This excerpt is from the Abbeville County, SC History
While this excerpt is about Greenville Presbyterian Church, I believe that the description may very well describe what Adam, his children and neighbors were like in their sentiments and personalities.
It is at least a glimpse at what they may be like, and a way to see them on a more personal level.
"The Scotch-Irish who originally settled the Long Cane area were a unique people...They knew poverty and struggle...They Presbyterian Church was a source of their identity as a people, and their experience confirmed and made even more rock-ribbed their Calvinist faith. The sermon was the center of their worship and their intellectual stimulus. They prized learning, especially the ability to read and write, but they were not intellectual. Their experience enhanced their respect for freedom and their capacity to be responsible for their own existence. They had little sense of humor and little appreciation for beauty, especially man-made beauty, and they did not mention God-made beauty. They were simple in life style and opposed to all pretense and pomp. They had strength of character, steadfastness of purpose, and a tremendous sense of individual dignity."