By Hannah Miller, Photos by James J. Shaffer, February 2008

• 1: Introduction
• 2: The Davidson Farm
• 3: Today's Working Farm
• Download the full article as a

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Introduction

You don’t have to wear a kilt to be in step with North Carolina history, but in the southern Piedmont, it doesn’t hurt if you do.
The Scots and Scots-Irish immigrants who largely settled the area, many of them following the Great Wagon Road south from Pennsylvania, left a huge imprint on the region. In Mecklenburg County, the seven Presbyterian churches that the pious Scots farmers established by 1770 still thrive, as does their Davidson College, founded in 1837.

“They said everybody had to be able to read the Bible for themselves,” says Keets Taylor of the Catawba Valley Scottish Society. “They brought that historical interest in education to this country.”

In most cases, their farms have been divided and sold, and now sprout housing developments and highways in this fast-growing region served by the EnergyUnited Touchstone Energy cooperative. But 16 years ago, Mecklenburg County took steps to preserve one such farm, Rural Hill off Neck Road and the Catawba River in north Mecklenburg.