According to the Muster Roll of the “County of Donnagall (Donegal), 1630 A.D, tenant Robert Callwell was obliged to provide a sword and halberts for the standby militia in defense of the Barony of Rapho. Tenant John Calwell was to provide “snaphances onely.” (See, members. aol. com/ Manus/ dngl1630. html). The enemy against whom protection would likely most be needed were the Irish Catholics.

The typical halbert is a 15th or 16th century battle-ax and pike mounted on a handle about six feet long. The snaphance was a component of the flint against steel musket, originally introduced by German craftsmen working in Spain. See generally, Claude Blai, Ed., Pollard's History of Firearms, Macmillan, New York, 1983, p. 70; Claude Blair with Leonid Tarassuk, Editors. The Complete Encyclopedia of Arms and Weapons. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1982; Lenk, Torsten. The Flintlock: its origin and development. Translated by G. A. Urquhart, Edited by J. F. Hayward. New York: Bramhall House, 1965. These were weapons for toe to toe battles, guaranteeing high body counts. Many of those fighting with a snaphance or halbert would not return home. With so few Calwells as arms bearer, it is surprising that the Caldwell surname survived the turmoil of the early 17th century.

Only Protestant males between ages 16 and 60 were required to serve as farmer-soldiers in the militia and be enlisted in the Muster Rolls. Because a government appointed Muster Master General was responsible every decade for preparing the list at or near the time that the militia presented itself, and consider the accuracy of the list to be of be of great importance, the Muster Roll serves as an early precursor of the U.S. periodic census that originally listed only the head of the household.

The Muster Rolls provide a context that aids me in understanding the purpose of the U.S. Constitution’s 2d amendment guaranteeing the people of the individual States the right to bear arms for the benefit of a well regulated militia.

I can also see the mist rise from the caldron, as I stir up a brew of conjecture that this reliance upon farmer-soldiers possoibly led in time to guerrilla warfare, lynch mobs, binges of violence, and motley soldiers ill equipped to fight against a standing professional army.

Yet the same circumstances that may have left the Scots-Irish at a disadvantage in Ireland may well have saved them from extinction on the American frontier.