Notes: I have come to believe this McNeill family's assertion and James Roberts statement that this Neill McNeill immigrated from Scotland with his two young sons in 1740, very likely with the Argyll Colony. One Bladen County deed states that Neil McNeil of Cumberland County bought from James Stewart a 100 acre tract on west side of Raft Swamp on Jobes Branch in 1768. In the 1774 deed to Alexander Leich, it is obvious that the clerk attempted to imitate Neill's signature as it must have appeared on the original deed; the imitation does not match in any way Neill's full name as the clerk wrote it normally in the body of the deed.
    Little is known personally about this early Neill McNeill. But he is positively identified in Bladen County tax list for 1771 (Archibald McKissick's district) as head of household with 'Hector McNeill, sailor' living with him, and again as "Neill McNeile Sen" with 450 acres, a neighbor of Hector McNeill and Mary McNeill in a Bladen tax list of 1784 in the NC legislative papers at the archives. All 450 acres can be accounted for in existing Bladen County deeds. This is NOT the Neill McNeill who immigrated in 1774 and settled on Long Swamp in Bladen County with wife Isobel Simpson.