From that article:

The Appalachian dulcimer was forged in the melting pot of the wagon roads and river routes of the frontier. The Scots and Irish settlers could hear the drone of the pipes in this sturdy and easily constructed zither and the English found it to be an appropriate accompaniment to their ballads and laments. They reduced the number of strings to just three or four, as wire was a precious commodity in the wilderness, and added a raised fingerboard to allow the playing of quick jigs and reels with a plectrum.

Romanticizing pseudo-Celtic bollocks. With no dates that correspond to any information about what was played on it.

What English laments?

Why would the pipes have mattered, since they were completely abandoned by Scots settlers in the US? (Irish pipes would never even have boarded ship).

If you can get hold of ten feet of musical instrument wire, you can get fifty feet. The strings last for decades and scarcity can't have been a consideration. Moldavia is just as remote from urban civilization as Appalachia, and people got hold of ten or twelve strings for their citeras there. (Perhaps the Americans just didn't have the woodworking skills to make enough pegs).

Maybe some of the books he lists as sources have relevant information, but if so that's a crappy summary of it.