Sam Sibbett of 1773

Sam Sibbett of 1773

Samuel Sibbett was the first ancestor bearing the Sibbett name to come to the United States. Of Scottish descent, he was born about 1773 in the Provence of Ulster (called Northern Ireland), which was and is overwhelmingly Protestant in religion. He was a Republican; a Mason; and, a Presbyterian.

Samuel had five brothers and three sisters; John, James, Robert and two other brothers of unknown names, Agnus, Mrs. McCann, and Mary. Two of Samuel’s five brothers were active in the rebellion. They were caught and banished to Australia, one of them being murdered on the way by the English. Their names are now unknown.

Samuel married Alice Laurie, daughter of Sir Robert Laurie. Scotch-Irish. Sir Robert owned and with his family lived in a Castle, probably in Armagh County. Provence of Ulster, the Scot-settled northern part of Ireland. Later, the name was sometimes called “Lowry”.

Three sons wee born to Samuel and Alice in Ireland; James, Robert and Thomas.

At that time Ireland was struggling against England for separation, and Robert Emmet, an Irish patriot and orator, headed the ill-fated rebellion; he even obtained Napoleon Bonaparte’s promise to aid the Irish independence. Samuel Sibbett was Emmet’s head leader. He was an aide-de-camp to General Hugh Montgomery of the Irish Rebellion. Samuel’s political activities made enemies for him of the British king and Parliament who ordered his arrest. His fellow Masons heard of it and brought him that information, and Robert Emmet advised him to leave Ireland at once. This was in 1800. There was a price on his head, dead or alive. After hiding under the pig-sty at home, hiding in a friend’s house—under a log or in the bushes, each time seeing the men who were seeking him; he escaped as Robert Kennedy, a linen merchant, going to New York. When he reached America, he gave the Captain of the Ship a blow in the face, saying, “Take that to the King with my compliments. I am a free man on free soil and you can’t touch me. I am Samuel Sibbett.”

He made his way to the Scotch-Irish settlement at Big Spring, Pennsylvania, now called Newville. Some time later he sent for his family; wife and three sons. They lived for awhile with a Catholic family in Philadelphia by the name of Ryan.

In 1803 another son Samuel Sibbett Jr. was born.

There is a Sibbett monument in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania.