A distinguished list of Ulster-Scots from Londonderry who helped make America

Londonderry has had a long and chequered history with the Siege there in 1688-89 a highly significant landmark in the annals of these islands and, through the centuries from the origins of the Scottish Plantation, Ulster-Scots have made a meaningful contribution to life in the Maiden City and in the wider North West. Londonderry was a main port for the emigration of Ulster-Scots Presbyterians from the north of Ireland to America and many from this diaspora were prominently involved in the establishment of the United States as the bedrock of global democracy and independence. The list of US luminaries is impressive.

DR MATTHEW THORNTON

One of the signers of the American Declaration of Independence in 1776, he was born in Londonderry county and he emigrated to America with his Presbyterian family as a four-year-old in 1718.

Thornton became a medical practitioner working in the New Hampshire town of Londonderry, which his kinsfolk established after moving from Ulster, and he served as a colonel in the New Hampshire regiment of George Washington's patriot army

He was elected to the Provincial legislature and signed the Declaration as a representative of New Hampshire. His wife was Hannah Jack, who belonged to a North Tyrone family.

PRESIDENT JAMES KNOX POLK

The 11th United States President was descended from Londonderry couple Robert and Magdalene Pollock (the name was changed to Polk when they landed in America).

The Pollocks, who had moved to Ulster from Renfrewshire and Aberdeenshire, had a considerable land estate in both Londonderry and Lifford, Co Donegal and, on Robert and Magdalene's arrival in America, the Polk lineage became very prominent in the Charlotte/Mecklenburg area of North Carolina.

Ezekial Polk, great-grandson of Robert Polk, moved to Tennessee and was the grandfather of President James Knox Polk, who served seven terms in the US Congress and became Speaker of the House in 1835, the only President ever to hold that office. He served as President in

1845-1849.

PRESIDENT ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT

His Ulster family roots were in Ballygawley, Co Tyrone and he was granted the freemanship of Londonderry in July 1878 when he visited the city and other parts of Ireland as part of a world tour.

During his stay in Londonderry, President Grant, who was accompanied by a number of friends and aides, was keen to hear the full story of the 1688-89 Siege and he was given a full tour of the ancient walls, commenting on their remarkable thickness.

His Co Tyrone ancestors, led by great-grandfather John Simpson on his mother Hannah's side, moved to Pennsylvania through the port of Londonderry.

The President, commander of the victorious Union Army in the American Civil War, served two terms as in the White House in 1869-77.

JAMES WILSON

Strabane man James Wilson, grandfather of President Woodrow Wilson, sailed from Londonderry to Philadelphia in 1807 at the age of 20.

President Wilson, who served as President in 1913-21 and received the Nobel Peace Prize for his peace efforts during the First World War, was born at Staunton in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and he had been a professor at Princeton College in New Jersey before becoming President.

In 1913, a year after he was elected to his first term as President, Woodrow Wilson said: "I am sorry that my information about my father's family is very meagre. My father's father was born in the north of Ireland; he had no brothers on this side of the water. The family came from the neighbourhood of Londonderry."

JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN

The family of United States Vice-President and prominent South Carolina statesman John Caldwell Calhoun emigrated to America from Donegal via the port of Londonderry.

His grandfather Patrick Calhoun was 49 when he moved to Pennsylvania from Convoy, Raphoe, Co Donegal with his Londonderry-born wife Catherine Montgomery Calhoun in 1733, before settling in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

The family moved to South Carolina and Catherine Montgomery Calhoun was to die in an Indian massacre at Long Cane on February 1, 1760.

Patrick Calhoun Jnr, John C.'s father,. founded the Hopewell Presbyterian Church at Abbeville in South Carolina.

John C, self-taught in a log-cabin settlement until he was 18, served in the US Congress and was Secretary of War under the Presidency of James Monroe. He had two four-year stints as Vice-President, first under John Quincy Adams (1825-29) and the second under Andrew Jackson (1829-33). His preserved home is at Clemson, South Carolina.

CHARLES THOMSON

Late 18th century statesman Charles Thomson, born at Gorteade, Upperlands near Maghera, Co Londonderry in 1729, emigrated with his family (father, five brothers and a sister) to America after his mother died in 1739.

They travelled via the port of Londonderry and, tragically, Thomson Snr. died while their ship was sailing up Delaware Bay.

Charles Thomson became a Princeton College professor; he designed the Great Seal of America and was Secretary of the Continental Congress, which ran America, from 1774 to 1789. He was the man delegated to convey to George Washington at his Mount Vernon home in Virginia that it was the wish of Congress that Washington becomes the First US President.

The original Declaration of Independence of 1776 bore only two signatures - that of John Hancock, President of Congress, and Charles Thomson.

In retirement, Thomson spent most of his time translating the Old and New Testaments of the Bible into the Greek Septuagint version.

DAVID CROCKETT

The ancestors of David (Davy) Crockett, hero of the wild frontier in Tennessee, Washington politician and a martyr at The Alamo in Texas in March, 1836, left the port of Londonderry for America in the early 18th century.

The Crocketts, originally of French Huguenot Protestant stock, lived in the area around Castlederg and Donemana in North Tyrone, with the family links extending into Co Donegal.

It is recorded that several Crocketts bravely defended Londonderry at the famous Siege in 1688-89.

One of the first Crocketts to reach America (believed to be in 1708) was Joseph Louis Crockett with his wife Sarah Stewart, from Manonrcunningham in Co Donegal. The couple were David Crockett's great-great grandparents.

GENERAL JAMES WHITE

Founder of the city of Knoxville in East Tennessee, White was the son of Londonderry man Moses White 11, who moved to Pennsylvania in 1741 with his wife Mary McConnell and later settled in North Carolina.

In 1791, James White, a Revolutionary War hero and a justice of the peace, was given the task of laying out Knoxville as a proper frontier settlement and he named the it after General Henry Knox, the then Secretary of War and a man of Co Down pedigree.