| Notes |
- JAMES McCURDY, the eldest son of Petheric and Margaret (Stewart) McCurdy, was born in 1668. He married, when about twenty-one years old, Jerusha Murray, said to be a cousin of the Earl of Mar. He settled in the neighbourhood of Bushmills, County Antrim.
In a letter written by the late Hon. John McCurdy of Shippensburg, PA., dated February 12th, 1877, may be found the following extract: “If you take a general atlas and turn to the map of Ireland, you will find the Giant’s Causeway on the extreme northern coast of County Antrim. West of the Causeway, and east of the river Bann, you will find a small stream which runs due north, and empties into the ocean near the Causeway. This stream is called the Bush River. On this river, about one mile from its mouth, there is a village containing about 1,000 inhabitants. The name of this place is Bushmills. Just outside of the town, about a quarter of a mile distant, there is a farm called “Clouther.’ On this farm I was born. A short distance east of Bush River, about a mile nearly south of Bushmills, there is a farm called the ‘Caven,’ the southern boundary of which is within a hundred years of Billy Church, where very many of the McCurdys are buried. This ‘Caven’ farm is said to be the one on which the McCurdys settled when they emigrated from Scotland. There my great-grandfather Samuel [son of John, son of Petheric.–Ed.], and my grandfather Alexander, lived and died. My Uncle James held it from the time of my grandfather’s death in 1828, until 1874, when he died. Until very recently I thought this property was held by the family in fee simple; but I have discovered that they held it on life-leases. Two of my cousins hold either the whole or a part of it now. Ahoghil, from which your great-grandfather came, is about six or seven miles from the ‘Caven.’”
James and Jerusha McCurdy had eight children, namely John, Elizabeth, Margaret, Daniel, Andrew, Mary, Robert, and David.
source: Blanchard, Henry Percy. The Ancestral McCurdys: Their Origin and Remote History. London, UK: Covenant Publishing Company, Covenant Publishing Company, 1930.
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1668 - 1767 (~ 98 years)
