Welcome to Cape Fear Clans—This site is dedicated primarily to the family MacPherson, but also touches on many families of Scottish descent in North Carolina's upper Cape Fear River region. On my site you will find many families' histories from the region and points beyond who are not related to the McPhersons at all—see 'Special Records' in the navigation bar to the left. This cache of information will grow substantially, so check back often.
For some time, the primary focus of the site has been on the story of "Old John" McPherson, my ancestor and one of the Argyll colonists who has never been researched until now. I discovered more records and information about him than I ever hoped for, and certainly found more than can usually be assembled about a figure of his time, let alone one of the Argyll colonists. Old John left behind records of his life and descendants in Cumberland and Robeson Counties, the latter cache of which provided the most information. Such a discovery was fortunate since the lament of all Cape Fear researchers is that Bladen County (from which Robeson, Cumberland, Hoke and other counties were carved, and into which Old John relocated in the 1760s) is a burned county. Bladen's courthouse and its records burned in 1769, again in 1800, and a third time in 1893; however, some early records did survive and some have been discovered in the recent past in private collections. I've been researching other men who were and who may have been Argyll Colonists: Neill McNeill of Job's Branch in today's Hoke County, Turquill McNeill (another of my ancestors) who lived near Beaverdam Presbyterian Church above Antioch in today's Hoke County, and Duncan Campbell who may have moved down around the Philadelphus area in today's upper Robeson.
Some pages and links aren't completed. I'll be working at those as time passes. The 'Clan List' page contains mostly McPherson families' histories and genealogies which will be changing soon, so be careful if you print out a history because it may change in its wording from one week or month to the next. You may contact me from time to time to ask questions or prod me, which is fine.
This site has become fairly large, so you may wish find your ancestor with the 'Search this Site' feature below. When you click Find! all the resulting links will appear in a list in a new window:
Here are some of the families that will be found soon on this site: Black, Brown, Buie, Campbell, Cox, Currie, DeLoach, Ferguson, Galbreath, Goza, Gilchrist, Henderson, Hughes, John, Leach, Little, McArthur, McCall, McCorvey, McDonald, McDougald, McGeachy, McGirt, McKay, McKenzie, McLean, McNeill, McRae, McPhaul, McPherson, McRacken, Munroe, Parker, Patterson, Rhodes, Tiddy, Watson, and Wilkison. The family chart section in 'Special Records' is an experiment so I may begin to expand on this section.
You can help this site grow by submitting your own histories, items and snippets of information in different forms. But, first, please click on 'Submissions' and read more. And please note that the site has many loose ends right now, but I'm working to tie them off while adding more finished content. Some of the histories you'll find here have been placed on the site unfinished; they have been loaned out and I won't be able to finish formatting them to the site until they're returned (the Currie history being a prime example....).
S.C. Edgerton
Copyright 2006©