
furthermore allows us to more accurately gauge and account for local
tensions with neighbouring towns and their unique effect upon the
adaptation of these Scottish settlers. This study will therefore
contrast life and custom in the Ryegate settlement to the home
parishes of the immigrants and thereby attempt to distil the
emigrant experience of Lowland farmers in New England.
Unfortunately, the scarcity of written material from other settlers
has made it necessary to present Whitelaw as a focal point to
represent of the community at large. By presenting his experiences
surveying and purchasing land, settling that land, interacting with
neighbouring towns, and working toward the final dissolution of the Company, Whitelaw serves as a vehicle to
understand the rest of his community. His writings and papers do
give voice to his compatriots although his individual experiences
are not presented as those of all the Scots in Ryegate.
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