Presby Minister. Moved from Pa to NC. Served under General Nathaneal Greene-Patriot Index #0672271. Died of Camp Fever during Rev. War. Widow moved to Greene County, which later became part of Tn in 1796.


From David A. Caldwell-a descendent:
i. Alexander Caldwell. He was born in 1735 in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Biographer Eli Caruthers wrote that Alexander was named after the family pastor, Alexander Craighead. He moved to Guilford Co., North Carolina, and bought land next to the farm of his brother, David. His wife was Margaret. He fought for the North Carolina militia under Gen. Nathaneal Greene in the Carolinas. Alexander Caldwell is listed in the Patriot Index as No. 0672271. He attended Buffalo Presbyterian Church. The loss of church records by fire and missing grave markers prevent us from knowing whether he is buried at the Buffalo Presbyterian Church cemetery. He was appointed as the Justice of Peace in 1776 of Guilford Co., North Carolina. He died in August 1784 in Guilford Co., due to a fever that he had acquired during the Guilford County Courthouse Battle. After the settlement of his estate, his surviving wife and children, along with many Scots-Irish, moved to Greene County in the foothills of the Great Smokey Mountains, which later became a part of the State of Tennessee in June of 1796. Alexander's children included Mary, Samuel, Thomas, Martha, Margaret and Rachel. These children are the first of my ancestors to move to Tennessee. Presbyterianism became the first religion among white settlers established in that State. Today about one in five Tennesseans can trace their roots back to this early immigration. By 1790, the new Presbyterian communities in North Carolina no longer offered cheap land, and the new generation sought cheaper prices, ample acreage, and better economic opportunity in Tennessee and Kentucky. The pattern ofPresbyterian colonization, which had led daughter colonies from Scotland to Ulster, from Belfast, Londonderry, Larne, Newry and Portrush across an ocean to Pennsylvania, and then down the backcountry of Virginia to central North Carolina, repeated itself once again. Young families, like Alexander Caldwell’s surviving children, decided to move west, where they could grow corn and erect mills and stills. The first colonies to attract numerous former members of Rev. David Caldwell's congregations clustered in the border counties of Logan and Sumner. Alexander Caldwell’s family chose Greene County, Tennessee. The Scots-Irish immigrants brought with them traditions of storytelling, singing, dancing, and making whiskey ("white-lightning"). The square dance, clogging to fiddle-backed music, has its origins in the Scots-Irish jig. These mountain settlers threatened to bring up arms against the government of George Washington that sought to impose taxes on their whiskey in 1794, but the matter was settled.