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From the two victories of Oliver Cromwell in the U.K. at Dunbar and Worcester over the Scottish, York is indebted for about a dozen Highlanders sent over as “prisoners” who became the founders of the settlement and parish which has ever since been known by the name of “Scotland.”
The Cromwell victories resulted in ten thousand Scottish taken as prisoners. About half were so exhausted by their flight and disabled by wounds that Cromwell immediately released them. The able-bodied prisoners, five thousand in number, were marched down to Durham and Newcastle on Tyne. Their disposition was a problem both from a sanitary and political standpoint. The cathedral at Durham turned prison, was not constructed to house thousands of men day and night and a decision had to be reached rapidly. A providential opportunity was presented to the officials of the commonwealth in London. Laborers were greatly needed in the new American colonies and on September 19, 1650, only sixteen days after the battle, there was an order in council passed to deliver nine hundred prisoners for transportation to Virginia and one hundred fifty for New England. Sixty of them were destined for the Saugus iron works and the remainder were distributed throughout numerous towns in Massachusetts and New Hampshire in a kind of modified slavery or compulsory service (called indentured servants) which was to terminate in seven years. They were bought by their masters at twenty pounds and thirty pounds each, which went for the expenses of their transportation.
It is not known to which lot of prisoners the twelve Scotchmen who finally settled in York belonged, Dunbar or Worcester. Most of this dozen were placed in New Hampshire towns, principally Dover and Exeter, and after their term of servitude was accomplished, they scattered to secure favorable opportunities for improvement of their condition.
Alexander Maxwell, who had been sold to George Leader of Berwick, was the first of the Scotchmen to settle in York in 1657. Former Scots prisoners obtained land grants near one another between 1655-1680 and settled around the upper reaches of the wide part of the tidal flow of the York River. In the process of settling close together at the upper tidal reaches of the York River, the former prisoners created their own community and small hamlet. Early on, a bridge was built across the river to provide quick access between properties on both sides, and was then periodically improved over time. The associated intersection of the Scotland Bridge Road with Cider Hill Road (Rte. 91) became a center for the hamlet.
In the Scotland District, the settlers had equal access to the ecological resources of the river, the ocean, and the land. They could travel downstream by boat to trade in the village center or fish in the harbor or along the coast. The upper reaches of the tidal flow of the river provided access to the same rich beds of shellfish and other food resources that had fed Native Americans for millennia. The meandering upper tidal reaches of the river created wide floodplains. In those regularly inundated soils grew extensive meadows of salt marsh hay—a superior, much preferred feed for livestock.
The surrounding land, shaped by the river, consisted of gently sloping treed hills and meadows, reliable sources of freshwater, and soils (once cleared of trees) that were suitable for crops, fruit trees, and grazing livestock. The river provided ready access to and transport for the produce they grew, the livestock they raised, and lumber from the nearby wooded uplands—lumber was a critically important resource for construction for a growing region, and one that the former Scots prisoners were quite used to harvesting and milling from the time of their indentures.
From Scotland District via the river or overland, the Scots settlers had ready access to—but were a comfortable distance away from—the center of York Village where the local English settlers had clustered their own settlement around York Harbor. Because of the arms-length distance from Puritan authorities, the Scots could exercise more day-to-day control over the conduct of their lives and their own community. This was also true in an economic sense—clannish Scots would stick together not only for familiar cultural company, but to keep their economic lives more securely ‘within the family.’ They sold land, exchanged goods, and intermarried with one another.
There was one significant drawback to the location of Scotland Parish during the early period of its settlement. Its more remote location placed the Scots and their families further out on the frontier edge, where they were more vulnerable to attack by displaced Native Americans. While the Scots preferred the location for the many reasons previously mentioned, the ease with which settlement there was accomplished was to an extent deliberate on the part of the English proprietors approving land grants in York. From an English perspective, the Scots—an inferior and barbarous race prone to fighting and rebellion—provided a buffer between displaced and hostile Native Americans (and later allied French and Indian forces) and the core of English settlements.
Additional reading...
https://www.oldberwick.org/history-articles/historic-events/the-scottish-prisoners-of-1650.html