Ancestors
Alexander McKay
1738-1793 · Scotland
Born 1738, Scotland
Died 1793
Father: Archibald McKay
Mother: Ann Gilchrist
Children include Ann
Alexander McKay was born in Scotland in 1738, a son of Archibald McKay and his first wife Ann Gilchrist. His father came out to the Cape Fear in the years after the first Argyll families of 1739, and the family settled near the place that took their name, McKay's, where the Long Street church was built about 1765.
He married Margaret McNeill, a daughter of Lauchlin McNeill, and their children were born on the Cape Fear from 1768: Ann, Daniel, Archibald, Lauchlin and Alexander. In the Revolution he held a captain's commission on the British side, like a great many of the Highland settlers around him. Angus W. McLean, a later governor of North Carolina, wrote that "Alexander McKay was such an uncompromising loyalist that he refused to live under the American government after the close of the Wars and together with his family moved to the Bahama Islands."
He settled on Great Exuma, where a good number of Carolina Loyalists had been given land, and he died there in August 1793. His son Archibald died on the island ten years later, and his wife and baby are buried beside him there. His eldest daughter Ann had married Daniel Smith in 1785 and did not go. Margaret came back to North Carolina and was buried at Juniper Creek in 1819. Ann's stone, set in 1844, names them both.
Sources
Gravestone in the Smith (McKeithan) burying ground, Quewhiffle Township, Hoke County, North Carolina, as transcribed on Find a Grave memorial 155328015: "IN MEMORY OF ANN, (large raised letters in stippled background) A. S. Relict of Col. Daniel Smith, and da(u)ghter of Alexr. & Margrt. McKay Born June 24, 1768, Died Dec 26, 1844, Aged 76yrs, 6ms, 2 dys." A white marble marker with a low gable top, damaged by one rifle shot; the footstone also has a gable top. Burial and dates also in Cemetery Records, Hoke County, Smith (McKeithan) Cemetery, 1814-1866, and in Sandhills Families: Early Reminiscences of the Fort Bragg Area, which give the marriage of Daniel Smith and Anna McKay as 15 December 1785.
The children are in Douglas F. Kelly, Carolina Scots (1998), page 159: "Daniel Smith d. 1841 in Cumberland County, m. 1785 Ann McKay (dau. of Alexander and Margaret McNeill McKay). All of their sons and three of the daughters moved to Alabama", followed by fourteen children, the fifth "Alexander McKay b. 1793, d. in Alabama 1871". A county heritage book's sketch, "The Family of Alexander McKay Smith", gives the Coosa brothers' parents as "Daniel Smith and Anna McKay, of Cumberland County, North Carolina".
Ann McKay Smith's gravestone (Find a Grave memorial 155328015). Douglas F. Kelly, Carolina Scots (1998), the Alexander McKay family, pages 165 to 167, citing Barbara McKay Thomas and Bettie McKay Fraine, Archibald McKay 1720-1797: Scotland to Cumberland County, N.C. (1979), and quoting Angus W. McLean.
If Alexander McKay is in your family, start your own tree.
Cite: Heirology, "Alexander McKay (1738-1793)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/alexander-mckay-1738-1793-99c9b6.