>From the address of Rev Perry, he said that the members of the 5 ships of 1718 went to three area. So I will send these separately. This information may help members to findout where in the USA perhaps some of those exempt from taxation mayhave sttled. Mike Boyd Brisbane Scotch-Irish in New England By Rev. A. L. Perry, Professor of History and Politics, Williams College, Williamstown, Mass. Taken from The Scotch-Irish in America: Proceedings and Addresses of the Second Congress at Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, May 29 to June 1, 1890. 1. WORCESTER. Nowadays we in Massachusetts call Worcester "the heart of the Commonwealth." It is a shallow bowl of beautiful country. The fall of 1718 marked the fifth year of its permanent settlement. There were about fifty log houses and two hundred souls within the circle. These were all English and Puritans, and from the towns immediately to the eastward. But the Indians were hostile. Two previous settlements on the spot had been abandoned from this cause, the first in King Philip's war in the year 1675, the second in Queen Anne's war in 1709. Now the colony was determined to hold the ground. At least five garrison-houses, one a regular block fort, stood within the bowl. Accordingly, Governor Shute looked favorably upon the proposition, that a part of the Scotch-Irish, now in one sense on his hands, should go direct to Worcester, to find a much-needed home for themselves, to reinforce the fifty families already on the ground, and to take their chances in helping to defend the menaced western frontier, fifty miles from Boston! We do not know exactly how many went to Worcester. We may fairly infer that at least fifty families--large families--went straight from Boston to Worcester that autumn, and that the population of the place was thus more than doubled at one stroke. I entertain the opinion, gathered from scattered and uncertain data, that it was the poorer, the more illiterate, the more helpless, part of the five shiploads who were conducted to Worcester. I have hanging in my study, handsomely framed, the original deed by which my immediate maternal ancestor, Matthew Gray, conveyed to his son, of the same name, in 1735 his farm in Worcester of fifty-five acres, still called there the "Gray Farm," to which deed are appended, not the autographs but the "marks" of Matthew and Jean, his wife. Neither Matthew nor Jean could write. The deed is witnessed, however, by "William Gray. Jr.," who writes a fair hand; but "Ealanor Gray," who witnesses with him, makes her "mark." Three marks to one manual is a bad proportion, but you will allow me to premise that the Grays, though illiterate, were long-headed. There is much evidence that the poor Scotch-Irish were welcomed in Worcester at first. They were needed there, both for civil and military reasons. Jonas Rice, the first permanent settler of Worcester, who had been a planter during the second settlement broken up by the Indians, returned to his farm to stay, October 21, 1713, and remained with his family alone in the forest till the spring of 1715. Adonijah, his son, was the first child born in Worcester, November 7, 1714. The cool courage, good sense, and strict integrity of Jonas Rice made him the first great leader in the town where great leaders have never been wanting since. He was just the man to appreciate the stout hearts of his new-come, not yet well-understood neighbors. No town organization had as yet been made when, in 1722, Lovell's Indian war broke out, and two Scotch-Irishmen, John Gray and Robert Crawford, were posted alone as scouts on Leicester Hill to the westward, doubtless at Rice's instance. In September of the same year a township organization was first effected, and John Gray, with Jonas Rice, were two of the first selectmen; William Gray was chosen one of the two fence viewers, and Robert Peebles one of the two hog reeves. At the first annual town meeting the next year new names of the strangers appear on the list of town officers; for example, James Hamilton as surveyor, and Andrew Farren as fence-viewer, though John Gray dropped this year from selectman to sealer of leather; but at the second annual March meeting, 1724, John Gray goes back to his earlier post as selectman, James McClellan, great-great-great grandfather to the late general-in-chief, becomes a constable; Robert Lethridge a surveyor of highways; William Gray and Robert Peebles, fence-viewers; John Battay, tythingman, and Matthew Gray, my own great-great grandfather, both sealer of leather and hog-reeve.