William I. McMath (abt. 1725)

I think William came either direct from Scotland as a lad (mom put him on a ship under the ship master as something akin to apprentice or cabin boy) or was already in PA (having Joseph). The McMath's seemed to be ahead of most when it came to "get out" ahead of the Cromwell purges (anti-Jacobites) late 1690's thru 1720's. For those trying to apprentice, typically boys would foster (or in Scotland it was called "septing", in England, it was called peerage) with an uncle or other relative not their father to learn about life, grow, fall in love, etc. and then when vows were made after returning home to run the clan, there would be stronger bonds across the similar named clans (i.e. Matheson, McMath, Mathinway [that's the Gaelic/Welsh Matheson]). Also, the time frame in the North American Colonies, the crown (sometime after 1720) started this trend of "land speculation" whereby the colony governor (with of course Crown approval) would name an area (i.e. Virginia) that would go from Atlantic Ocean to the Mississippi, then the governor would give rights of data collection to whomever plotted the lines first and wrote up land summaries. Then the surveyor would approach the governor with the maps and such and the Governor would appoint the surveyor as Land Speculator and it was up to the now Speculator to find tenants so the Speculators would take ads in papers, pay for criers, etc., to get word out that land was available for a fee (similar to registration). The Speculators would pocket some of the funds, the Governor the remainder "on behalf of the Crown" (of course), and farmers looking for a good deal would pay and then find their way to the plots and set up their homestead. The problem would later arise that (after Prince Philips War) that the Crown promised no settlers west of Appalachia and of course by then the French were trading in the same areas, and before you knew it was the French-Indian War. Some where in this mess of history after 1725, the McMath I'm related to helped to do land surveys and eventually decided to marry and settle down, but after the French & Indian War, he told his son, Joseph McMath, to seek his fortune in the South where the Indians (backed by the French) were less troublesome. Which is why I think Joseph went into Land Speculation in Georgia (quite successfully) and exploited the land grants being given in lieu of pay to the rebellious Revolutionaries. There is no information in ship registries of New England (Boston and Philadelphia) for "Joseph" or "Jo" (shortened for the log) McMath, and no child/adolesent records of Joseph in other colony areas (GA, Carolinas, VA, MD, DE, PA, MA, etc.) so Joseph existed in PA before showing up in GA as an adult on will witness documents in Carolinas and land settlement proceedings 1781~1814. The will witness in Carolinas give credence to his travelling south (possibly from PA), linking up with known extended family that may have taken the British land grants (i.e. later formation of Cumberland County in NC, etc.) post-Jacobite Rebellion for "loyalty promises" (which did not go well for the British 1776-1781).