Another prolific source of the Alexanders in America is traceable to the descendants of seven brothers, who fled from Scotland, on account of political troubles, to the north of Ireland, and passing through the Emerald Isle, sailed for America, and landed in New York in 1716.  One of their descendants was William Alexander, born in New York in 1720, a son of James Alexander, of Scotland.  He became a distinguished officer in the Revolutionary war, known as “Lord Stirling.”  He married a daughter of Philip Livingston (the second lord of the manor), a sister of Governor Livingston, of New Jersey.

From these prolific sources (Scotch and Scotch-Irish) North Carolina, and other States of the American Union, have received their original supplies of Alexanders, embracing, in their expansion, many distinguished names.

In the list of the signers of the Mecklenburg Declaration of the 20th of May, 1775, six bear the name of Alexander, and a host of others, officers and privates, honored the name in their heroic achievements during the Revolutionary war.  Two of the distinguished teachers in Rowan county, preceding the Revolution, were James Alexander and Robert Brevard.

It is also worthy of mention that one of the twenty-six persons who met in Charleston, in the fall of 1766, after the repeal of the Stamp Act, under the leadership of that early patriot, General Christopher Gadsden, rejoiced under the duplicated name of Alexander Alexander.  He had strayed off from the paternal roof in North Carolina, and was employed there in the honorable calling of schoolmaster.  Johnson, in his “Traditions and Reminiscences,” thus speaks favorably of his eminent worth: 

“Alexander Alexander was a school-master of high character and popularity.  He was a native of Mecklenburg, North Carolina, and educated in the Whig principles of that distinguished district.”

JACK FAMILY.

At the commencement of the Revolutionary War, one of the worthy and patriotic citizens of the little town of Charlotte, in Mecklenburg county, N.C., was Patrick Jack.  He was a native of Ireland, and emigrated to America, with several brothers, about 1730.  He married Lillis McAdoo, of the same race, who is represented to have been, by all who knew her, as “one of the best of women,” having an amiable disposition, frequently dispensing charities to the poor, and truly pious.  Her Christian name, Lillis, in subsequent years, was softened into Lillie, by many of her descendants in adopting it.  The descent of Patrick Jack is traceable to noble ancestors, one of whom was a ministerial sufferer in the reign of Charles II, in 1661.  In that year, that despotic monarch, who, according to one of his own satirists, “Never said a foolish thing, nor ever did a wise one,” ejected from their benefices or livings, under Jeremy Taylor, thirteen ministers of the Presbytery of Lagan, in the northern part of Ireland, for their non-conformity to the Church of England.  The Puritans of England were called to the same trial, in August, 1662, and in the following October, the same scene of heroic suffering was exhibited in Scotland.