Dear Faye, As usual, I have fallen behind on my mail. Sorry for the late response. Have a wonderful vacation - the outline of your trip sounds fantastic ! Have you visited the Ulster American Folk Park recently ? I read that the stone house (early 18th century) of James Fulton of Donegal Springs south of Elizabethtown in eastern PA had been relocated from the US to the Ulster-American Folk Park, Omagh, Co Tyrone Northern Ireland a few yeas ago. In the book, The Scotch-Irish in Pennsylvania & Kentucky by Billy Kennedy, 1998, there is a photo of it on page 99 (published by Ambassador Productions Ltd, Belfast, NI and Emerald House Group Inc, Greenville, SC, USA. This James Fulton was a son of Samuel Fulton and Elizabeth Stewart. Samuel Fulton was a member of the Donegal Presbyterian Church, current East Donnegal Township, Lancaster Co as early as 1722. Keep in mind the Co Donegal, NI borders the area of your research in Co. Tyrone. On page 49 of the Billy Kennedy book, he lists the following as members of the Donegal Presbyterian Church in 1722 from the records of the Presbytery of New Castle, Delaware: Richard, James and John Allison; William Braines; Thomas and John Black; James Brownie; William and Robert Bohannon; Patrick Campbell; James Cunningham; Jonas Davenport; James, John and Andrew Galbraith; George Gray; Thomas Gale; John Gardner; Samuel Fulton; James, Albert and John Henricks; Henry Henrickson; Gordon Howard; Alexander Hutchinson; John C. and Michael Ker; James Kile; Robert, William and George Mitchell; Robert, William and George Middleton; John McDaniel; Column MacHenry; Robert Monday; John Miller; Samuel and John Smith; James Patterson (the Indian trader); George Stewart; John Sterer; Robert and Thomas Wilkins; Joseph Work; William Walker; Michael Wood; As I recall, your Windyhill Townland , Donagheady Parish, Tyrone County is near Artigarvan and Dunnamanagh, Tyrone Co ? Is that correct ? Does the BOYD surname appear with any of your Fultons ? A Rev William Boyd was instrumental in organizing families from the Bann Valley area in 1718 (the group of 5 ships to Boston) and he delivered their petition to Gov Shute in Mass. The Rev. Boyd returned to Macosquin, Ireland, and then in 1725 went to serve in Monreagh in County Donegal (current Taboin or Taughboyne). (Scotch Irish Pioneers in Ulster and America by Charles Knowles Bolton, page 105). Again this is near your area of interest. The Rev. Boyd and other Presbyterian ministers kept these Presbyterian villages in Northern Ireland and the American colonies in constant communication, even in the early 1700s. If we can unravel the social network of these religious communities, we will overcome some of our Fulton brick walls. It may even help us to shed light on the ancestors of your John Fulton b. ca.1791, d.1879 Mosspleasant, Co Tyrone,NI who married Mary Ann Ellis of Benowen Townland, Donagheady Parish in c.1823. The collateral line of yours (John and Mary Ann Fulton's eldest child John Ellis Fulton born 22 Sep 1824) who emigrated to America and married Elizabeth Sommerville c.1852 in Philadelphia and later settled in Newark, Ohio where John Ellis Fulton operated a successful grocery store in Union Street, Newark until his death on 13 July 1909 probably represents a chain migration. We just have to figure out the missing links in the chain. The history books state that Donegal Township in Lancaster County, PA was settled primarily by Scots-Irish and was named after Donegal County in Northern Ireland. But what is more interesting is the possible derivations of the names of the townships that were formed from the original Donegal: Rapho, Mount Joy, Conoy. Looking at my Michelin road atlas of Northern Ireland, I was pleasantly surprised to find places near your Artigarvan Co Tyrone with similar names. There is a Raphoe in Co Donegal about 10 miles northwest of Artigarvan. There is a Convoy in Co Donegal about 12 miles west of Artigarvan. There is a Mountjoy in Co Tyrone about 15 miles south of Artigarvan right next to the Ulster American Folk Park. That is a striking simlilarity. By the way, about 15 miles southeast of the Ulster American Folk Park is SixMileCross, Co Tyrone, origin of some of the Belmont Co, Ohio Fultons in the 1790s-1800s. Here is some more information from the Billy Kennedy book pages 49-51. "Samuel Fulton was a typical Ulster pioneer settler at Donegal township, taking up residence on 309 acres of land at old Peter's Road, about a mile from the Donegal meeting house. He married Elizabeth Stewart, daughter of George and Jean Stewart, who also belonged to the Church, and they had three sons and a daughter. The humble Fulton stone cabin, probably built around 1724, was still standing in 1997, and, after it was purchased by the trustees of the Ulster-American Folk Park at Omagh in Co Tyrone, the building was dismantled stone by stone and transported across the Atlantic for resiting at the Omagh theme park. In 1724, Samuel Fulton's name appeared for the first time on a Donegal township tax assessment and in 1737 he filed a survey with the Pennsylvania land office for a tract of 309 acres. He continued to hold his land until his death in 1760. The normal procedure for acquiring land in Pennsylvania at that time began with a warrant issued by the land officer and, after a survey, a patent or title deed was issued in the name of the colony proprietor William Penn or his heirs. The patent obliged the new owner to pay the Penn family one shilling sterling for every 100 acres each year, but in almost every respect the settler was a freeholder. Many settlers allowed 30 years or more to elapse between their first and last step in the process of taking title to their land so as to avoid paying the full purchase price and other costs involved. Since land held by warrant could be purchased and sold as readily as patented lands, they were under no pressure to move. Donegal township settlers had added reasons to delay. Most of them settled there during the years after William Penn's death in 1718 when the land office was closed and regular procedures were put in abeyance. A few took up lands on the authority of a warrant, but most had no legal rights to settle on Penn lands.... It was a frustrated Thomas Penn who noted in 1734 that the Donegal settlers had been living on his land for '12 or 15 years' and had 'paid no consideration for that faviour' or made any effort to regularize their tenure. Very deinitely a case of squatting on land that did not belong to them, but the Scots-Irish were undeterred ! Many had crossed the Atlantic with little or no money and most lacked the finance to pay even the small amounts demanded by the Penns. The earliest advertisements offered lots of five thousand acres at a purchase price of only 100 pounds, with a quit-rent of one shilling for each one hundred acres. Even at these prices the land was beyond the means of a good number of the immigrants who had left the north of Ireland to escape poverty. Samuel Fulton, in his will in 1760, left 170 acres and 'the house I dwell in' to his son James. He bequeathed the remaining 139 acres to his son Samuel. James was to bear half the cost of building 'a square log house 28 feet by 20 and a story and a half with a stone chimney', presumably for Samuel's use. The third son John was given a house and four acres of cleared land, two acres from each brother, but only for a year. Within a year Samuel Fulton Jun. had passed the 139 acres to his brother James and, by 1767, the land was mortgaged to another Donegal family. James Fulton, of Donegal township, kept a store which sold a variety of goods such as rum, molasses, sugar, rice, wine and cloth. He had a wagon and a team of horses to transport the merchandise and barrels of liquor to the various townships on the eastern Pennsylvanian frontier. A kinsman of the same name was a propserous general merchant in Philadelphia, representing a company in the north of Ireland, which comprised of Ephraim Campbell, of Londonderry, and his own brother, John Fulton of Ramelton in Co. Donegal. They imported linens and general mershndise and exported flaxseed, staves and flour. James Fulton, of Philadelphia, also invested in iron manufacturing and his company owned ships which carried emigrants from Londonderry to Philadelphia in the 1760s, among them many servants and redemptioners. The Fultons of Donegal, both James and John, worked closely in business with the Fultons of Philadelphia, and likewise with the Fultons back in the hills and homelands of Londonderry and Donegal. They became one of the most prosperous family names in Pennsylvania, like many of their kinsmen who made the American frontier lands their home." On page 52 is a warrantee map listing the owners of lands surrounding Samuel Fulton's land. A partial list is: Ephraim Moore, Donegal Glebe [I assume this means the church], Mary Motheril, Lazarus Lowry, Wm. Bryan, Daniel Lowry, Nathaniel Stevenson, Wm. Wilson, Hugh Wilson, Andrew Galbraith, Richard Allison, John Wilson, John Galbraith, James Anderson, John Kelly, James Mitchel, James Letort, Martha Bezaillon, Moses Combs, William Allison, John Stewart, Gordon Howard, Samuel Smith, Joseph Worek, Peter Allen, Thomas Bayly, John McCracken, Hugh White, Robert McFarland, Phillip Brenner, James Mays, Peter Allen, John Gardner, Frederick Mumm?a, Joseph Horst, Sam Betznon. Roberta R. (Fulton) Hirth Harriman, New York 10926 Fulton web page at: http://www.frontiernet.net/~elisa96/hirth/fulton.htm Search Fulton-L archives at: http://searches.rootsweb.com/cgi-bin/listsearch.pl