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Nathaniel Knox Was An Ulster Man

from MIssissippi Stories, Vol. 2 by Highway 80 Stories

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Matthew Knox was the first of his family to cross the mountains and enter Mississippi. The covered wagon he drove pulled a milk cow while two sows and a collie dog trailed along, and his wife sat in the back. Under the tarpaulin, among the farm implements, resting neatly next to a jug of clear whiskey medicine, was a small bible his grandfather, Jeremiah Knox, had given him in 1862 when he went off to fight in the Confederate War. Together Matthew and this bible had survived the war and would stay together throughout the tense aftermath.

This song tells the history of how Matthew’s Scots-Irish family came to America from Ulster, carrying with them the generations of Knox forebears as documented in the family bible.

Eventually Levi Hooper would be born, a distant relative of Nathaniel Knox.

© 2020 Frank David Leone, Jr./Highway 80 Music (ASCAP). The songs and stories on the Highway 80 Stories website are works of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

lyrics

Nathaniel Knox was an Ulster man
A staunch Presbyterian
Sold his labor for a six week voyage
With a wife and two small boys

Traced his line to 1621
To his great-great-grandad Tristan
They came to Ulster from County Galloway
Nathaniel Knox sailed away

It was a small thing that he took
A list of names in a holy book
Every Knox that’ll come along
Will write more names of his own

Nathaniel Knox went to Carolina
Took his grandson Jeremiah
Who was the first Knox American-born
In seventeen seventy-four

It was a small thing that he took
A list of names in a holy book
Every Knox that’ll come along
Will write more names of his own

It ain’t rained for six weeks now
Jeremiah watched his fields turn brown
One minute he’s cooking molasses from sugar cane
Then everything he’s built goes up flames

Matthew Knox was Jeremiah’s grandson
He left Carolina for Meridian
Mississippi soil is rich and dark
Matthew Knox has an Ulster heart

It was a small thing that he took
A list of names in a holy book
Every Knox that’ll come along
Will write more names of his own

© 2020 Frank David Leone, Jr./Highway 80 Music (ASCAP). The songs and stories on the Highway 80 Stories website are works of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

credits

from MIssissippi Stories, Vol. 2, released November 18, 2023
Guitar, vocal: David Leone

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Highway 80 Stories Whitleyville, Tennessee

Frank David Leone was born in Shreveport, Louisiana and has lived in the South his entire life with the exception of eight years in NYC.  Leone has also lived and worked at music in Dallas and Nashville.  He currently resides in rural Tennessee with his wife and three cats.
His songs have been recorded by Lee Ann Womack, Chris Knight, Rebecca Lynn Howard, and Joy Lynn White, among others. ... more

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