Movers: A Saga of the Scotch-Irish

by Nancy Niblack Baxter

This first book in the Heartland Chronicles series tells the story of the real-life McClure family and their 1750s journey from Ireland to Pennsylvania, to Kentucky, to Indiana.

Genres: Historical Fiction

550 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 1987

Reviews

[Sarah]

This is an American epic that follows the McClure family from Scotland to Ireland to Pennsylvania to Kentucky to Indiana, telling a common tale of the Scotch-Irish migration. At times I was really drawn into the plot (like a character's conversion from Presbyterianism to Methodism), but there were some strange parts that just didn't fit in and those were usually the sections about the gloriousness of the people discussed in the novel. For example, p. 385:

"Over eight thousand descendents of Jane McClure and her husband John live in the Midwest today. And they can rise up and call this Irishwoman blessed, as it says in the Bible, if they know the value of a virtuous woman--and a Bountiful Soul!"

Overall it's very "westward expansion is God's will" and "my ancestors are awesome."

[Bill Freil]

dry.