Scots who have impacted the USA

Today’s blip is quite apt, bearing in mind current events in the USA.

I ventured to the beautiful village of Yester, which is about seventeen miles from us in the middle of East Lothian (previously called Haddingtonshire) to see the memorial to one of the villages most famous sons, the Reverend John Witherspoon. The Reverend Witherspoon emigrated to the American colonies and is a founding father of the United States of American, being the only clergyman to sign the Declaration of Independence on the 4th July 1776.

He also became the first Moderator of the American Presbyterian Church and was later appointed president of Princeton University in New Jersey.

As you will see on the plaque, some words, which have a lot of resonance today:

‘… the states of America may hand down the blessings of peace and public order to many generations.’

Two other people with links to Scotland are John Muir, born down the East Lothian coast in Dunbar, and who emigrated to the US and founded the National Parks in America. 

The other was Mary Anne MacLeod, who emigrated to the US in 1930, and just so happens to be Donald Trump’s mother. And as they say, the rest is history …