The Davidson Family of Rural Hill, North Carolina

John Davidson came to the North Carolina back country circa 1751 as a young man, with his sister and widowed mother. Typical of Scots-Irish settlers, they arrived with little more than basic farming tools, determined to make it on their own terms. Davidson worked hard, prospered, married well and built a plantation on the Catawba River he called Rural Hill. The Davidson's were loyal British citizens who paid their taxes and participated in colonial government. When the Crown's overbearing author