The Legacy of Ludovic Grant

When I wrote my book, From Salacoa to Tahlequah in 2005, I researched the family of JOHN MARTIN, JR., first Chief Justice of the Cherokee Nation in 1839-1840. A considerable amount of my research was gained from Patricia W. Lockwood, a genealogist, a descendant of the Martin family, and author of From Jamestown to Tahlequah. In this book on pages 159-160 LUDOVIC GRANT, a Scotch trader with the Cherokees in the early 1700s, was mentioned as the primary ancestor of the Martin family through his marriage to a full-blooded Cherokee woman and through his granddaughter, Susannah Emory. Susannah married first to Capt. John Stuart about 1760, second, to Richard Fields, about 1770, and third, to John Martin, Sr. , about 1782 and had children by all three men. John Martin, Jr., was born to Susannah and John Martin, Sr., about 1784.¹

I became interested in Ludovic Grant when I found his letters to Gov. Glenn of South Carolina written from 1751 to 1756 informing the governor of activities in the Cherokee Nation in the Overhill country of Tennessee. Further research on the life of Ludovic Grant revealed that he was a Jacobite captured at Preston, England, in 1715 and banished to Charles Town, South Carolina, in 1716. He sailed to South Carolina on the ship Susannah and upon arrival at Charles Town served seven years as an indentured servant as part of his punishment for being a Jacobite.

When the Jacobites were banished or otherwise punished by being hanged or imprisoned after the uprisings of 1715 and 1745, many thought of them as rebels with punishment that was justified, but subsequent history indicated that many of them were merely loyal subjects of their king. Their flight to other lands in many cases provided an opportunity to begin new and illustrious careers that would eventually influence people they came in contact with and others who would follow them. Such was the life of Ludovic Grant...a man who never returned to his country or this family in Scotland, but began an adventure in the New World that would result in prosperity and the beginning of a legacy for his descendants which grew to a considerable number.

One of my first interests was in the name of Ludovic Grant. There are many men in the Grant Clan who had the name Ludovic or Ludovick. It is a German name with alternate forms of spelling such as Ludwig, Ludovico, Louis, Lewis, Ludvik, Ludwik, Lutz, and Lothar all of which mean 'famous warrior' or portray an individual of fame or a great warrior.

In Germany the music composer, Ludwig Van Beethoven, made the name of Ludwig a famous name; in France Louis XIV gave the name a good reputation when he was king of France; and in Scotland the eighth Laird of Grant, Ludovic Grant of Freuchie was known as 'the Highland King' and many men in the Grant family named their sons after Ludovic of Freuchie (Grant).2

Research of the surname of Grant revealed that this was the name of a very prominent family in Scotland which traced its origins to the Scotch highlands about 1215 A. D. A book written by William Fraser, LLD, in 1883, entitled The Chiefs of Grant, gives an excellent history of this family. My first impression was to connect Ludovic Grant, the Jacobite banished to South Carolina, with the families of prominent Grants who had either served as chiefs of the Grant Clan or were other­wise linked to the hierarchy of the family.

After considerable research to determine where Ludovic Grant, the Scotch Jacobite, came from in Scotland, I learned that he was from an area which was not heavily populated by the Grants. My investigation led me to finding his name on prison records kept at the National Archives in London, England, and these records showed that he was held as a prisoner at Chester, England, and his place of residence was in Aberdeen­shire, Scotland, where he was born in 1688.