How'd I Get Here? Family Roots in America

In 1685 an young Scottish boy by the name of Charles McAnally was playing on the bank of the Perth River with some friends when they discovered a large earthen pot filled with money. The father of one of the boys sent young Charles back to find his father to help them divide the money amongst them. The father and the other boys stayed to guard the money.

 

Charles ran enthusiastically back to his home. On the way, he encountered a stranger on horseback. “What is your hurry?” the man asked. Charles told the stranger what he and his friends had discovered and that he was running back to get his father. The stranger told Charles that it would be faster if he hoped on his horse and let him take him back to his house. The young Charles trustfully mounted the horse and was taken, not to his house, but to the port and put on a ship about to embark to America.

 

Several months later, 10-year-old Charles McAnally arrived in Philadelphia. He grew up on the estate of an unnamed man as a live-in unpaid worker. When he became an adult, he married and settled on the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania. This is how my ancestors came to be Americans.

 

I tell this story in March at the time of St. Patrick’s day even though the origin is in Scotland, not Ireland, because my ancestors came from both Scotland and Ireland. the Irish stories are not nearly so dramatic. Charles McAnally is my ancestor: he was the great, great grandfather of my great, great grandmother, Eliza Potts. That is seven generations away from me. In a way, that isn’t so long ago, and yet, not many of us can trace our roots that many generations back, so I believe it is important to keep this story, sketchy as it is, alive.

 

This story was passed down through the generations orally, but is also found recorded in an 1837 document by a Bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church, David Rice McAnally.

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[conley mcanally]

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[Paula]

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