In 1739 Neil MacNeill of Kintyre brought over a shipload of Gaels to rejoin his kinsman, Hector MacNeill, called Bluff Hector from his residence near the bluffs at Cross Creek, now Fayetteville.

Some of these immigrants went on to the Yadkin, we are told, to unite with others of their clan who had been for some time in that district.

The exact time of the first Highlander on the Yadkin cannot be ascertained, as there were no court records and the offices of the land companies were not then open for the sale of these remote regions.

But by 1753 there were not less than four thousand Gaels in Cumberland County, where they occupied the chief magisterial posts; and they were already spreading over the lands now comprised within Moore, Anson, Richmond, Robeson, Bladen, and Sampson counties.

In these counties Gaelic was as commonly heard as English.
In the years immediately preceding the Revolution and even in 1776 itself they came in increasing numbers.