[Ancestor] McCormick

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Husband [Ancestor] McCormick

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Wife

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Children

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1 M John McCormick ¹

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           Born: 1748 - Ireland 2
     Christened: 
           Died: 22 May 1844 3
         Buried:  - Great Island Cemetery, Lock Haven, Clinton Co, PA

         Spouse: Elizabeth Fleming (      -1804) 2

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General Notes: Husband - [Ancestor] McCormick

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The McCormick, McCormack, McCormic, etc., family derive their surname from an ancient kingly source, meaning, literally, the son of Cormac, and, etymologically, "the son of a chariot." Cormac ruled Ireland, as King, in the third century, and whose interference was called for in the continuous quarrels of the two rival tribes of the Scotch-Irish, a branch of the great Celtic family, that found their way into the North of Ireland, across the channel, from the western shores of North Britain and established themselves at a very early period in what is now called Ulster. Cormac's palace at Tara, County Meath, was the seat of this celebrated monarch. This was the magnificent royal residence of the Kings of Ireland -especially of Cormac, with his retinue of 150 brave champions and 1,050 soldiers, and his bards, druids and law-givers. It is related as a fragment of Breton Law, that Ceallach McCormack, a kinsman of King Cormac, having carried away, by force, the niece of another chieftain, the latter determined to take revenge for the insult, hurried to Tara, where the offender was then a guest. He arrived after sunset. Now there was a law prohibiting any person coming armed into the palace after sunset, so he went unarmed, and taking down Cormac's spear from the place where it hung in the hall, he killed Ceallach McCormac on the spot, and drawing back the spear with great force, the ferrol struck out the King's eye. Soon after the King abdicated, in obedience to a law or custom that prohibited one executing sovereignty whose person was blemished.
Round Tower and chapel upon the Rock of Cashel, County Tipperary, are also associated with the annals of this family, and are, perhaps, "the most interesting assemblage of architectural ruins in the British Isles." Part of these ruins consists of a beautiful stone-roofed church of what is called the Norman style, and familiarly known as Cormac's chapel. The interior of the cathedral is crowded with monuments of great antiquity. The tomb of Cormac is near the north porch to the entrance to the chapel. This Cormac, King of Munster, was born in 831, and spent a large part of his time in a monastery. He was nearly seventy years old when he came to the throne, and was killed in battle A. D. 908.
Londonderry, as a city, has been the scene of violence for ages, so much so that only the ancient walls remain, which are almost as perfect as they were during the memorable siege of 1688-9, when it became the great stronghold of the Protestants, who resisted effectually the efforts of James II., with his French allies, to subjugate them. The siege lasted one hundred and five days, during which 2,300 citizens suffered death from famine and violence. This victory, followed a year later by that of the battle of Boyne, gave liberty, civil and religious, broad lands, and dominant sway to the Protestants as supporters of William and Mary. Ulsterland thenceforth became the permanent and peaceful possession mainly of the Scotch Presbyterians.
Somehow a branch of the McCormac family sprang up in Scotland as if a twig from the parent trunk in some political convulsion had been torn and borne by favoring winds from the land of the Shamrock to the land of the Thistle. At any rate we find the names spelled exactly the same in both of these lands, yet having distinctly different armorial bearings, all of Scotch origin. James McCormick, evidently a Scotch Presbyterian, was in the siege of Londonderry. His name appears as one of the signers of the address of the "Governor officers, clergy and other gentlemen in the City and Garrison of Londonderry, to William and Mary, July 29, 1689." He left sons: Hugh, Thomas and another, it is supposed, bearing his own name, James. From this Scotch-Irish ancestor (James McCormick), through his sons and daughters, have come many Americans who honor his name and memory in their different walks and vocations, and whose lives have been a beneficence to the human race. According to history of the McCormick family, from which the foregoing is extracted-James McCormick-the missing brother of Hugh and Thomas, all the sons of James of Londonderry, was probably the McCormick who came to America about 1761, and whose son John, born in the North of Ireland in 1748, became the progenitor of the Clinton County, Pennsylvania, family ⁴

1 John Blair Linn, History of Centre and Clinton Counties, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1883), Pg 521, 561.

2 John Blair Linn, History of Centre and Clinton Counties, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1883), Pg 561.

3 John Blair Linn, History of Centre and Clinton Counties, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1883), Pg 568.

4 —, Commemorative Biographical Record of Central Pennsylvania, Including the Counties of Centre, Clinton, Union and Snyder. (Chicago: J. H. Beers & Co., 1898), Pg 560.