The story of the Anderson family begins with Margaret Moore, who was a little girl at the time of the siege of Londonderry, Ireland in 1688-1689. In after years she spoke of the sickness and suffering the people endured during the siege. Her maiden name is not known.
Margaret's husband was a soldier in the British Army who after his discharge was to receive a grant of land in the Province of North Carolina for his services.
Margaret and their daughter, Ann, who was then about seven years old, came to Lancaster County in Pennsylvania. At the end of his period of enlistment her husband planned to settle the estate and follow them to America. Later Margaret Moore received word that her husband had been thrown from a horse and killed.
Sometime prior to 1725 a man by the name of John Anderson came to Pennsylvania from Northern Ireland and married Ann Moore. There is a record of one John Anderson arriving in Pennsylvania in 1722, however the two men may not have been the same.
The way was now open for Margaret Moore and her daughter, Ann Anderson, to move to North Carolina and claim her grant. They set out to select their hew home somewhere on the Yadkin River or the Catawba River. On the way they learned that smallpox had broken out in that area and on reaching the Dan River they turned east and finally decided to settle on the head waters of the Eno River.
Here John Anderson located a tract of land three miles square, where the east and west forks of the Eno unite to form the Eno River in the year 1738 or 1739. They were the first settlers in the Eno community. There is no record of other families coming with them, but they probably did.
John Anderson became one of the prominent men in the new community that soon grew up in that area. He was the leading spirit in forming the Eno Presbyterian Church and was one of the first elders. When the Rev. Hugh McAden visited the Eno And Hawfields communities in 1755 and 1756, he made John Anderson's home his stopping place.
In 1875, Alexander Anderson, a grandson of John Anderson wrote: "My grandfather pitched his tent near the spot where my dwelling now stands. An elm tree, which shades my spring and now measures sixteen feet around two feet above the ground, was used, I have heard my grandfather say, to hang clothes on by bending down the top."
John Anderson's Bible in which he wrote the name and date of birth of his children was owned by the late William Henry Anderson, and must now be in the hands of some of his descendants.
There were ten children. At least the first six were born in Pennsylvania before they came to the Eno community. Two of these children had descendants who were connected with the Scott family.