- General John Forbes born at Pittencrieff estate, Dunfermline, Scotland founded the city of Pittsburgh.
- Sam Houston's family are believed to have emigrated from Scotland to Ireland and then to the US. Sam Houston defeated the Mexican Army of General Santa Anna winning independence from Mexico. The City of Houston Texas named in his honour.
- James McKay was born in Thurso, the most northerly town on the British mainland. He emigrated to America and was a blockade runner in the Civil War and head of the Fifth Commissary District for the Confederate Army. He founded Tampa in Florida.
- General Winfield Scott a Scottish American who commanded the American forces during the Mexican war of 1846-48 and whose grandfather fought at the Battle of Culloden in Scotland.
- Jim Bowie was a descendant of the Bowies from Maryland who emigrated to the US from Stirlingshire, Scotland.
- Jesse Chisholm, his father was of Scottish extraction and his mother was a Cherokee Indian. He learned over a dozen Indian languages, rescued captive children and youths from the Comanches and Kiowas, adopted them and reared them with his own family, treating them as his own children. He was the first person to mark out the famous cattle trail now known as the Chisholm Trail.
- Lt Col. George Armstrong Custer is believed by some to have his roots in Germany, where the family name was Kester. However John Ross writing for the Scotsman newspaper in Edinburgh tells of a letter of Custer to his wife, in which he mentions correspondence from a gentleman from the Orkney Islands in the north of Scotland. Custer's letter to his wife was written two months before his legendary stand at the Battle of the Little Bighorn on June 25 1876, where Custer and more than 200 officers and men of the 7th US Cavalry died at the hands of 1,500 Lakota Sioux and Cheyenne Indians led by Chiefs Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse. 'I received a letter from a gentleman at Kirkwall, in the Orkneys, of the name of Custer,' wrote the Lt Col. 'He traces our relationship to the family back to 1647 and gives the several changes the name has undergone - Cursetter, Cursider, Cusiter, Custer, all belonging to the same parish'. Cursiter, pronounced 'Custer' in Orkney, is a historic island name which is still found locally today. Research shows that the main branch of the family lived for centuries in the parish of Firth and is recorded as having owned land as far back as 1587. The letter told Custer that two men from this Scottish family went to the USA, where they ran a business in New York until it was ruined by fire. They then moved west and the letter claimed that one of the brothers was an ancestor of Lt Col. Custer. Certainly the Lt Col.'s middle name 'Armstrong' ( presumably a name found elsewhere in his family ), is a Scottish family name. It seems that Custer rode to the Little Bighorn in the belief that his ancestors came from Scotland.
The muster roll shows 10 Scots on the pay-roll of the 7th Cavalry at the time of the massacre, one of them - James Hill who was born in Edinburgh in Scotland, was the only survivor of the battle and died aged 80 in 1906 in Massachusetts. Another, Private John Hiley ( aged 27 ), also born in Edinburgh perished only yards from Custer. When his belongings were searched it was found that his name was really John Stuart Forbes, the son of an Edinburgh banker and the second youngest brother of baronet Sir William Stuart Forbes of Aberdeenshire in Scotland. It seems he had gambling debts in Scotland and had gone to America to start a new life. He is one of the few U.S. cavalrymen to have a memorial erected to him in his home country. A brass plaque stands in his honour in the north aisle of St. John's Episcopal Church in Princes Street, Edinburgh, Scotland.
The names of those in Custer's regiment who were born in Scotland:
Alexander Brown ( Aberdeen ), James Callan, Thomas Conlan ( Ayrshire ), John Stuart Hiley, James Hill, William Moodie, David McWilliams ( Edinburgh ). Joseph Milton ( Glasgow ). Charles Scott and Peter Thompson ( Markinch in Fife ). Peter Thompson from Markinch had a narrow escape. His horse collapsed from exhaustion on the way to the Little Bighorn and he was seconded to another division. As his unit charged to rescue their comrades Thompson was shot in the hand and arm. He received the U.S. Medal of Honour.
- Kit Carson the famous army scout and Indian agent was great-grandson of a Presbyterian minister from Dumfriesshire in Scotland who emigrated to Pennsylvania.
- At the Alamo, 200 men including four Scots were surrounded for 13 days by a 5,000-strong army of the tyrant ruler of Mexico - General Antonio López de Santa Anna. In a bid to raise the morale of the besieged defenders a Scots piper named John McGregor, who originally came from Aberfeldy in Perthshire Scotland, performed musical ‘duels’ with American folklore legend and second generation Scot, Davy Crockett, who played the fiddle. McGregor was said to have won the duels because he played the longest and loudest. The skirl of the pipes that sounded around the fortified former mission steeled the nerves of the defenders and helped inspire them to continue to fight to the last man.
Three other first generation Scots were among the men who lost their lives at the Alamo in March 1836.
Richard W Ballentine was born in Scotland in 1814 and travelled to Texas from Alabama in 1835. He and the other passengers signed a statement declaring: 'We have left every endearment at our respective places of abode in the United States of America, to maintain and defend our brethren, at the peril of our lives, liberties and fortunes.' Isaac Robinson was born in Scotland in 1808 and came to Texas from Louisiana. He took part in the siege of Bexar and later served in the Alamo garrison as a fourth sergeant in Captain William R Carey's artillery company. David L Wilson, son of James and Susanna (Wesley) Wilson, was born in Scotland in 1807. He lived in Nacogdoches Texas with his wife Ophelia, and was one of the volunteers who accompanied Captain Philip Dimmitt to Bexar and the Alamo in the early months of 1836. He remained at the Alamo after Dimmitt left on the first day of the siege.
- Ewen Cameron was a Scottish American cowboy who was born in Scotland and took part in the Mier expedition. Known as a leader of the 'cowboys' prominent in frontier defence in South Texas. The Telegraph and Texas Register hailed him on September 14 1842, as 'a bold and chivalrous leader' who promised to become 'the Bruce of the West.'
- James Paris Lee born in Hawick, Scotland, was an inventor who helped design the Lee-Enfield and Lee-Metford rifles.
- James Oliver born in Newcastleton, Scotland, invented the Oliver chilled plough which revolutionised the cultivation of the American prairies.
- Joseph Campbell creator of Campbell Soups, he was born in 1817 in Bridgeton, New Jersey to James and Hannah Campbell, two strict Presbyterians of Scottish stock. His condensed soup appeared in 1897. By eliminating the water in canned soup he lowered the costs for packaging, shipping and storage, making it possible to offer a 10-ounce can of Campbell’s condensed soup for a dime, versus more than 30 cents for a typical 32-ounce can of soup. The Campbell plant at Camden New Jersey, was at one time the greatest industrial canning plant in the world. Americans consume approximately 2.5 billion bowls of the three most popular Campbell soups each year.
- James Pollock became Director of the Mint at Philadelphia and responsible for IN GOD WE TRUST on U.S. money.
- John MacIntosh whose father came from Inverness in Scotland developed the delicious 'MacIntosh Apple'. Apple computers named a range of products in his honour.
- Samuel Finley Breese Morse who invented the Telegraphic System had Scottish ancestry.
- John Stewart MacArthur born in Glasgow, Scotland, discovered the cyanide process of extracting gold from discarded mine tailings. This discovery which is still used today, doubled the world's annual gold production.
- Cyrus McCormick a Scottish American inventor of the first successful reaping machine contributed greatly to the development of modern agriculture.
- Andrew Young McDonald born in Eglinton Street, Glasgow, Scotland, invented the monkey wrench.
- Dr. Benjamin Waterhouse a Graduate of Edinburgh University in Scotland was the only doctor of the three men who founded Harvard Medical School.
- Angus Neilson MacPherson emigrated to America from Scotland, where he built the famous frigate 'Ironsides'. He also designed furnaces for heating large plates and invented a method of affixing the plates to the sides of vessels.
- Robert E Lee Confederate General said that the blood of Robert the Bruce flowed through his veins, he advised the south after the war to, 'Abandon your animosities and make your sons Americans.'
- Ulysses S. Grant's father was a Scottish immigrant whose line is said by genealogists to have a royal descent from David I, King of Scots. He was a Union General during the American Civil War, later becoming 18th President of the United States. When he retired Grant visited Scotland, where he met with the Earl of Seafield, Chief of the Clan Grant.
- General Thomas 'Stonewall' Jackson a West Point graduate is thought by many to be the best battlefield commander in the War between the States.
- Confederate flag ( it has been claimed ), was based on the design of the Saltire ( the national flag of Scotland ), which is possible as a very large percentage of the defeated Confederacy were of Scots descent. The confederate flag is a favourite of Scottish truckers along with the Saltire. See |
 The Flags | of Scotland.
- Billy the Kid was a Scottish American whose true name was William Bonny. In Scotland there had been a pirate and a Whisky smuggler with the same family name.
- James Monroe the 5th President of the United States was the great-grandson of a Scots Covenanter who had arrived in the US in chains. He had been deported from Scotland during the religious persecutions of king Charles II, known as the 'killing times.' Monroe threw the Spanish out of Florida and established the Monroe Doctrine that excluded European powers from the Americas.
- Zachary Taylor 'Old Rough and Ready' was the 12th President of the United States.
- Rutherford B. Hayes 19th President of the United States. Hayes was the great grandson of George Hayes, a Scot who settled in Windsor, CT.
- Woodrow Wilson the Grandson of a Scottish Presbyterian minister became President of the United States of America. He was the author of 14 points that inspired the League of Nations and led eventually to the 'United Nations'.
- Allan Pinkerton the son of a policeman emigrated to the USA from Carlton Place, Gorbals area in Glasgow Scotland in 1842 and founded the Pinkerton Detective Agency in Chicago in 1850. The term 'Private Eye' is a reference to the unblinking eye logo used by the agency with the slogan 'We Never Sleep'. Their pursuit of the outlaws Frank and Jesse James is now legendary. Allan foiled an attempt on the life of Abraham Lincoln at his inauguration in 1861 and afterward founded the American Secret Service to gather intelligence for the government. Pinkerton's business exists to this day based in California, now known as Securitas Security Services but forever linked to its Scottish founder.
- Robert Gibson Eccles a Scot from Ayrshire, researcher and discoverer of food preservatives.
 Uncle Sam was a Scottish American. In the war of 1812 Sam Wilson, ( whose parents had emigrated from Greenock in Scotland to New York ) supplied rations for the Army with US stamped on the barrels. His employees started to refer to these barrels as 'Uncle Sam's beef' - the soldiers receiving the rations and realising that the initials were US, thought Uncle Sam was new slang for the U.S. Government.
- John McKenzie - Founded the city of Chicago, his name was mutilated into Kinzie, and one of the principal streets of the city is called Kinzie Street.
- Daniel Cook was born in Kentucky in 1795 of Scottish parents. A newspaper owner, Cook was responsible for Illinois being not only ratified as the twenty-first state but also as a slave-free state. Cook was elected in 1819 to Congress as the sole representative from Illinois. Cook County in Illinois is named in his honour.
- John Reid who emigrated to America in 1866 is credited with starting the first golf club in the USA. He began playing golf in a field near his home in Yonkers with some friends and from this grew the famous St. Andrews Golf Club, Westchester Co. New York.
- Alexander Graham Bell was born and educated in Edinburgh, Scotland. He moved first to Ontario, Canada and then to Boston, United States. Bell invented his 'electrical speech machine' ( telephone ) in 1876. Life would be very different if we did not have telephone land lines and mobile ( cellular ) phones - without telephone land lines there would have been no internet. AGB's researches also laid the groundwork for modern fibre optics. Alexander founded the National Bell Telephone Company ( which later became AT&T ). But to the end of his life he retained a primary interest in communication with the handicapped, and he founded the American Association to Promote the Teaching of Speech to the Deaf. The decibel was named after him.
- Bertie Charles Forbes settled in New York in 1904 and began his rise to fame in the newspaper industry. He became a famous journalist and launched his own paper. Forbes Magazine of Business still stands as one of the most respected magazines today. He was buried in a New Jersey cemetery but 34 years later, his son Malcolm, who took over the family business, brought his body home to be re-interred in the old churchyard at New Deer Scotland.
- William Wallace Cargill a Scottish American founded Cargill, Inc., rated as America’s largest private company. Over 30 members of the Cargill and MacMillan families own the $47 billion giant which handles 25% of America’s grain exports. Cargill has 600 plants and 40,000 employees in 40 countries.
- Andrew Halladie the inventor of steel-wire rope and the ‘Hallidie Ropeway’, was a Scottish American whose father came from Fleming, Dumfriesshire, Scotland and his mother was from Lockerbie, Scotland. He introduced his cable cars to San Francisco in 1873 - they are still a working attraction in the city to this day.
- David Dunbar Buick emigrated from Scotland to the USA where he invented a method for bonding enamel to iron for the manufacture of basins, sinks and baths. Formed the Buick Manufacturing Company and gave his name to one of the USA's most famous cars.
- Andrew Carnegie emigrated in poverty from Dunfermline in Scotland to the USA at 13 years of age. He got a job as a bobbin boy in a textile mill and then moved on to become a telegraph operator. Through shrewd investments of small sums of money he became wealthy; founded American Steel and eventually sold it for $400 million, of which he personally received $360 million, making him at the start of the 20th Century, the richest man in the world. Famous for giving away $50 million to build over 30,000 libraries, as well as donations for various Institutions and Halls all over Europe and the USA. He gave $10 million for world peace, as well as a half million dollars to build the Hague Peace Palace. Over 100,000 students have graduated because of the trust for Universities he setup during his life. Carnegie's most famous saying was 'The man who dies wealthy dies disgraced'. Mark Twain ( who called Carnegie 'Saint Andrew' ), once wrote to him asking for a dollar and a half to buy a Hymn Book. 'Don't send the Hymn Book', Twain wrote, 'Send the dollar and a half - I'll choose the Hymn Book'. Carnegie never forgot his native Scotland and once spoke of Dunfermline the town of his birth as 'the most sacred spot to me on Earth'. Carnegie founded the Saint Andrews Golf Club, the oldest golf club in the US. He died in 1919 at 84 years old, having given away $300 million, which has grown to $2.5 billion today, still funding charitable causes throughout the world. His grave is marked by a Celtic cross made of stone quarried near Skibo Castle, his beloved home in Scotland. In December 2000, superstar Madonna held her wedding to Guy Ritchie at Skibo Castle. The Carnegie Club at Skibo is an exclusive 500 member club, who pay £4,000 a year, plus a £5,000 joining fee for their privacy and the use of their own championship golf course at the castle.
 Bill Gates has Scottish blood through his mother Mary, a schoolteacher whose maiden name was Maxwell. Bill and his wife Melinda founded their own charity 'Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation' the largest transparently operated charitable foundation in the world; with Bill announcing that as from July 31 2008 he will transition out of a day-to-day role with Microsoft to concentrate on their charitable work. As of 2006, the foundation has an endowment of approximately US$26.9 billion. To maintain its status as a charitable foundation, it must donate at least 5% of its assets each year ( over US$1 billion at a minimum ). Approximately US$800 million that the foundation gives every year for global health approaches the annual budget of the United Nations' World Health Organization. On June 26 2006 the second richest man in the world, Warren Buffett, donated $37bn (£20bn) to the Gates foundation. The Gates Foundation received 5% (500,000) of Buffett's shares in July 2006 and will receive 5% of the remaining earmarked shares in the July of each following year. After Buffett's donation is accounted for, the charity will be required to give out a minimum of US$2.8 billion each year, which averages out to be about US$90 every second throughout the year.
In January 2007 Bill visited Scotland and announced that 100,000 Scots not in education or employment would be trained in computer skills in a partnership between Microsoft and the Scottish Executive. He was awarded an honorary degree from Edinburgh University for his technological and philanthropic work and had a private meeting with Ian Wilmut, the Scottish scientist who led the team that cloned Dolly the Sheep. In a speech given at Bute House, the First Minister's official home he said, 'Scotland is known for a long history of innovation, being involved in business enterprise and top educational institutions. It has a good reputation for governance that focuses on business opportunity. Scotland has done well . . . education is going to keep it in a good position.'
In his book 'The Mark of the Scots', author Duncan Bruce points out that, as of 1993, of the twenty-one largest charitable foundations in the USA - boasting assets of over $25 billion - thirteen were started by Scottish Americans.
- American literature was enriched by Scottish Americans Herman Melville, Washington Irving, and Edgar Allen Poe.
- John Muir was born on 21 April 1838 in a three-storey house in the High Street in Dunbar Scotland. As a young boy his love of the Scottish countryside provided the basis for his life of exploration in much of the American West. He emigrated to the States with his parents when he was 11 years old and became America's most influential naturalist and the first environmental activists. In 1867 Muir suffered an injury that made him blind for a month, on recovering his sight he determined to fully appreciate the wonders of nature. He realised the importance of conserving and protecting the natural environment and urged President Theodore Roosevelt to protect America's treasures under the authority of the Antiquities Act of 1906. Muir insisted that 'Wilderness is a necessity'. He inspired the founding of National Parks - now copied throughout the world and responsible for preserving sites of natural beauty as well as safeguarding many endangered species. On the 150th anniversary of his birth in 1988, April 21st was officially named 'John Muir Day' in the U.S.A.
- David Douglas born in Scone, Perthshire, Scotland traveled extensively throughout the U.S.A. cataloguing the plants of the New World. He gave his name to the Douglas Fir one of which he planted in Scone Palace, Scotland ( still growing today ). He was the first European to climb the northern Rocky Mountains and in so doing named a number of them, including Mount Hooker after his professor at Glasgow University.
- William Saunders born in St Andrews, Scotland designed and laid out several large estates throughout America, including the park-garden system of Washington D.C., Fairmount & Hunting Parks, Philadelphia and the National Cemetery at Gettysburg. He introduced the eucalyptus tree into California and Japanese satsuma oranges which greatly improved the American citrus industry.
- John McTammany was born in the west end of Glasgow, at the Vale of Kelvin. He went to the U.S.A. in 1863 to join his father who had emigrated earlier and settled at Uniontown, Ohio. He invented the first voting machine that was used in many American State and local elections.
- James Wilson born in Ayrshire Scotland in 1852, he emigrated to the USA and was eventually put in charge of American Agriculture which he revolutionised. He expanded his department to be responsible for agricultural research, conservation, reforestation, plant disease and insect control. His monument is in Maryland, where his department has become one of the finest in the world.
- General Douglas MacArthur Supreme Commander in the Pacific during World War II and in the Korean War.
- General George S. Patton a Scottish American is a descendant of Brigadier General Hugh Mercer a friend of George Washington. Patton famously said 'You don't win wars by dying for your country - you win wars by allowing the enemy to die for his country.'
- James Naismith was asked to come up with a game that could be played indoors in the winter. 'Using all the stubbornness of my Scottish ancestry', he invented basketball. The U.S. basketball authorities arranged for Naismith then aged 75, to travel to Berlin to see basketball make its debut as an Olympic sport in 1936.
- John Glenn first American to orbit the Earth. Senator from Ohio, he returned to space in 1998 at the age of 75.
- Neil Armstrong Scottish American Astronaut. In July 1969, Armstrong commanded the Apollo 11 lunar mission, he was the first human being to set foot on the moon. Armstrong's famous words from space include, 'The eagle has landed' and 'One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind'. In 1972, Neil Armstrong visited Scotland and was welcomed into the town of Langholm, the traditional seat of Clan Armstrong. The astronaut was made the first ever 'Freeman of the Burgh', and happily declared the town his home. The Langholm Justice of the Peace read from an unrepealed 400-year-old law that required him to hang any Armstrong found in the town.
- Alan Bean Scottish American Astronaut ( Apollo 12 ) was the fourth man to walk on the moon. He took with him two lengths of MacBain tartan. One was left on the moon but the other was brought back to earth and is put on display at the Clan MacBain gatherings.
- Jeanette MacDonald Hollywood co-star of Nelson Eddy.
- Deborah Kerr was born in Helensburgh, Scotland is best remembered for Hollywood epics like 'The King and I' and 'From Here to Eternity'. In 1994 she was given a Lifetime Achievement Oscar.
- George C. Scott Oscar-winning movie actor.
- John Wayne whose real family name was Morrison, is claimed to have Scottish ancestry. In a career that spanned 50 years Wayne appeared in more than 150 films.
 Elvis Presley was a Scottish American. He is descended from blacksmith Andrew Presley ( whose parents married in Lonmay, Aberdeenshire Scotland on August 27, 1713 ). Andrew emigrated to North Carolina in America, from Paisley in Scotland in 1745, following the crush of the Jacobite uprising. Most of the Presleys living in Scotland during the 18th and 19th centuries could be found in Aberdeenshire and were based in Lonmay and the nearby villages of New Deer, Old Deer and Tarves.
- Ronald Reagan's family also came from Paisley in Scotland. He and his wife Nancy visited his ancestral town of Paisley and attended a church service.
- Colin Powell of 'Desert Storm' fame, is a Scot American whose mother Maud McKay came from Scotland, while his British citizen father, Luther Powell, came from Jamaica. General Powell recently applied to Lord Lyon to have a coat of arms designed by the King at Arms ( Scotland's Heraldic authority ). He chose the Scottish authority rather than the English one because of his family connection to Scotland. His coat of arms features a red lion, swords for his military career and stars referring to his rank as a 4 star general.
- Glen Campbell plays the bagpipes and is proud of his Scottish ancestry.
- Johnny Cash a Scottish American who said on TV that Scotland is his 'ancestral home'. He is descended from a Scottish seaman, William Cash who settled in Salem Massachusetts in 1612. But the singer’s Scottish roots go back further and can be traced to Ada of Warenne, the sister of Malcolm IV - a king of Scotland who reigned between 1153 and 1165.
- Robert Redford is a Scottish American film star whose Father was a Scottish immigrant.
- Mel Gibson famous actor and naturalized American who traces his roots back to Scotland.
- Eminem the Rap singer has Scottish blood on both sides of his family.
- Americans who live in Scotland number over 20,000 while about 500,000 American tourists visit Scotland each year.
- The | Scots | page has a list of famous native Scots.
Famous Scottish Americans of the War of Independence
are listed on the | Tartan Day | Page
|
President Woodrow Wilson.
