Coming to America


	The most common migration route for settlers from Ireland was through Philadelphia, south into Virginia and the Carolinas, and across the Appalachians. The Cumberland Gap was the easiest passage through the mountains and into the area that would become Tennessee.


	Rogan was accompanied to the colonies by his brother-in-law, Daniel Carlen. They planned to bring a few goods to America, see some of the country , and, if they liked it, return to Ireland for their families. Rogan and Carlen followed the most common Irish migration route to America, entering through the Port of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Rogan soon moved on to an Irish settlement in North Carolina where he worked as a weaver, his trade in Ireland. Rogan first came into the Cumberland Valley in 1778, as a guard for the survey team, led by Dr. Thomas Walker and General Daniel Smith, marking the state lines for North Carolina and Virginia. Rogan's contemporaries, including John Donelson, William Hall (later governor and Congressman), John Carr, and Joseph Brown provide most of the information about his adventures. His name is among Donelson's list of survivors who completed the harrowing river journey from Fort Patrick Henry (in upper East Tennessee near the Virginia state line) to Fort Nashborough (Nashville) in 1780. That same year Rogan, along with 255 other men, signed the Cumberland Compact, the temporary instrument of government for the new settlements in the Cumberland Valley. Rogan spent nearly two decades helping to establish and defend several of the eight forts or stations, called for in the Cumberland Compact.


	This article is an abstract of research and information that appears in "Hugh Rogan of Counties Donegal and Sumner: Irish Acculturation in Frontier Tennessee," Caneta Skelley Hankins. Tennessee History: The Land, the People, the Culture. Carroll Van West, ed. University of Tennessee Press, 1998. For further information contact the author at the Center for Historic Preservation, Middle Tennessee State University, Box 80, Murfreesboro, Tennessee 37132, phone (615) 898-2947; e-mail < chankins@mtsu.edu>.


	Text and design by Caneta Skelley Hankins