obert Alexander, of whom was a descendant, Robert
Alexander (perhaps a son), a captain in the Revolution, who married
Mary Jack, third daughter of Patrick Jack, of Charlotte, and settled
in Lincoln county, where he died in 1813.
James Porterfield Alexander (James the fourth), and son of James the
third, married Annie Augusta Halsey, grand-daughter of the Hon.
Jeremiah Morton, and resides, in this centennial year, on the St.
Cloud plantation, Rapidan Station, Culpeper county, Va.
Hugh Alexander, son of James the first, married Martha Edmundson,
settled in Sherman's Valley, Pa., and had a large family. He died at
Independence Hall, Philadelphia, while sitting as a member to form a
State Constitution.
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
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