A difficult time in Port Glasgow 1776

On 27 April 1776 the Reverend Archibald Simpson of Port Glasgow wrote in his diary:- "This day there has been a great concourse of people about this town and Greenock to see a large fleet of transports set off for America, aboard of which are three thousand Highlanders to be employed to subdue that country and forge chains for that brave people, which will undoubtedly revert upon ourselves, and destroy our liberty as well as theirs, if the tyrannical measures of government take place.  But I hope God will order it otherwise.”

Extract from Caledonian Mercury April 1776

This was the 71st Regiment of Foot, known as Fraser's Highlanders.  Simpson had good reason to be concerned, just a few years before, he had left his home, plantation and church in South Carolina to return to Scotland with his two young daughters.

Archibald Simpson, born in 1735 in Perth, grew up in Glasgow where his father was a cordiner (shoemaker).  Archibald was greatly affected by the GreatAwakening, an evangelical religious revival, and especially by the words and work of George Whitfield (1714-1770) who had spent time preaching in America.  After spending a year at Glasgow University, Simpson was offered a position at Whitfield's Bethesda Orphan House in Georgia.  Before leaving Glasgow, Simpson married Jean Muir and travelled to America in 1752.

George Whitfield

However, things did not go to plan.  On his arrival in Georgia, for some reason, Whitfield and Simpson had a disagreement.  (Some say that it was because of Simpson’s marriage.)  Simpson left Georgia for South Carolina and in 1754 took up a position at Stoney Creek (or Indian Land)  in the north east of the State.

South Carolina Historical Marker (photo - Mike Stroud)

Simpson worked there for several years and travelled widely throughout the State preaching at various Presbyterian churches.  In 1766 he was responsible for setting up the Salkehatchie Presbyterian Church.  Jean Muir and one of her daughters had died, leaving Archibald with two young daughters, Betsy and Susy to look after.  In 1772, with unrest on the increase in the area, Archibald Simpson decided to return to Scotland leaving his home, plantation and church.

On his arrival in Scotland he was “examined” by the established Church of Scotland and offered a position at Bellshill near Glasgow.  He did not want the post.  In 1774 he was appointed to the Parish Church in Port Glasgow as an assistant to the minister John Forrest.  At first he dealt with the “overflow” congregation which met in the meeting house or sail-loft in the town because the original church was too small, but when the (Newark) Chapel of Ease was built in 1774 he, and his congregation moved to the new building.  He settled in Port Glasgow with his daughters and in 1776 married Jean McLean Wallace, a widow from Greenock.

Former Newark Chapel, Port Glasgow

It was from this position in Port Glasgow that he was able to look on the progress of the Revolutionary War in America.  Port Glasgow owed its wealth to the importation of tobacco from America and was being hit hard by events on the other side of the Atlantic.  Simpson had the additional personal worry over loss of income from his plantation in South Carolina.

His diary continues: - “People in this poor unhappy land are so blinded to their own destruction that there is nothing to be heard but curses and abuses of the poor Americans, and vain boasts of what vengeance and destruction shall fall upon them by fire and sword, the absolute conquest and desolation of the provinces being determined on by the ministry.  These things are very grievous and distressing to me, yet am obliged to hear them daily and hourly …”.

Simpson was keen to return to America, but ill health and the ongoing War prevented him going.  Eventually in 1784 he was given a year’s “leave of absence” by the managers of Newark Chapel who by this time were probably quite glad to get rid of him.  He left his wife and daughters and returned to a very different South Carolina.

After a difficult journey, Simpson arrived back to find that much had changed in Charleston, South Carolina.  He writes in his diary:- September 1783 – “… the whole country at any distance from the seat of government is still in a very unhappy situation.  Robberies are almost daily committed, and many murders are lately perpetrated by an armed banditti, who call themselves British Refugees, or Loyalists, and sometimes call themselves Americans, taking revenge for the evil treatment they have met with”.

He found things even worse at his old home: -"I rode around by my old parsonage or manse, which is still standing; stopped on the road and viewed it for some time, with a heart ready to burst at the remembrance of the past.  There my dear children were born; there they and their ever dear mother died; there I had many a sweet, pleasant and comfortable – many a sick, melancholy, and sorrowful hour.”

By the time Archibald Simpson returned to Port Glasgow, having taken well over the year he had been permitted by the chapel managers, he found that his services were no longer required at Newark Chapel.  Port Glasgow's productive and rich tobacco trade had diminished rapidly since the beginning of hostilities.  The War had disrupted traffic across the Atlantic and would continue to do so for some time.  Port Glasgow had changed too. 

Tobacco ships

Archibald Simpson moved away from the area and died in Glasgow in 1795.  His daughter Susanna (Susy) married Port Glasgow’s Collector of Customs, Adam Johnston in January 1784.  She and gave birth to a son, Archibald Simpson Johnston in September 1784 in Port Glasgow.

Archibald Simpson's time in Port Glasgow must have been very difficult.  To see and hear first hand the effect that the War in America was having among his parishioners as well as having the worry of what was happening to his friends and property across the Atlantic must have weighed heavily on his mind.  His sympathies obviously lay more with America than Britain and how disillusioned he must have been on returning to his old home.  Fortunately for us today, Archibald Simpson keep diaries and notes which give a fascinating insight into his thoughts as well as what was happening in both Scotland and America in those troubling times.