by Jonathan Tucker

Instances of close ties between members of the extended community of former Scottish prisoners of war of which Micum McIntire was a member keep coming up.  This chapter will examine some specific examples and discuss the source(s) of these ties.

To Whom Do We Belong?

It is worth noting that Scottish culture and specifically the culture of Highland clans from which several Dunbar prisoners came had prepared our ancestral prisoners of war to reflexively use their kinship as fellow Scots to help one another survive in the New World.  In many cases, having shared Scottish roots was considered indistinguishable from having a family relation and obligation.  In Gaelic, “clann” means “family”, and it did not refer only to the direct relatives of clan chiefs.  It included everyone who was willing to defend, be a part of, and contribute to the welfare and success of the clan.

This is not an exclusively Scottish trait.  Necessity, shared hardship, and the basic social nature of humans can produce similar results in any people.  Our modern “families,” for instance, often include people to whom we are not biologically related but who are close and supportive friends with whom we share the most important aspects of our lives, sometimes more closely than we do with biological relatives.

Celtic peoples encoded these traits in their culture.  Scottish (and Irish) clans commonly included a substantial percentage of “broken men” and families—people whose clans or family groups had been disrupted and displaced by conflict or war, and who sought membership in larger, intact clans as a way to ensure their own security and success.  In many cases, these folks would assume the surname of their new clan.  Clan chiefs and others would intermarry with and foster the children of other clans with whom they were allied, to increase the bonds of allegiance between themselves.  Adoption was common.

This is why DNA testing does not provide a final or complete answer about whether or not someone is of a particular Scottish ancestry or belongs to a particular clan.  A clan is created and sustained as much through social ties as much as it is through shared genetics.  In the home territory in western Argyll, our MacIntyres lived cheek-by-jowl and intermarried with MacDonalds, Stewarts, Campbells, MacGregors, MacDougals, Fletchers, MacInlays, Galts, and others for centuries.  The same pattern applied in mainland Scotland and out on the Islands (Hebrides), where northern Irish and Vikings joined the party.

MacGregors, for instance, were for a time under government Proscription—any authorized official (often Campbells) could kill a MacGregor on sight.  Those who escaped either left or were quietly subsumed into and assumed the names of nearby clans, including our MacIntyres, and disappeared into the crowd.  As MacIntyres, we have been evolving our ‘family’ relations with other clans (and Vikings and others) since the mid-1100s.

This can produce unexpected outcomes.  For instance, recent DNA testing of members of the chiefly branch of Clan MacNeil—the clan from whom MacIntyres were originally derived (see Chapter 2)—revealed that they were predominantly Scandanavian (Viking) in genetic origin, rather than being clearly descended from the northern Irish king Naill of the Nine Hostages, as they had long believed.  The MacNeill’s chiefly line lived for centuries out on Barra, the southernmost island of the Outer Hebrides, so their Viking DNA heritage is perhaps not surprising.

But MacNeills who have long lived elsewhere in Scotland have different genetics, many showing descent from northern Ireland.  The MacIntyres’ progenitor, Murdoch MacNeill, is believed to have been half northern Irish and half Viking.  Genetic testing tells us our biological history.  It does not necessarily tell us all of who we are, or to whom we have decided to belong.  That is a matter of generation upon generation of accumulated individual choices. 

So, while belonging to a Scottish clan often involved traditional familial descent, it was equally a choice and a cultural priority, and often a matter of survival.  Being a part of a clan, however it was composed, was a way to successfully move forward in an uncertain world together with others.  The Clan MacIntyre motto, “Per Ardua” (through difficulty) might best be understood in this context.  When we move ‘through difficulty’ together, we increase our chances of coming out the other side of difficulty successfully, and stronger.  And as Robert Frost said, “The best way out is always through.”  More about Frost later.

And so it was with our Dunbar and Worcester Scots.  The Scots prisoners shared a common cultural heritage, and had endured and survived the difficulty of the battles and incarceration and transportation across the North Atlantic, arriving more or less intact in the New World.  At need, they considered one another to automatically be members of an extended family and clan, and they supported each other accordingly.  Let’s look at some specific examples.

McIntire, Maxwell & Machanere (MacNair) 

The relationships between Micum McIntire, his cousin Alexander Machanere, and Alexander Maxwell—all of whom lived within a stone’s throw of one another in Scotland District in York—illustrates this.  As do their relationships with some of their English neighbors.

Micum McIntire

Micum obtained his next land grant in York (south of the river) in 1668, and acquired his second land grant in York (north of the river) in 1670 from English fisherman John Pierce and John’s second wife Phebe (Nash) Pierce.  But Micum might well have already moved to York sometime between 1662 and 1668.  What renders the time of his arrival uncertain is the absence of any official documents to provide us with more detailed information, and the fact that the Scots supported one another in so many generous but informal (i.e., unrecorded) ways, including providing one another with lodging.  If Micum moved to York before 1668, he was likely living with other Scots, and not yet settled on his own—continuing the communal pattern that had worked so well during a shared indenture.  It is indeed possible—though not in any way proven—that Micum could have boarded and lived with Alexander Maxwell in the Maxwell-McIntire Garrison. 

As we have noted, in 1670-71, Micum married Dorothy Pierce, daughter of John Pierce, who had a close and supportive relationship with the Scots.  Close enough that in his will, Micum refers to 40 acres of land he acquired “of my father Pierce.”  Interestingly, many of the English fishing families into which our SPOWs married in York were also Royalists, and shared that allegiance from the English Civil Wars.

Alexander Maxwell

Alexander Maxwell acquired a 70 acre land grant in York early on—in 1656, when he was still serving out his indenture in Newichawannock (South Berwick, ME).  Maxwell worked as a servant for George Leader, brother of engineer Richard Leader.  Leader had previously been a manager of the iron works in Lynn, MA, but had gotten into disagreements with the Company of Undertakers who owned the iron works.  It was under Richard Leader’s direction that the Great Works mills in South Berwick was built.  Leader had brought 15-25 indentured former Dunbar prisoners to Newichawannock (South Berwick) from Charlestown, MA to complete the mills, to run them, and to harvest and supply the wood they processed.

George Leader was a manager for the Great Works mills and, as a result, his house servant Alexander Maxwell probably had access to ways of making money that were not available to the other indentured Scots.  This despite the fact that Maxwell was known to be argumentative and fractious.  He was whipped and threatened with transportation to the Caribbean (where life in the cane fields could be a death sentence) for verbally abusing George Leader and his wife.  It’s likely that Maxwell settled in York by the late 1650s, having already obtained enough money to do so, and being motivated to put some distance between himself and his former employer as soon as he could.

By 1671, Alexander Maxwell had married Agnes/Annis Frost, daughter of John Frost, a Puritan settler and fisherman. John Frost (the same Frost family from Kittery and Eliot, Maine that eventually produced Robert Frost) was killed in the April 7, 1777 raid during King Philip’s War—one of seven men out preparing their fields for spring planting that also included former Scots prisoners John Carmichael and Andrew Rankin.

Alexander Machanere

Alexander Machanere (MacNair) first appears in York around 1662.  No earlier documented record of him has been found.  He is presumed to have been a Dunbar prisoner because:  1) his close association with other Dunbar prisoners, 2) the durable (but unverified) family story that he was Micum’s distant cousin, and 3) the way he was supported and cared for by the other Scots.

If we accept these assumptions, Alexander was a fellow Scottish soldier, rendered lame and sickly as a result of the Battle of Dunbar, or the long deadly march south to Durham Cathedral, or the weeks of incarceration and disease in Durham Cathedral, or being shackled in the hold of the Unity on the Thames for weeks while Cromwell’s Council of War decided what to do with the prisoners, or being confined below decks during the winter crossing of the North Atlantic, or some combination of any of those.  In acknowledgement of his shared suffering, Alexander MacNair may have simply been absorbed into and supported by the community of Scottish prisoners for the period during which they worked off their indentures.  In that way, MacNair might never have worked in the same ways as did the others, or owned anything, or been taxed, or taken any acknowledged civil action prior to 1662 that resulted in documents attesting to his existence.

Given his relationship with Alexander Maxwell in York, it is possible that MacNair was transported to Newichawannock (South Berwick, ME) along with Maxwell and the other 15 or so (eventually about 25) Scots who accompanied Richard Leader.  Maxwell may thus have been among those who had been MacNair’s caretakers ever since they had arrived in the New World.   Harry Alexander Davis, in his 1939 McIntire genealogy, suggested that MacNair “served his time [indenture] in or around Dover, NH,” but there is no documentation to support (or refute) that assertion.  Given his relationship with Maxwell, Newichawannock is just as likely a destination.

The documented record of Alexander MacNair’s existence begins in York in 1662, after Alexander Maxwell, Micum, and others were established there.  In York, MacNair first became visible as part of the wider Scots community.  He associated with other non-Scots, and suddenly became real to the world of Puritan frontier officialdom and record-keeping.  He married a local Englishwoman.  He built (probably with help) and lived in a house.  He became (willingly or not) a member of York’s Puritan congregation, and, when he failed to attend it regularly, got into trouble with the authorities.  He got into a fight with a friend and ended up in court.

Alexander MacNair married Dorothy Pierce in York between 1662 and 1666.  He and Dorothy lived on Alexander Maxwell’s property in a house that Maxwell later stated that MacNair had built (presumably with help from his friends and community).

In 1666, Alexander MacNair and Dorothy were charged for not attending church in York Village for a period of 5 weeks, but they were subsequently acquitted by the court on account of MacNair’s lameness and his promise to try harder to attend.

The two Alexanders (MacNair and Maxwell) did not always get along.  In January 1667, MacNair lodged a complaint with the Puritan courts against Maxwell (who, as previously noted, was known to have a temper) for beating him up and drawing blood.  The result of winter-inspired cabin fever?  Disagreements or frustrations that boiled over between a partial dependent and the man who had long provided him with shelter and assistance?  We don’t know.  Both men and other fellow Scots were present at the hearing before the magistrates.

Fellow Dunbar Scot James Grant (James “The Drummer” Grant or his son James) testified as to the relationship between Maxwell and MacNair, which may have extended back to Newichawannock.  Maxwell confessed that he had been the aggressor (whether or not that was true) and had drawn blood.  Maxwell was fined 3 shillings and change.  Both men were “bound to their good behavior” under pain of more severe fines.  Dorothy’s father, English settler and fisherman John Pierce, served as MacNair’s surety to the tune of 10 pounds.

Alexander MacNair died not long before December 1, 1670, when his estate inventory was taken.  There is no record that he had any substantial means of support beyond that provided by his community and his family by marriage, although he probably worked in some fashion.  

“I Bequeath Her and All my Land” – There is an uncorroborated and rather florid McIntire family tale that, nearing his death, Alexander Machanere called his cousin Micum to him and “bequeathed” Dorothy and his house to Micum for her “protection in this wild country.”  It would not be surprising if Alexander had spoken to Micum and bequeathed to him Alexander’s home and personal possessions, and had likewise bound him under traditional familial and clan obligations, and possibly under oath—a very Scottish thing to do–to take on responsibility of caring for and protecting Dorothy.

But other aspects of the tale are questionable, for two reasons.  First, the stagy, back-of-the-hand-to-the-forehead death’s bed drama has the strong odor of Victorian-era Colonial Revival elaboration or invention.  More importantly, in the tale Alexander bequeaths not only his wife and his property (house and personal possessions) to Micum, but also his land, “so I bequeath her and all my LAND and property to you, if you will take them and do fairly by each.”

In the 1939 genealogy, “The McIntire Family: Descendants of Micum Mecantire of York, County, Maine,” (published by MMCA), Harry Alexander Davis (p. 8) states, “His [MacNair’s] name does not appear in the deed records as ever owning any land; he evidently built a house on land owned by Maxwell and was living in it when he died.”  It turns out this as not quite true.  While, as previously noted, Alexander Maxwell owned the land on which the house MacNair shared with Dorothy had been built, with Maxwell’s permission,  little other MacNair property was recorded.

There is, however, a record of MacNair acquiring a Town grant of a 40 acre woodlot in March 1664.  This property shows up in Micum’s April 17, 1700 will, he bequeaths 20 acres to his eldest son John out of a 60 acre property on the south side of the York River, part of which he had acquired from MacNair:

. . .also I give to him [John] twenty acres of land that I have there of that land on the other side of the river of York out of my three score (60) that I have there of that land I had of Micannive (Mackaneer) and my father Pierce . . .

     
However it came about, Micum McIntire married Dorothy MacNair (nee Pierce) in early September 1671.  A transfer of property and a marriage within the tight-knit Scots community—a Scot marrying the widow of another related Scot (cousin), and acquiring his property.  Micum and Dorothy thereafter lived in the house that MacNair had built.

On September 4, 1671, Alexander Maxwell deeded them the land on which the house stood as a gift (a wedding present?), and in his deed, Maxwell describes the house as “built by his [Micum’s] predecessor, Allexander Machanere, whose relict or Widdow hee has married.”

In his own “last illness” in 1707, Alexander Maxwell transferred his own garrison house on an unknown date, and in June 1707 sold a separate three acres of his homestead (which abutted that of “the McIntire homestead”), both to John McIntire, Micum’s oldest son.  Keeping Scottish possessions within the Scottish community to the last.

William Gowan & Elizabeth Frost

The relationship of William Gowan and Elizabeth Frost is an example of support within the Scottish prisoner community that extended beyond York’s Scotland District.

William Gowan is listed as a “probable” Dunbar prisoner.  He was also known as William Smith, Gowan being the Gaelic term for a blacksmith—although William was in fact a carpenter.   With Micum and others, William had been one of Valentine Hill’s Scots, serving his indenture at Oyster River (Durham, NH).  Like Micum, William was first taxed at Dover (probably Oyster River) in 1659, having completed his indenture and become a tax-paying citizen.  Like Alexander Maxwell, William Gowan had a history of personal conflict.  In June 1659, he got into a fight with fellow Scot (and probable friend) John Middleton.  William later bought a house from Middleton.  He was known for frequenting taverns and for drinking on the Sabbath.  He was not a stranger to the Puritan authorities.

In 1666, William acquired land and settled in Eliot, ME, which at the time was part of Kittery.  In 1667, William was cohabiting with local Eliot woman Elizabeth Frost, with whom he had a child.  Under the Puritan theocracy, having a child out of wedlock was not only a sin, it was also a civil crime.  The magistrates fined William, mandated that he support the child, threatened Elizabeth with a whipping (if she failed to pay 6 pounds to the court) for committing “hooredome with the said Gowin,” and ordered the two to cease living together under a formal Act of Separation.

Micum McIntire involved himself on William Gowan’s behalf and agreed to provide a surety of 40 pounds—quite a large sum at the time, and a measure of how seriously the authorities took the offence–to ensure that Gowan would remain separate from Elizabeth, so as to prevent what the court described as “future mischarges of uncleaness which hitherto have been two [sic] manifest.”  A week later, William and Elizabeth made the problem go away by getting married.  They eventually had eight children.

[NOTE:  Elizabeth Frost and Agnes/Annis Frost were among several frontier English Puritan Frosts who intermarried with the descendants of the Scots prisoners.  There is a c. 1660 Frost Garrison in Eliot, Maine, which as of the 1980s was still owned by the Frost family.  Intermarriage between Frosts and Micum McIntire’s descendants, however, did not begin until the mid 19^th century.  So, while no McIntire descendants are closely related to New England poet Robert Frost—himself a descendant of the Maine Frosts—some McIntires are related to Robert Frost’s first cousin Joseph Frost, who has attended past MMCA Annual Reunions.]

This pattern of close mutual assistance, founded in an inclusive, clan-based presumption of kinship and family, can be discerned among the records of Scots in Oyster River (Durham, NH), the Cocheco plantation (Dover, NH), in Newichawannock (South Berwick, ME) and anywhere else the Scots prisoners lived.  As Scots have done wherever they have travelled, the Dunbar and Worcester Scots brought Scotland with them.

In the Boston area in 1657, former Dunbar and Worcester prisoners organized the Scots Charitable Society (SCS) to support indigent Scottish prisoners who, like other veterans then and now, carried a burden of trauma that made it difficult for them to transition to peace time, or to succeed in new and unfamiliar circumstances.  It was the first such charitable organization on the continent, and it exists to this day.  See more about them in Resources.