Journals of Charles Beatty, 1762-1769

This volume contains journals of three trips made by Beatty; two to the British Isles and one through Pennsylvania to the Ohio country in 1766. Throughout the first half of the 18th century many thousands of Scotch-Irish Presbyterians immigrated to America, often arriving in Philadelphia, from where they then advanced west through Pennsylvania in search of land. Many could be found on the very edge of the frontier, which in the 1740s was in central Pennsylvania, but by the 1760s had extended to the western edge of present-day Pennsylvania and along the Ohio River. Reverend Beatty had been active since the outbreak of war in 1756 in providing assistance to frontiersmen on behalf of the Presbyterian church. In 1766 the church sent him to preach for two months on the frontier, to find out what Presbyterian frontiersmen needed from the church, and to get some idea of where they were settling. His journal is a record of his fulfilment of that assignment. In addition to Beatty’s journal this volume contains an extensive introduction that describes Reverend Beatty’s activities in the 1750s and 1760s, and the efforts of the Presbyterian church to provide services to co-religionists on the frontier.