John Mathieson

Abt 1640 - 1710  (70 years)

• Name	John Mathieson
  Birth	Abt 1640	Closeburn, Dumfries-shire, Scotland
  Gender	Male
  Occupation	1683	Closeburn, Dumfries-shire, Scotland
  	Tenant farmer in Rosehill
  Legal	19 Jun 1684	Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland   [1]
  	Found guilty for reset and converse with rebels and sentenced to transportation
  Departure	21 Jul 1684	Greenock, Renfrewshire, Scotland   [2]
  	Aboard The Carolina Merchant , commanded by James Gibson and owned by his brother Walter. One of 35 transportees.
  Arrival	2 Oct 1684	Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina, USA
  	Insh, George Pratt, ‘The “Carolina Merchant”: Advice of Arrival’, The Scottish Historical Review, 25.98 (1928), pp. 98-108
  Residence	Abt Feb 1684/85	Virginia, USA
  Residence	Abt Jun 1685	Pennsylvania, USA
  	Where he "was near to death, by a great weighty sickness"
  Residence	Abt Feb 1685/86	New Jersey, Monmouth, New Jersey, USA
  	Where he and other survivors from the Carolina venture "met with our banished brethren"
  	W.D. Carslaw (1908), Exiles of the Covenant (Paisley: Alexander Gardner), p.160
  Residence	Abt Jun 1686	New England, USA
  	But left "being sorely grieved by the miscarriages of some of our friends there"
  Residence	Abt Sep 1686	East Jersey, New Jersey, USA
  	Fell sick, was cared for a husband and wife, "with whom I had bound myself"
  Departure	Abt Apr 1687	New York, New York, USA
  	Returned to Scotland via London
  	Glad to return as "I was sorely grieved witht he vain and wicked coversation [sic] of the inhabitants of that land". Between being taken from his home in 1684 and his return: "somehting more than three years"
  Title Suffix	in Rosehill
  Death	1710	Closeburn, Dumfries-shire, Scotland
  	Left a testimony of his experience of persecution and time in America
  Burial	Closeburn, Dumfries-shire, Scotland
  	The inscription on his memorial stone says, "Here lyeth the corpse of John Mathieson who was banished to foreign lands for adhering to the covenanted work of reformation, of which John Kilpatrick of Bridgeburghhead had on chief hand. He returned from hence and lived many years. He died in 1710 aged 69.". Picture of gravestone on Wikimedia Commons at https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:John_Mathieson_the_Covenanters_gravestone,_Closeburn_Parish_Cemetery,_Dumfries_%26_Galloway.jpg
  Person ID	I46688	East Jersey Genealogies
  Last Modified	16 Apr 2026

  
  

• Event Map

  Birth - Abt 1640 - Closeburn, Dumfries-shire, Scotland Occupation - Tenant farmer in Rosehill - 1683 - Closeburn, Dumfries-shire, Scotland Legal - Found guilty for reset and converse with rebels and sentenced to transportation - 19 Jun 1684 - Edinburgh, Midlothian, Scotland Departure - Aboard The Carolina Merchant , commanded by James Gibson and owned by his brother Walter. One of 35 transportees. - 21 Jul 1684 - Greenock, Renfrewshire, Scotland Arrival - 2 Oct 1684 - Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina, USA Residence - Abt Feb 1684/85 - Virginia, USA Residence - Where he "was near to death, by a great weighty sickness" - Abt Jun 1685 - Pennsylvania, USA Residence - But left "being sorely grieved by the miscarriages of some of our friends there" - Abt Jun 1686 - New England, USA Departure - Returned to Scotland via London - Abt Apr 1687 - New York, New York, USA Death - 1710 - Closeburn, Dumfries-shire, Scotland Burial - - Closeburn, Dumfries-shire, Scotland  = Link to Google Earth

  
  

• Notes

  Information from W.D. Carslaw (1908), Exiles of the Covenant (Paisley: Alexander Gardner). Dates after arrival in Carolina are approximate. Full testimony published in Anon., ed., A Collection of the Dying Testimonies of Some Holy and Pious Christians, Who Lived in Scotland before and since the Revolution (J. Calderwood, 1806) <http://archive.org/details/collectionofdyin00kilm>

  
  

• Sources

  [S3611] Privy Council of Scotland, The Register of the Privy Council of Scotland, 3rd Series, IX, p15. [S3587] Wagner, Joseph, "The Scottish Colonising Voyages to Carolina and East New Jersey in the 1680s", p166.