I remember seeing a quote of this sort some years ago on a placard or card you could buy in the gift shop at Valley Forge. However, as I recall it said Scots not Scotch-Irish. I was not into history or genealogy at the time and didn't relate to the quote, but remember being curious about what Scots he was talking about. I thought is related to a more specific unit in the Army that was attached to Washington for his personal defense. If I have a chance to get back there I will look for it again. John Polk > [Original Message] > From: Rob Hilliard <rth@mackinengineering.com> > To: <Scotch-Irish-L@rootsweb.com> > Date: 9/9/2005 2:50:55 PM > Subject: RE: [Sc-Ir] Re: Scotch-Irish-D Digest V05 #160 > > Interesting. I had it in two locations, one being - Surprise! - a > Billy Kennedy book. The other was the website > http://www.electricscotland.com/scottish_trivia.htm where it appears > unattributed, other than the vague reference to Valley Forge. > > Thanks for enlightening me and sorry for the red herring. > > -----Original Message----- > From: Montgomery Michael [mailto:ullans@yahoo.com] > Sent: Friday, September 09, 2005 12:41 PM > To: Scotch-Irish-L@rootsweb.com > Subject: [Sc-Ir] Re: Scotch-Irish-D Digest V05 #160 > > No, the George Washintgon quote does not work. As Richard MacMaster, > who forwarded the original query to this list, knows, the Washington > quote is not an authentic one. Having frequently seen it in popular > historians (e.g. the books of Billy Kennedy) a couple of years ago I > tried to track it down by contacting the editors of the Washington > Papers at the University of Virginia. They could find nothing that > resembles it among the vast assemblage of Washington material. > The quotation seems to go at least as far back as W F Marshall's _Ulster > Sails West_ sixty years ago, but I have never a citation of its original > source. Thus, it seems to me that the quote is probably partially, if > not wholly, apocryphal. > > MacMaster did a piece for the _Family Tree_ newspaper a year or so ago > in which he speculated that he had found a quotation attributed to > Washington that was the germ of the more familiar one, but that it was > several alterations removed from it. > > Or has anyone actually seen a cited original source for the quote from > Washington's one writing? > > Is there any good evidence that Washington ever used the term > "Scotch-Irish"? > > Michael Montgomery > --- John Polk --- Havre de Grace MD --- jfpolk@earthlink.net