Because the Verners of Ireland appear to have been Protestants and mostly Presbyterians, I will start with the 1500s. According to the National Huguenot Society, the Protestant Reformation began in Germany in 1517 and spread to France. The beliefs of the Protestants conflicted with the Catholic Church and the King of France, so the Protestants were branded as heretics. A General Edict in 1536 urged their extermination. The Huguenots were French Protestants who were members of the Reformed Church that was established by John Calvin and others in the mid-1500s. Their first church in France was established in 1555. In 1562 many Huguenots were slain at Vassey, France, starting the French Wars of Religion that devastated France for the next thirty-five years. Tens of thousands of Huguenots were slain on one day in 1572. The Huguenots were ordered to be expelled from France in 1585. The Edict of Nantes in 1598 ended the persecution for awhile, but it was revoked in 1685, leading to renewed persecution and causing about four hundred thousand Huguenots to flee to other countries. Those emigrants were mainly artisans, craftsmen, and professional people, so they were usually well-received in other countries. French weavers were particularly welcome in the linen industries of Scotland and Ireland. My forebear John Verner, Sr., born ca 1725, married Mary Cochran Pettigrew. Her Pettigrew ancestors were French Huguenots who migrated first to Scotland and then to the northern part of Ireland, settling finally in County Tyrone in the early-1690s. It appears that some past writers took the Huguenot history of the Pettigrew family and attributed it to the forebears of John Verner, Sr. without any supporting evidence. However, while that misplacement does appear to have happened, it is still possible that some of John's forebears might have been Huguenots.
What was happening in England, Scotland, and Ireland during those years? England spent hundreds of years trying to subdue Scotland and Ireland. By the early-1600s, Protestantism had spread to England and Scotland, but the majority of Ireland was Catholic. Although England controlled Ireland at that time, political ambitions and religious rivalry led to constant turmoil. Past actions had devastated Ireland, particularly the northern part that was the old Province of Ulster. At the same time, things were very bad in Scotland, which is only about thirty miles from Ireland. The Scots who lived along the border with England probably had the worst time and had to struggle to survive. Neighbors often fought with neighbors, and some families even turned to thievery, cattle rustling, and extortion. Because of the constant conflicts with their neighbors and the English, many of them became excellent frontiersmen, guerilla fighters, and scouts. Most of the Scots who migrated to Ireland were from those lowland border families. Their descendants who later migrated to America were an important factor in settling the frontier and winning American independence. The Scottish Reformation, whereby the Scottish Protestants broke with the Catholic Church, further helped the Scots to become free and independent thinkers. Those factors, plus the influence of leaders like John Knox, resulted in the Scotch-Irish developing a great love of education. Those traits were ingrained in many of the Scotch-Irish who immigrated to America and are a vital part of the American culture today. John Knox was a follower of Calvin and is considered by many to have been the father of Presbyterianism, which is a form of church governance by its members. He died in 1572 in Haddington near Edinburgh, Scotland and near the Verner and Acheson families there.
In 1603 Queen Elizabeth I of England died and James VI, the reigning King of Scotland, became King James I of England. That quieted some of the conflicts between England and Scotland for awhile. During that lull, a few Scottish colonies began in Ulster, but the conflict continued between the Protestants and Catholics in Ireland. In 1607 many of the Catholic Irish landowners fled to the European Continent to raise money for a rebellion. That is known as the "Flight of Earls". King James saw their absence as an opportunity to strengthen his control in Ireland, and he declared that their lands belonged to the Crown. He later declared all Irish lands to be forfeit and thus took control of most of Ulster. He knew that he would have to settle Ulster with loyal subjects if he was to maintain control. Between then and roughly 1630, he "planted" English and Scots settlers in parts of Ulster, so that period is called the Plantation of Ulster. Actually, plantation was a policy that was practiced off and on by several monarchs, beginning in the 1500s and lasting throughout the 1600s and into the 1700s. King James granted the confiscated land to three groups of people. Some of the land was granted to wealthy English and Scots subjects, who were called "undertakers" and who were usually men who lived in England and Scotland. They were responsible for the land that they were granted in Ireland and were to "undertake" the settlement and development of the land by importing tenants. Some of them moved to Ireland and some of them sent caretakers to oversee the holdings. A second group who received land were loyal English servants who lived in Ireland, and they were called "servitors". A little of the land was given to a third group of loyal native Irish freeholders. All of the grantees had to swear loyalty to the King, to meet certain obligations, and to pay rent to the Crown. The richer English got the vast majority of the land, and the Irish got the least. Some of the land was given to the Church of England, and some was set aside for public purposes, e.g. schools.
The internet site of the British Broadcasting Corporation has a history section that contains an article by R. J. Hunter. That author stated that the undertakers and Londoners received about forty percent of the land, the servitors received about fifteen percent, the native Irish received about twenty percent, and the Church received about twenty percent. Other small areas were provided for various purposes e.g. schools. About sixty of the undertakers were English, and about sixty were from the Scottish lowlands. There were about sixty servitors who were mainly former military men. There were about 290 Irish grantees, but most of their holdings were very small. The land of the undertakers was organized into subdivisions of the counties called baronies. Some undertakers leased their land to tenants and some did not. The barony of O'Neil Land was granted to English undertakers, whereas the barony of Fews was granted mainly to Scots. However, as that author said, the ownership of the land was different from the tenancy of the land. The makeup of the tenants changed over the century, and the vast majority of tenants in the late-1600s were of Scots descent. Some owners sold their land to others.
Each group had different obligations. The undertakers were required to build a fortified house and barn and were to "plant" a certain number of English or Scots families, who in turn were required to build houses. One author listed areas of Scotland from which settlers might have come, but he assumed that all of the settlers came from the estates of the undertakers, which was probably not a correct assumption. For instance, Scots from near Edinburgh were granted land in Fews Barony in County Armagh, so that author theorized that most of the settlers in Fews Barony would have come from East Lothian and Midlothian, which are part of the area around Edinburgh. However, I do not think that author's theory is supported by historical facts, because many of the early settlers were English families, and most of the Scots settlers apparently came later. Many of the early settlers in Ulster died or left because of the hard times and multiple conflicts. Some reportedly left Ulster during bad times and returned at later dates. The majority of the settlers after 1650 were Scots, although there were also settlers from England, Wales, France, Germany, and Holland.
The King had planned for most of the tenant settlers to have been English, but few English responded, so by the end of the Plantation period the majority of the settlers were Scots. One source estimated that there were about 50,000 Scots and only a few English in Ulster about 1620, but that number is probably high. The majority of the Scots settlers went to the western counties, whereas County Armagh reportedly had a more even mix of English and Scots. An internet search yielded a quote from The Scottish Migration To Ulster in the Reign of James I, as reportedly found in the LDS listing #941.6 W2p. It said that Henry Acheson from Edinburgh, Scotland and Sir James Douglas were granted land in Fews Barony in County Armagh in 1610. Fews Barony is just south of the barony of O'Neil Land. Sir James initially settled fifteen families from Scotland and then sold his land to Henry Acheson, who had apparently settled his other lands with British families. Henry had a brother named Sir Archibald Acheson who acquired the previous lands of Sir James from Henry. According to Burke's Peerage, Sir Archibald Acheson was from Edinburgh and married Agnes Verner/Vernor. She appears to have been the first Verner in Ulster records. Verner relatives of the Achesons later settled in County Armagh. By 1622 it appears that most of the settlers on the Acheson lands were English, but the makeup of the tenants would have undoubtedly changed by the late-1600s.
King James I died in 1625, and his son Charles I became King of England and Scotland. By that time, most Scots had become Presbyterians, whereas the official Church of England was Anglican (Episcopal). Presbyterians and Episcopalians are both Protestants, but they practice different forms of church governance. The latter is controlled by bishops, whereas the former is controlled by its members. King Charles I tried to force the churches in Scotland to adopt the methods of the Church of England, which led to rebellion in Scotland and ultimately to a religious civil war in England. As a result, the migration of Scots slowed during the 1630s, and many left Ireland. One source said that by 1640 there were about 100,000 Scots in Ulster, but the internet encyclopedia Wikipedia said that there were only about 40,000. There were also some English and a few others. One source said that the Scots outnumbered the English twenty-to-one, whereas another said that the ratio was more like four-to-one.
During those years of turmoil, the Irish Catholics were also being persecuted by the English. In 1641 the Catholics in Ireland rebelled against the north to try to drive out the Protestants, resulting in thousands of deaths, 20,000 or more by some estimates. In October 1641 the Catholics started a campaign to wipe out Ulster homesteaders. Less than two months later, the Scots sent a desperate letter to the English Parliament asking for help. They stated that they were in a miserable condition and that the rebels increased in men and munitions daily. According to the letter, all manner of cruelties and torment were brought upon the Protestants, including "cutting off their ears, fingers, and hands, boiling the hands of little children before their mother's faces, stripping women naked, and ripping them up." Some were killed, whereas others died of starvation and disease. Regardless of the exact number of deaths, the result was a reduction in the number of settlers, and migration from Scotland to Ireland virtually stopped. The Irish Catholics banned Presbyterian services and outlawed their ministers. Over the years, thousands of Scots soldiers were sent to Ireland, and many of them remained in Ireland after the conflicts. One major conflict occurred in 1646 in County Armagh when an Irish army defeated a joint force from the town of Armagh that was comprised of English and Scots Highlanders. The Irish killed about three thousand of the enemy, while losing only about seventy men. The war in Ireland became a stalemate. The English Civil War ended about 1649 when Oliver Cromwell gained power and had King Charles I beheaded. Cromwell then conquered Scotland and finally defeated the Irish in 1650, which allowed migration from Scotland to resume. During Cromwell's rule, Episcopacy was replaced by Presbyterianism as the established form of religion in England, which means that English settlers in Ireland during that period were not necessarily Anglicans or Quakers, and everyone in Scotland was not a Presbyterian. Considering those events, it is understandable why the settlers of the late-1600s were probably quite different from those of the early-1600s.
The Religious Society of Friends was formed in England ca 1652. They were often called Quakers, because some of their members "quaked" during religious experiences.
Cromwell died in 1658, and the Catholic Charles II became King. That allowed the Irish to reclaim some of their lands, and English law prevailed throughout Ireland, causing more grief for the Presbyterians, Quakers, and similar groups. King Charles II persecuted the Scots in Scotland so badly that the period was known as the "killing times". A radical sect of Presbyterian Scots in Scotland formed a covenant, declared war against the English landlords, and thus were called "Convenanters". Despite the persecution of the Presbyterians, the temporary peace in Ireland and the war in Scotland caused migration from Scotland to Ireland to increase. In 1679, the Covenanters were defeated at the Battle of Bothwell Bridge in Scotland. In 1685, James II, brother of Charles II and also a Catholic, became King and placed all of Ireland under Catholic rule. During the rule of the Catholic Kings, the Presbyterians basically had to hide their religion or suffer the consequences. Things became so bad that in 1688 the Scots joined the English Protestants to force James II to abdicate and go into exile in France. That conflict lasted about three years and was called the Williamite War in Ireland. The Irish Catholics (Jacobites) supported James II, and the Ulster Protestants (Williamites) supported William of Orange. At the start of the war, the Jacobites controlled most of Ireland and beseiged LondonDerry in the "Siege of Derry" from December 1688 to July 1689 until a Williamite army from England relieved the city. The Protestant Williamites defeated another Jacobite army in July 1689 in a different battle, which gave the Williamites control of Ulster, and William's forces gained control over the rest of Ireland over the next two years. The Protestant William of Orange became King William III, and Presbyterianism was restored, but the persecution of the Presbyterians continued. In 1689, James left exile and tried to invade Ireland. He was defeated at the "Battle of the Boyne" in Ireland. The "Battle of Aughrim" in July 1691 essentially ended the conflict and assured the survival of Protestants in Ulster, most of whom were at that time of Scots descent. Those three major battles are still celebrated today. Unfortunately, the animosity between Catholics and Prostestants continued for another three hundred years.
My apparent immigrant forebear Samuel Verner/Varner obtained a lease in County Armagh in February 1691/2.
Recall that thousands of French Huguenots were driven out of France in the 1680s, and many of them fought for King William and remained in Ulster. During the 1680s and 1690s there was a bad famine in the lowlands of Scotland. About 50,000 more Scots migrated to Ireland, and the Scots Presbyterians became a majority in Ulster. It was a strange time. According to the Wikipedia, the English Protestants (Anglicans) subsequently controlled Ireland for more than a century, which excluded most of Ulster's population from any kind of power. The Irish Catholics, the Presbyterians descended from Scottish planters, and any Irish or English converts to Presbyterianism were all discriminated against under the penal laws which gave full political rights only to Anglican Protestants, most of whom were descended from English settlers. Many English landowners again began to persecute the Presbyterians and would not allow them to marry in their own churches. Under those circumstances, it is understandable that Presbyterians might form friendships and alliances with Quakers and that people of both faiths often hid their beliefs and worshipped as Anglicans. Because of those penal laws over the years, the names of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians might show in the records of other churches, e.g. those of the Quakers. Quakers were tolerant of other faiths, and Quaker marriages were recorded at the "bride's meeting". Those practices might make it appear that a person had a different religious belief from what he/she really had. That in turn could cause a researcher to infer a wrong country of origin for that person. Thus, researchers must be very careful about interpreting religious records of those times.
In the early 1700s, the tenants in Ulster suffered droughts, higher and higher lease rents, and oppressive English import/export policies. Persecution by the Anglicans and the Irish Catholics continued, and some Presbyterians left Ireland and went to America. The positive reports that they sent back resulted in a wave of emigration from Ireland that began in 1717. In that year, an estimated five thousand people from Ulster moved to America, followed in 1718 by several thousand more. The influx slowed for a few years, then increased again in 1725 and for several years thereafter. The 1730s were relatively quiet, but a famine in Ireland in 1739-40 claimed about 400,000 lives and sparked a third wave. One author wrote that one-fifth of the population of Ireland perished in the famine. The mid-1750s saw yet another wave of migration because of bad harvests in Ulster, but the French and Indian War in America acted to stem that flow. Emigration from Ulster peaked between 1771 and 1775, during which time 25-30,000 people left Ulster because of a depression in the linen industry and persecution of tenant farmers. Overall, during those six decades of the 1700s, approximately 250,000 people from Ulster moved to America. The vast majority (one article said 99%) were Protestant Scots who were mostly Presbyterians. According to one source, most immigrants were able to pay their passage, but nearly one-third had to become "indentured servants", meaning that they signed a contract or "indenture" to work for four-to-seven years in return for their passage. Interestingly, the few Irish Catholics who left Ireland during those years generally went to other Catholic countries, mainly France and Spain. The flow of immigrants to America from all countries had slowed dramatically by the time of the Revolutionary War, largely because the increase in slavery in America had dramatically reduced the need to import indentured servants or paid workers. By the time of the American Revolution, it is estimated that there were approximately 500,000 Americans of Scots descent, which was about 10-15% of the population. They were second in number only to those of English descent.
Those Scotch-Irish from Ulster were not really Irish, although they were often referred to as Irish, and they were no longer truly Scots. Thus, they were called Scotch-Irish by Americans and Ulster Scots by others. According to one author, the term Scotch-Irish had fallen into disuse by the 1840s. Up to that time, the use of the term "Irish" in America generally referred to the Scotch-Irish. Then, in the period of about 1846-1856, the potato famine in Ireland resulted in a huge influx of Irish Catholics to America from the south of Ireland. They generally were poor, tended to congregate in urban ghettos in America, and were considered unfavorable by many native-born Americans. As a result, the term Scotch-Irish was revived by Americans of Scots descent to distinguish themselves from the Catholic Irish immigrants. Genealogists need to be aware of that difference. In The Scotch-Irish, A Social History, the author James G. Leyburn wrote, "... the Scots who lived in Ulster before they came to America simply were not, in background, religion, and many other aspects of culture, identical with the Irish of the southern provinces of Leinster, Munster, and Connaught; neither were they, after many decades, any longer identical with the people of Scotland."
John K. Fleming wrote "The Cowans of County Down", which I found on an internet site. In discussing the Scotch-Irish, he wrote that the Presbyterians were considered to be non-conformists by the English government and that the latter placed oppressive restrictions on them during the entire colonial period, both in Ulster and in America. For much of that time, the non-conformist clergy were not allowed to perform marriage ceremonies and other such functions. In America, non-conformist groups had to be licensed by the County Court as a ³Meeting House², not as a Church. He stated that, "in spite of the restrictions imposed upon them, the Scotch-Irish immigrants, almost to a person, remained Presbyterian either in membership or attitude." He wrote that the Scotch-Irish had a great desire for "Representative Government" and "invested their lives and their fortunes that their country and their people might be free." He said that the historian George Bancroft wrote, "The first voice publicly raised in America to dissolve all connection with Great Britain came not from the Puritans of New England, nor the Dutch of New York, nor the planters of Virginia, but from the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians². He said that the author E. T. Thompson wrote, "It was the Scotch-Irish under William R. Davie and others who made Charlotte, North Carolina a hornet's nest for Lord Cornwallis and his army. It was largely a Scotch-Irish army which overwhelmingly defeated the British in the Battle of King¹s Mountain, and the five Colonels commanding the units of that army were all Presbyterian Elders."
Regarding the Scotch-Irish people's love of education, he quoted Dr. James G. Leyburn as having written, ³Wherever the Scotch-Irish went, schools were almost certain to follow. ... The Reformation in Scotland was without parallel in implanting in a people ... a conviction that education was the mark of a man. ... Knox¹s desire to have schools in every parish for the general education of the people was wholeheartedly accepted as an ideal that must be achieved. ... Families sacrificed to see their sons through University. ....Scotland came closer to having Universal Education of any country of the time. This long tradition was ingrained in the Ulstermen who came to America, so that it was to be expected that schools would be established in every community that could support them. ... A practical substitute was devised in many communities where an indentured servant could be found for teaching; the entire neighborhood contributed to his support and the curriculum resembled that of the regular school. Zeal for education remained unabated, despite the practical difficulties. It could be expected of a Scotch-Irish community that, if it had a Minister, it also had a school for its children." Mr. Fleming commented that the account by Dr. Leyburn is appropos of the schools conducted in Old Ulster and likewise in the Scotch-Irish Settlements in Colonial America.
The "Great Migration" of Scotch-Irish took place during roughly the same period as the migration of German Protestants from the Palatine region of Germany, which can cause some confusion in research. Both groups were nonconformist Protestants, mostly farmers, who had been hit hard by warfare, bad weather, and religious persecution. However, both groups tended to be somewhat clannish, to live in different places, to not intermarry, and to follow different migration paths during the first generation or two in America, although there was some geographic overlap. At the time of the American Revolution, the Palatine Germans and their descendants were the third largest group in America. As I discussed in the Introduction, there are descendants of both the German and Scotch-Irish immigrants who have adopted the names Verner and Varner and other similar variations, so one must be careful when researching.
The English Quakers had settled the eastern part of Chester County around Philadelphia by the 1720s, so the other groups had to settle farther west. The English used those frontiersmen as a buffer between the English and the Indians and other enemies. The Scotch-Irish generally occupied the hills about the settlements in Pennsylvania and later Maryland. One author wrote that fifty Scotch-Irish settlers were killed or kidnapped for every Native American that was killed. The Scotch-Irish were not as pacifist as the Palatines and Quakers, so, as the groups migrated into a new territory, the Scotch-Irish quickly dominated. The Scotch-Irish suffered greatly during the French and Indian War, but they persevered and flooded into the backcountry. They received little support from the British authorities in America, just as they had received little support in Ulster. As a result, they became a more formidable force than ever, and, as one author said, they began to feel themselves more American, because it was the future of America for which they had worked and fought. They played a large role in defeating the British in the south during the Revolutionary War and were a major dominant factor in settling the south and west in the 1800s. Theodore Roosevelt said, "The backwoodsmen were Americans by birth and parentage and of mixed race, but the dominant strain in their blood was that of the Presbyterian-Irish ... the Scotch-Irish as they were often called. These Irish representatives of the Covenanters were in the west almost what the Puritans were in the north-east, and more than the Cavaliers were in the south. Mingled with the descendants of many other races, they nevertheless formed the kernel of the distinctively and intensely American stock who were the pioneers of our people in their march westward, the vanguard of the army of fighting settlers, who with axe and rifle won their way ... to the Rio Grande and the Pacific."