McAuslan, Alexander

d. 1793

Alexander McAuslan, merchant and Loyalist, was a native of Scotland who settled in New Bern several years before the American Revolution. He left for a time in 1775 as tensions mounted. In 1777 the Georgia Revolutionaries confiscated a sloop of which he was half owner because it was carrying provisions to the British garrison at St. Augustine, Fla. McAuslan went to New York in 1777 but returned with the British success in the South. From September 1780 to February 1781, he was inspector of North Carolina refugees under Lord Charles Cornwallis. He was named in the North Carolina Confiscation Act of 1779.

By 1784 McAuslan was in New York. From there he went to New Bern (via Newfoundland and the West Indies) to try to collect some of his debts; however, he was mobbed and did not remain long ashore. He settled at Shelburne, Nova Scotia, in 1785 but took no land. In 1787 he petitioned for five hundred acres on the nearby Tusket River where he intended to build a herring fishery. Although the petition was approved, McAuslan did not remain to take the grant. He returned to North Carolina and resumed trading, largely in cloth. The 1790 census shows that he enslaved three people; the female listed probably was his wife but no children are indicated. He died in Chatham County.