In the eighteenth century many natives of Dumfriesshire emigrated to the American colonies, and of these perhaps the most prominent were those descended from John Johnston of Stapleton, Dumfriesshire, an officer in a Scottish regiment in the French service.  His second son, Gabriel, became Governor of North Carolina.  In the house of the Governor’s brother, Gilbert, it is stated that General Marion signed the commission for the celebrated band known as “Marion’s Men.”  Among the more prominent descendants of Gilbert Johnston are:  (1) James, who became a Colonel on the staff of General Rutherford during the Revolution and served in several engagements; (2) William, M.D., who married a daughter of General Peter Forney, and died in 1855.  This William had five sons:  (1) James, a Captain in the Confederate Army; (2) Robert, a Brigadier-General; (3) William, a Colonel; (4) Joseph Forney, born in 1843, Captain in the Confederate Army, Governor of Alabama from 1896 to 1900, and United States Senator for Alabama in 1907; (5) Bartlett, an officer in the Confederate Navy.  Samuel Johnston, a nephew of Gilbert’s, was the Naval Officer of North Carolina in 1775, Treasurer during the Revolution, and Governor of North Carolina from 1787 to 1789, President of the Convention that finally adopted the State Constitution, and first Senator elected by his state in the United States Congress in 1789.  His son, James, was the largest planter in the United States on his death in 1865.  Gilbert’s brother Robert, was an attorney and civil engineer.  His son, Peter, served as Lieutenant in the legion which Colonel Henry Lee recruited in Virginia, and after the war became Judge of the South-Western Circuit in Virginia, and Speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates.  He married Mary Wood, a niece of Patrick Henry.  Their eighth son, Joseph Eccleston Johnston, born in 1807, graduated from West Point in 1829, served in the Federal Army in all its campaigns, up to the time of the Civil War.  Although holding the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel and Quarter-Master-General, he resigned and joined the Confederate Army, and rendered brilliant service in its ranks.  Another eminent individual of this name was General Albert Sydney Johnston, the son of a physician, John Johnston, the descendant of a Scottish family long settled in Connecticut.  Christopher Johnston (1822-1891), a descendant of the Poldean branch of the Annandale Johnstons, was professor of surgery in the University of Maryland.  His son, also named Christopher (d. 1914), graduated M.D., practised for eight years, studied ancient and modern languages, and eventually became Professor of Oriental History and Archaeology in Johns Hopkins University.  He was one of the most distinguished Oriental scholars this country has produced.

Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804), one of the founders of the Republic, served with distinction in the Revolutionary War, but it was as a Statesman of the highest ability that he acquired his great fame.  He was one of the most prominent Members of the Continental Congress (1782-83), of the Constitutional Convention in 1787, and Secretary of the Treasury (1789-95).  He was born in the West Indies, the son of a Scots father and a French mother.