Historic Families of Kentucky by Thomas Marshall Green, Cincinnati, 
1889, reprinted Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc. 1959. pp. 72-76. 
[Mercer county].

SAMUEL McDOWELL, of Mercer.  To distinguish the fourth son of Judge 
Samuel McDowell and Mary McClung from his father and nephews of the same 
given name, he is designated as of Mercer county.  Born in Rockbridge, 
March 8, 1764, his tender years prevented him from going into the 
patriot army at the beginning of the Revolution.  Before its close, 
however, he disappeared from home, at the age of seventeen years, joined 
Lafayette as a private soldier in the final campaign against Cornwallis, 
remained with that command until the end of the struggle, which he 
witnessed at Yorktown, in the stage and fighting at which place he took 
a lively hand.  His service was brief, he made good use of the time at 
his disposal, and was "in at the death."  His father, suspecting the 
cause of his disappearance from home, wrote to his elder brother, James, 
to keep a sharp lookout for him among the new recruits. Finding him 
footsore and sick, James wrote to their father to let him have his fill 
of the realities of war as the best antidote for his military penchant.  
The interval between the close of the war and the removal of the family 
to Kentucky was passed in the completion of his education.  With them he 
removed to Mercer county, in 1784, there located, and there continued to 
reside during the remainder of his honorable life. In the defense of the 
district, he saw frequent additional service as a soldier, and 
accompanied General Charles Scott in his expedition against the Indians 
of the North-west. In General Hopkins' expedition against the Indians of 
Illinois, he was a valued officer, though his age then nearly reached 
half a century.  Washington gave another evidence of his confidence in 
and regard for the family by appointing him the first United States 
Marshal for Kentucky, when the state was organized, in 1792.  In 
subsequent years, the office has frequently been vastly more lucrative, 
but it has never been of greater importance than in that epoch of 
confusion and conspiracies.  With unimpeached probity, and the utmost 
fidelity, he discharged the duties of the position during the remainder 
of the first and all of the second term of Washington, all that of John 
Adams, and part of that of Jefferson.  He could not swerve from his 
devotion to the Federalism of Washington to secure the good-will of "the 
apostle of Democracy," and was by him dismissed, and Colonel Crockett 
appointed as his successor.  His letters disclose his conviction that 
his removal was attributable to the unfriendly representations of 
Senator John Brown, who, from being a friend, had bcome an active and 
malevolent enemy of all the family.  It was natural and inevitable that 
so ardent a Federalist should also have been equally as zealous as a 
patriot.  His letters show than even at so early a day he was keenly 
alive to the pernicious tendencies of the principles of disintegration 
which then threatened the future of the country, and culminated in the 
attempt to dissolve the Union.  They also disclose spirit and culture, 
and show him to have been a well-informed, educated, thoughtful man of 
sense.  A deeply religious man, without parade or austerity, his 
character was as attractive as his temper was amiable.  Possessed of a 
natural pride in his name and kindred, an earnest belief in their 
merits, and a warm desire for their advancement, those will not be 
surprised who read in one of his letters to his brother-in-law, General 
Andrew Reid, of Rockbridge, under date of September 22, 1813, an 
exclamation of delight at hearing that General Reid's son, Samuel 
McDowell Reid, who had volunteered, and was was doing good service in 
the war, was "likely to be an honor to the name" - ann anticipation that 
was most happily realized. Nor will the reader wonder at what follows:  
"The name is rising in Kentucky, all that the Democrats can say to the 
contrary, notwithstanding."  But the explanation of this gratified pride 
will in vain be sought for in any dwelling upon their social station, 
though that was high, as it had always been; or in any boast of their 
increasing wealth, though they were among the largest land-holders of 
the state; or in any allusion to the political honors that had been 
bestowed on them in a state where Dederalists were unpopular.  The 
explanatory lines that follow reveal the man, as they are characteristic 
of the race:  "There were seven of the family out last fall (i.e., in 
the war) and winter, and they all behaved well . . .  Brother Joseph is 
his (Shelby's) adjutant-general, and my son John his assistant.  William 
McD.'s sons, Sam. and Madison, and James McDowell's son John are also 
with him . . . My son Abram was out with the army all last winter; he 
was with Colonel Campbell at Massasineway.  He went out last spring as 
assistant quartermaster-general from this state; he was taken down with 
the fever in July last, and has not yet entirely recovered.  I could 
hardly prevent him from going out with Shelby . . . I believe it is the 
wish of all Kentuckians that the war should be prosecutod with vigor."  
In a letter of an earlier date, August 10, 1807, he wrote:  "Kentucky is 
all in a buzz again.  Federal Republicans and Democratic Jacobins all 
join to fight the British. . . Nothing has happened . . . that has 
excited so general disgust as the outrade of the Leopard on the 
Chesapeake . . . But one sentiment appears to prevail in the heart of 
every Kentuckian - the hope that our administration will take spirited 
and manly measures, . . . and let the British see that the Americans 
have respect for their honor, as well as their interest, and the courage 
to defend it. . . . The people of Kentucky are beginning to have their 
eyes opened, and to discover that the Federal Republicans are the only 
true friends to their country.  Humphrey Marshall is elected 
representative from Franklin county by a large majority, in defiance of 
the Democrats and Spanish conspirators, and John Rowan is sent to 
Congress from one of the most respectable districts in the state." 
	Among the very earliest settlers in the Valley of Virginia, were 
Scotch-Irish Presbyterian families, named Irvine, kinsmen of the 
McDowells, and probably descended from brothrs of Ephraim McDowell's 
wife, who emigrated with him to Pennsylvania, and some of whom followed 
him to Burden's Grant.  Their names are found among the soldiers of the 
French and Indian War, as well as in the war of the Revolution, from 
both Pennsylvania and Virginia.  Members of the family were among the 
first settlers of Mercer county, neighbors to their McDowell kin.  Among 
the magistrates who held the first county court in Mercer, in August, 
1786, were John Irvine, Samuel McDowell, Sr., and Gabriel Madison.  One 
of his family, Anna, daughter of Abram Irvine, becmae the wife of her 
kinsman, Samuel McDowell, of Mercer.  Eleven children were born to these 
well-mated kinspeople.    

McDowell McClung Lafayette Cornwallis Scott Hopkins Washington Adams 
Jefferson Crockett Brown Reid Shelby Campbell Marshall Rowan Irvine 
Madison
=
Rockbridge-VA IL PA

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