Two utterly unlike books, W. E. B. Du Bois's The Souls of Black Folk and Edgar Rice Burroughs's Tarzan of the Apes, came off the same Chicago imprint: A. C. McClurg & Co. That is a strange legacy for a Scottish surname carried by fewer than a hundred people in Scotland when the twentieth century opened.
McClurg is a rare name and the evidence is thin. What follows is what can be documented, and where the usual accounts run ahead of the record.
Who Was A. C. McClurg?
Alexander Caldwell McClurg, born in Philadelphia on 9 September 1832. He went to Chicago in 1859 to work for the bookseller S. C. Griggs, fought through the Civil War with the 88th Illinois Volunteer Infantry, served as adjutant general at Chattanooga and in the Atlanta campaign, and was breveted brigadier general in 1865. He died in Florida on 15 April 1901.
Then he went back to books. The firm became Jansen, McClurg & Co. in 1872 and A. C. McClurg & Co. in 1887 when he took the senior partnership, growing into the largest book house in the western states. It published The Souls of Black Folk in 1903, the first ten Tarzan novels from 1914, and lasted until 1967.
Where Does the Name McClurg Come From?
From a personal name, not a place. The Oxford-backed Dictionary of American Family Names reads McClurg as an anglicized Gaelic Mac Luirg, son of Lorg. Lorg means a track or footprint, and the personal name is glossed as footman: a tracker, a foot soldier.
That is unusual ground. Most Gaelic Mac- names take a father's forename or a saint's, as our guide to what Scottish surnames mean sets out. McClurg takes a nickname about a man's feet.
McClurg and McClure Are Not the Same Name
They look like variants. They are not. McClure comes from Mac Gille Uidhir, son of the dun-colored lad, a construction with gille in the middle. McClurg comes from Mac Luirg, with no gille and no color word. The resemblance is an accident of English spelling, sharpened because both circulated in the same corner of Scotland. Merge them in a search and you merge two families.
What Do the Early Records Actually Show?
A thin but respectable trail, and not the expected one. Gilbert Maklurke rendered homage to the king of England in 1296 on the Ragman Rolls. Andrew Maclurg is a landholder at St Andrews in 1476 in the Register of the Great Seal. William McLurg turns up in the Earl of Cassilis's following in 1526. John McLurg was issuing a seditious gazette from his Edinburgh coffeehouse in 1681.
Fife, Ayrshire, Edinburgh. McClurg is routinely called a Kirkcudbrightshire and Wigtownshire name, which may reflect a real later concentration, but the datable early bearers sit elsewhere and the Galloway placement rests on repetition rather than citation. The names with a documented Galloway base are its neighbors: Clan MacCulloch, Clan MacKie and the Crocketts.
Just How Rare Is McClurg?
Rare enough that every bearer counts. The 1901 census of Scotland returned 91 at 3,426th; the 2020 United States census counted 3,206 at 9,670th.
Scarcity is a gift to a researcher. At those numbers a McClurg in a parish register is very likely related to the next one in it. The wider region is surveyed in our roundup of the Ayrshire and Galloway families, and a neighboring Stewartry family in our piece on the Craiks of Arbigland.
How Should a McClurg Line Be Searched?
- Search McClurg, MacClurg, McLurg, Maclurg and Maklurke together, spaced and hyphenated forms included.
- Keep McClure out of the set. Test it separately if you like, but never inside a McClurg pedigree.
- Start from civil registration from 1855 and walk backward. With under a hundred bearers in 1901 you can aim to account for all of them.
- For American McClurgs, work Pennsylvania, Ohio and Missouri. Joseph W. McClurg, governor of Missouri from 1869 to 1871, was raised by grandparents in Pittsburgh, and that hinge is typical.
Own a Piece of McClurg Heritage
Small names travel light, and a keepsake is often all a McClurg branch carries forward besides the spelling. Three items, deliberately: a mug, a garden flag, an ornament framed in silver, each placing the family crest on a tartan background. No McClurg chief exists and no weave has been assigned to the surname, so take that cloth as a compliment paid to the name. Our piece on tartan entitlement spells out the actual rules.
Frequently Asked Questions About the McClurg Name
Is McClurg just a spelling of McClure?
No. Mac Luirg and Mac Gille Uidhir are separate Gaelic names with separate meanings. They sat side by side in southwest Scotland, which is why they get collapsed into one.
Is McClurg a clan name?
There is no Clan McClurg, no chief and no sett attached to the surname. Lorg means a track or footprint, and the name belongs to the wider Gaelic-derived surname stock of southwest Scotland.
Sources and Further Reading
- Dictionary of American Family Names: McClurg — Mac Luirg, son of Lorg, footman.
- Surname Database: McClurg — Maklurke in 1296, Maclurg at St Andrews in 1476, McLurg's gazette of 1681.
- Dictionary of American Family Names: McClure — the separate Mac Gille Uidhir derivation.
- Alexander Caldwell McClurg — the 1832 birth and the Chicago partnership.
- A. C. McClurg & Co. — Du Bois in 1903 and the first ten Tarzan novels.
- Joseph W. McClurg — Missouri governor, 1869 to 1871.
- McClurg in the 1901 Scottish census — 91 bearers at 3,426th.
- McClurg in the 2020 US census — 3,206 bearers at 9,670th.
- ScotlandsPeople — where a surname this small can be searched exhaustively.
- Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc.: 1914 McClurg first-edition dust jacket
- Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc.: Tarzan publication artifacts