From Belfast to Bunker Hill: The Journey of David and Margaret Forsyth

By: Ivan Lancaster, Indiana (Article was published in the Griffin Jan 2011. Ivan is now deceased)

(Expanded and edited for context and historical background)

The story of David Forsyth and Margaret McGibbon is one of courage, survival, and hope—echoing the experience of many Forsyths and Scots-Irish families who braved the Atlantic in the 1700s.

They came from the Belfast area of Northern Ireland, where economic hardship and religious restrictions pushed many families to seek opportunity across the ocean. Between 1717 and 1775, tens of thousands of Ulster Scots—descendants of Scottish settlers in Ireland—migrated to the American colonies, bringing their Presbyterian faith, determination, and skills in farming and craftsmanship.

David and Margaret arrived before the American Revolution, unmarried but deeply devoted to one another. Margaret’s maid accompanied her on the voyage, but like many on those perilous crossings, she did not survive. As the ship entered New York Harbor, the maid—terrified of a sea burial—begged to be taken ashore for burial. David honored her last wish, a poignant act of compassion that set the tone for the family’s legacy of faith and perseverance.

The couple settled in Bunker Hill, Virginia (now West Virginia), where family tradition says David served in the Revolutionary War. Though his service has not yet been proven, the story of his long-delayed return—welcomed by the joyful barking of the family dog, Tige—has been passed down for generations.

After the war, David and Margaret journeyed westward by covered wagon and flatboat, eventually settling along Floyd’s Fork in Jefferson County, Kentucky. David was buried near the creek that sustained his family, and Margaret later joined her children who moved north into Johnson County, Indiana, in the 1820s—making them among Indiana’s earliest pioneer settlers.

Margaret rests in the Forsyth-Featherngill Cemetery in Nineveh Township, where her son David carried her by ox-drawn sled through the winter snow to her final resting place.

By 1920, their descendant Jennie Forsyth Jeffries compiled the family’s remarkable legacy in “History of the Forsyth Family,” preserving the story for future generations. Today, the Forsyth name remains woven into Johnson County’s history—with Forsyth descendants marrying into the Pritchard, Hollandbeck, Featherngill, and Daniels families, and even producing a Governor of Indiana, Roger D. Branigin.

As Ivan fondly notes, “The librarian in our county museum says, ‘Ivan is related to everyone in the county but me.’”

From Belfast to Bunker Hill, and from the Ohio River to Indiana’s heartland—the Forsyth story is one of enduring faith, resilience, and kinship.