MILLSAP
BIOGRAPHY
Contributed by: Colleen Hunter
Edited by: Dennis P. Arntzen
THOMAS and his spouse Mary Poplin were the first generation of this Irish/American family. Thomas' parents were William (Born about 1649 at Armaugh, Tyrone County) and Elizabeth Wood (Born about 1660). During the period of Thomas and Mary's marriage and prior to their emigration from Ireland, they resided in Antrim, Belfast County. Thomas' trade occupation was that of a weaver. They are the progenitor of almost all present day Millsaps in America. The most notable ones are Isaac who died for Texas independence at the Alamo and Ronnie Millsap, present day country & western singer.
THE beautiful land called Ulster is west of Scotland and is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Channel, the Irish Sea, and the Republic of Eire. The Irish landscape is covered with brilliant green grass, earning Ireland its nickname, The Emerald Isle. Grass and plants stay green even during winter because of the temperature climate and the abundance of rain. The mild climate is created by southwesterly wind currents that pull warm air up from the Gulf of Mexico and over the Atlantic Ocean, sending it across the Irish landscape. Mountainous regions, however, experience extremely harsh winters. Weather forecasts in Ireland typically predict that any given day will be partly sunny, with a chance of showers and moderate temperatures.
THERE were many reasons why people left Ireland for America. In the early 1700s, the rent on land doubled or tripled, along with crop failures, bad weather, high food prices, livestock deseases, and smallpox epidemics.
The first substantial migrations from Ulster to the colonies occurred during that devastating period. There were some 4,000 departures in 1728 alone. The Irish famine of 1740 added many more thousands to the already large flow of Irish people who immigrated to America.
IN 1729, a young man wrote from Pennsylvania to his sister in Ireland, "Pennsylvania is the best country in the world for tradesmen and working people. Land is twenty-five cents to $2.50 an acre. Oats are twenty-eight cents a bushel and corn is twenty-five cents. A laboring man makes about twenty cents a day, including the best of food and a pint of rum. One or two acres can be plowed in a day." At Philadelphia, then a city of 5,000 inhabitants, all kinds of provisions were extraordinarily plentiful. Wednesdays and Saturdays were market days where meat could be had for two and one-half cents a pound.
BEGINNING late in the 1720s, the great majority of Ulstermen traveled to America in the holds of ships which had sailed to Ulster towns to exchange Pennsylvania flax seed for cargoes of linen cloth, fare paying passengers, and indentured servants. The lower classes could rarely afford to pay their own fares to America or to emigrate in family groups. Between 1720 and 1770, an Atlantic passage, including provisions, cost between 3 pounds, 5 shillings to 9 pounds. Those who intended to farm in the New World needed at least 10 pounds more for inland transportation, fees to secure land grants, tools, seeds, and subsistence until their first harvest. Such sums represented over a year's wages for most weavers and laborers.
Thomas was influenced by the opportunities that were afforded to those who chose to leave their homeland for America. He first settled in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. The rest of the family story will be told through the individual members that are listed below.
FIRST NAME INDEX
(B) = BIOGRAPHY INCLUDED
Stray Away Child
