by Jonathan Tucker

This is the 27th article about the life and descendants of Micum McIntire. This article reviews and addresses a selected number of the popular myths, legends, and misconceptions about Dunbar prisoners and the life of Micum Mcintire. Much of the “history” about Scottish clans and individual ancestors was ‘discovered’ or written during the Colonial Revival Period in the late 1800s and early 20th century. It is often heroic, involves dramatic, melodramatic, or romantic situations or actions, and is nearly almost always historically inaccurate and wrong. One of the ways you can tell that an unlikely story is about to begin is if the phrases “it is said” or “tradition recalls” or similar language is used—that is the equivalent of the orchestra tuning up for a show.

This article may be modified as new information becomes available.

Myths About Dunbar Prisoners

Myth: The 10th Man Legend – One of the durable legends about Micum’s survival of his incarceration at Durham cathedral is the legend that, in an attempt to reduce the population of prisoners, and thus the disease running rampant through the cathedral, the English would line the Dunbar prisoners up in the morning, count them off, and every 10th man would be taken away and shot. The legend has Micum becoming aware that he (or one of his brothers) was about to be a 10th man. In order to save himself or his brother, Micum broke away, knocked down some guards, and was ridden down and slightly wounded by a mounted English officer. The tale asserts that the English were impressed by his courage, and spared him. Another embellishment on the story has Micum starting a fight with a startled and confused adjacent prisoner as a distraction, and then breaking away, providing an opportunity for whichever of his brothers was endangered to reset themselves in line.

It’s a wonderfully heroic tale, and for that reason is usually told in as dramatic a fashion as possible, but we have no way of knowing whether or not it is true. There does not appear to be any documentary confirmation of the English following this practice with Dunbar prisoners. There was a “decimation” order from the Council in London for the ‘management’ of the population of prisoners from the battle of Worcester in September 1651, but no such order has been found for the prisoners of Dunbar. The Micum tale may thus have been ‘borrowed’ or conflated by amateur historians with events that happened to others, the better to dramatize the sufferings of their ancestors.

It is not clear what reason beyond keeping disease from spreading into the town of Durham (a somewhat remote possibility) would have justified the English going to the trouble of executing prisoners in this manner. Disease was culling the Scots very efficiently. All the English had to do was leave well enough alone, and every morning get the surviving prisoners to haul out of the cathedral the bodies of the 30+ new prisoners who died from disease during the night, and toss them into the pit.

In the end, all we can conclude that it’s a good, dramatic story. It would be nice if it was true, but we can’t prove or disprove that it occurred. There’s no evidence to support that it did.

Myth: Dunbar Prisoners Were Sent to Virginia and the West Indies – This is a more complicated question to unravel—and it has not yet been resolved. While it is entirely possible that some Dunbar prisoners found their way to the Virginia colony (and other southern colonies) and the West Indies after arriving in New England, it is unlikely that they were ever “sent” there as part of the journey of the Unity. There is no clear record of any of the Dunbar SPOWs being purposely sent to or arriving at Virginia or the West Indies (principally Bermuda or Barbados) from England within the first year or two of their capture.

There was an initial intent on the part of Cromwell’s Council of War to send nine hundred (900) of the prisoners to Virginia, in partial fulfillment of which two hundred (200) men were sent, Virginia-bound, to London alongside the 150 men bound for New England, to await transport. Those intentions (the 900) were documented in two letters (orders) to Sir Arthur Haselrigge, and so the story has endured as if the eventual delivery was an accomplished fact. But Virginia was still a Royalist colony at the time, the English Civil War was still going on, and Virginia blockaded their ports, refusing to do any business with the Puritan leadership in England. The 200 Dunbar prisoners sent to London at the same time as “our” 150 Dunbar prisoners were not shipped off and disappeared into history–they may have been indentured in England.

There are two other records of orders that Scottish prisoners be sent to the Caribbean–one in October 1651 (an unspecified number to be sent to Bermuda), and one in April 1652 (200 prisoners to Barbados, Monserrat, and Nevis). Which prisoners (Dunbar or Worcester) were involved was not stated and is not known, nor is there any confirmation of who they were or who received them. Either trip would have been long after the Unity had been sent to New England with its cargo of 150 Dunbar prisoners. 

It should also be remembered that Scottish officers were kept separately from the regular soldiers, perhaps in hopes of getting their families to raise ransoms. Some of them as well may have been sent to the Caribbean later than the regular prisoners went to New England. One prisoner in particular, a well-to-do Dunbar officer named Ninean Beall (Bell), was sent to Barbados separately, and then made his way to the colony of Maryland, where (starting out with position and means) he was highly successful.

There is a record of a debate in the House of Commons from March 25, 1659–nine years after the battle–in which Sir Ralph Knight, an officer in Cromwell’s army, asked his fellow members about the need to respond to petitions from former prisoners of war, “What will you do with the Scots taken at Dunbar and at Durham and at Worcester? Many of them were sent to Barbados. Will you hear all their petitions?” But his question is ambiguous, because he mentions prisoners from both battles, and there are records that prisoners from the battle of Worcester were sent to Barbados in 1651 to engage as mercenaries in suppressing a Royalist rebellion there. 

And none of that means that interested planters or merchants from colonies in Virginia, Maryland, New Jersey, or elsewhere did not sail up to Boston in early 1651, looking to purchase cheap labor after word spread of the availability of the low-cost labor the indentured Dunbar (and then Worcester) prisoners represented. They may well have done so. Further, the indentures of some of the men may have been sold multiple times, from place to place. But there remains no documentation of any official transport of regular Dunbar prisoners to either the Virginia colony or the West Indies.

Myths About Micum Alone

Many of the following myths about Micum himself were likely generated during the Colonial Revival period by enthusiastic but untrained local historians. Analyzing them is not meant to cast aspersions on the sincere and hopeful efforts of those early historians, but rather to emphasize the importance of real historical analysis and to illustrate the temporary nature of what we decide our history consists of. We are always finding out that the past was different and more complicated than we expected, and that’s a good thing.

Myth: “Micum” was His Gaelic Name – No, it wasn’t. Calum, not Micum, is the Gaelic version (and spelling) for the English name Malcolm. “Micum” is presumed to be one of the several pronunciations of his English name of Malcolm as heard and recorded by Puritan English clerks in New England. More importantly, it was the spelling used by Micum’s oldest son John to refer to his father in John’s own 1757 will. It is the spelling settled on by Micum’s descendants over the years.

Myth: Micum’s Scottish Father’s Name Was John – No, it wasn’t. This is a confusion caused by a too-literal reading of Micum’s 1700 will, in which he grants to his son John “land I had of Micannive [Alexander Mackaneer] and my father Pierce.” By “my father Pierce,” Micum is referring with respect and probably affection of his father-in-law English fisherman John Pierce, whose daughter (Dorothy) Micum had married. Micum was not speaking of his father in Scotland, whose name (Malcolm) he bore.

Myth: No, Wait, Micum’s Scottish Father’s Name was Ebenezer – No, it wasn’t. This myth probably comes from the local histories generated about Robert and Philip McIntire. It was reported in a 1976 pamphlet, “The Scots at Hammersmith,” written by Stephen P. Carlson for the National Park Service’s historic site at the Saugus Iron Works. The assertion appears on page 15:

“Robert MacIntire* (b. 1629) – One of three sons of Ebenezer MacIntire* of Argyle brought to New England . . . .”

* “MacIntire” is a spelling that appears among the descendants of Philip McIntire.

Years ago, I corresponded with Stephen P. Carlson to ask him about the source of this assertion. He did not remember either the assertion or the source, and said he had given all of his notes to the National Park Service. When I contacted the NPS staff at the Saugus Iron Works historic site, for which the pamphlet was written and published, they did not know anything about the notes, or where they might be.

So we are left with a process of deduction using the information we have, which consists of family histories and Scottish naming traditions.

Robert – We have no family history records for Robert McIntire—we do not even know if he survived to father children. So Robert does not help us with this question.

Philip – While Philip McIntire did not name any of his eight (8) children Ebenezer, there are several Ebenezers in his family line. Philip’s oldest son, Philip Jr., named his first born son Ebenezer. Philips’ third son, Daniel, named his fourth child Ebenezer. That Daniel McIntire’s son Ebenezer (Philip’s grandson) named his first born son Ebenezer (Philip’s great-grandson). Several other Ebenezers appear in subsequent generations. 

Micum – There are several Ebenezers in Micum’s line, too. Micum’s oldest son John named his fifth child Ebenezer, who in turn named his second child Ebenezer (Jr.). And there are several more Ebenezers as the generations proceed.

To a local Colonial Revival historian, particularly one in Philip McIntire’s line, in the absence of any other documentary evidence, all of those Ebenezers would create a strong temptation to assume that there had been a parental Ebenezer MacIntyre back in Scotland. But Ebenezer was a popular Biblical name, and there is a lot of repetition of other first male names in both lines, as well. Take Daniel, for instance. Micum’s second son, Daniel, had no children, but his nieces and nephews named their children after him, and that pattern repeated later, as well. As noted above, there are Daniels in Philip’s line, too. The simple re-occurrence of a first name in a family line is not enough to declare, much less confirm, it as an ancestral parental name.

Traditional Scottish Naming Patterns – Finally, there is the more tenuous evidence provided by the practice of Scots in the 17th and 18th century to often (but not always) follow a naming convention for sons. They tended to name as follows:

– The firstborn son was named for the father’s father (the child’s paternal grandfather).

– The second son would be named for the mother’s father (the child’s maternal grandfather).

– The third son would be named for the father.

So, in a New England setting where old traditions were not being enforced by others, where the naming traditions of your English wife (both Micum and Philip married English women) would also have an influence, and where you could make up your own rules, anyway, how does that old naming convention bear out?

Philip McIntire named his first son for himself, interrupting the traditional pattern immediately and putting what would have been the third name (that of the father) first. His second son was named Thomas. While that was the first name of Philip’s maternal grandfather (Thomas McKinlay), it was not the first name of his son’s maternal grandfather, who was a William Nichols. Philip’s third son was named Daniel. That was the name of Philip’s paternal grandfather (Daniel MacIntyre), but it was not the name of his son’s paternal grandfather, who was Malcolm Macintyre (Sr.). So Philip included only one of the traditional three names, by accident or design, in the naming of his first three sons, and none were in the ‘proper’ order.

Micum McIntire’s first son’s name was John (his wife’s father’s name), probably assigned out of respect and gratitude. English fisherman John Pierce was very generous with the Scottish settlers, and both of his daughters married Scots. But this puts the second traditional name (the mother’s father) in the first position. Micum’s second son’s name was Daniel, again the paternal great-grandfather and not the traditional choice of the mother’s father, which had already been taken. Micum’s third son’s name was Micum Jr., which, by design or accident, covered both himself AND his own father (Malcolm). So Micum got all three of the three traditional names covered (two of them as a combined name), but he also re-arranged their order, and placed only the third name in its traditionally ‘proper’ place.

None of which is very helpful or conclusive. But it does illustrate that the name Ebenezer does not appear among any of the sons (much less the first three) of either Micum or Philip. So whatever family history tales Stephen P. Carlson heard and passed along as potential fact were probably incorrect.

*****

The most definitive and comprehensive current source for information on MacIntyres in general is the “Clan MacIntyre: A Journey Into the Past,” Martin L. MacIntyre, Regent Press, Berkeley, CA, 2018, second edition.  Copies may be purchased by contacting the author at martin.macintyre@juno.com .

The definitive genealogy is “Descendants of Micum McIntire,” Robert Harry McIntire, revised edition, 1983, Bookcrafters, Chelsea, MI.  This is often referred to as the “Red Book” among Micum descendants because of its bright red cover.  New copies may be obtained through the Gift Shop on this website:  https://micummcintireclanassociation.org/shop/?product-page=2.  Used copies can still be obtained from time to time through online booksellers.

Those interested in pursuing their own genealogical connections to Micum McIntire may submit question through this website at:  https://micummcintireclanassociation.org/micum-mcintire-genealogy-questions/