PAPERS BY MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY. — EARLY IRISH SETTLERS IN VIRGINIA. — THE IRISH PIONEERS OF THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY. [2] — SOME VOICES FROM Y E OLDEN TIME. — IRISH IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES SINCE 1790. [4] — THE FIRST IRISH IN ILLINOIS. — THE IRISH VANGUARD OF RHODE ISLAND. — The Early Larkins of Rhode Island. — William Hefernan, an Early Rhode Islander. — Michael Kelly, of the Island of Conanicut. — Thomas Casey, a Pioneer of Newport, R. I. — John Dailey and Other Early Rhode Islanders. — Charles MacCarthy, a Founder of East Greenwich, R. I. — Early Maguires and Boyds of Rhode Island. — A Rhode Islander Becomes an Irish Baron. — Interesting Reminiscences of Newport, R. I. — Irish Names in Rhode Island Previous to 1776.
30
BY HON. JOHN C. LINEHAN,
[1] CONCORD, N. H.
Virginia was first settled by white men in 1607. On the authority
of a work published recently, Francis Maguire, an Irishman and a
Roman Catholic, visited the colony a year later. “He wrote an
account of his voyage to Virginia and submitted it to the privy
council of Spain.” From this it is evident that he was not in the
interest of England and did not remain in the colony.
Virginia, even in its early days, was not friendly to those of the
faith of Maguire. In 1625 the same writer mentioned that “Symon
Tuchin master of the Due Return having been banished out of Ireland
was reported as strongly affected to popery, and the Governor
and Council of Virginia sent him as a prisoner, in January, 1625, to
the Company in England.” This ended the career of Symon in
the Old Dominion, and no further mention is made of him.
Who the first actual settlers in Virginia from Ireland were, and
the period of their arrival, can be determined only from the names
printed in the early colonial records and in the calendar of state
papers following.
The population of the colony from 1609 to 1624, as given in the
work mentioned, namely, The First Republic in America, was as follows:
In 1609 one authority gives it as being, in July, not over one hundred
and nine persons.
In 1611 it is estimated at about two hundred and eighty persons.
In 1616 it increased to about four hundred. In 1618 it had increased
31to six hundred. In 1619 it had dropped to about four
hundred. The census of 1620 gives it as eight hundred and eighty-seven.
In 1621 it fell to eight hundred and forty-three. In 1622
it had increased to one thousand two hundred and forty, and in 1624
it was reduced to eleven hundred.
An idea can here be formed of the struggles of the first settlers of
the Old Dominion against disease, famine, and the attacks of the
Indians. In 1621 or 1622, the year is in dispute, there was a terrible
massacre of the settlers by the Indians, the number of killed
being given as “three hundred and forty-seven men, women and
children.”
If names are any indication of the nativity of the bearers, the first
Irish settlers arrived in Virginia during this troublesome period.
Their condition in the colony could not be much worse than it was
in their native land, for about that time the long struggle for the
possession of the land, beginning with the Reformation, had taken
root, not to end until the war between William and James.
In Hotten’s Original Lists of emigrants, among others is published
the names of the following persons arriving in Virginia
between 1616 and 1624: John Higgins, John Cannon, John Collins,
John Healey, Francis Downing, John Fludd, Tege Lane, “of Corke
in Ireland”; Tege Williams, “Irishman”; John French, of Washford
“(Wexford) in Ireland”; Thomas Cawsey (Casey), James
Connor, James Dore, Ann Mighill, John Duffee, Thomas Doughtie
(Dougherty); John Moore, Giles Martin, Thomas Jordan, Francis
Butler, Thomas Burns, “and Bridget, his wife”; Thomas Dunn,
Edmund Blaney, John Burroughs, “and Bridget, his wife”; John
Griffin, William Lacey, Alice Kean, Thomas Farley, A. Conoway,
Hugh Hughes, Bryan Rogers, William Joyce, John Haney, Elizabeth
Haney, Peter Jordan, Luke Boyse, Thomas Oage, his wife and son.
Some, undoubtedly, of the foregoing came here as the servants of
English landed proprietors in Ireland, and there is no doubt that
others came as actual settlers, for there is mention later of grants
of land to some of them. Let that be as it may, however, here was
quite an addition to the scant population of the colony of a liberal
mixture of Irish blood with that of the early English settlers.
On the same authority, Hotten, there was a large increase of the
same blood some years later, in 1635. Hotten copied his lists
from the originals preserved in England. Many of the originals were
either lost, mutilated, or destroyed. In consequence, they are incomplete.
32The period thus partly covered is between 1600 and
1700. The following names are published among hundreds of others
in the lists as arriving in Virginia during the year 1635: Richard
Hughes, Garrett Riley, Miles Riley, James Bryan, Thomas Murphie,
Christopher Carroll, Philip Connor, Jo Dunn.
As the ages of the foregoing are given and the average was twenty
years, it is fair to presume that they came over as servants. They
are followed by Richard Fleming, Charles McCartee, Owen McCartee,
Bryan McGowan, Patrick Breddy, Bryan Glynn, John Neale,
William Redman, William Hart, Elizabeth Riley, Daniel Flood,
William Hickey, John Herron, Edward Hughes, James Morfey, Robert
Bryan, Dennis Hoggan (Hogan), Jo Dermott, Jo Butler, Jo
O’Mullen, Charles Gibbon, Richard Kirby, Humphrey Buckley,
Olough Berne, Daniel Vaughan, Bryan Hare, Thomas Connier (Connor),
Jo Tullie, Donough Gorkie, Gerald Butler, John Griffin,
Thomas Purcell, John Duffy, Edmund Butler, James Gavett and
John Gavett, “Irishmen”; James Fenton, Thomas Dunn.
Hotten’s book also contains many names, Irish in appearance, of
persons who went to Barbadoes during the same period, or later,
and states that permission had been given many of them to go to
New England and other parts of the English colonies between 1635
and 1680. That many availed themselves of the opportunity, and
migrated to Virginia is evident from the names printed in colonial
records and the state publications. That the greater part were useful
citizens, and not a few of their descendants filled positions of
honor and emolument in Virginia, and in the territories settled by
her people, is quite clear.
Thomas Jordan, bearing the name both given and proper, borne
by one of the emigrants of 1624, was a sheriff of Nansemond county,
in 1718, and a public-spirited citizen.
Col. Fleming, a namesake of another of these sturdy immigrants,
bore an honorable part in civil and military affairs before and after
the Revolution, and has frequent mention in the publications treating
of those stirring times.
The McCartys have been prominent in Virginia almost from the
earliest period in the history of the colony. Whether or not all were
descendants of Owen and Charles McCartee, who came over in
1635, cannot here be determined. The name, with various spellings,
has frequent mention in the colonial and state records. It has been
represented in the National Congress, and one of the bravest of the
33Confederates during the Civil War, noted for his courage, was Capt.
Page McCarty of Richmond. He was equally noted as a duelist.
In a letter to the writer, some six years ago, Capt. McCarty
said there was a belief in the family that the original immigrants
of the name came from Kinsale in Cork, but some of the
name, as is the custom nowadays, called their ancestors “Scotch-Irish.”
He was an exception, however.
In an account of the death and funeral of Washington, by his
private secretary, Tobias Lear, a native of New Hampshire, he
wrote that the families of McCarty, McClanahan, and Callahan were
especially invited to attend the funeral by the widow, at the request
of Washington on his death-bed.
Daniel McCarty was a justice for Fairfax county in 1770. Capt.
Richard McCarty was in command of an expedition against the
Indians in 1779. With him as an associate officer was Captain
Quirk. The name is spelled indifferently as McCartee, McCarty,
McCarthy, etc., which makes it appear that there were others of the
same name later and spelling their names in accordance with the
Irish method.
In 1742 there is a record deeding two hundred and ninety-eight
acres of land to Dennis Conneirs,—the good old name of Connor
was undoubtedly twisted by the scribe. Major William Lynn was
an officer in the Spottsylvania militia in 1757. Lynn is a name frequently
met in Ireland. Judge Wauhope Lynn, of New York, is a
splendid representative of the Irish Lynns of Antrim, in Ulster, Ireland.
Daniel Lyon and Daniel Currie were two of the defenders
of Hickey’s Fort against the Indians in 1758. Another old Irish
name heads a list of signers complaining against the Brunswick
county court in 1764. It is Malone, spelled properly, and was
borne by Shakespeare’s great Irish commentator, Edmond Malone,
who has frequent mention in Boswell’s Johnson, and who flourished
in London about the same period as his Virginia namesake.
John Hooe (Hoey), Lynaugh Helm, Henry Gee, William Keenan,
Daniel Herring, Daniel McCarty, Philip Nowland (Nolan), Elijah
McClenachan, John Grattan, Walter McClerry (Clary), James
McLaw, Nicholas W. Curie, Jeremiah Glenn, Jeremiah Early, John
Fitzpatrick, William Mead, Charles Lynch, were all magistrates in
the several counties of Virginia in 1770.
In a letter of George Mason, written in 1775, declining a nomination
to Congress, he writes his excuses to Mr. McCarty and other
34inquiring friends. Capt. Richard McCarty has frequent mention
during the Revolutionary period. As showing the friendship of the
Irish people in Ireland for the Americans during that struggle, the
following extract, written by an American agent, Philip Mazzei, from
France to Governor Jefferson of Virginia, is of interest:
“I shall now tell you how that came about. Mr. Mark Lynch,
merchant in Nantes, came to me with a bill I had drawn in Ireland
on Penet & Co., D’Acosta having refused to accept it. My old
creditor, Mr. John P. Cotter, of Corke, had ordered that in case of
non-payment, the bill should be returned without protest or molestation.
Mr. Cotter’s generous and delicate behavior had probably
prepared Mr. Lynch in my favor and the sight of my situation completed
the business. His countenance expressed his sensibility
at the bad usage I had met with in that town, and in the most genteel
manner offered me the assistance I was in so great need of, on
the security I had proposed to others.”
This letter was written in 1780. It is evident from the closing
part of the quotation that Mr. Mark Lynch, the Irish merchant in
Nantes, had cashed the draft. It recalls a similar act of kindness
extended to Ethan Allen by the people of Cork while he was a prisoner
on board an English vessel in the harbor of that city. They
were so lavish of their hospitality in money and provisions to the
American prisoner that the British captain put an end to it, saying
at the same time that he would not allow the damned Irish rebels
to thus treat the damned American rebels. It also recalls an entry
in the diary of John Adams, where he mentions the hospitable treatment
he had received in Spain from two Irish merchants located in
one of its maritime cities.
Between the years 1700 and 1800, many Virginians bearing distinctive
Irish names, and filling honorable positions in civil and military
life, are published in the records of the times. They reflected credit
on the community. John Daly Burk wrote a history of Virginia,
and during the Revolutionary period Thomas Burke was governor of
North Carolina, and Ædanus Burke was chief justice of South Carolina.
In connection with this it is of interest to note that in the
report of the part taken by his regiment, the Thirtieth Virginia Cavalry,
in the battle of Bull Run, Col. Radford credits his adjutant,
B. H. Burke, with capturing Col. Michael Corcoran, of the Sixty-ninth
New York. Beside Col. Radford’s report is that of Lieut.-Col. Henagin
of the Eighth South Carolina. Some of the officers of this
35regiment, Capt. Harrington, Capt. Hoole, Capt. McLeod, and Capt.
John C. McClenaghan, are also mentioned. It will be noticed that
the name of the colonel—Cash—and the lieutenant-colonel—Henagin,—are
also Irish in appearance.
The battery attached to the regiment was commanded by a Capt.
Shields, one of whose lieutenants was a McCarty; possibly it
may have been Page McCarty, mentioned before. This battery
was from Virginia. The adjutant-general of Gen. Beauregard was
Thomas Jordan. It will be noticed that this name, given and
proper, was borne by one of the immigrants coming over before
1624. Shields and McCarty were also among the early Irish names.
Surgeon McClanahan is commended in a letter written by Gen.
Robert E. Lee, and in the report of Gen. Stonewall Jackson. He
also speaks in the highest terms of his surgeon, Dr. Hunter McGuire.
A Francis McGuire was in Virginia in 1608, and a Capt. Francis
McGuire, who was a commissioned officer in the Revolutionary War,
was the occasion of trouble between the states of Pennsylvania and
Virginia.
McGuire was charged with taking away a free negro man from
Pennsylvania. The correspondence between the states in consequence,
as given in the state papers, is quite lengthy. From this
it can be seen that the McGuires have figured from an early period
in the history of the Old Dominion down to the present. Dr.
Hunter McGuire was by the side of Stonewall Jackson when the latter
died, after receiving the fatal wound from a volley fired by his
own men at Chancellorsville.
Perhaps no name is more closely connected with Virginia for a
certain reason than is that of Lynch. John Lynch was the son of
an Irish immigrant who arrived in Virginia in the early part of the
eighteenth century. His son, of the same name, was one of the first
settlers of the town bearing his name, Lynchburg. His brother,
Col. Charles Lynch, was prominent during the Revolution. He
commanded a regiment at the battle of Guilford Court House. His
son bearing the same name was governor of Louisiana. Col.
Lynch was a bitter enemy of the Tories. It is said that the term
“Lynch law” originated with him. He was credited with having
hung not less than one hundred Tories by his own hand. Hence
the expression “Lynch law.” This, however, is disputed by Irish
writers, who claim that it originated with a mayor of Galway in the
olden times, who, when the sheriff refused to hang his son convicted
36of murder, took the law into his own hands and executed him himself,
following the example of Brutus, who performed a similar act
during the existence of the Roman republic. One of the family,
whether or not a descendant it is not necessary to know, was Lieut.-Commander
William F. Lynch of the navy, who explored the valley
of the Jordan some time before the Civil War. He was a officer in
the Confederate navy in the War of the Rebellion.
Capt. John Fitzgerald was Washington’s favorite aide. It is
stated that he was “the finest horseman in the American army.”
His home was in Alexandria. During the trouble with France after
the Revolution he was appointed to command the defences of that
city. He was a man of the highest character and was universally
respected. Col. Alexander McClanahan was one of a family, or
clan, which furnished not a few useful men to Virginia for over a
century. His brother, Capt. Robert McClanahan, was killed at the
battle of Point Pleasant in 1770. This was called one of the bloodiest
Indian engagements on record.
Surgeon McClanahan, who has been mentioned in the letter of
Gen. Lee quoted, is undoubtedly of the same family. Within a
few years, a Miss Virginia McClanahan was president of the Daughters
of the American Revolution of the city of Washington.
John Lewis was an immigrant from Ireland who came to Virginia
before the Revolution. Two of his sons, Col. Andrew Lewis and
Capt. Charles Lewis, were in the battle of Point Pleasant, also.
Charles was killed. The colonel afterwards served in the War of
the Revolution, reaching the rank of general before the struggle
was over.
Major William Croghan was an officer of the Virginia line in the
Continental army. The name was borne by many men who had
distinguished themselves during the Revolutionary period, and are
well known to the readers of American history.
Among other officers of the line were Captains James Currey,
Lawrence Butler, Michael Wallace, John McCoy and Matthew Carney;
Lieutenants Joseph Conway, Timothy Fealey, Peter Higgins,
John Jordan, John Rooney and William McGuire. Luke Cannon,
Robert Hayes, William D. O’Kelley, Patrick McElroy and Patrick
Lockhart are also mentioned. Major Ferdinand O’Neal was a distinguished
officer of dragoons during the same period. The name
occurs frequently as O’Neal, McNeil, Neal, Neale, and Neilly.
A Captain Sullivan was also an officer in the Virginia forces, with
37a Major Charles McGill. His company was known as Sullivan’s
Militia. Capt. John O’Bannon was major of Farquier’s battalion of
militia of Williamsburg. Col. William Fleming was one of the well-known
officers and a representative of the name was among the
first settlers in 1635. John Moylan was appointed clothier-general,
and as such was sent to Boston to get clothing.
Among those who were killed at Point Pleasant with McClanahan
and Lewis were Capt. McBride and Lieut. McGuire, and privates
John MacMurdrey, Francis McBride, Hugh Cunningham, John
Foley, Andrew McConnell and John O’Neal. About fifty in all were
killed in this engagement.
These names are signed to petitions, appeals, or other papers on
the records from 1782 to 1786: George Flynn, Malcolm McGee,
David Looney, John Adair, Partick Wright, Anthony Geoghegan,
Patrick Joyce, James Sullivan, Richard Whelan, James Murphy, Joseph
Delaney, William Kelley.
Alexander Drumgoole was sent on a mission to the Cherokee
nation by Governor Randolph in 1787.
Major Andrew Donnelly was a gallant officer during the Revolutionary
period. Capt. McMahon, who was mentioned, served
with Wayne as a major in the expedition against the Indians, and
like Gen. Butler, who had served through the Revolutionary War,
was killed during that engagement.
Other names appearing on the records, either as magistrates or
signers to various papers, were James Corran (Curran), Patrick
White, Christopher McConners, Edward McCarthy, Cornelius Conway,
Arthur McCann, John McLoghlin, William Flood, Edward
McGuire, Anthony Murphy, James Goggins, John Connor, William
Brennan, Major Thomas Healey, Capt. Samuel Brady, Col. William
Finnie (Feeney), James Dougherty, Joseph Carroll, Archibald Casey,
Capt. Daniel Mullins, Patrick Saggert, John Sexton, John McCormick,
Thomas Mulledy, David Dungan, Cornelius Brady, Thomas
Brannon, Abraham Donovan, Edmond Grady, John Dunn, Francis
Kelly, Bernard Gallagher, Thomas O’Hara, William Malone, Dennis
Ramsay, Thomas Reardon, George Sweeney, William Fitzgerald,
Robert Fitzgerald, Edmund Moran, Dennis Croghan, Philip Boyle,
John Butler, Cornelius O’Laughlan, Charles O’Neale, William McManahan,
James Connell, Joseph McCaughey, Alexander Leary,
Richard Byrne, Thomas McGuire, John Lowery, Joseph Hensey
(Hennessey), Anthony Fitzpatrick, Bernard McCord, John McNeill,
38Henry Garrett, Dan McCarthy, Thomas Burke, Nat Murphy, Charles
Connor, Edward Hart, William Danahan, John Casey, James Kelly,
Michael Burke, Patrick Wilson, John Cavanaugh, Richard Nugent,
Andrew Donnelly, Jr., Lawrence Bryan, Michael Delaney, James
Byrne, Michael Tiernan, James Quinn, James Daley, John McEnery,
Francis O’Meara, Henry Fitzgerald, John McMullen, James McGonegal,
John Hagerty, Pat Donohue, James McCoughlin, Patrick Butler,
Cornelius McGuire, Josiah McGuire, Cornelius McKinley, John
Lawless, William Doherty, Alexander Dugan, Cornelius Harnett
(Hartnett), Patrick Roche, Cornelius Fenny (Feeney), Simon
McLaughlan, Thady Kelly and James Murdaugh.
The foregoing, from appearance, were men of standing in the
communities in which they lived. As but comparatively few names
appear in public records, there must have been many others in Virginia
of the same nationality before the beginning of the nineteenth
century. Those mentioned were officers in the militia, justices of
the peace, judges, or holding other positions which had occasioned
their names being printed in the state papers. It will be noticed
that the names can be classed as Irish, distinctively. How many
more there might be bearing English names, but who may have been
as Irish as the others, cannot be determined.
When Ramsay’s History of the United States was written in 1789,
or thereabouts, the following Virginians were among those who subscribed
for it in order to guarantee its publication: Patrick Gill,
William Carroll, Edward Cunningham, James Fleming, H. H. Lacey,
John McDermott, John McBride, M. Sullivan, Thomas H. Mitchell,
J. C. Vaughan, A. Jordan, W. C. Moore, H. H. Redman, Edward
Sexton, Francis Riordan, John Bowery, William Matthews. On
examination it will be found that a majority of these surnames appear
among the early settlers of the Old Dominion.
Thomas Fleming, whose name has been mentioned, was colonel
of the Ninth Virginia regiment. One of its field officers was Major
M. Donovan.
It is related in the Historical Collections of Virginia that Gen.
Andrew Lewis was born in Ireland, and came here with his father
and two brothers. They were obliged to fly from their native land
on account of the resistance made by them against being evicted by
their landlord.
Another prominent man in Virginia in 1753 was Dr. James O’Fallon.
He is supposed to have been the ancestor of the O’Fallons of St.
39Louis, Mo., who were among the latter city’s first settlers. One of
the latter, Col. John O’Fallon, served on the staff of Gen. Harrison
at the battle of Tippecanoe. Another well-known Irish name was
that of Michael Dillon, whose death is recorded from a fall from
his horse in 1704. Richard Donnahan was concerned in Bacon’s
Rebellion in 1677, and with him was a Capt. Hubert Farrell, who is
mentioned as being one of Bacon’s majors.
Philip Connor was an associate justice of the Provincial court in
1650, and Robert Managan (Monaghan) is recorded as taking an
apprentice Sept. 24, 1690.
In the main, the first settlers of Kentucky were Virginians. The
wife of Daniel Boone was the first white woman to stand upon the
banks of the Kentucky river. This was in June, 1775, and in the September
following she had for company Mrs. McCary and Mrs. Hogan.
Col. William Casey, born in Virginia, was one of the pioneers of
the dark and bloody ground. Col. Joseph M. Daviess, who fell at
Tippecanoe, was born in Virginia. His grandfather was an Irishman
and his mother Scotch. It is written of him that he had
marked peculiarities of both races. “The hardy self-reliance, the
indomitable energy, and imperturbable coolness which had from earliest
times distinguished the Scotch, were his; while the warm heart,
free and open hand, and ready-springing tear of sensibility, told in
language plainer than words that the blood of Erin flowed fresh in
his veins.”
It is clear that this eulogy was not written by a “Scotch-Irishman.”
His name undoubtedly comes from Wales, so it is fair to
presume that he had in his veins commingled the blood of the three
kindred races,—the Welsh, the Irish and the Scotch.
William T. Barry, a noted lawyer, a soldier, an educator, and postmaster-general
under Jackson, was a Virginian of Irish parentage.
Michael Cassidy, born in Ireland, emigrated to Virginia, and finally
settled in and became one of the prominent citizens of Kentucky.
The descendants of the Irish settlers in Virginia in many instances
became eminent in the southwestern states and territories
organized after the Revolution. One of them was Gen. Benjamin
Logan, a Virginian, both of whose parents were Irish. He was one
of Kentucky’s greatest men. Three counties bear the names of
Casey, Daviess, and Logan, in honor of the three men mentioned.
Brig.-Gen. James Hogan, a native of Virginia, served in the Continental
army. He was commissioned Jan. 9, 1779.
40In March, 1756, the Provincial Assembly of Virginia passed an
act making provision for protection against the enemy, the French
and Indians, and further enacted a bill providing for the raising of
money, £25,000, for the payment of the militia of the several counties,
and for provisions furnished by sundry inhabitants of the said
counties. Among the names to whom payments were thus made,
nearly twenty years before the Revolution, were the following: John
Daley, Elizabeth Birk, Richard Murray, James Nevil, John Bryan,
John Burk Lane, John McAnally, Alexander McMullen, Bryan Ferguson,
John Fitzpatrick, William Cunningham, Robert Carney, Darby
Conway, Thomas McNamara, Michael Mallow, Hugh Divar, William
McGill, Robert Megary, John Shields, Cornelius Sullivan, Michael
Dickie, John Farrell, James Burke, John Jordan, George Farley,
Adam McCormick, Thomas Boyne, William Shannon, Bryan McDonnell,
Robert Looney, Robert McClanahan, Michael Doherty, Peter
Looney, John McNeal, William Curry, John McGowan, Ralph Lafferty,
Patrick Frasier, Patrick Campbell, Michael Kelly, Patrick Porter,
James Kennedy, Patrick Lowery, Patrick Savage, Patrick McCloskey,
Charles McAnally, John Kilpatrick, James Boreland, Hugh
Martin, Patrick Cargon, James Mulligan, John Caine, Dennis
McNealy, Lawrence Murphy, Dennis Getty, William McMullen,
William Garvin, William Doherty, Joseph Looney, Patrick McDade
(Dowd), John Casey, John Macky, Thomas Sexton, Head Lynch,
Patrick McDavitt, Ambrose Bryan, William Meade, John Riley,
Reuben Keef, Jeremiah Early, Joseph McMurty, Patrick Hennessy,
Edward O’Hare, Luke Murphy, James Murphy, Patrick Vance, Patrick
Hallogan, James McFall, Patrick Johnson, John Patrick Burks,
Thomas Dooley, James Dooley, Thomas Maclin, Thomas Connelly,
Michael Poore, James Lynch, David Kelly, Michael Lawler, William
Collins, Miles Murphy, John Hayes, Richard Burke, Cornelius
Mitchell, William Gerrett, Michael Ryan, Garrett Bolin, William
O’Donnell, Patrick McKenny, Richard Murphy, Francis Maginnis,
Bryan Mooney, John Hickey, John Sullivan, William Murphy,
Thomas McGuire, Cornelius Cargill, Michael Dixon, William Splane,
Thomas Doyle, Michael Lynn, Edward O’Neal, Thomas McClanahan,
James Doyle, John Donnelly, William Fitzgerald, Henry Dooley
and Bryan Nolan. The people whose names are here given were
soldiers in the militia fighting against the French and Indians
between 1738 and 1758, as well as citizens furnishing them provisions.
41In the poll for the election of burgesses for the several Virginia
counties in 1741 are the following, among other names: Morgan
Donnell, Daily Callahan, Edward Barry, John Carfey (Coffey), Simon
Carnel, Dennis Connors, Edward Fagin, John Murphy, Patrick
Hamericka, Michael Dermond (Dermott), James Cullen, William
Butler, Michael Scanlan, Gabriel Murphy, James Dulaney, William
Hogan, Henry Murphy, John Madden, Dennis McCarty, Thomas
Carney, William Buckley, William Reardon and Philip Nolan.
The greater part of the names here given are in appearance Irish
of the Irish, of Gaelic, or of old Norman origin. An examination of
the early Virginia records will show, from 1619 to 1790, the entry
of some of the most ancient of the Gaelic names peculiar to Ireland,
like O’Neil, O’Donnell, O’Brien, O’Connor, accompanied by McMahon,
McCarthy, McClanahan, McGuire, etc.
In an address delivered by the venerable Dr. Thomas Dunn English
to the members of the American-Irish Historical Society, at one
of its annual gatherings in New York several years ago, he stated
that when a young man, over half a century before, he practised his
profession in western Virginia. He noticed while there the manners,
customs, and phrases of the mountaineers, and in later life, when he
removed to New York, he was surprised to see the similarity between
them and the newly-arrived Irish from the south, east, and west of
Ireland. This for the first time caused him to change his opinion
as to the nationality of the ancestors of the people in Virginia who
had been classed as “Scotch-Irish,” for in every respect they appeared
more like the southern Irish whom he had met later in
New York.
Enough has been written to show what a large proportion of the
people of the Old Dominion before the year 1800 were of Irish
descent. The mention of any more names would simply be a tiresome
proceeding.
While many of these people were distinguished in Virginia, the
greater part of their descendants were more eminent in the territories
and states to which they migrated. A distinguished Virginian,
although not a native of the state, was Major-General Benjamin F.
Kelly of the Union army. He was a native of New Hampshire, but
went to West Virginia when a youth. He was the grandson of
Darby Kelly, who served three years in the old French War in
northern New York under Sir William Johnson. Darby was a soldier,
a schoolmaster, and a farmer, and his New Hampshire descendants
42are, and have been, among the most useful citizens of the old
Granite state. Gen. Kelly is credited with raising the first Union
regiment and winning the first victory for the Union south of Mason
and Dixon’s line during the Civil War. His nephew, Capt. Warren
Michael Kelly, commanded a company in the Tenth New Hampshire
Infantry, commanded by Col. Michael T. Donohoe, and it is
claimed that he led the first white troops into Richmond after its
evacuation.
Another distinguished Union officer, a West Virginian, if I am not
mistaken, was Gen. Milroy. Every Irishman is aware that this was
the good old Gaelic name of Mulroy, and in that form is borne by
hundreds of Irish persons in America to-day. On the Confederate
side none of the many distinguished officers serving under Gen.
Lee had a better reputation as a fighter than Gen. William Mahone.
It is claimed that he was opposed to the surrender of Lee, and that
his troops were ready, under his direction, to continue the fight.
That writers in time will do justice to those of the Irish race and
to Ireland for the part taken in the colonization of the country and
in the establishment of the republic, is unquestioned, but Irishmen
and the sons of Irishmen must interest themselves in this matter in
each state in order to accomplish that end. New England in this
respect, through its writers, has made known to the world the part
taken by the Pilgrims and Puritans in the building of this nation,
and their example can well be followed by people of our own race in
laboring with the pen to show that in the same work Irishmen and
Irishmen’s sons have taken no small part.
The authorities examined in connection with the writing of this
paper are Hotten’s Original Lists of emigrants, the Virginia Calendar
of State Papers, the First Republic in America, Ramsay’s History
of the United States, Campbell’s History of Virginia; Historical Collections
of Virginia, William & Mary College Quarterly, Gleanings of
Virginia History, Collins’ History of Kentucky.
43
BY EDWARD A. HALL, SPRINGFIELD, MASS.
Since the organization of the American-Irish Historical Society,
in 1897, with Hon. Theodore Roosevelt, whose father’s mother was
Irish, as one of the charter members, and Rear Admiral Richard W.
Meade as the first president-general, many important facts have been
recorded of the contributions of the Irish element in the upbuilding
of this republic.
A distinguished statesman and statistician recently stated that
within the memory of men now living upwards of twenty-one millions
of immigrants arrived and settled in the United States. This same
authority states that almost two thirds of our entire population is
represented by English and Irish blood in about equal proportions.
In this computation it should always be remembered that England
was given credit for many of the earlier Irish emigrants who were
obliged to sail from English ports and compelled to adopt English
surnames.
It is, however, with thousands of Irish pioneers who immigrated
to this country before the time of men living now and who settled
many of the towns in or bordering on the Connecticut valley that I
wish to occupy the attention of my readers.
Up to a few years ago, the popular opinion seemed to be that the
Irish first began crossing the Atlantic after the famine of 1846, or
about the time of the building of the canals and railroads. That
many Irish men and women came to the Connecticut valley and participated
in the formation of the first settlements, that is from 1635
to 1735, practically the first hundred years of American life, the
records of the towns will prove.
The descendants of the old Irish settlers here, in many cases,
ceased to look upon their ancestors as Irishmen, or at least forgot
44about, or appeared not to be familiar with, their Irish origin, because
of the prejudices that existed respecting the more recent comers
from the “ever green isle” that have tended to make them disinclined
to acknowledge an ancestry which was so little in general
favor and popularity.
As we become more educated, intelligent, and enlightened as a
people, however, and become familiar by careful study with the early
history of our country, we will learn to our great advantage of the
names and deeds of Irishmen who played a prominent part in the
establishment of this government. We will appreciate more fully
something of the pride that should animate us for being so fortunate
as to be able to trace our ancestry back to such worthy relationship.
The people of this race, men and women, born on Irish soil, and
their descendants, have been here from the first “prompted by the
motives common to all emigration, dissatisfaction with the old
order of things and the resolve to obtain a freer and better life in
the new land under favorable conditions.”
Here in the Connecticut valley the best, the cleanest, and
strongest blood of Europe has come in to strengthen and accentuate
the old stock that existed here, and the result has been the enterprising
and progressive communities of to-day in the cities and
towns of the valley.
A recent publication announced the death of Sir William MacCormic,
who passed away recently, as the “celebrated English surgeon,”
although he was born in Ireland. Similar freedom has been
taken in the case of the Duke of Wellington, Edmund Burke, Goldsmith,
Sheridan, Dean Swift, Justin McCarthy, and other famous
Irishmen. This is even worse than being called “Scotch-Irish,” as
is the fate of many of our famous Americans of Irish ancestry.
We are all Americans and the Irish are all Irish, whether their
ancestors were from Spain, or France, or England, or Scotland; they
all became Irish as we became Americans, and the Irish who came
here in the early days of the colonies represented all the blending
of these races. We are all of us the resultant of a great many different,
and, apparently, antagonistic races. We commonly became
Irish, Scotch, or American as the result of the surroundings of two
or three generations.
The first settlements in the Connecticut valley were made from
Cambridge, Dorchester, and Watertown, Mass., to the towns of
Windsor, Hartford, and Weathersfield in Connecticut. This migration
45took place in 1634–’35. It was of a wholesale character, almost
depopulating those towns in the eastern part of Massachusetts.
Along with this exodus there was another from Roxbury, Mass., led
by William Pynchon in May, 1636. This migration settled on the
eastern bank of the Connecticut in Springfield, Mass. Middletown,
Conn., was settled soon after and may possibly have been called
after Middletown in Ireland.
Among the early records of Springfield, Mass., we find that Henry
Chapin sold to John Riley sixteen acres of land running 120 rods
along the west side of the Connecticut river, Nov. 4, 1684, the
property being described in the record as “West of the Connecticut
River and north from the Riley tract,” which would indicate that the
16 acres was an additional tract to other lands previously owned by
some member of the Riley family. The sale was witnessed by Miles
Morgan, who made his mark in the form of a pick axe and the deed
was recorded by John Holyoke. This is a part of the territory
known as “Ireland Parish” and is the present site of the Holy
Family Institute for orphan children at Brightside.
Col. John Cummings purchased the territory of Cummington,
Mass., of the government, June 2, 1762, for £1,800. This town furnished
to American literature the poet William Cullen Bryant. He
was the son of Dr. Peter Bryant and was born on Nov. 3, 1794. As
a poet he ranks among the best. His productions are marked by
great simplicity and clearness of expression, pure morality, a genial
and gentle philosophy, and a well-tempered imagination, combined
with a superior comprehension. Both names, Cullen and Bryant or
Bryan, are distinctively of Irish origin, but are often called English,
like many of the earlier Irish immigrants.
Among the Revolutionary soldiers from Cummington, the last survivor
was Daniel Timothy, born Jan. 7, 1755. He was in the service
during the entire war and lived to be over 100 years old. He was
known by the name of “Teague,” which is Irish for Timothy, and
this is the name given him in his pension certificate.
Felt’s history states that the town of Greenwich, Mass., was settled
about the year 1732, by an Irish colony, and among the names of the
first families are Powers, Hynds, Patterson, Cooley, Rogers, and
Gibbs. Capt. N. Powers was a descendant of the Powers from Ireland,
as was also Mr. Patterson, who died April 19, 1811, at the age
of 79 years. In the Revolutionary struggle the men were patriotic,
and furnished their full quota for the war.
46The settlement of Hadley, Mass., was commenced in 1659, by a
company of persons residing in Windsor, Wethersfield, and Hartford,
Conn., and is, therefore, one of the oldest towns of the Connecticut
valley, and has an interesting history. The original territory of
Hadley included the present town of Hadley, Hatfield, Amherst,
Granby, South Hadley, and a part of Whately. A portion of the
town was called “Patrick’s Swamp,” possibly after some Irishman
who resided there. Among the early settlers we find the families of
Thomas Coleman and John White.
Among the early settlers of Middlefield, Mass., was Col. David
Mack, who defined the boundaries of the town. It was incorporated
March 12, 1783. John Ford built the first grist-mill about the year
1780. Here also settled the families of Malachi Loveland, J. Taggart
and M. Rhodes.
The district of Williamsburg, Mass., set off from Hatfield, was
incorporated a town, Aug. 23, 1775. Early tax lists show Irish names,
such as Joseph Carey, Thomas Finton, George Dunn, James Ludden,
Edward Curtis, William Finton and Joseph Ludden.
The settlement of Worthington, Mass., was so rapid that from the
time the territory was sold at auction, June 2, 1762, the settlers
flowed in and became so numerous that the town was incorporated
in 1768. Among the first settlers are such names as John Kelley,
Thomas Kinne, James Kelley, Jeremiah Kinne, Mathew Finton, and
N. Collins. The inhabitants of this, like many other towns, were
composed of a mixed population from England, Ireland, and a few
from Scotland and France.
The first settlement of Bernardstown, Mass., commenced about the
year 1738, and it was here, on May 18, 1676, during the Indian
troubles, occurred what is known as the “Falls Fight,” when Capt.
Turner with only a comparatively small body of men, attacked and
destroyed hundreds of Indians at what has been called in honor of
the commander of the forces, Capt. Turner,—who lost his life during
the engagement,—Turners Falls.
Major John Burke built one of the first four houses erected in the
town, and among the first settlers are the names of Griffin, Lee, King,
Gleason, Baker, and Bradshaw. Major Burke was clerk of the town
for twenty-two years, and became the first representative in 1764.
The history of many of the towns of western Massachusetts shows
that several of them had been set off and named in the first years of
the eighteenth century. They had very few inhabitants previous to
47the coming of the Irish in considerable numbers about 1718. Several
towns laid out and named after that time, like Colerain, Montgomery,
Gill, and Charlemont, Conway, Monroe, Huntington, were
called after places in Ireland from whence the early settlers immigrated.
West of the Connecticut river the territory was divided up into
towns soon after the settlement of the boundary line between Connecticut
and Massachusetts, which took place in 1713, when the present
town of Suffield, formerly in Massachusetts, was thrown into
Connecticut, and in 1632 the owners of the tract of land in that territory
were given an equivalent tract of six miles square by the Massachusetts
legislature, and this territory is included in the present
town of Blandford, Mass., one of the first towns almost entirely settled
by people from Ireland who arrived in this country in considerable
numbers about that time.
These people were Irish Presbyterians who came from Ireland
about the year 1718. Francis Brimley, A. M. Collins, Samuel Knox
and Patrick Boies came up from Hartford, Conn., and purchased land
of Christopher Lawton and Francis Wells, to whom the legislature
had conveyed undivided parts of the township.
The first clergyman was Rev. Mr. McClenathan, an Irishman, who
received £135 a year for his services. He did not give satisfaction
and remained only two years, when he became a chaplain in the
army. Rev. James Morton, also an Irishman, was installed as pastor
in August, 1748, and preached to the people for twenty years. He
retired June 2, 1767, and lived in Blandford, Mass., until his death,
which occurred in October, 1793, at the age of 80 years.
Many of the representatives of the town to the legislature for
nearly a hundred years after its settlement were native born Irishmen
or the sons of Irishmen, among whom were Reuben Boies,
William Knox, Timothy Blair, John Ferguson, Daniel Boies, Patrick
Boies, Samuel Knox, Daniel Collins, and David Boies. The following
are the names among the early families: McClinton, Reed,
Brown, Taggart, Blair, Wells, Montgomery, Stewart, Campbell, Ferguson,
Boies, Sennett, Wilson, Gibbs, Knox, Young, Carr, Black,
Anderson and Hamilton.
Hon. Patrick Boies, a descendant of the Boies family who settled
in Blandford, Mass., was the first lawyer admitted to the Hampden
county bar, in 1812, and one of the first sheriffs of Hampden county.
A daughter of Patrick Boies was the organist in St. Mary’s church,
48Westfield, Mass., for several years. The first clergyman of the Congregational
church of Blandford, was, as stated, an Irishman named
McClenathan, one of the petitioners to Governor Shute.
Chester is another of the towns of Hampden county, Mass., settled
a few years after Blandford, almost entirely by Irish. The present
town formed one of the ten original townships sold at auction by order
of the general court, Jan. 2, 1762. About that time the first settlers
of the place began to arrive who in all probability were like large
numbers of Irish coming to this country at that time, Presbyterians,
although the names of some of them would indicate that they were
Catholics, such as John and David Gilmore, Thomas Kennedy,
Daniel Fleming, William Moore, Thomas McIntire, William Kennedy,
John McIntire, James Clark, Andrew Fleming. Other prominent
settlers were the Gordons, Hollands, Knoxs, Henrys, Hamiltons,
Quiglays, Elders and Bells. This town was incorporated Oct.
31, 1765, when it was called Murrayfield. Among the clergymen
who officiated at Chester we find the name of Rev. Andrew McCune.
The first settlers of Granville, Mass., which was first called Bedford,
were almost all from Ireland. Following the first settler, Samuel
Bancroft, came Daniel Cooley, Thomas Spellman, John Root, Peter
Gibbons and Samuel Church. Dr. Holland in his “History of Western
Massachusetts” refers to the longevity of the early settlers of this
town as quite remarkable. The ancestor of the Cooleys from Ireland
died at the age of 90 years; of the Spellmans, who died in
1767, at 93; of the Gibbonses at 92; of the Churches at 95, and of
the Roots at 103. Hamilton, Goff, Cortiss, Gibbons, Clark, Moore,
Phelan were also early settlers at Granville.
The one hundredth anniversary of the settlement of Rev. Timothy
M. Cooley, in 1795, took place in Granville in August, 1895, at which
a large number of the descendants of those early Irish settlers were
present, when they most fittingly honored the memory of their ancestors.
J. G. Holland says that the facts were communicated to him
by Rev. Mr. Cooley in 1854, when he was 83 years of age. He was
born in Granville and like many of the Cooleys of Hampden county
was descended from old Daniel Cooley from Ireland.
Among the early inhabitants of Rowe, Mass., which was settled
in 1744, we find the names of Michael Wilson, Henry Gleason,
William Taylor, Mathew Barr, and Joseph Thomas. They were a
portion of the Irish colony to Worcester county, which after a short
time scattered to form new settlements. The first permanent settlement
49of Shelborne was about 1760 by several Irish families who
had lived for a time in Londonderry, N. H. Among them are the
names of Joseph Thompson, Patrick Lawson, Robert Wilson, John
Taylor, James Ryder, Daniel Nims and Samuel Hunter.
Quite a number of these men were soldiers in the Revolution and
also took an important part in Shay’s insurrection. The first settler
of the town of Ashfield, Mass., was Richard Ellis, a native of Dublin,
Ireland. He was soon followed by Thomas Phillips, whose sister he
married. Phillips built a log house for himself and family almost
a half mile north of Mr. Ellis. A family named Smith, which had
settled in South Hadley, soon joined them and they were followed
by other families from time to time so that in ten years they numbered
about twenty families and over one hundred people. They
labored as none but the pioneers of the forest know how to toil to
obtain a comfortable support for their families. The town increased
years later in population and prosperity and was incorporated in
June, 1765, and ten years later they like thousands of their countrymen
took an active part in the Revolution, when they drew up a
preamble and resolutions signed by Ellis, Phillips, and sixty-five
others, denouncing England.
The settlers of Pelham, Mass., were Irish Presbyterians and in the
agreement of the original committee with Col. John Stoddard, of
whom the territory was purchased, occurs this passage: “It is agreed
that families of good conversation be settled on the premises, who
shall be such as the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Ireland or their
descendants and none to be admitted but such as bring good and
undeniable credentials or certificates of their being persons of good
conversation and of the Presbyterian persuasion and confirm to the
discipline thereof.”
The Irishmen of Pelham were on the right side in the Revolution.
They issued an address to their countrymen in Boston, Nov. 3, 1773,
of which the following extract is an illustration: “We are not at
present much intimidated with the pompous boasting on the other
side of the water or the claim that Great Britain could blow America
into atoms.” They unanimously voted their acquiescence in, and
support of, a declaration of independence fourteen days before the
Declaration of Independence was made at Philadelphia, and throughout
the war they furnished from their slender means and resources
more than their proportion of men and money for its prosecution.
The town of Chesterfield, Mass., was first occupied about 1760 to
501765 by Simon Higgins, George Buck, Pierce Cowing, Charles Kid,
Robert Hamilton, Benj. Kid, Con. Bryan, Thomas Pierce, John Holbard,
Jerry Spaulding, William White and David Stearns. They
were mostly Irishmen from Pelham and elsewhere. The first pastor
called to preach the gospel was Rev. Peter Johnson of Londonderry.
They named one of the principal streets of the town, Ireland street.
This street was accepted March 17, 1763, and is the only street in
the town which has remained unaltered. The people of Chesterfield
were patriots in the Revolution and voted, in 1775, to purchase 400
pounds of powder, 400 pounds lead, and 1,200 flints to supply the
forty-seven Minute Men who marched to Cambridge upon the Lexington
alarm.
Of the territory comprising the original county of Hampshire,
Mass., from which the counties of Hampden and Franklin have
been set off, the Irish settled a large portion of the area from
which the early organized towns were formed, such as Palmer,
Chester, and Blandford. Pelham, Colerain, Charlemont, Sunderland,
and many districts were later set off and organized into townships,
such as Granville, Brimfield, Southwick, Russell, Montgomery,
Goshen, Conway, Ware, Amherst, Orange, Gill, Huntington, Rowe,
Greenwich, Worthington, and Middlefield.
The history of the towns of Berkshire county, Mass., shows that
they were mostly all organized a generation or two after the coming
of the Irish, who settled the original territory from 1718 to 1740,
and although the names on the town records show that many of
them were settled by the sons and grandsons of the settlers from
Ireland, we can only guess at the origin of others by their Irish
names, such as the Plunketts of Pittsfield and Adams, Patrick Murphy
and Michael Sweet of Savoy, with Patrick Tyrell, Whalen, or
Phelan, Casey, Kerwin, Kneil, or Neil, Hale, and McHale, Bryan, or
Bryant, in several towns of the county.
Isaac Magoon came from Ireland with the colony that settled in
Palmer, Mass., in 1727. The farm allotted to him by the legislative
commission was at the southwest corner of the Reed estate. He
left two sons, Alexander (who also left two sons, Isaac and Alexander),
and Isaac who married Lucretia, daughter of John Downing,
and had thirteen children. This family owned about 1,400 acres of
the best land in Ware, Mass. Several of the descendants of the
Magoon family afterwards settled in the Western states, and many
of them probably know very little of their Irish ancestry.
51Among the very early Irish settlers whose descendants are at present
residents of the Connecticut valley, and of whom we have authentic
records, a few families deserve special mention because of the prominence
to which they have attained in the community. Irish men
and women, boys and maidens, were imported to these colonies in
the very first years of the settlements, while in June, 1643, an Irish
immigration took place that far out-numbered the Plymouth colony
in Massachusetts. Of the descendants of these early settlers, Hall
J. Kelley, one of the most enterprising men of Palmer, Mass., who
developed the village of Three Rivers, was born in New Hampshire,
Aug. 24, 1790, and was a descendant of John Kelly, who settled in
Newbury, Mass., in 1633. John Riley and his wife, Grace O’Dea,
came to this country from Ireland about the year 1624. They settled
at Hartford, Conn., where their first two children were born,—John
in 1646 and Joseph in 1649, after which they moved to West
Springfield, Mass., where Jonathan was born in 1651, and afterwards
Mary, Grace, Sarah, Jacob, and Isaac, the dates of whose births are
unknown, but all the eight children are named in this order in his
will of 1671. With the Rileys came a nephew of Mr. Riley, named
John Riley, and a young sister of Mrs. Riley, named Margaret
O’Dea. This couple got married at Springfield, Mass., in 1660, and
had two daughters, Margaret, born Dec. 21, 1662, and Mary, born
June 2, 1665. John died Oct. 24, 1684, and his wife died Aug. 22,
1689. He had two brothers, Richard, who remained in Hartford,
and Patrick, who with his wife Bridget moved to Middletown.
Garret and Miles Riley came in 1634 from County Longford, Ireland.
Patrick and Richard Riley came to Windsor and Wethersfield,
Conn., in 1639. John Riley and wife, Margaret, came to
Springfield, Mass., in 1640, where two daughters were born. Mary,
born June 2, 1665, married Joseph Ely, June 2, 1685; Margaret,
born Dec. 21, 1662, married William McGraney, July 19, 1685.
Bridget Clifford, who died at Suffield, Conn., May 7, 1695, came
from Ireland to this country with her brothers, John, aged twenty, and
Oliver, eighteen, in the vessel Primrose for Virginia, 1635. John
died Dec. 25, 1668.
James Coggin and John Cogan, from Dublin, Ireland, settled at
Windsor, Conn., and removed to Hartford in 1641. John Connor,
whose parents, Philip and Mary Connor, came from Cork in 1634,
was born at Middletown, Conn., June 14, 1686. His son John was
taken prisoner at Quebec, 1775.
52Robert Smith, born in Ireland 1672, came to Palmer, Mass., 1728,
where he died Dec. 21, 1759.
Edward King located at Windsor, Conn., about 1635, and is
described as “An Irishman and one of the oldest settlers in this
vicinity.”
John Cleary of Hadley, Mass., died in 1691. His son John was
born Oct. 4, 1647, while his son John, Jr., was born April 3, 1671,
and was slain in Brookfield in 1709. Joseph, son of old John, was
born Nov. 30, 1677; and Joseph, son of John 3d, died in 1748.
Joseph’s son Joseph was born Sept. 3, 1705.
John Clark was born in Ireland, 1704. He had two sons, John
and Moses, living with him at Hadley, Mass.
The following interesting extract is from the records of Northampton,
Mass., Sept. 17, 1663: “At a legal Town Meeting there was
then granted to Cornelius, the Irishman, three acres of land upon
condition that he build upon it and make improvement of it within
one year, yet not so as to make him capable of acting in any Town
affairs, no more than he had before it was granted to him.”
John Fleming, born in Ireland in 1673, came to America and settled
in Palmer, Mass., 1721. Robert Farrell came from Ireland in
1720 and came to Palmer a few years later. Samuel Shaw came
from Queenstown, County Cork, in 1720, and to Hampden County,
Mass., in 1736.
The first inhabitants of Colerain, Mass., were mostly of those
who had immigrated from Ireland in 1718, although many of them,
did not leave Ireland until about the time of the settlement of the
town in 1736. Some came from the Irish settlement of Londonderry,
N. H., and more from Stow, Pelham, Woburn, and Roxbury, Mass.,
where they had previously settled before coming to Colerain. Holland
says, “They were a robust set of men; six foot or more in
height with frames of corresponding size; possessing constitutions
capable of great endurance and fitted for every emergency.”
Capt. David Hamilton of Blandford, Mass., was born in Ireland,
July 11, 1742, and his wife was born July 17, 1752. He immigrated
to this country prior to the Revolutionary War, and in that struggle
for independence took an active part, being captain of a company in
the Continental army. After the war, he purchased a farm in Blandford,
on which his thirteen children were born and reared, and hundreds
of their descendants have been active forces in the development
and prosperity of the community.
53The Codmans were descended from William Cod, who came to
this country from Ireland, and settled at Amherst, Mass., about
1740. The last syllable of the name was added by his sons, one of
whom was Dr. Henry Codman, who died in 1812. Michael Carroll
sold land in Hartford to Isaac Graham for £180, May 13, 1728,
and his grandson, Michael Carroll, graduated from Harvard in 1813.
Richard Ellis, the first settler of Ashfield, Mass., and the ancestor
of many of the families of that name in the Connecticut valley, was
born in Dublin, Ireland, Aug. 16, 1704, and was thirteen years of
age when he landed in this country, as stated by one of his descendants,
Aaron Smith of Stockton, N. Y. Tradition has handed down
the following account of him: Mr. Ellis was the only son of a
widow. A native of Ireland who had become a wealthy planter in
Virginia, and having no children, made application to a friend in
Dublin to send over a youth of promise to be adopted into his family
and brought up under his care and patronage. Young Ellis was
selected and started for this country. On his embarkation his passage
was paid and an agreement made with the captain of the ship
to land him safely in Virginia, but the captain proved faithless to
his trust, brought the youth to Boston, and there sold him for his
passage money. After serving out the time thus unjustly exacted
from him he left Boston and settled in Easton, Mass., where he married
Bridget Phillips and removed to Ashfield, then called Hunstown,
where he probably made a settlement about the year 1742.
Here they lived and raised a family of eight children.
One of the most distinguished soldiers of the Revolutionary War
from western Massachusetts was Col. Hugh Maxwell, who lived in
that part of Charlemont now within the bounds of Heath. Col. Hugh
Maxwell was born in Ireland, April 27, 1733. He was a devoted
patriot and rendered his adopted country valuable service in the
French and Revolutionary wars. He was in the battle near Lake
George and at the capture of Fort William Henry. It was chiefly
owing to his influence that there was not a Tory in his town. On
the Lexington alarm he marched as lieutenant with a company of
Minute Men to Cambridge. He was in the battle of Bunker Hill
and received a ball through his right shoulder, and although he never
entirely recovered from his wound, he served throughout the war, fighting
at Trenton, Princeton, and Saratoga. He was also with the suffering
army at Morristown, and endured the horrors of Valley Forge.
Col. Maxwell enjoyed the friendship of Gen. Washington and other
54distinguished patriots of the Revolutionary struggle. At the age of
sixty-six years Col. Maxwell started on a trip to visit the land of his
birth, and was lost at sea during the voyage.
Benjamin Maxwell, a brother of Col. Maxwell, also did service in
the French and Indian wars, and was a lieutenant in a company of
Minute Men in the Revolution. He lived in Heath, in the homestead
occupied by his daughter Mary. His sons were Winslow,
Benjamin, and Patrick.
For more than a hundred years the descendants of the early settlers
of this valley have been spreading out far beyond the borders of
New England into the ever-retreating West, to people with thousands
of their kit and kin from Ireland, and to develop the fertile fields
and reap the harvests of prosperity and of cheerful endurance, daring
enterprise and patient perseverance. Their love of liberty, their
devotion to religion, their respect for law and order, chastened by
sacrifice and suffering, make them ideal citizens to found and develop
states and maintain the principles of the institutions established
by the fathers of the republic.
55
BY THOMAS HAMILTON MURRAY,
[3] BOSTON, MASS.
Alexander Gilligan was a resident of Marblehead, Mass., in 1674.
Many Irish participated in the settlement of Salem, N. Y., in 1765.
(The Salem Book.)
Samuel and Robert Elder, brothers, came from Ireland about 1730
and settled in Falmouth, Me.
In 1746 a marriage license was issued, Spottsylvania, Va., to Patrick
Connelly and Ann French.
Dennis Lochlin, of Putney, Vt., was a representative to the General
Assembly of that state in 1777.
Lucy Todd O’Brien married, in 1698, John Baylor of Gloucester
county, Va. (Virginia Historical Magazine.)
The records of Braintree, Mass., note the birth “6th mo. 18. 1669”
of Samuel Daly, a son of John and Elizabeth Daly.
Timothy Hierlehey was captain of the seventh company of the
First Regiment of the Colony of Connecticut, 1758.
Rev. James Tate, a Presbyterian minister from Ireland, organized
Tate’s Academy, in Wilmington, N. C., about 1760.
At a great fire in Boston, Mass., 1787, among those whose premises
were burned were Dennis Welch and Andrew Kalley.
Capt. Wm. McGinnis, with 89 men of Schenectady, N. Y., was
at the battle near Fort George, Sept. 8, 1755, and was killed there.
About 1762–65, Rev. Ezra Stiles, of Newport, R. I.,acknowledges
having received from Capt. Jno. Nichols a firkin of “Irish butter.”
James Warren settled at South Berwick, Me., as early as 1656.
He was a native of Scotland; his wife, Margaret, a native of Ireland.
56On May 14, 1663, Miles More and Michael Rice of New London
were accepted as freemen by the General Assembly of Connecticut.
Among the men serving under Capt. John Gilman, New Hampshire,
in 1710, were Daniel Lary, Thomas Lary and Jeremiah Connor.
Major William Waters, son of Capt. Edward and Grace (O’Neil)
Waters, patented land in Maryland as early as 1663. He left six
sons.
We learn in Frothingham’s Charlestown, Mass., that in 1640 “there
came over great store of provisions both out of England and Ireland.”
Edwin Larkin was located at Newport, R. I., as early as 1655.
His name appears in the “Roule of ye Freemen of ye colonie of
everie Towne.”
Several years previous to 1686, “persons from Ireland, picked up
at sea and brought hither, have £17 given them.” (Felt’s Annals
of Salem, Mass.)
As early as 1636, Edward Brick, or Breck, and his son Robert,
“of Galway in Ireland,” are heard from in Dorchester, now a part
of Boston, Mass.
In 1659 “John Morrell an Irishman and Lysbell Morrell an Irishwoman
were married 31st August by John Endecott,” Governor.
(Boston, Mass., Records.)
John Casey, James Brannon, John Bryan and James Moore were
among the field officers appointed by the Provincial Congress of
North Carolina, in 1776.
Cornelius Conner witnessed a deed (conveyance of real estate), in
1665, by John Clough of Salisbury, Mass. (The Essex Antiquarian,
Salem, Mass., Jan., 1902.)
Among the soldiers at Fort William and Mary, N. H., in 1708,
were John Foy, Jeremiah Libby, John Neal, Samuel Neal, John
Mead and Timothy Blake.
John Donaldson, an Irishman, commanded, during the Revolution,
an armed brig of 10 guns and carrying 45 men. He was at one time
a resident of Salem, Mass.
Stephen Decatur, Sr., married “a young lady named Pine, the
57daughter of an Irish gentleman.” Stephen Decatur, the distinguished
naval officer, was their son.
Samuel Neale, Quaker, was born in Dublin, Ireland, 1729. He
came to this country, and in 1772 preached at Newport, R. I. He
died in Cork, Ireland, 1792.
John Moore, “formerly of Dublin,” is mentioned in Charlestown,
Mass., about 1680. He was a shipwright. (Wyman’s Genealogies
and Estates of Charlestown.)
The Massachusetts records show that in 1661 “John Reylean an
Irishman & Margaret Brene an Irishwoman were married 15th March
by John Endecott Governor.”
From the files of York County, Me., we learn that Thomas Crowley,
and his wife Joanna, had a daughter Arpira Sayward who had
a son Samuel, born about 1668.
Roger Kelley was representative from the Isles of Shoals at the first
General Court of Massachusetts under the new charter, 1692.
(Farmer’s Genealogical Register.)
Joseph McDowell and his wife, Margaret O’Neal, came from Ireland
to Winchester, Va., about 1743. Two of their sons became
distinguished in the Revolution.
Hon. Charles Jackson, Governor of Rhode Island, 1845–’46, was a
descendant of Stephen Jackson, a native of Kilkenny, Ireland, who
came to this country about 1724.
Col. James Moore, who commanded the First Regiment of North
Carolina Continentals in the Revolution, was of the Irish Moores
who had settled in that part of the country.
In Felt’s Annals of Salem, Mass., is found mention, 1789, of
“John Brenon from Dublin,” who “performs on the slackwire,
balances and gives specimens of legerdemain.”
Charles MacCarthy was one of the founders of the town of East
Greenwich, R. I., 1677. He had previously resided in St. Kitts.
He had a brother who went from Ireland to Spain.
The oldest Irish organization in this country is the Charitable Irish
Society, Boston, Mass. It was founded in 1737, and is still enjoying
a prosperous existence. Gen. Henry Knox was a member.
Thomas McDonoghue was a resident of Charlestown, Mass., in
581798. John Russell married Mary Malonie in 1772. Russell is
heard of as early as 1769. (Wyman’s Charlestown.)
Kennedy O’Brien was one of the early residents of Augusta, Ga.
He was a merchant. A deposition made by him in 1741 is mentioned.
(Collections of the Georgia Historical Society.)
According to Felt’s Annals of Salem, Mass., Butler Fogarty was a
school teacher there in 1792. He gave up his school to become clerk
of the Essex bank, but in 1794 went back to teaching.
St. Patrick’s Lodge of Masons was instituted at Johnstown, N. Y.,
in 1766. Another lodge bearing the same name was located at
Portsmouth, N. H., and was chartered March 17, 1780.
Edward Jones, of Wilmington, N. C., a native of Ireland, was
elected to the North Carolina House of Commons in 1788 and served
until 1791, when he became Solicitor-General of the state.
Edward Rigg, an Irishman, died in New York city, 1786. He
was for many years a school teacher there. Edward Fogarty, another
school teacher, died in New York city about the same time.
Hon. Edward Kavanagh became governor of the state of Maine
on the resignation of Governor Fairfield, 1843. Governor Kavanagh’s
father was a native of New Ross, County Wexford, Ireland.
Savage’s Genealogical Dictionary of New England states that in
1654 Edward Welch, “an Irish youth,” was sent over, by the ruling
power in England, in the ship Goodfellow, “to be sold here.”
John Campbell, who was twice speaker of the North Carolina
House of Assembly, was reared in Coleraine, Ireland. He was “a
wise and thrifty man.” (Moore’s History of North Carolina.)
Among the members of Capt. Fullwood’s Company of volunteers,
South Carolina, 1775, were William Martin, William McCoy, John
Laferty, Patrick Fagan, Robert Reilly and Cornelius Donavan.
It is stated that in 1720 the Irish of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania,
were excused from rents “in consideration of their being a
frontier people forming a kind of cordon of defence if needful.”
Allan Mullins, surgeon, son of Dr. Alexander Mullins of Galway,
Ireland, was married to Abigail, daughter of John Butler, of New
London, Conn., April 8, 1725. (New London Marriage Records.)
In Pearson’s Genealogies, relating to the “Ancient County of
59Albany, N. Y.,” is mentioned Pieter Macarty of Half Moon who, in
1736, married Greefje Rhee. His second wife (1742) was Anna Abt.
Nicholas Rowe is mentioned at Portsmouth, N. H., in 1640, and
Matthew Rowe at New Haven, Conn., in 1650. The latter had three
sons,—John, Joseph and Stephen. (Farmer’s Genealogical Register.)
Arthur Dobbs, governor of North Carolina, took the oath at Newbern
in 1754. “He was an Irishman and had been a member of
the parliament of that country.” (Moore’s History of North Carolina.)
Daniel Neil was captain-lieutenant of Frelinghuysen’s Eastern
Company of Artillery (New Jersey state troops), and subsequently
commanded the same. He was killed at the battle of Princeton,
1777.
In 1674 there were nine Catholic religious confraternities in St.
Augustine, Florida, one of them being under the patronage of St.
Patrick. (John Gilmary Shea in The Catholic Church in Colonial
Days.)
The Fellowship Club was organized at Newport, R. I., in Dec.,
1752. The first meeting was held at the Black Horse Inn. John
Murphy was admitted to membership in 1803, and William Callahan
in 1817.
In Wyman’s Genealogies and Estates of Charlestown, Mass., is mentioned
Edward Larkin, a wheel-maker. He was admitted an inhabitant
in 1638. His wife was Joanna. A son was named John
Larkin.
A return of the men enlisted by Lieut. Henry Piercy of the Second
Pennsylvania Regiment, 1778, mentions Patrick McQuire, a native
of Ireland, 42 years of age, and says that he “has the brogue on his
tongue.”
The provincial congress of North Carolina, 1776, appointed James
Hogan paymaster of the Third Regiment and also of the three companies
of Light Horse. (Wheeler’s Historical Sketches of North
Carolina.)
Thomas Burke was chosen governor of North Carolina in 1781.
He was an Irishman by birth and had been educated for a physician.
He came to America long prior to the Revolution and first settled at
Norfolk, Va.
60We learn from the published records of Providence, R. I., that,
in 1682, Cornelius Higgins bought of Andrew Harris, of Pawtucket,
R. I., 98¼ acres in Scituate, in the “precincts of ye said Towne of
Providence.”
John Keeney and Thomas Roach of New London, Conn., were
nominated for freemen at the General Court, opened in Connecticut
on Oct. 14, 1669. Timothy Forde was nominated for freeman on
May 14, 1668.
John, Daniel and Nancy O’Brien were residents of New London,
Conn., in 1795. John Callahan and Henry McCabe were there in
1796. Patrick Mann and John Sweeney were residents of Hartford,
Conn., in 1799.
It is said of Arthur Dobbs, an Irish governor of North Carolina
(1754), that he brought over a few pieces of artillery, one thousand
muskets “and a plentiful supply of his poor relations.” (Moore’s
North Carolina.)
James Coleman, Maurice Murphey, Jr., Matthew Murphey, John
Kenneday, and Francis Kenneday were among the organizers of a
military company on the northeast side of the Pee Dee river, South
Carolina, in 1775.
On Aug. 16, 1688, at Northfield, Mass., three men, two women
and a girl were killed by the Indians. One of the victims was John
Clary, father of the John Clary who was killed at Brookfield, Mass.,
in 1709. (Temple.)
John Neil, from Ireland, was in Scituate, Mass., as early as 1730.
He established a pottery thereabouts. Edward Humphries, from
Ireland, was a resident of Scituate as far back as 1740. (Deane’s
History of Scituate.)
Thomas Donohoe was major of the Sixth Regiment, North Carolina
Foot, organized at Hillsborough, 1776. He became a member
of the Society of the Cincinnati at the latter’s inception at Newburg,
on the Hudson, 1783.
The records of the Church of Christ, Bristol, R. I., note the baptism,
in 1712, of Bridget, daughter of James and Bridget Cary. In
1747, is noted the baptism of Michael and Bridget Phillips, children
of Michael and Bridget.
Among the old New York families may be mentioned the Van
61Bergens of Catskill and Coxsackie. Elizabeth Van Bergen, born in
1781, married Richard McCarty. One of her children married a
daughter of John McCarty.
John Casey of Muddy River (now Brookline, Mass.) was a participant
in King Philip’s war, 1675–’76. He took part in the attack on
the Indian fort in “the Great Swamp,” Rhode Island, and was
wounded in that engagement.
A prominent regiment in the American Revolution was the First
Pennsylvania line. The regimental rolls show over 200 typical Irish
surnames, some of them being several times repeated, borne by different
members of the command.
The 30th of 11th mo., 1642. “John Smith, Gent., his assessment
of ——, unto the last county rate, is remitted unto him, upon
consideration of the great losses that have of late befallen him in
Ireland.” (Boston Town Records.)
In 1767–’68, the British warship Cygnet wintered at New London,
Conn. The purser of the ship bore the name John Sullivan.
Becoming enamored of civil life as well as of Elizabeth Chapman, he
married and settled in New London.
James Stacpole, born in 1652, was probably a son of Philip, of Limerick,
Ireland. James was living in Dover, N. H. (Rollinsford), in
1680. He died in 1736. The name is also spelled Stackpole.
(Stackpole’s History of Durham, Me.)
Alfred Moore, Sr., of North Carolina, was a son of Judge Maurice
Moore and nephew of Col. James Moore who commanded the First
Regiment, North Carolina Continentals, during the Revolution.
Alfred was a captain in the regiment.
David Flanagan is buried at Bedford, Westchester County, N. Y.
He was born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1759. During the Revolution
he was clerk on board a vessel of the American navy. He subsequently
became a bookseller, and died in 1805.
At a great Boston fire, 1760, Michael Carroll and Capt. Killeran
are mentioned among those whose homes were consumed.
Mr. Carroll resided “Towards Oliver’s dock,” while Capt. Killeran
was located at “Milk Street and Battery-March.”
John Kelley, of Providence, R. I., died in 1701–’02. His widow,
Grace Kelley, refused administration of the estate, and in her stead
62the Town Council appointed Pardon Tillinghast, Jonathan Sprague
and James Browne. (Records of the Town of Providence.)
In 1677, 61 families at Salem, Mass., representing 295 persons,
who were in needy circumstances owing to King Philip’s war, were
given £44 5s from contributions collected in Ireland. This was a
portion of “The Irish Charity.” (Felt’s Annals of Salem.)
Gen. Thomas Proctor was born in Ireland, 1739, and settled in
Philadelphia, Pa. He entered the Patriot army in the Revolution,
and rendered distinguished service at the battle of Brandywine and
elsewhere. He was an artillery officer. He died in 1806.
Patrick Mark is mentioned in Charlestown, Mass., in 1685. He
was then 55 years of age. His wife was named Sarah. Their children
were Sarah, Peter, Hannah and Mercie. A daughter was killed
by the Indians in 1691. (Wyman’s Genealogies and Estates.)
Pittston, Me., was incorporated in 1779. Among the early settlers
of the town were: Stephen Kenny, William Burke, Thomas Moore,
Daniel Ring, Martin Hailey, Thomas Hailey, Joseph Hailey and
William Hailey. (Maine Historical and Genealogical Recorder.)
James Given, a native of Ireland, born in 1777, participated in the
Irish rebellion of 1798. Subsequently he came to this country and
located at Fishkill, N. Y. A “useful and prominent citizen for 60
years.” (N. Y. Genealogical and Biographical Record, Jan. 1893.)
James Boies, writing in 1749–’50, from Cork, Ireland, to Samuel
Waldo of Boston, Mass., says: “My business here is to carry Passengers
& Servants,” meaning, of course, to America. He requests
that letters be sent him “to ye care of mr Winthrop, mercht in Cork.”
Lieut.-Col. Goffe, an Irishman, was, in 1760, ordered by Gen.
Amherst to take a regiment of 800 men, raised in New Hampshire,
and cut a road through the wilderness from “No. 4” to Crown Point,
or more properly to the Green Mountains. (History of Springfield, Vt.)
Rev. Ezra Stiles, writing at Newport, R. I., Aug. 9, 1774, says:
“Last month arrived at New Castle [Del.] the snow Charlotte, Capt.
Gaffney, from Waterford, with 100 passengers, and the ship Hope,
Capt. McClenachan, from Newry, with 200.” (Diary of Ezra Stiles.)
Hon. Thomas Dongan, the Irish governor of the province of New
York, 1683–’88, was a wise and just man. He founded representative
63government in New York, and the Charter of Liberties given
the colonists at that time has greatly served to perpetuate his
fame.
In a general return of Col. William Thomson’s regiment of Rangers,
Sept. 20, 1775, occur the names Lieutenant Richard Brown, a
native of Ireland, and Lieut. David Monaghan. Of the drummers,
three were born in Ireland. The command was operating in the
South.
A paragraph in the Virginia Historical Magazine states that Davis
Stockton came from Ireland, with Michael Woods, and lived for some
time in Lancaster county, Pa. About 1734 Stockton went to Albermarle
County, Va., where he patented large tracts of land. He died
in 1760.
William Preston was born in Ireland, 1730. He was captain of
a company of rangers in Virginia in 1755–’56, and was a member
of the Virginia House of Burgesses in 1766, 1767, 1768 and 1769.
During the Revolution he held important commands in southwest
Virginia.
Sir William Johnson, an Irishman, “of Johnson Hall, in the County
of Tryon, and Province of New York,” in his will, 1774, mentions
bequests to William Byrne, of Kingsborough; Patrick Daly (“now
living with me”); and Mary McGrah, daughter of Christopher
McGrah.
In June, 1794, Capt. Harding arrived at Portland, Me., from Ireland,
in the brig Eliza. He brought about 200 passengers, men,
women, and children, “chiefly farmers and weavers,” an “honest
and industrious set of people.” (Maine Historical and Genealogical
Recorder.)
Bryan Lefferty was attorney and private secretary to Sir William
Johnson and became surrogate of Tryon county, N. Y. Johnson’s
will is believed to have been drawn up by him. Sir William’s farm
manager was an Irishman named Flood. (Simms’ Frontiersmen of
New York.)
In August, 1795, the brig Eliza, Capt. Wm. Fairfield, arrived at
Salem, Mass., from Belfast, Ireland, with 89 emigrants. Among
them were Samuel Breed, James and Sarah Dalrymple, John and
William Lemon, the Dunlap family, and others of note. (Felt’s
Annals of Salem.)
64One of the first military organizations in Albany, N. Y., enlisted
in the Revolution, included David MCCarthy, James MCCarthy, John
McEnry, David Sullivan, William Magie (Magee), Morris Welch,
and other men whose names indicate Irish extraction. They signed
the roll in June, 1775.
William McMahon was a taxpayer in Falmouth, Me., in 1777.
Mention of him is made in the Maine Genealogist and Recorder. The
same publication speaks of Edward Clarey and Patrick Manan as
having belonged to Capt. John Hill’s military company of Berwick,
Me., in October, 1740.
The intentions of marriage between Benjamin Blanchard of Canterbury,
N. H., and Bridget Fitzgerald of Contoocook, were posted
up “at the Meeting House Door” in Rumford, N. H., March 26,
1739. (John C. Ordway in Salem [Mass.] Press Historical and Genealogical
Record, Vol. 2.)
Thomas McLaughlin, of Bedford, N. H., was lieutenant in Capt.
John Moore’s company, Col. Stark’s regiment, at the battle of Bunker
Hill, June 17, 1775. McLaughlin was made captain of the company
the morning after the battle, in place of Moore, promoted. (Military
Records of New Hampshire.)
A Mrs. Hall and Mr. Keating arrived at New London, Conn., in
August, 1770, from Dublin, in the brig Patty. Captain Forbes
in the 58th year of his age died at Cork, Ireland, on March 5, 1791.
He was a native of Hartford, Conn., and had resided in Ireland for
many years prior to his death.
In 1790, Norwich, Conn., had a printer named Major John Byrne.
About this time he went to Windham, Conn., where he published
the Phœnix or Windham Herald. In 1795 he was the postmaster
of Woodstock, Conn., and in 1807 a member of the Aqueduct Company
of Windham.
The British evacuated Boston, Mass., March 17, 1776, and the
Americans marched in and took possession. Washington, from his
headquarters at Cambridge, authorized as the parole for the day:
“Boston;” and the countersign: “St. Patrick.” Gen. John Sullivan
was brigadier of the day.
Keeney’s Ferry, operated over the Connecticut River at Hartford,
Conn., took its name from Richard Keeney, who was granted the
privilege in Oct., 1712, by the Assembly. The ferry was discontinued
65by act of the Assembly in May, 1753. (Rev. James H.
O’Donnell, Norwalk, Conn.)
Florence Maccarty bought land in Roxbury, Mass., in 1693. He
was a provision dealer and contractor in Boston. He subsequently
added to his Roxbury purchase, the property becoming known as
the “Maccarty farm.” The tract at one time comprised 60 acres.
(Drake’s Town of Roxbury.)
John O’Kane came to this country from Ireland in 1752. He was
then 18 years of age. He located in or near Albany, N. Y., and
married a daughter of Rev. Elisha Kent. On his marriage he is said
to have dropped the “O” from his surname. (N. Y. Genealogical and
Biographical Record, July, 1878.)
Michael Magee was a member of Capt. Marsh’s Troop of Light
Horse, of Essex, N. J., in the Revolution, and was wounded. Thomas
Magee was a matross in Capt. Hugg’s Western Company of Artillery,
New Jersey. (Official Register of the Officers and Men of New
Jersey in the Revolutionary War.)
William Henry came from Coleraine, Ireland, and established
a manufactory of arms in Pennsylvania before the Revolution. In
1777 he was deputy commissary general and was active in sending
supplies to the Patriot army at Valley Forge. He was elected to
Congress in 1784, and died in 1786.
Matthew, John and Thomas Kilpatrick (also written Gillpatrick)
came from Ireland in the early part of the 18th century and settled
in Warren and Ware, Mass. In time the name was condensed to
Patrick. John Patrick, of the family, was commissioned a lieutenant
in the Patriot forces, Feb. 5, 1776.
Among the sufferers in the French and Indian war, sometimes
called Gov. Shirley’s war (1744–’49), was Michael Dogan, an Irishman.
“He listed at Philadelphia, a soldier for Louisbourg, and
was taken in his passage by a French” warship. He sickened,
recovered, but had a fatal relapse. (Drake.)
James Devereaux was born at Wexford, Ireland, in 1766. He
came to Salem, Mass., in 1780, with his uncle, John Murphy. In
1792 Devereaux married Sally Crowninshield of Salem. Later, he
commanded the ship Franklin, said to have been the first merchant
vessel from the United States to visit Japan.
66Capt. James Neall of New Hampshire had a group of scouts, in
1775, and was engaged in guarding the frontiers of said province.
The scouts included Sergt. Philip Johnson, Francis Orr, James
Rowe, William Mack and John McMahon. (Military History of New
Hampshire, Adjutant-General’s Report, 1866.)
Here are two inscriptions from the Granary Burial Ground, Boston,
Mass.: (1) “Here lyes ye body of Sarah Mahoney, Dau’r of
Mr. Cain Mahoney, of Marblehead, aged 26 years, Died Nov. 29,
1734.” (2) “Here lies the Body of Mrs. Elizabeth Kelly, wife of
Mr. Patrick Kelly, aged 28 years, Died Sept. 25, 1758.”
Andrew Brown was a native of Ireland, born about 1744. He was
educated at Trinity College, Dublin, came to this country and fought
in the patriot ranks at the battle of Bunker Hill. In 1777 he was
made Muster-Master-General in the Patriot army. He died at Philadelphia,
Pa., in 1793. (Drake’s American Biography.)
Hugh Williamson was a member of the North Carolina House of
Commons in 1782 and 1785; he was also elected to the Continental
Congress. He was a native of Pennsylvania. His father, an Irishman,
had been a clothier in Dublin, and came to this country in
1730. (Wheeler’s Historical Sketches of North Carolina.)
George Conn emigrated from Ireland about 1720 and eventually
settled in Harvard, Mass. His son, John, was born at Harvard,
1740, and located in Ashburnham, Mass., probably about 1761.
John was lieutenant in a company of Minute Men and was with his
command at Cambridge, Mass., 1775. He died in 1803.
Patrick Burn, of Wenham, Mass., participated in the Cape Breton
expedition (Louisburg), 1744–’49. Later, he and others petitioned
for an allowance on account of services and sufferings. The committee
of war was ordered to pay the selectmen of Wenham £7 “for
the use of said Burn.” (Drake’s French and Indian War.)
From the Town Records of Boston, Mass., Nov. 8, 1737: “Capt.
James Finney Messrs. John Karr and William Hall Executed a Bond
of the Penalty of Six Hundred Pounds to Indemnify the Town on
Accot. of One Hundred and Sixty two Passengers Imported by the
said Finney in the Snow Charming Molly from Ireland * * *”
At a meeting in 1744 of the proprietors of the common and undivided
lands belonging to the town of Kittery, Me., among those
drawing tracts of land were: John Gowen, Nicholas Gowen, Andrew
67Haley, John More, Joseph Mitchell, James Troy, Andrew Neal, and
Samuel Ford. (Maine Historical and Genealogical Recorder.)
Thomas Butler settled in Kittery, Me., before 1695. He is
grandiloquently described by a modern writer as “of the ancient
English house of Ormonde.” Perhaps it would have been nearer
the point to say that Butler was an Irishman “of the house of
Ormonde.” He had a son, Thomas, born at Berwick, Me., 1698.
From the Town Records of Boston, Mass., Nov. 8, 1737: “Hugh
Ramsey, John Weire, and William Moore, Executed a Bond of the
Penalty of one Thousand Pounds to Indemnify the Town from
Charge on acco. of Three Hundred and Eighty One Passengers
Imported by Capt. Daniel Gibbs in the Ship Sagamore from Ireland.* * *”
“Daniel ye Son of Darby and Elizabeth Mallonee” was baptized,
in Barbadoes, 1679. The same year mention is made of Teag Conner,
of the parish of St. Michael, Barbadoes. “Mary ye Wife of
Morgan Murphy” of the parish of St. James, Barbadoes, was buried
in 1679, as was also “Cornelius ye Son of Dearman Driskell.” (Hotten’s
Lists.)
John Kehoo and Edward Dalton, two young Irishmen, came to
Salem, Mass., in 1776. “They were both remarkably handsome,
and promising men, and by their circumspect conduct and industrious
habits, soon gained the respect and confidence of the community.”
Kehoo was lost at sea while aboard the privateer Centipede,
in 1781.
In Felt’s Annals of Salem, Mass., it is stated under date of April
20, 1681, “a ketch, Capt. Edward Henfield, picked up a boat with
Capt. Andrew and six of his crew, 150 leagues from Cape Cod.
These persons, so rescued, belonged to a Dublin ship bound to Virginia.
She sank on the 18th, with sixteen men and three women,
who perished.”
Daniel Gookin “of Cargoline, near Cork, Ireland,” commenced a
plantation in Virginia in 1621–’22. He is said to have been born in
England and to have “settled in Ireland.” He came to Virginia
with fifty men of his own and thirty passengers, and located at a
place called Mary’s Mount, near Newport News. (Virginia Historical
Magazine.)
68At a town meeting in Boston, March 12, 1771, “A letter from that
celebrated Patriot, Dr Lucas of Ireland, owning the Receipt of one
transmitted him by a Committee of this Town together with the
Pamphlet relative to the horrid Massacre in Boston, March, 5, 1770—was
read and attended to with the highest satisfaction.” (Boston
Town Records.)
From the Town Records of Boston, Mass., Sept. 19, 1744: “At
the Desire of His Excellency the Governour The Select men Sent up
to the Almshouse Sixteen Girls & Three Boys & a Woman arrived
here yesterday from Cape Breton who were taken About Six Weeks
since by a French Privateer [they] being bound from Ireland to
Philadelphia * * *”
From the Connecticut Gazette, Jan. 5, 1764: “Just imported from
Dublin, in the brig Darby, a parcel of Irish servants, both men and
women, to be sold cheap, by Israel Boardman, at Stamford.” The
people thus advertised were doubtless of the “Redemptioner” class,
to be disposed of for a term of years, to pay for the expense of
bringing them over.
From the Boston Selectmen’s Records, Jan. 15, 1715: “Jarvice
Bethell, sho maker Late of Ireland who wth his wife came by the way
of New found Land into this Town in August Last is admitted an
Inhabitt on condition, he finde suretyes to ye Satisfaction of ye Sel.
men to ye value of 100 [£], Since its consented yt Mr. Shannon’s
bond Shall Suffice.”
Hon. John Fanchereau Grimke was a colonel in the Revolutionary
army and judge of the Supreme Court of South Carolina. Early in
life he wedded Mary Smith. She was of Irish and English stock,
and was the great granddaughter of the second landgrave of South
Carolina, and descended on her mother’s side from the famous Irish
chieftain, Roger Moore.
Daniel McCurtin, believed to be of Maryland, was in the Patriot
army at the siege of Boston. He kept a journal of his observations
and experiences. The same has been published and narrates many
interesting incidents of the siege. The journal may be found in
Papers Relating Chiefly to the Maryland Line During the Revolution,
edited by Thomas Balch.
The town of Sterling, Conn., was named in honor of Dr. Henry
Sterling, an Irish physician and surgeon, who was located in Providence,
69R. I., before and during the Revolution. When the patriots
from Providence destroyed the British armed vessel Gaspee, June 10,
1772, Dr. Sterling responded to a summons to attend the wounded
commander of the Gaspee.
Timothy Murphy, an Irish physician, came to this country in 1776
and settled in Monmouth county, New Jersey. He engaged in
farming; married Mary Garrison, granddaughter of Richard Hartshorne,
of that county, who was a member of the Colonial Council
and of the Assembly of the Province. Murphy served in the Patriot
army during the Revolution.
Nehemiah Walter was sent by his father from Ireland to America,
about 1674, to serve an apprenticeship to an upholsterer in Boston.
Having a fondness for books he, with the consent of his father,
attended college and graduated in 1680. He settled in Roxbury,
Mass., and married Sarah, a daughter of Increase Mather. (N. E.
Hist., Gen. Register, Jan., 1853.)
Rev. James Hillhouse was born in Ireland, and in 1720 came to
America. He settled in Connecticut and married a great granddaughter
of Capt. John Mason. Their son, William Hillhouse, became
a member of the Continental Congress and was a cavalry
officer in the Revolution. He represented his town in 106 semiannual
sessions of the legislature.
Sometime in 1745 as James McQuade and Robert Burns of Bedford,
N. H., were returning from Penacook to their homes, whither
they went to procure corn for their families, they were fired on by
Indians who appeared to be lying in wait for the opportunity.
McQuade was shot down and killed, but his companion escaped.
(Drake’s French and Indian War.)
The Rev. Robert Morris, who was pastor of the First Church in
Greenwich, Conn., in 1785, was “born and brought up in N. York.
His parents came from Ireland, the Father a rigid Churchman, his
mother a Roman Catholic. He living and being brot up with a
Baptist at N. York became one.” (Rev. Ezra Stiles, quoted by Rev.
James H. O’Donnell, Norwalk, Conn.)
We find Joseph Manly in Conventry, Conn., in 1786; Patrick Butler
in Hartford, and Richard Kearney in New London in 1793. In
the list of expenses paid by Connecticut for the capture of Ticonderoga
and adjacent posts, occurs the name of an Irishman: “To Patrick
70Thomas, for boarding prisoners, £1, 5s.” (Rev. J. H. O’Donnell
in Catholic Transcript, Hartford, Conn.)
On July 2, 1788, Captain Chapman, and nine emigrants from Ireland,
were drowned a short distance from the shore of Fisher’s
Island. He had just arrived with about 20 emigrants, some of
whom were ill. In attempting to land the latter at a spot where
they were to be placed in quarantine, all perished. (Rev. J. H.
O’Donnell in Catholic Transcript, Hartford, Conn.)
John J. Henry’s parents came from Coleraine, Ireland. John was
born in Lancaster, Pa., 1758, and was with Arnold’s expedition to
Quebec. He was captured by the British and kept a prisoner for
nine months. On being released, he was offered a lieutenancy in
the Pennsylvania line, but desired a captaincy in the Virginia line.
Ill health interfered somewhat with his military career.
According to Hotten’s Lists, Brian Kelley, aged 20, embarked for
Virginia in the vessel Safety, 1635. Among those to be transported
to “ye Barbadoes,” 1635, were Dennis MacBrian, Teague Nacton,
Dermond O’Bryan and Margaret Conway. They embarked in the
Alexander. Mary Driskell, of St. James’ parish, Barbadoes, was
buried 1678. Dorothy Callahan, of Barbadoes, was buried Aug.
10, 1679.
Miss Virginia Baker of Warren, R. I., author of a “History of
Warren in the War of the Revolution,” writes us: “Perhaps you will
be interested to know that the first Irishman known to have settled
in Warren was one John O’Kelley. I think he arrived in town prior
to 1770.... I have located real estate that he owned.” Miss
Baker also informs us that some of his descendants are still to be
found in Warren.
Cornelius Merry, an Irishman, of Northampton, Mass., had a
grant of land in 1663. He married Rachel Ballard. Their children
were John, who “died soon;” John (2d), born in 1665; Sarah, born
1668; Rachel, 1670; Cornelius, Leah, and perhaps others. Cornelius,
the father, participated in the “Falls fight” against the Indians.
After the war he removed to Long Island, N. Y. (Savage’s
Genealogical Dictionary.)
John Lamb, who was captain of a brig called the Irish Gimlet
is found at New London, Conn., in 1774; Lawrence Sullivan “of
Connecticut” was taken prisoner by the British at the battle of
71Bunker Hill, and was released February 24, 1776; Captain Richard
McCarthy of New London, was wrecked in a storm off Plum Island,
May 27, 1779, when he and five sailors perished. (Rev. James H.
O’Donnell, Norwalk, Conn.)
Capt. Philip Mortimer, who came from Ireland, was one of the
selectmen of Middletown, Conn., in 1749. He was a rope maker,
was very wealthy, and donated Mortimer cemetery to the town.
Being childless, he sent to Ireland for his niece to come out and become
his adopted daughter. The son of Capt. John Reid, Mortimer’s
partner, was despatched to Boston with a coach and four and
escorted her to Middletown.
Glancing through Deane’s “History of Scituate, Mass.,” the other
day, we found mention of Richard Fitzgerald, “a veteran Latin
schoolmaster.” He wedded Margaret Snowdon, of Scituate, in 1729.
Doubtless he was one of the many Irish teachers who abounded in
the American colonies at that and subsequent periods. The
Society has already published the names, and something concerning
the career, of about forty such.
Charles Clinton was a native of County Longford, Ireland, and
was born in 1690. He and his friends, numbering about 200, chartered
a vessel and sailed from Dublin in 1729 for Philadelphia, Pa.
After a passage lasting 139 days the captain, inadvertently or by
design, landed them on Cape Cod, Mass. Ninety-six of the ship’s
company had died on the voyage. One of Clinton’s sons, George,
became governor of New York.
An Irish colony, consisting of sixteen families, was settled about
1740, under the patronage of Sir William Johnson, himself an Irishman,
on a tract a few miles southwest of Fort Hamilton, N. Y., in
the town of Glen. The settlers erected dwellings, cleared land and
planted orchards. Indian hostilities, however, prevented the success
of the settlement, and the pioneers returned to Ireland. (J. R.
Simms’ Frontiersmen of New York.)
Robert Dunlap was a native of the County Antrim, Ireland, and
was born in 1715. He embarked for America in the spring of 1736.
The vessel, with nearly 200 emigrants aboard, was wrecked at the
Isle of Sable and nearly one half of the passengers perished. The
survivors, including Dunlap, managed to reach Canso and were then
taken to Cape Ann, Mass. Governor Dunlap of Maine (elected in
1833), was a descendant of Robert, the Irishman.
72The records of Trinity Church, New York city, contain mention
of the following marriages: Hugh Kelly and Elizabeth Griffin, 1746;
Ralph Steel and Mary Branegan, 1747; John Trotter and Ann Hogan,
1748; John Cusick and Mary Freeman, 1748; John Hurley
and Elizabeth Hannon, 1748; Patrick Hawley and Jane Ament,
1748; Jeremiah Dailey and Margaret Fitzgerald, 1748; Patrick Boyd
and Mary Peltreau, 1748; Patrick Martin and Rozannah O’Neil,
1748.
The Boston News Letter, Sept. 12, 1720, has an advertisement in
which it is stated that an Irish man servant, Edward Coffee, had
run away from his master, Stephen Winchester of Brookline, Mass.
Coffee was probably a bond servant or redemptioner. He is described
as about twenty years of age, with “cinnamon coloured
breeches with six puffs tied at the knees with ferret ribbon.” He
also had “a wig tied with a black ribbon.” A reward was offered
for his capture.
Capt. James Magee, “a convivial, noble-hearted Irishman,” commanded
an American privateer in the Revolution. In the winter of
1779 his ship was driven ashore near Plymouth, Mass., during a
terrible storm, and 79 of the crew were frozen to death. Twenty-eight
of the survivors were rescued by the men of Plymouth. Drake’s
Town of Roxbury, Mass., states that in 1798 Capt. Magee bought
an estate in Roxbury. In 1819 William Eustis purchased the estate
of Magee’s widow.
The Society of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, Philadelphia, Pa.,
was instituted on March 17, 1771. No creed lines were drawn, and
in the organization “Catholics, Presbyterians, Quakers, and Episcopalians
were united like a band of brothers.” Stephen Moylan,
brother of the Catholic bishop of Cork, Ireland, was the first president.
The Society of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, New York
city, was founded in 1784. Daniel McCormick, a Presbyterian, was
the first president.
In 1644, Roger Williams, arriving at Boston, from England, brought
with him letters from members of the British parliament to “leading
men of the Bay” in which, counseling friendship, mention is made
of undesirable “neighbours you are likely to find near unto you in
Virginia, and the unfriendly visits from the west of England and
from Ireland.” It so happened that, eventually, Roger Williams
73himself became “undesirable” and “unfriendly” to the self-sufficient
rulers of “the Bay”
Thomas Healey is mentioned as of Cambridge, Mass., in 1635,
and William Healey in 1645. John Joyce was an early resident of
Lynn, Mass., and removed to Sandwich, Mass., about 1637. David
Kelly was of Boston as early as 1664, and belonged to the artillery
company there. Stephen Hart was of Cambridge, Mass., in 1632;
Edmund Hart of Weymouth, Mass., 1634; John Hart of Salem,
Mass., 1638; Thomas Hart of Ipswich, Mass., 1648. (Farmer’s
Genealogical Register.)
In a Virginia regiment, of which George Washington was colonel,
long before the Revolution, appear the following surnames: Barrett,
Bryan, Burns, Burke, Carroll, Coleman, Conner, Connerly, Conway,
Coyle, Daily, Deveeny, Devoy, Donahough, Ford, Gorman, Hennesy,
Kennedy, Lowry, McBride, McCoy, McGrath, McGuire, McKan,
McLaughlin, Martin, Moran, Murphy, Powers, etc. The regiment
participated in the struggles against the French and Indians. (Virginia
Historical Magazine.)
Dennis Rochford, of County Wexford, Ireland, and his wife Mary,
came to Pennsylvania with William Penn in 1682, on the ship Welcome.
All or nearly all the passengers were Quakers. Two daughters
of Dennis and Mary died on the voyage. The passengers were
described as “people of consequence” and as “people of property.”
Dennis was a member of the Assembly in 1683. (Scharf-Wescott
History of Philadelphia, Pa., quoted in Vol. VI, Transactions of the
Kansas State Historical Society.)
In the “Great Swamp fight” in Southern Rhode Island, during
King Philip’s war, 1675–’76, were the following soldiers from Connecticut,
among others: James Murphy, Daniel Tracy, Edward Larkin,
James Welch and John Roach. The town of Norwalk, Conn., subsequently
gave Roach, as a gratuity, a tract of land “consisting of
twelve acres more or less, layed out upon the west side of the West
Rock, so called.” In the Norwalk records Roach is spoken of as a
soldier in the “Direful Swamp Fight.”
Eaton’s Annals of Warren, Me., mention two Irish schoolmasters
there. They were John O’Brien and John Sullivan. O’Brien was
“a native of Craig, near Cork,” and taught in Warren for many
years, beginning at about the close of the Revolution. He was “an
74elegant penman and a good accountant.” He married a daughter
of Col. Starrett. Sullivan was a native of Dublin, Ireland, and
began teaching in Warren about 1792. He was of “never failing
good humor.” He died in Boston, Mass.
Martin I. J. Griffin of Philadelphia, Pa., mentions Thomas Burke,
the one-eyed member of the Continental Congress and governor of
North Carolina, of whom Wheeler’s Historical Sketches of North Carolina
says: “No public functionary was ever employed by the state
in more troubled times, none more active or talented, none suffered
more, none less known to posterity. He was a native of Ireland and
of the most finished education.” It was said of him that he publicly
professed and openly avowed the Catholic faith.
Here is an example of how certain names sometimes undergo a
change: A legislative act was passed in 1806 providing that “John
O’Neil, Jun., of Madison, in the county of Kennebec [Maine], shall
be allowed to take the name of John Neil; James O’Neil, of said
Madison, shall be allowed to take the name of James Neil; Samuel
O’Neil, of Norridgewalk, shall be allowed to take the name of Samuel
Neil.” (From List of Persons whose Names Have Been Changed,
etc., published by the state of Massachusetts, Boston, 1893.)
George Berkeley, “the Kilkenny scholar,” Dean of Derry and
later Bishop of Cloyne, visited Boston in 1731. His visit is thus
mentioned in John Walker’s manuscript diary (in possession of the
Massachusetts Historical Society): “Sept. 12, 1731; in ye morn
Dean George Barkley preacht in ye Chapell from ye 1st Epistle to
Timothy, ye 3d Chap., Verse 16, and a fine Sermon, according to
my opinion I never heard such an one. A very great auditory.”
By the “Chapell” was meant the King’s Chapel, still in use in
Boston.
From an entry in the New England Historic, Genealogical Register,
Jan., 1893, we learn that Capt. John McCarty of New London, Conn.,
died while on a return voyage from the West Indies in 1804. His
wife died soon after, leaving four young children, including Elizabeth,
who married Samuel Forman, of Syracuse, N. Y.; Rebecca,
who married Schuyler Van Rensselaer of Albany, N. Y., and Abby,
who married Sanders Van Rensselaer, brother to Schuyler. Capt.
Richard McCarty, believed to be father or brother of Capt. John,
was lost at sea in 1779.
75At a meeting of the selectmen of Boston, Mass., April 15, 1737, a
communication was mentioned as having been received from Capt.
Samuel Waterhouse. The latter stated that he was “twelve weeks
from London and seven from Cork; that smallpox had broken out
on the voyage, afflicting four of his ship’s company.” One of these
was put ashore, one died at sea, and two recovered. The ship having
been cleansed, the Boston selectmen gave him permission to
“come up from Nantasket to Spectacle Island” and drop anchor
near the hospital there. (Report of the Boston Record Commission.)
Hon. James Buchanan, president of the United States, has left
this statement concerning himself: “My father, James Buchanan,
was a native of the County Donegal, in the Kingdom of Ireland. His
family was respectable but their pecuniary circumstances were
limited. He emigrated to the United States before the date of the
Definitive Treaty of Peace with Great Britain; having sailed from
—— [no port stated] in the brig Providence, bound for Philadelphia,
in 1783. He was then in the 22d year of his age.” (Quoted
in George Ticknor Curtis’ Life of James Buchanan, President.)
In a volume published by the state of New York (Albany, 1860),
record is found of marriage licenses, issued by the secretary of the
province, previous to 1784. Among the names mentioned are:
Edward Briscow and Jane McDermont, 1736; Matthew Sweeny and
Mary Thorn, 1756; Patrick Hyne and Hannah Van Sice, 1757;
Andries Van Schaick and Alida Hogan, 1757; Owen Sullivan and
Hannah Orstin, 1759; Wynant Van Zant and Jane Colgan, 1760;
Rynear Van Yeveron and Hannah Hogan, 1772; John Moore and
Mary Van Dyck, 1772; Martin Van Haugh and Judith Carroll,
1775.
In the Minutes of the Boston Selectmen, 1727, we find mention of
the following “Strangers warned to Depart Accordn to Law”: John
White, an Irishman from Dedham; Robert Phenne, an Irishman
from Wells; William Nugel, an Irishman from Philadelphia; Robert
Sterling, an Irishman from Rutland; Patrick Jorden from Virginia;
James Dawley, an Irishman from Lisborn; Joseph Doyle from
Rhode Island. These men were doubtless worthy enough, but, perhaps,
could find no one to “go their bond,” and thus secure the
town against the possibility of their becoming, at some time, a public
charge.
76For the “expedition against Crown Point,” 1756, New Hampshire
raised a regiment of 700 men, commanded by Col. Nathaniel Meserve
of Portsmouth. In this regiment were included the following:
Daniel Murphy, James Meloney, Darby Sullivan, John McMahone,
Daniel Kelley, James O’Neil, Jer. Connor, Daniel Carty, Benjamin
Mooney, Michael Johnson, Darbey Kelley, John Meloney, James
Molloy, James Kelly, John Welch, Thomas Carty, William Kelley,
Bryan Tweny (Sweeny?), James McLaughlin, John McLaughlin,
Thomas McLaughlin, and others bearing typical Irish names. (Military
History of New Hampshire, Adjutant-General’s Report, Concord,
1866.)
From the Boston Selectmen’s Records, Aug. 9, 1736: “By a
List from the Impost office, It appearing that Nineteen Transports
were just Imported from Cork in Ireland, in the Brigt Bootle, Robert
Boyd Commander, accordingly the said Master was sent for, Who
appear’d And the Select men Ordered him to take effectual Care to
prevent any of the said Transports from coming on Shoar from said
Vessell, the said Master promised Accordingly that they should not
come on Shoar, That he was obliged by his orders to Carry them to
Virginia, Whither he was bound, and that in the meantime he would
keep a Strict Watch on board his said Vessell to prevent their
escape.”
James Cochran, an Irish boy, is mentioned in the Massachusetts
records. He was captured by Indians, but escaped and brought
back a couple of scalps as evidence of his experience. The Boston
News Letter, April 29, 1725, says of him: “James Cochran, ye youth
that came into Brunswick with two scalps, came to town on Monday
last, and on Tuesday produced ye same scalps before ye Honorable
Lieutenant Governor and Council, for which he received a reward of
two hundred pounds. And for ye further encouragement of young
men and others to perform bold and hardy actions in ye Indian war,
His Honor ye Lieutenant Governor has been pleased to make
him sargeant in ye forces.”
A gallant officer, who has almost been forgotten, was Gen. John
Greaton of the Revolution. He was a native of Ireland. Augustus
Parker, writing in the Boston Transcript, says of him that he belonged
to the first company of Minute Men raised in America, in 1775, and
was chosen major, lieutenant-colonel, and colonel of Heath’s regiment.
After the battle of Lexington he was engaged in the skirmishes
77about Boston, until he joined that memorable expedition to
Quebec in the winter through the woods of Maine, where the army
suffered untold hardships. He served through the war, was one of
Washington’s most trusted officers, was mustered out October, 1783,
and died the following December, worn out in the service of his
country. Gen. Greaton’s father kept the Greyhound tavern on Washington
street, opposite Vernon street, in Roxbury, Mass.
Rev. Cotton Mather was born in Boston, Mass., Feb. 12, 1663.
He was a Puritan, hard and fast. In 1700 he delivered a sermon in
honor of the arrival of Gov. Bellomont, calling it a “Pillar of Gratitude.”
In this sermon occurs the following: “There has been formidable
Attempts of Satan and his Sons to Unsettle us: But what
an overwhelming blast from Heaven has defeated all those attempts....
At length it was proposed that a Colony of Irish might
be sent over to check the growth of this Countrey: An Happy
Revolution spoil’d that Plot: and many an one of more general consequence
Than That!” Mather was rather late in his opposition to
Irish comers, for they had been arriving in this “Countrey” before
he was born. Were he alive to-day he would doubtless realize that
instead of checking the country’s growth, they have greatly contributed
to that growth.
Passing through Bridgeport, Conn., by train recently, we recalled
the Rev. Robert Ross of that place. He was a son of Irish parents,
and was ordained to the Congregational ministry in 1753. His
biographer states that he was a remarkable man, six feet in height
and well proportioned. His presence was imposing, and his ruffled
shirt, wig and cocked hat seemed peculiarly in keeping with it. But
he most strongly impressed himself upon the community through
the warmth of his patriotism, and the decisiveness of his political
convictions. He became a man of influence on the patriotic side
and proportionally obnoxious to the royalists. At the outbreak of
the Revolutionary War he preached on the text, “For the divisions
of Reuben there were great searchings of heart.” A company of
soldiers, raised to join the invasion of Canada in the fall of 1775,
mustered in his door-yard and was commended to God in a fervent
prayer by him before starting on their expedition.
The dangers encountered by Irish immigrants who came over in
the old days of sailing vessels is well illustrated by the following
incident: The ship Lime with 123 passengers sailed from Portrush,
78Ireland, July 26, 1738, bound for Boston. Three days after leaving
Portrush she was leaking badly, so she put into Killybegs where
twelve days were spent making repairs. She again sailed, but had
to put into Galway to be again repaired. While at Galway, John
Cate, the master, died of smallpox, and Matthias Haines, the only
mate, was afflicted with the same disease. While at Killybegs and
Galway 25 of the passengers deserted the ship, and but little blame
could attach to them for so doing. With the captain dead and the
mate sick, the contractors hired Gabriel Black as master of the vessel.
She finally sailed from Galway on Sept. 19, and reached Boston
harbor Nov. 16, 1738. Mention of the incident may be found
in the N. E. Historic, Genealogical Register, Oct., 1897.
In 1630, Governor John Winthrop and others of the Massachusetts
Bay Colony “hired and dispatched away Mr. William Pearse, with
his ship of about two hundred tons, for Ireland to buy more” provisions.
As he did not return as soon as expected, “many were the
fears of people that Mr. Pearce who was sent to Ireland to fetch provisions,
was cast away or taken by pirates.” In February, 1631, however,
he arrived at Boston, Mass., bringing the following supplies:
“34 hogsheads of wheat meal, 15 hogsheads of peas, 4 hogsheads of
oatmeal, 4 hogsheads of beef and pork, 15 cwt. of cheese, butter-suet,
etc. These supplies were in good condition, and a day of
thanksgiving was ordered by the governor.” (Frothingham’s Charlestown
and Drake’s Boston.) A second ship appears to have arrived
about this time, for the colonists near by “lifted up their eyes and
saw two ships coming in, and presently the newes came to their
eares, says one among them, that they were come from Ireland full
of victualls.”
In Stackpole’s History of Durham, Me., is an interesting reference
to Martin Rourk, at one time town clerk of that place. Rourk was
born in Ireland about 1760, and came to America about 1773. He
spent two years in his uncle’s store at St. John’s, and went to Boston,
Mass., in 1775. He became clerk in the company of Capt.
Lawrence of the Patriot army, and subsequently married his widow.
In May, 1775, Martin Rourk is mentioned as in a picket guard, having
enlisted in April of that year. He reënlisted several times, was
at Ticonderoga in 1776, and is mentioned as a sergeant after 1777.
He settled in Durham, Me., about 1784, and in 1796 bought a twenty-acre
lot of Thomas Mitchell, was town clerk in 1790–1807, and is
79spoken of as an excellent penman. He was also “the foremost
school teacher” of Durham. He died in 1807. His children were
Jane, John, Hannah, William, David, Samuel, Silence, Cyrus, and
Jacob H. Some of these had the name changed to Roak before
1820. John, one of the sons, wedded Joanna Larrabee and had
seven children.
80
BY EDWARD O’MEAGHER CONDON, NEW ORLEANS, LA.
Some recent writers on immigration to the United States from
Ireland have very materially underestimated the numbers of the
Irish who came here even since 1790, and it seems proper now to
call attention to some important facts which throw light on the matter,
and endeavor to correct the erroneous impressions produced by
misleading statements.
It will not be difficult to show that the Irish have come to this
country since 1790 in much greater numbers than available records,
statistics, or estimates show, and that their descendants are much
more numerous than many suppose them to be. The same might be
said of the Irish who arrived here before the period just referred to,
and particularly before the Revolution—a fact to which I briefly
called attention in a little work written several years ago. In this
paper, however, consideration will be confined to the Irish who
arrived here since 1790 and their descendants.
Until September, 1819, there was no supervision of immigration
by the national government, and no records were kept by federal
officers of the arrival of immigrants. For the numbers, therefore, of
those who came here from 1790 to 1820 we are practically left without
official or positive information, and the statements or conjectures
of the writers who have dealt with this subject not only betray
their imperfect knowledge, but show that they failed to take into
consideration some weighty facts essential to the formation of correct
estimates.
Thomas Cooper, an Englishman who visited this country in 1794,
tells us that “emigration of all kinds from Europe to the United
States amounted at that time to about 10,000 a year.” Samuel
Blodgett, Jr., however, writing in 1810, assumed that the number of
81immigrants did not average more than 4,000 a year for the previous
ten years, but he gave a table of the population, in one column of
which the number of “freemen and slaves” who entered the United
States in 1804 was put down at 9,500. Blodgett says that he relies
on “the best records and estimates at present attainable,” but he
fails to tell us where those records were to be found, or by whom
they were kept. A. Seybert, an ex-member of congress, who wrote
in 1818, says that the statements in Blodgett’s work “are deficient
in details; they consist chiefly of general results and the estimates
of the author. Though many of his tables are ingeniously constructed,
they do not furnish sufficient data for legislators.” Seybert,
while admitting the correctness of Cooper’s estimate of 10,000
arrivals during the year 1794, differs from him with regard to the
immigration for the following years up to 1817, and assumes that
6,000 persons only, on the average, arrived here annually from 1790
to 1810. He, however, furnishes us with a statement of the number
of passengers who arrived at ten of the principal ports of the United
States in 1817, which shows the entrance in that year of 22,240
immigrants, of whom 11,977 came from Britain and Ireland; 4,169
from Germany; 1,245 from France, and 2,901 from British America.
Professor Tucker, another ex-congressman, in a work published in
1843, says, commenting on Seybert’s estimate, “Since an account has
been taken of the foreign immigrants who arrive in our seaports as
well as from the intrinsic evidence afforded by the enumerations
themselves, we must regard his estimate as much too low.” Tucker
admits that “our estimates of the whites who migrated hither before
1819 are purely conjectural,” but yet he adopts Seybert’s estimate
of 6,000 a year from 1790 to 1810—a total of 120,000—and assumes
that from the last named year until 1820, 114,000 immigrants arrived,
thus making the total number who came here between 1790 and
1820, 234,000.
He, however, remarks in a note that he could not go beyond this
estimate “on account of his respect for Dr. Seybert’s opinion,” but
he “could not give a less number because of his regard for the progressive
increase of immigration before and after the three years of
the war of 1812–1815.” J. D. B. DeBow, superintendent of the census
of 1850, in one of his volumes published in 1854, relies on Prof.
Tucker’s estimates for the number of those who arrived here during
the thirty years preceding 1820, while W. J. Bromwell of the state
department, writing in 1856, raises the number to 250,000.
82It will be observed that these “estimates” are in fact merely conjectures,
and that in the only year (1817) during the entire period
from 1790 to 1820 for which actual figures are given, the returns
from only ten ports show the arrival of more than twice the average
annual number of immigrants estimated by the writers above referred
to. It seems, then, evident that the immigrants from 1790 to
1820, and particularly those of Irish birth or blood, were much more
numerous than the writers quoted seem willing to admit, and we are
amply justified in coming to this conclusion by several substantial
reasons.
Professor Tucker, who estimates the number of immigrants between
1790 and 1820 at 234,000, “calculated after a very laborious
analysis the number of foreigners and their descendants to be above
1,000,000 in 1840.” Now, according to his own tables, the total
number of immigrants who came here between 1790 and 1840
amounted to 949,346, and yet of all these people—over seventy-five
per cent. of whom were adults—and their descendants, he would
have us believe that there could only be found alive in 1840 the
number just given. The total population had increased, within the
period named, from 3,929,827 to 17,069,453—more than four hundred
per cent.—while the descendants of the immigrants increased,
according to him, only five per cent.
We shall see later that, even after the passage of the act of Congress
of 1819—which directed the collectors of customs at the seaports of
the United States to forward quarter-yearly lists of all the passengers
arriving at their respective ports to the state department at Washington—the
number of immigrants reported was for many years very
considerably less than that of those who actually came here. One
careful and reliable writer, Dr. Chickering, estimates the number of
those not accounted for at fifty per cent. of those reported. Bearing
this in mind it will seem almost certain that, before the time when
returns of immigrants were required by law, their numbers were
underestimated in a far greater proportion.
Large numbers of people left Ireland for America between 1790
and the beginning of the War of 1812. During the century preceding
the year first named half a million of Irishmen—more than the
number of Huguenots who left France after the revocation of the
Edict of Nantes—went to that country and joined her armies to
escape the English penal laws and avenge the violation of the Treaty
of Limerick. This fact is attested by the French military records.
83But after the outbreak of the Revolution in France the flight of
the “Wild Geese” was checked, and comparatively few entered the
Revolutionary or Imperial armies.
Meanwhile the situation in Ireland was almost as gloomy as before.
Though as a consequence of the American and French revolutions
the penal laws had been somewhat relaxed, and in 1793
Catholics had been allowed to vote at parliamentary elections, they
were still persecuted and harassed in almost every conceivable manner
by the Loyalist faction. In Armagh county murders, house
burnings, and still more abominable crimes were of constant occurrence,
and many thousands of the people were driven from their
homes, some taking refuge in the South, some flying to Scotland,
and a large number coming to America. An idea of the condition
of things at that time in some parts of Ireland may be formed from
reading the declaration of Lord Gosford, governor of Armagh county,
and thirty magistrates, issued on Dec. 28, 1795.
“It is,” they said, “no secret that a persecution accompanied
with all the circumstances of ferocious cruelty, which have in all
ages distinguished that calamity, is now raging in this county. Neither
age nor sex, nor even acknowledged innocence is sufficient to excite
mercy or afford protection. The only crime which the unfortunate
objects of this persecution are charged with is a crime of easy proof,
indeed, it is simply a profession of the Roman Catholic faith.” The
Presbyterians, who had for a long time been excluded from power
and position by the “Sacramental Test Act,” and many of whom
had, during the eighteenth century, emigrated to America, were also
much dissatisfied with their condition and that of the mass of their
countrymen.
“The journals of those days,” we are assured by a careful writer
on this subject, “show that the Northern Presbyterians were not
sharers in the disgrace or afraid to denounce the dominant faction.
Neither must we forget that Presbyterianism was socially, though
not religiously, outlawed almost to the extent of Catholicism.”
But the English government, which had absolute control of the so-called
Irish Parliament, turned a deaf ear to all demands for justice
and encouraged the Loyalists to continue their atrocious deeds.
Under these circumstances, a number of prominent and patriotic
men of all denominations, who had formed the United Irish Society
a few years before, for the purpose of bringing about a union of
Irishmen of all religious persuasions with the object of effecting a
84reform in the Parliament, now becoming convinced of the hopelessness
of attaining their purpose by peaceful methods, resolved to imitate
the example of the American Revolutionists and make an effort
to achieve the independence of their country. The movement was
unsuccessful, though its suppression in 1798 cost the English government
the lives of over 20,000 of the latter’s mercenaries.
Multitudes of the patriots who had taken part in the insurrection
escaped to America, a considerable proportion of these going in fishing
schooners to Newfoundland, where their descendants are to be
found in great numbers to-day, notwithstanding the large emigration
from that island to the United States. The failure of Robert
Emmet’s effort in 1803 for the freedom of his native land also led
to renewed proscription and the flight of thousands across the Atlantic.
No records of the numbers of Irish who came here during the
period referred to are available, or could in fact under the circumstances
be compiled. The notices, however, in the newspapers of
the time of the arrivals of immigrants and the accounts of events
then occurring in those parts of North America still held by the English,
as well as in the United States, throw considerable light upon
the subject.
Between 1652 and 1658, over 60,000 Irish—almost all adults—were
by order of the Cromwellian government transported to the
West Indies and the English colonies—a larger number than the
total population of these dependencies at that time. Many thousand
of those sent to the West Indies gradually found their way to
this country through the Atlantic and Gulf ports, but the fact that
proscriptive laws against Catholics, modeled after the English penal
laws, were enforced in most of the colonies, prevented many others
from coming here before the Revolution. It may be remarked in
passing that to the feeling excited among the French colonists on
the St. Lawrence by these enactments and by later mischievous displays
of religious intolerance, is due the fact that Canada still
remains subject to Britain, and that the Starry Flag does not wave
over all the territory between the Gulf and the Pole.
After the Revolution, however, and when it became evident that
religious liberty would be allowed by law to all the people of this
Republic, the descendants of the expatriated Irish in the West
Indies came to the United States in considerable numbers to escape
the insalubrious climate, the almost constant turmoil caused by the
conflicts waged there between European powers, the troubles and
85dangers arising from the frequent plots and uprisings of the colored
population, and especially to be rid of English rule.
To show the difficulties and dangers to which those living in the
West Indian islands were exposed, an incident which occurred on the
island of Montserrat in 1768 may be briefly mentioned. The negroes
of that island formed a plot to massacre the whites, and decided to
carry out their project on St. Patrick’s day, “which,” we are informed,
“the inhabitants generally assembled together to commemorate”—a
fact which proves their origin. It was arranged that “the
negroes allowed within the building (where the festivities were to be
held) were to secure the swords of the gentlemen participating and
those without were to fire into the hall and put every man to death.
They were then to cast lots for the ladies, whom they intended to
carry to Puerto Rico in the vessels that lay in the harbor.” The plot
happily failed, through a warning given by a faithful servant to one
of the intended victims, and several negroes were executed for complicity
in it. The Irish in the West Indies sympathized warmly
with the American Revolutionists, and this made them objects of
distrust and hatred to the English. We are told that “from many
letters found in American prize ships, it was discovered that a traitorous
correspondence had been carried on between British subjects
and the revolted colonies in North America.” The merchandise
and stores of those suspected of sympathy with the Americans were
confiscated by the English.
The vindictive animosity displayed by Admiral Lord Nelson while
in the West Indies against the Americans and their sympathizers
excited the bitterest indignation among the people there. Nelson—whose
feeling toward the Americans, trading with these islands,
may be judged from an expression in one of his letters, “I hate
them all,” and his declaration in another, “I, for one, am determined
not to suffer the Yankees to come where my ship is”—did his
utmost to ruin American commerce in that quarter, and even went
so far as to complain to the English government of his superior officers
because they failed to encourage and abet his malignant efforts.
His bitterness against the Irish may be easily inferred from one of
his letters written from the island of St. Kitts, on March 18, 1785,
in which he says: “Yesterday being St. Patrick’s Day, Irish colors
with thirteen stripes on them were hoisted all over town. I was
engaged to dine with the president, but sent an excuse, as he suffered
those colors to fly.” It is not to be wondered at that numbers
86of the West Indian Irish sought a home under the flag with the
“thirteen stripes,” to which they had so patriotically shown their
attachment.
It may be remarked here that Seaman, referring to the period just
before 1790, says that “the proportionately rapid increase of the
population of the Southern states proved that they had received considerable
accessions of immigrants from the West Indies.” The
great majority of these were no doubt descendants of the transported
victims of Cromwell’s despotism. The able historian of South Carolina,
Dr. Ramsay, tells us that in 1791 a number of Catholics,
“chiefly natives of Ireland, associated themselves together for public
worship, and put themselves under the care of Bishop Carroll,”
and adds that “The troubles in France and the West Indian islands
soon brought a large accession to their numbers.”
A considerable number of Irish immigrants arrived here between
1800 and 1815 from the remnant of North American territory still
subject to England, and especially from Newfoundland. From a very
early period, Irish fishermen had been accustomed to visit the shores
of that island, and not seldom did they bring with them proscribed
and persecuted priests, who sought shelter there from the fanatical
“priest hunters” employed in enforcing the English penal laws in
Ireland. But even there were they harassed and hounded and the
exercise of their faith prohibited, and it was not until after the
achievement of American Independence that Catholics were permitted
to openly profess the principles and practice the duties of their
religion. In 1784, the then governor, Vice-Admiral Campbell, issued
an order allowing “All persons inhabiting the island to have full liberty
of conscience and free exercise of all such modes of religious
worship as are not prohibited by law.”
It seems probable that this official acknowledgment of the right of
liberty of conscience was hastened, not only by the triumph of the
American “rebels,” but also by the fact that in 1776 an attempt was
made by the Irish in Newfoundland to aid the Americans by sympathetic
movements, which clearly indicated their disposition to make
common cause with Washington and his compatriots.
The large numbers of Wexford and other insurgents, who had
escaped to Newfoundland after the failure of the insurrection of ’98,
and who, though defeated, had not lost heart or hatred of their oppressors,
became so numerous in 1799 that they formed a plan to expel
the English from the island, resolving in case of failure to “set off
87for the United States.” They succeeded in extending the United
Irish organization, not only among a very considerable number of
the people, but also among a large proportion of the soldiers composing
the Royal Newfoundland regiment, then stationed in St. John’s,
the capital.
The movement was unsuccessful, owing to the timidity or treachery
of some among the military. Five soldiers were hanged, seven sent
to Halifax to be shot, many others carried to the same place “to be
there dealt with,” and the regiment was removed from St. John’s and
replaced by another. Ogden, the governor, in a letter written in
July, 1800, says, “We do not know, nor was it possible to ascertain
how far this defection and the United (Irish) Oath extended through
the regiment.” He admits that “the defection was very extensive,
not only through the regiment, but through the inhabitants of
this and all the out-harbors, particularly to the southward, where
the people almost to a man had taken the United (Irish) Oath, which
is ‘to be true to the old cause, and to follow their heads of whatsoever
denomination.’” He supposes that the plans “are not given
up, but only waiting a proper opportunity to break through,” and
adds that, according to statements made by a United Irishman, who
was only a “novice,” the movement had been undertaken “in consequence
of letters received from Ireland.” He further demands
a reinforcement of troops—1,500 men—which will be needed “while
Ireland is in such a state of ferment as it has been, and is likely to
continue, until the business of the Union is settled, for the events of
Ireland have heretofore, and will henceforth, in a great measure,
govern the sentiments and actions of the far greater majority of the
people in this country.”
The unsatisfactory outcome of this movement caused numbers of
the United Irishmen of Newfoundland to seek shelter in the United
States. “American traders came disguised, sold and bartered their
goods in the outports and stole away the men as usual,” about this
time, just as during the closing years of the 17th century and the
first half of the 18th, the French smugglers carried over to France
the “Wild Geese.” It is, of course, impossible to ascertain the
number of those who came here at the period and under the conditions
above referred to, but it is evident that there were many thousands
of them.
In 1804, Irish immigrants to the number of 670 are reported as
arriving at St. John’s on their way to the United States, and for
88several years after thousands of their countrymen chose the same
route to our shores. During the war of 1812 many of the Irish who
had remained on the island went to serve on American privateers
against the English, and many of these ships were commanded by
Irishmen.
The large number of Irish who entered the United States from
British North America within the period considered is not taken into
account by our authorities on immigration, and their estimates of
the direct immigration from Ireland and Britain are also very evidently
far too low. They do not seem to remember that, there
being no supervision of vessels carrying passengers until a much
later period, the ships for America were crowded to a degree which
in our day would hardly be thought possible.
Wolfe Tone, in his “Memoirs,” gives us an idea of the manner
in which passengers were packed in vessels bound for the United
States. Speaking of his voyage from Belfast to Wilmington, Delaware,
in 1795—which occupied upwards of eight weeks—he says:
“The slaves who are carried from the coast of Africa have much
more room allowed them than the immigrants who pass from Ireland
to America, for the avarice of the captains in that trade is such that
they think they never can load their vessels sufficiently, and they trouble
their heads in general no more about the accommodation and storage
of their passengers than of any other lumber aboard.” There
were over 300 immigrants on board the ship on which he sailed, but
when off the banks of Newfoundland, she was stopped by three
English frigates, and fifty of her passengers carried off by the “press-gangs”
to serve in the navy of their persecutors. Tone narrowly
escaped being among the number of those taken.
Many of the captains of emigrant ships at that time were thoroughly
unscrupulous. A few years before the incidents just referred
to occurred, the captain of a vessel, who had undertaken to carry
a body of emigrants from Dunleary (now Kingstown), Ireland, to
Charleston, S. C., landed eighty of them on the island of Inagua,
near Dominica, in the West Indies, telling them it was well inhabited,
and that provisions were plentiful. When, after having landed,
they found that they had been deceived by the captain, and attempted
to get on board the vessel again, they were fired on and one of them
killed. They were, however, rescued a short time after by a passing
American vessel, being, as might be supposed, “all in a most distressed
condition.” It was not only the poorer people of Ireland
89who even then sought a free home in this land. Many persons of
means were always to be found among those who came direct from
thence. In 1798, a ship arrived at Norfolk, Va., from that country
“with 426 passengers, chiefly tradesmen and persons of property.”
In the absence of any authentic records of immigration during
the thirty years preceding 1820, we are justified, when endeavoring
to form anything like an approximately correct estimate of the
arrivals from Ireland during that period, in taking into consideration
the strength of the Irish element here at that time, and the importance
attached to the movements of Irish Americans in aid of their struggling
kindred in the Old Land. Branches of the United Irish
Society were established here soon after the organization of that
body in Ireland. “Its headquarters were in Philadelphia, where
Mathew Carey and other good men gave it aid and impulse. The
publications of the Irish society were reprinted in the city just named
as early as 1794, and funds were collected and arms promised.”
The strength and influence of this organization excited the uneasiness
of the English government, and its minister here, Sir Robert
Liston, used every effort to check the progress of the sympathetic
movement. He was unfortunately enabled to attain his object, to a
great extent, through his close intimacy with the highest officers of
our government. In 1798, the “Alien Act” was passed in Congress,
by a small majority. By this enactment, the president could order
any alien he deemed dangerous to quit the country, others were to
be licensed to remain during his pleasure, and neglect to obtain
a license was made an offense punishable by three years’ imprisonment,
and perpetual disqualification for citizenship. Fourteen
years was fixed as the time necessary for an alien to reside here before
he could become a citizen. This law excited deep indignation, and
was strongly denounced by many independent journals. In order to
prevent hostile criticism, the “Sedition Law” was passed, by which
a fine of $2,000 was imposed upon any one who should write or
publish a letter against the government, either house of Congress, or
the president. Many were tried and several punished under these
acts, and some had to fly the country to escape the threatened
penalties.
The English minister was jubilant. In a letter to the governor-general
of Canada, written in 1799, he gleefully told how some supporters
of the coercive measures had “taken the law into their own
hands, and flogged one or two of the printers of the newspapers
90whose comments had offended them,” and he remarked that this
proceeding had “given rise to much animosity, to threats, and to a
commencing of armed associations among those opposed to these
laws, particularly among the United Irishmen,” adding, “Some
apprehend that the affair may lead to a civil war.”
The Alien and Sedition laws were repealed three years later, the
bill for that purpose being introduced by Senator Smilie, a native of
Newtonards, Down county, Ireland, and a veteran of the Revolution.
In 1812 he was a member of the foreign affairs committee, and prepared
the bill authorizing President Madison to raise an army to fight
the English.
Among the many prominent United Irishmen who arrived here
about this period were Napper Tandy, Archibald Hamilton Rowan,
Mathew Carey, Dr. Reynolds, Dr. Robert Adrian, who became professor
of mathematics and natural philosophy in Columbia college,
and later was made vice-provost of the University of Pennsylvania.
There came at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Thomas
Addis Emmet, afterward attorney-general of New York state; Dr.
William J. Macneven; Counselor Sampson; W. Theobald Wolfe
Tone, a worthy son of his heroic father; Nicholas Grey, who had
been adjutant to General Harvey, commander of the Wexford insurgent
army in ’98; Henry Jackson, John Cormack, and many
others. Alexander Porter, another of these immigrants, was too
young in ’98 to become a member of the organization in Ireland, but
his father, Rev. W. Porter, a Protestant minister of Newtonards,
Down, had been hanged at his own door for his patriotism during
the insurrection. Mr. Porter was later chosen United States senator
from the state of Louisiana.
During the war of 1812–’15, large numbers of Irish joined the
armies of the republic and shared in the victories as well as the
defeats of that conflict. When General Scott and his small force
was overpowered at Queenstown Heights by a greatly superior body
of English and compelled to surrender, a number of the Irish prisoners
of war were separated from their comrades and sent in irons
to England “in order to be tried and executed for the crime of high
treason.” The United States government, however, threatened to
retaliate, and because of this fact, the men were ultimately released
and allowed to return to this country. Many Irish also fought under
Harrison, one of them (Mason) being credited with having killed the
Indian chief, Tecumseh, at the battle of the Thames, and among the
91gallant men who under Andrew Jackson so decisively defeated the
English at New Orleans on January 8, 1815, were numbers who had
been born in his father’s native land, including several veterans of
the insurrection of ’98.
While the war lasted, immigration from Europe was checked, but
very soon after the restoration of peace, immigrants, particularly from
Ireland, began to come here in far greater numbers than ever before.
The English, however, notwithstanding the treaty of Ghent, were still
bitterly hostile to the Americans, and their press indulged in the
coarsest abuse of our institutions and public men. Inflamed by
jealousy of this republic, and anxious to prevent the Irish from emigrating
to it, the English parliament in 1816 passed a law which
prohibited British vessels from carrying more than one passenger for
every five tons burden to the United States, while allowing them to
carry one passenger for every two tons to any other part of the
world.
But this law did not produce the desired effect. Professor Smith
says that “from Great Britain (and Ireland) the number of emigrants
for the year 1815 was only 2,081. The next year it rose to 12,510;
in 1817 to 20,634; in 1818 to 27,787, and in 1819 to 34,789.”
Holmes says, speaking of the year 1816: “In this and the preceding
year there was a great emigration from Ireland and England
to America. This year 1,192 American and foreign vessels arrived
at New York, bringing to that port alone 7,122 passengers.” From the
same authority we learn that the returns of vessels and passengers
at Baltimore showed the arrival at that port early in October, 1816, of
1,878 passengers; those reported being estimated at probably three
fourths of the whole number that arrived. From another source we find
that “within three weeks, in the month of September, 1816, about
2,000 immigrants arrived in the United States.” Similar notices may
be frequently found in the newspapers of those times.
The English authorities, while endeavoring to prevent the Irish
from coming to the United States, exerted themselves vigorously to
promote emigration to Canada. Municipal bodies, local organizations,
and various societies contributed funds to assist those intending
to emigrate, and at the same time liberal grants of land and other
inducements were offered to prospective settlers in Canada. As a
result of these efforts, the immigrants from Ireland and Britain to
Canada out-numbered, for many years, those who came to the United
States. The great majority of the Irish, however, soon found their
92way to this country, and especially to New York, where work was
progressing at that time on the Erie and Champlain canals. Of all
these, no account was taken by officials or writers on emigration at
the time, and but little by those who wrote later on the subject,
though one writer admits that there was even more recently “considerable
overland immigration, much of which escapes attention.”
It seems evident, taking all the facts above cited into consideration,
that the estimates of those writers of the number of immigrants,
and particularly of Irish immigrants who arrived here between 1790
and 1820, are very much too low, and it appears very reasonable to
assume that Dr. Chickering’s estimate of the number of immigrants
who came here after 1820—that is 50 per cent. more than the officially
reported number of arrivals—must be largely increased when
we are endeavoring to ascertain how many immigrants landed on our
shores before the date just mentioned, and before any attempt was
made to obtain the number of those who arrived in the United States,
even through our Atlantic ports.
In order to reach an approximately correct conclusion as to the
proportion of the immigrants of different nationalities embraced in
this aggregate, we must be guided “by the relations then existing
between the United States and the countries from which persons
emigrated,” to quote the words of the last-named writer when speaking
of the number of immigrants. There is no need to dwell on
those relations. The bitter feeling with which the English had regarded
the Americans from the days of the Revolution, lost none of
its intensity during the period under consideration, and the feeling
was frankly and fully reciprocated by the great mass of the American
people. As a consequence, there were but few English among the
immigrants to this country at that time.
The Irish, however, who had always sympathized with our republic
in its struggles, and gloried in its triumphs, came here in large and
constantly increasing numbers all through the thirty years preceding
1820, as well as afterwards. Many thousands of French, Germans,
and others arrived here during the period, but the great majority
were undoubtedly Irish. It seems clear that the immigrants were
more than twice as numerous during the period considered as the
commonly received estimates or conjectures would lead us to believe,
and it appears evident from the facts above cited that at least two
thirds of the total were of Irish birth or blood—including those from
the West Indies, Newfoundland, and Canada.
93That number seems very small now, when we think of the enormous
immigration of later years, and our population of 80,000,000.
But it should be remembered that the white population of this country
in 1790 was only 3,172,464. Of this total, those between the
ages of twenty and fifty numbered less than two fifths, or 1,268,986.
Now the immigrants who sought our shores in those days were almost
all in the prime of life. Children and aged and weakly people,
being unable to undergo the difficulties and hardships certain to be
encountered in a strange and new land, were left behind. Among
the new arrivals marriages took place in far greater proportion than
among the descendants of the earlier immigrants, and the children
of the former were proportionately more than twice as numerous as
those of the latter. This continued to be the case down to a much
later period. During the years 1849, 1850, and 1851, the marriages
among the native born in Massachusetts were at the rate of
220 in 10,000, while those of the foreigners (mostly Irish) were in
the proportion of 450 in 10,000. The children born to native
parents in the same state during the same years numbered 47,982, or
578 in 10,000, while those of immigrants amounted to 24,523, or
1,491 in 10,000. That is more than twice and a half as many. It
is impossible to determine accurately how much the population of
the United States was increased by the immigrants who arrived here
between 1790 and 1820, and their descendants, but careful investigators
have furnished us with estimates, which maybe fairly regarded
as approximately correct.
Some writers who gravely state that “the mortality among Catholics
is greater than among Protestants,” and who complacently
assert that “the vitality of the Irish is very low,” have, as might be
expected from these expressions, glaringly underestimated the number
in 1820 of the immigrants and their descendants who arrived here
during the period under consideration. Dr. Chickering says that
they then numbered 1,430,906 out of a total population of 9,638,131.
But the Hon. F. Kapp, one of the commissioners of immigration
for the state of New York, allowing a yearly increase of 1.38 per
cent. for the descendants of the earlier immigrants, shows that at
this rate the population—excluding slaves because their numbers
have no bearing on the question—of 3,231,930 in 1790, would have
only increased to 3,706,674 in 1800, to 4,251,143 in 1810, and to
4,875,600 in 1820, instead of amounting to 8,100,056, the total
population including slaves being 9,638,131. Assuming his estimate
94to be nearly correct, his declaration that “immigration has enabled
this country to anticipate its natural growth some forty years’” seems
reasonable.
A similar estimate was made by Louis Schade of Washington,
D. C., and by Hon. M. W. Closkey, ex-postmaster of the United
States house of representatives, who shows that the rate of increase of
our population (1.38 per cent.) was greater than that of any European
nation, and proceeds to estimate what the numbers of our people
would have been at each census up to 1850 had immigration been
prohibited when the constitution was adopted in 1789. The estimates
just quoted together with the facts above stated seem to prove
that the number of the immigrants arriving here between 1790 and
1820 were absurdly underestimated by most of those who wrote on
the subject.
The same remark applies to some extent to several writers who
have dealt with the question of immigration after 1820, and even the
official reports and statistics down to a comparatively recent period
were admittedly defective in important respects, and failed to mention
or enumerate a large proportion of the immigrants to this country.
This subject will, however, be dealt with in another paper.
95
BY HON. P. T. BARRY, CHICAGO, ILL.
Individual Irishmen appeared early on the scene in Illinois. They
came in a military capacity. Having no government of their own
to serve, they served others. The Irishman who had the distinction
of first figuring in our annals was a Chevalier Macarty, who succeeded
LaBussoniere in 1751, in the command of the first French
fortress erected in the Mississippi valley—that of Chartres. He
came from New Orleans with a small military force, and remained
in charge until 1764, when he delivered up that stronghold to the
English, according to the treaty of 1763, by which France yielded
up all her Canadian possessions by right of conquest to her ancient
enemy.
Canada at that time extended to the Ohio river on the south and
to the Mississippi on the west. There was not yet any map bearing
the name of the Empire state of the West. There was only a tribe
of Indians inhabiting a portion of the immense Northwest named
the “Illini,” that had its name given to the territory at the dividing
up. Beyond the Mississippi was Spanish territory.
Under the French and Spanish systems of colonization at that
date, Indian missions, military posts and towns went together. Old
Kaskaskia, in what is now Randolph county, was the first seat of
civilization in the great Mississippi basin, and was for a time the
capital of the territory. Here many stirring events took place for
many eventful years. In addition to a mission and a fort near by,
it was made of greater importance with a legislature.
Pere Marquette, the apostle of several states, laid its foundation
in the year 1675, one hundred years before the breaking out of the
war for American independence. Here savages and whites commingled.
Also, the soldiers of France, Great Britain and America.
And wherever there are soldiers there is to be found the ubiquitous
Irishman. There was to be found French contentment, savage
96resentment and pioneer endurance. Vincennes, Pittsburg and
Detroit were its nearest neighbors on the great Western expanse.
But, like the sites of Tyre and Sidon, famous in ancient history, it
exists no more, the encroaching waters of the Mississippi having washed
it away and made it a memory.
After the capitulation of Quebec in 1763 the British claimed ownership
of the whole of the French territory known as Canada, and
prepared to garrison all the forts the French had erected, including
Detroit, Peoria, Vincennes, Chartres, Cahokia, Kaskaskia, etc. The
last-named three were situated on the Mississippi river, and somewhat
contiguous.
On the 27th day of February, 1764, a Major Loftus of the British
army, then on duty in Florida, was ordered to proceed to Fort
Chartres and take possession of it. His name indicates his Irish
origin, but if there be any mistake in this, there certainly was not
in his soldiers. They were of the Twenty-second British regiment,
and were mostly Irishmen. Here, then, was presented the peculiar
spectacle of one Irish commander in the service of a country not his own
being required to evacuate his command to another Irishman
in the service of a different country not his own. It reminds the
writer somewhat of the siege of Quebec by Richard Montgomery,
an Irishman in the service of the United States, when he asked its
British commander, Sir Guy Carleton, another Irishman, and an old
schoolmate, to surrender to the Continental Congress. But Major
Loftus was not fortunate any more than General Montgomery. On
the way he and his command were attacked by the Indians, who killed
many of the soldiers, the remainder escaping down the Mississippi.
Thus was the first Irish blood spilled in the Mississippi valley.
Then another Irish officer, also in the British service, named
George Croghan, was ordered by Governor Murray to go forward
and secure the desired possession. Croghan had been quite a conspicuous
figure in the British interest in those days in America. He
ranked as major, and had been for many years a trader among the
Western Indians. Hardly another white man was in the prairie
country before him. In describing the country afterwards, he said
it looked like an ocean. The ground was exceedingly rich and full
of all kinds of game, and at any time, in half an hour, he could kill
all he wanted. He was commanded to go from Fort Pitt to make
the way clear for the British advance to Forts Cahokia and Chartres.
It was not the French alone that were to be considered, but the
97Indian chieftains as well. He first sent forward a Lieutenant
Fraser to see the way clear, but the latter received rough treatment
at Kaskaskia and returned unsuccessful.
It was said that Chief Pontiac was egged on to kill him, but he
escaped without serious injury. Then Colonel Croghan, who was
also a British deputy superintendent of Indian affairs, went forward
himself. He left Fort Pitt (now Pittsburg) on May 15, 1765, accompanied
by a party of friendly Indians. His progress was uninterrupted
until he arrived at a small promontory on the Wabash,
where he disembarked. On June 8, six miles below the stream he
was suddenly attacked by a band of Kickapoos, eighty in number.
In the fight which followed Croghan lost two white men and three
Indians, while most of his party, including himself, were wounded.
A surrender was unavoidable, and the victorious Kickapoos plundered
the entire party. Subsequently the Indians confessed they
had made a great mistake, and expressed sorrow for what had happened.
They supposed, they said, that the friendly Indians accompanying
Croghan were their deadly enemies, the Cherokees. They
brought their prisoners in safety to Vincennes on the Wabash, where
the Indians, many of whom had friendly acquaintance with Croghan,
strongly condemned the Kickapoos, and the latter in turn expressed
deep sorrow for what they persisted in calling a blunder.
Further on the way he received a message from St. Ange, the
late French commander, cordially inviting him to advance to Fort
Chartres. He had proceeded but a short distance on his way, however,
when he was met by a delegation of chiefs, representing various
tribes of Indians, among whom was the hitherto implacable Pontiac,
the great warrior, at the head of a large band of Ottawa braves,
offering their services as an escort. At this juncture, and under
this condition of things, Croghan did not deem it necessary to proceed
further in person, the British claim to the territory being
acknowledged by both French and Indians. This happy result
showed that the Irishman must have used his diplomatic powers to
excellent advantage. He then betook himself to Detroit to attend
to other important business in the interest of his royal master, leaving
his command in charge of another officer.
Accompanied by Pontiac, Croghan crossed to Fort Miami and,
descending the Miami, held conferences with the different tribes
dwelling in the immense forests which sheltered the banks of the
stream. Passing thence up the Detroit, he arrived at the fort on
98the 17th of August, where he found a vast concourse of neighboring
tribes. The fear of punishment and the long privations they had
suffered from the suspension of their trade had banished every
thought of hostility, and all were anxious for peace and its attendant
blessings. After numerous interviews with the different tribes
in the old town hall where Pontiac first essayed the execution of his
treachery, Croghan called a final meeting on the 27th of August.
Imitating the forest eloquence with which he had long been familiar,
he thus addressed the convention:
“Children, we are very glad to see so many of you present at
your ancient council fire, which has been neglected for some time
past. Since then high winds have blown and raised heavy clouds
over your country. I now by this belt rekindle your ancient fires
and throw dry wood upon them that the blaze may ascend to
heaven, so that all nations may see it and know that you live in
peace with your fathers, the English. By this belt I disperse all the
black clouds from over your heads that the sun may shine clear on
your women and children, and that those unborn may enjoy the
blessings of this general peace, now so happily settled between your
fathers, the English, and you and all your younger brethren toward
the sunsetting.”
The following was Pontiac’s reply: “Father, we have all smoked
together out of this peace pipe, and as the great Spirit has brought
us together for good, I declare to all the nations that I have made
peace with the English. In the presence of all the tribes now
assembled I take the king of England for my father and dedicate
this to his use that henceforth we may visit him and smoke together
in peace.”
The object of Croghan’s visit being thus accomplished he was
prepared to depart, but before doing so he exacted a promise from
Pontiac that the following spring he would appear at Oswego and
enter into a treaty with Sir William Johnson in behalf of the Western
nations associated with him in the late war.
In September, 1768, came John Wilkins, lieutenant-colonel of
“His Majesty’s Eighteenth or Royal Regiment of Ireland,” and
commandant throughout the Illinois country. Several companies of
this regiment came with him from Philadelphia and occupied quarters
at Kaskaskia. The experience of those troops was not good,
but it was common to that of all new comers in the aguish “American
Bottom.” The sickness among them was not only very great, but
99very fatal. At one time, out of five companies only a corporal and
six men were found fit for duty.
Capt. Hugh Lord became the next commander of the Royal Irish
regiment, and continued so until the year 1775. The British governor
at Kaskaskia at this time was a Chevalier Rocheblave, strange
to say, a Frenchman. It was at this time that the colonists began
to defy George III, and the Irish soldiers of the old French outposts
were persistent in showing sympathy for them, and their leaning
toward the American cause was such that poor old Rocheblave
declared it worried him to see men of British birth giving him more
trouble than the French. After a time most of the Irish soldiers of
Britain were drawn off for service elsewhere, and the French residents
were organized into militia. Their captain was one Richard
McCarty, a resident of Cahokia. There was another McCarty who
built a water mill on the Cahokia creek near Illinoistown at a later
date, who was known as “English McCarty.”
In 1777 Irish-Americans began to appear on the scene, with the
invasion of Gen. George Rogers Clark, the Virginian. What Clark’s
ancestry was remains in some doubt. His biographer, English,
thinks his ancestors came from Albion, but is able to give no particulars.
At any rate, he conquered that portion of British territory
that had formerly belonged to the French, and from which five sovereign
states of the Union have been carved. His army was composed
of Virginians and Pennsylvanians, many of whom were Irish
either by birth or by blood. He was materially assisted by the
French settlers, under the leadership of Father Gibault, the republican
priest of Kaskaskia. To the latter and one Col. Francis Vigo,
a native of Sardinia, who was married to an Irish lady (a Miss
Shannon), was the success of the Virginian invasion mostly due,
and the annexation of the prairie country to American territory.
Clark affiliated very closely with the Irish. It is due to him to
say that he was a brave and generous man, whose services to his
young country can never be forgotten. His invasion of this wilderness
and its conquest, it must be remembered, was under the direction
of Gov. Patrick Henry of Virginia, and to him alone he was
responsible. The first of his Irish relatives to deserve notice was
William Croghan, a nephew of Maj. George Croghan, the British
officer already alluded to. He cherished no love in his heart for
Great Britain or her monarch. He had resigned the British for the
American service. He left Ireland for America when quite young,
100and was long in the employ of the British as an Indian agent, like
his uncle. He joined the American forces at Pittsburg and witnessed
the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown. He married Lucy
Clark Rogers, sister of the famous general. When he joined the
American forces he was assigned to Colonel Werder’s Virginia regiment,
shortly after the battle of Long Island, and continued in
active service for years.
He was promoted to the rank of major in 1778, and was assigned
to Col. John Neville’s Fourth Virginia regiment and participated in
the battle of Monmouth. He marched with the Virginia troops to
Charleston, S. C., where the whole American army at that place was
compelled to surrender to the enemy. In 1781 he was paroled and
went to Virginia with his friend, Col. Jonathan Clark, brother of the
general, and for a time was the guest of Colonel Clark’s father in
Caroline county. It was there he met the woman who was destined
to be his wife. He was afterwards a delegate to the Kentucky convention
of 1789–’90, and was one of the commissioners to divide
the land allotted to the soldiers engaged in the conquest of the
Northwest. He left six sons and two daughters.
One of his daughters became the wife of Thomas Jessup, adjutant-general,
U. S. A. His son George married a Miss Livingston, of
the noted New York family. This son George greatly distinguished
himself at the battle of Tippecanoe in 1811, and subsequently in the
Mexican War. He was a major at the time of his defense of Fort
Stephenson at Lower Sandusky, and Congress presented him with a
medal for his gallantry. A splendid monument has been erected to
his memory at Fremont, Ohio. The elder Croghan died in 1822,
and his widow in 1838.
Frances Eleanor Clark, youngest daughter of the old hero, married
Dr. James O’Fallon, whom the memoir says was a finely-educated
Irishman who came to America shortly before the Revolution. He
was an officer during the War for Independence, and was the founder
of the well-known O’Fallon family of St. Louis, which has been
so conspicuous in the history of that great city. There is also a
town named after one of the members of this family in St. Clair
county, this state. To his two grandsons, John and Benjamin
O’Fallon, General Clark willed 3,000 acres of land.
Another nephew and heir of the general was George Rogers Clark
Sullivan, who was honorably identified with Indian affairs during
the territorial period, and who left a long line of prominent descendants,
after one of which is named Sullivan county in that state.
101In Gen. George Rogers Clark’s force for the conquest of Kaskaskia,
Cahokia, and Vincennes were many men with Irish names,
and when we take into account the Irish then so very numerous in
Pennsylvania and Virginia, it would not be surprising if one half of
it was composed of Irishmen and Irish-Americans. In this force
were 236 privates, besides officers. Some of the names of the latter
are as follows: Major Thomas Quirk (who was originally a sergeant
in Captain McHarrod’s company and rendered some military service
on the frontier before and after the Illinois campaign). Clark’s
biographer says, “Quirk was a brave and a fine-looking Irishman.”
He died in Louisville, Kentucky, in the fall of 1803. He was allotted
4,312 acres of land for his valuable army services.
Capt. John Montgomery, who is stated in one place to be “an
Irishman full of fight,” was one of Clark’s most valued officers,
and had been one of the celebrated party of “Long Hunters.”
Col. John Campbell, who was one of the commissioners for the
allotment of Clark’s land grant of 149,000 acres, to the men engaged
in his Illinois campaigns, was an Irishman by birth, and a man
accredited with much force of character. He was a member of the
Kentucky convention of 1792, and a member of the legislature. He
died without issue. After Campbell came James F. Moore, Alex.
Breckenridge, Richard Taylor, and Robert Breckenridge, as land
commissioners. James F. Moore had been a soldier under Clark,
and also, subsequently, a member of the Kentucky house of representatives.
Here are names that are suggestive of subsequent presidents of
the United States. Richard Taylor was a native of Virginia, of Irish
extraction. He removed in 1785 to Kentucky; was a soldier of the
Revolution, holding the rank of lieutenant-colonel at its close. He
was the father of the hero of the Rio Grande, Gen. Zachary Taylor,
twelfth president of the United States. Robert Breckenridge, also
of Irish extraction, was a member of the Kentucky legislature, and
speaker of the house of representatives several times. He was the ancestor
of John C. Breckenridge, vice-president with James Buchanan,
and subsequently a presidential candidate himself.
Col. Archibald Lochrey was county lieutenant of Westmoreland
county, Pennsylvania, and started with his command from Carnahan’s
block-house August, 1781, to join Gen. Clark’s Illinois forces,
with a company of volunteer riflemen raised by Capt. Robert Orr;
two companies of rangers under Capt. Thomas Stockley, and a company
102of horse under Capt. William Campbell, for the reduction of
Detroit, then in the possession of the British. Stockley was met
and defeated by Indians in the British service. In fact, the whole
of Col. Lochrey’s expedition was defeated, forty-one men being
killed, and the rest taken prisoners. When certain facts with regard
to the British forces became known at Kaskaskia, it was determined
to raise a small American force and make a raid against Fort St.
Joseph, a British post situated on the St. Joseph river.
The company consisted of only seventeen men and was commanded
by Thomas Brady, a patriotic Irish-American citizen of
Cahokia, who had emigrated thither from Pennsylvania, and who was
described as being “both restless and daring.” He marched across
the country in October and succeeded in eluding the Indian guards
and capturing the place, taking a few British prisoners, together with
a large quantity of goods. Being over-confident, on his return he
was attacked by a force of Pottawattomies and British traders, hastily
organized for the purpose, and while lying encamped on the
Calumet river, near Chicago, was defeated. Two of his men were
killed, two wounded, and ten taken prisoners. Brady, with two others,
suceeded in making their escape, and returned to Cahokia. But he
did not rest until he organized another expedition to rescue his
friends and avenge his defeat. He was joined by a party of Spaniards
from the west side of the Mississippi, then Spanish territory,
and retook the place without striking a blow, and the Spanish flag
for a short time replaced the British. The event was a small one,
but Spain had the hardihood to demand the country on account of it.
This Thomas Brady, and one William Arundel (an Irishman from
Canada, and an Indian trader in Cahokia in 1783) and Capt. Richard
McCarty, already mentioned, and a small party of hunters that
joined General Clark’s expedition in 1778, were the only white men
in Illinois territory besides the French Canadians, and a few old
soldiers, at the time of Clark’s conquest. They resided at Cahokia.
Brady was afterwards sheriff of St. Clair county.
Among other names of officers that are likely to have been Irish
or Irish-American in Clark’s army, are those of Col. Benjamin
Logan, Capt. John Baily, Capt. Robert Orr, Capt. William Campbell,
Col. William Davis, Lieut. Martin Carney, Thomas Dalton, and
Major Denny.
General Clark wrote a letter to the governor of Virginia (Patrick
Henry) from Kentucky on October 12, 1782, in which he said, “I
103had the pleasure of receiving your letter by Major Walls and Mr.
Kearney, the 30th of July past, at which time the gentlemen arrived
with stores all safe, after surmounting uncommon difficulties. They
arrived in time to save troops from deserting.” This shows that the
Irish were pretty well in evidence both in Virginia and the Northwest
at that period.
Subjoined is a list of the privates taken from one page only of the
printed roster of Clark’s soldiers of the Illinois expedition, that were
entitled to receive, each, 108 acres of land, as printed in English’s
life of General Clark: Moses Lunsford, Abraham Lusado, Richard
Luttrell, John Lyons, Joseph Lyne, Francis McDermott, David McDonald,
John McGar, Alex. McIntyre, Geo. McMannus, Sr.; John
McMannus, Jr., Samuel McMullen, James McNutt, Florence Mahoney,
Jonas Manifee, Patrick Marr, Charles Martin, Nathaniel Mersham,
Abraham Miller, John Montgomery, James Monroe, John Moore,
Thomas Moore, John Murphy, and Edward Murray.
James Curry was the name of one of Clark’s soldiers who proved
himself a rather extraordinary fellow, and a fearless pioneer. A band
of Indians had wounded a comrade of his named Levi Teel, in his
own house, when Curry was present. Seeing the enemy coming he
jumped up into the loft of the house, with the hope of driving them
away before Teel could have time to open the door to admit them.
He shot three times and killed an Indian every time. He then got
down to see what had happened to Teel, and found him transfixed
by one of his hands with a spear to the floor. Curry got up again
into the loft and tumbled the whole roof down, weight-poles and all,
on the Indians, who were standing at the door with spears in their
hands. Their chief was killed, and the others ran away.
Curry hurried to Kaskaskia for help, and at last saved himself and
companions from death. He was at the capture of Fort Gage and
Sackville, the names given by the British to the old French forts.
Curry was a great athlete, contending in all sorts of games, and was
not unlike Thomas Higgins, another great Irish Indian-fighter of a
later date. In all desperate and hazardous services, Clark chose him
first of all, to act in places of peril and danger. Curry and Joseph
Anderson, who afterwards lived and died on Nine Mile Creek, Randolph
county, went out hunting, and the Indians, it is supposed, killed
Curry, as he went out from their camp and never returned. This was
the sad end of one of our bravest and most patriotic Irish-American
heroes, “the noble-hearted James Curry,” as he is styled in history,
104and whose services were so conspicuous in the conquest of Illinois.
His body was never recovered.
Edward Bulger was a private in Capt. Joseph Bowman’s company
in the Illinois campaign. He was afterwards an ensign in Capt.
William Harrod’s expedition against Vincennes, and in General
Clark’s first expedition against the Indians in Ohio. He was mortally
wounded in the battle of Blue Licks, 1782, at which time he
had been promoted to the rank of major. He was one of the early
explorers of Kentucky, where he was with Hite, Bowman, and
others in the spring of 1775. These were probably the first white
visitors to what subsequently became Warren county. Hugh
Lynch was another of this party, and William Buchanan another.
Daniel Murray was the name of an Irishman who supplied provisions
for Clark’s Illinois army.
One of the forgotten heroic men who did great service to
the republic in the Revolutionary War was Oliver Pollock, an
Irishman born. He performed the same kind of service in the
West that Robert Morris performed in the East. He financed General
Clark’s military campaign in Illinois and Indiana, and without
his aid they must have been failures. He was born in Ireland in
the year 1737 and came to America with his father. On account of
his intimacy with General O’Reilly, who was then governor of Cuba,
he was able to borrow from the royal treasury of Spain the sum of
$70,000, which he lent to the state of Virginia for Clark’s use in the
campaigns mentioned. He was not reimbursed, and consequently
was not able to make good what he had borrowed, which caused his
arrest and imprisonment in Havana. He died in Mississippi in 1823.
In 1777, when Clark was approaching Kaskaskia to surprise the
British, then in possession of the fort, he took two men from a
party of American hunters led by one John Duff, that he met on the
way, to act as his spies. They had left Kaskaskia but a few days
before. These men were James Moore and Thomas Dunn, as to
whose nationality, from their names, there can be no mistake.
General St. Clair, a Scotsman, was afterwards military commander
of the Northwest. He was succeeded by General Anthony (Mad
Anthony) Wayne, who conducted the war with the Indians in 1791.
Under St. Clair the battle of Fort Henry was fought and resulted
in a great American disaster. But General Wayne gained a great
victory at the Maumee Rapids on August 20, 1794, which led to the
suspension of hostilities.
105One of the authorities that we had recourse to in writing these
annals is the “Pioneer History of Illinois,” by ex-Governor John Reynolds,
a man of Irish parentage, born in Pennsylvania, and who
filled nearly every office, legislative, judicial, and administrative,
in the state of Illinois. His place of residence was Cahokia, a
short distance north of St. Louis, on the Illinois side.
John Reynolds in his “Pioneer Days,” described his father as
“an Irishman who hated England with a ten horse-power,” and there
is no surmise in saying that he himself hated her just as much, as he
was an ardent admirer of “Old Hickory.” Neither did he want to be
set down as an Anglo-Saxon. He repulsed the insinuation in the
following emphatic language:
“Our old enemies, the English, and their American friends, give
us the name of new Anglo-Saxons. It is true the most of the Americans
are the descendants of Europeans, but the preponderance of
blood is not of the Anglo-Saxon race. There are more of the descendants
of the Irish and Germans in the United States than of the
English.” If that were true seventy years ago, certainly it is so to
a far greater extent now.
We have already alluded, in connection with Curry’s achievements
as an Indian fighter, to the name of Tom Higgins. One of his
noted encounters with Indians is described in Governor Reynolds’
book, with thrilling effect. This noted Irish-American pioneer
resided in Fayette county for many years, where he raised a large
family, and died in 1829. He received a pension, pursued farming,
and at one time was doorkeeper of the general assembly at Vandalia.
John Edgar was a merchant at Kaskaskia, and at that time the
richest man in the territory. His wife was a lady of rare talents, and
presided over the finest and most hospitable mansion in Kaskaskia.
At this house was entertained General Lafayette, when he visited
this country in 1825. Mr. Edgar’s memory is honored by having an
Illinois county named for him.
In Mrs. Robert Morrison, Kaskaskia possessed another lady of
Irish ancestry who was an ornament to Illinois society at that early
day. Mrs. Morrison was reared and educated in the city of Baltimore,
and in 1805 she accompanied her brother, Colonel Donaldson,
to St. Louis, then in the far-off wilds of the West, whither he was
sent as a commissioner to investigate the title lands. She was married
the following year to Robert Morrison of Kaskaskia, which
place became her residence thereafter. Well educated, sprightly
106and energetic, she possessed a mind gifted with originality, imagination,
and romance. Her delight was in the rosy field of poetry.
Her pen was seldom idle. She composed with a ready facility and
her writings possessed a high degree of merit. Her contributions to
the scientific publications of Philadelphia, and other periodicals of
the period, in both verse and prose, were much admired. Nor did
the political discussions of her day escape her ready pen.
She was a member of the Roman Catholic communion, and shed
lustre on her co-religionists. The Morrison family is one of the best
known, politically and socially, in the state. While Mrs. Edgar
entertained General Lafayette at a grand reception, Mrs. Morrison
entertained him with a grand ball on the occasion referred to.
The territory of Illinois was organized on the 16th day of June,
1809. Michael Jones and E. Backus were appointed respectively
registrar and receiver of the land office in Kaskaskia. At this time
one McCawley, an Irishman, had penetrated further into the interior
of the territory than any one else—to the crossing of the Little
Wabash by the Vincennes road.
The writer cannot resist the temptation to relate an anecdote of
Gen. James Shields, a hero of the Mexican War, who cut so conspicuous
a figure in old Kaskaskia days. The anecdote he related himself,
in a lecture delivered in Chicago shortly before his death. He
arrived in Illinois on foot soon after he left Ireland for America, looking
for employment. On the way, he fell in with a young man
engaged in a similar pursuit, and who was companionable, so they
traveled together. Reaching Kaskaskia, Mr. Shields secured
employment there, as a school teacher, and remained. His companion
was not so successful, and went on, traveling in the direction
of St. Louis. Shields rapidly rose from one position of distinction to
another, and when the Mexican War was declared he was filling the
position of a land commissioner at Washington.
He hastened to Kaskaskia with President Polk’s commission in
his pocket, to raise an Illinois regiment, of which he was to be
colonel. He was successful in this, went to Mexico, and distinguished
himself in several battles, in one of which he was supposed
to be mortally wounded, but recovered. He became a general and a
hero. When the war was over and he returned to the United States
he was lionized and invited to a number of state fairs and cities as
an attraction. St. Louis honored him in this way, and made unusual
preparations for his reception. The mayor and corporation went
107out to receive him. His reception was most cordial. The mayor
grasped him warmly by the hand and looked him significantly in the
face. “Do you not know me, General?” “I do not, Mr. Mayor,
who are you?” “I am the man who tramped with you to Kaskaskia,
many years ago, and walked on to St. Louis.”
“Good God! I am delighted to see you,” was the exclamation of
his distinguished guest.
The Irish not only made history in those early days, but have also
written it. To the pen of John B. Dillon of Indiana, we are indebted
for the best history of the Northwest; to John Gilmary Shea of New
York, we are under obligation for a complete knowledge of the early
Catholic missions among the Indians, and ex-Governor Reynolds has
narrated for us our own pioneer story, with its varied conditions, its
many deprivations and numerous deeds of daring. For many of the
incidents in this essay, especially those relating to Gen. George
Rogers Clark and his men, and the conquest of the Northwest, I am
indebted to the “Life of General Clark,” by Mr. English of Indiana.
Were it not for the fear of making this essay too long, I might
show how fifteen to twenty names of Illinois counties have Irish associations;
what prominent parts Irishmen and the sons of Irishmen
of Illinois took in the War of 1812, the Black Hawk War, the Mexican
War, and the War of the Rebellion; how they filled gubernatorial
chairs, prominent positions in state and nation, as the representatives
of the people; how they have been foremost in the professions
of law, medicine, and divinity. On the muster roll of famous men
they have three Logans, the two Reynolds, Carlin, Kinney, Ford,
Kane, Shields, Ewing, McLaughlin, Mulligan, Medill, Ryan, and
many others too numerous to mention. Not as public and professional
men alone has the Irish contingent been valuable to the state
of Illinois, but also as tillers of the soil, as miners and manufacturers;
for in the infantile condition of our commonwealth the men of
hardest muscle and most exacting toil were our Irish immigrants.
They did the excavating on our canals, and the grading on our first
railroads, and wherever hard work was to be performed, there you
were sure to find Paddy with his spade and pipe. May I not claim
that that herculean form representing “the Digger,” in the statue of
Mulligan, standing at the entrance of the Drainage Canal, near Chicago,
answers for the Irish canaler of former as well as of later days?
Nearly fifty years ago Thomas D’Arcy McGee, an Irish-American
poet, and at the time of his death a leading statesman of Canada, of
108wide fame and renowned memory, wrote of the Irish prairie farmer in
Illinois as follows:
“’Tis ten long years since Eileen bawn
Adventured with her Irish boy
Across the seas and settled on
A prairie farm in Illinois.
“Sweet waves the sea of summer flowers
Around our wayside cot so coy,
Where Eileen sings away the hours
That light my task in Illinois.
“The Irish homes of Illinois,
The happy homes of Illinois,
No landlord there
Can cause despair,
Nor blight our fields in Illinois!”
109
BY THOMAS HAMILTON MURRAY, BOSTON, MASS.
Irish settlers are found in Rhode Island at a very early period.
They were contemporaneous with Roger Williams, John Clark, William
Coddington, and other leading men and proved sturdy, energetic
members of the community.
Some of these Irish pioneers doubtless came to Rhode Island as
soldiers in the Indian wars, and when the latter were over “remained
and went not away.” Others, in all probability, came as settlers from
St. Kitts, Jamaica, Montserrat, and Barbadoes. During Cromwell’s
atrocious regime in Ireland thousands of Irish were transported not
only to the continent of North America but also to the West Indies.
Other thousands followed them, forced from home by the iniquitous
English policy of extermination.
It is not at all unlikely that Rhode Island received many of these
hardy refugees and became to them a land of asylum and a permanent
home. Nor can it reasonably be doubted that Connecticut,
Plymouth and “the Bay” likewise contributed Irish settlers to Rhode
Island at early periods and in goodly numbers. In “Winthrop’s
Journal,” under date of 1635, is an entry indicating that even as early
as that a considerable immigration from Ireland to New England was
under way. Thus readeth the entry:
“Another providence was in the voyage of Mr. Winthrop, the
younger, and Mr. Wilson, into England, who, returning in the winter
time, in a small and weak ship, bound for Barnstaple, were driven by
foul weather upon the coast of Ireland, not known by any in the ship,
and were brought, through many desperate dangers, into Galloway[5]
[Galway] where they parted, Mr. Winthrop taking his journey over
land to Dublin, and Mr. Wilson by sea. His ship was forced back
by tempest to Kinsale. Mr. Wilson being in Ireland, gave much
satisfaction to the Christians there about New England. Mr. Winthrop
110went to Dublin, and from thence to Antrim in the North and
came to the house of Sir John Clotworthy, the evening before the day
when divers godly persons were appointed to meet at his house, to
confer about their voyage to New England, by whom they were thoroughly
informed of all things and received great encouragement to
proceed on their intended course.”
Sometimes immigrants from Ireland were welcomed to New England
and at other times the contrary was the case.
Under date of September 25, 1634, the Massachusetts records
have this entry: “It is ordered that the Scottishe and Irishe gentlemen
wch intends to come hither shall have liberty to sitt down in
any place Vpp Merimacke Ryver, not possessed by any.” In the
Massachusetts records under date of 1640, is another interesting
entry, to wit: “It is ordered that the goods of the persons come
from Ireland shallbee free from this rate [tax].” And a marginal
heading reads: “Irish goods now land free from ye rat[e].”
In the records of Massachusetts, 1652, we find that one David
Sellick having craved pardon “for his offence in bringing some of
the Irish men on shoare, hath his fine remitted, so as the first
optunite be taken to send them out of this jurisdiction.” But where
could they be sent? Only to some place where they would be likely
to get a better reception. In this connection, Rhode Island, the
refuge of so many oppressed by “the Bay,” would naturally suggest
itself, at least to a portion of the Irish immigrants thus proceeded
against. The writer inclines to the belief that numbers of these
Irish, being refused permission to reside elsewhere in New England,
finally located in Rhode Island.
The historic Irish name of Larkin[6] is found in Rhode Island as
early as 1655. So far as known, Edward Larkin was the first of
the name to locate in the colony.[7] In the year mentioned, he was of
Newport, R. I. In 1661, he had a quarter share of land in what is
now Westerly, R. I. In 1663, he was commissioner from Newport
in the “General Court of Commissioners” held at Providence that
year. He was an inhabitant of Westerly as early as 1669. In 1671,
111he and John Mackoone were “called on to see how they stand as to
their fidelity to his Majestie and this Colony.” Perhaps these two
Irishmen had not hesitated on occasion to forcibly express their
opinion regarding English tyranny in Ireland.
Edward Larkin had five children, Mehitable, Hannah, Edward,
Roger, and John. The family prospered and in time became very
influential throughout the colony. Mehitable, who was probably
named after her mother or some of the latter’s relatives, married and
had five children. Hannah died without issue, Edward, Jr., married
twice and had eleven children, Roger married twice and had four
children, John had one child. Roger’s estate inventoried £742, 1s.,
9d. It included “2 linen wheels.” In 1755, his widow became an
inhabitant of Richmond, R. I. Edward Larkin, Jr., and wife of
Westerly sold 100 acres of land to Samuel Lewis in 1701.
In 1705–’07–’15, Edward Larkin, Jr., was a deputy to the General
Assembly. His will was proved in 1741. It gives “To wife £100,
all household goods and improvements of homestead and profits of
saw mill, for life, to bring up the young children, and then the said
homestead to go to son Stephen, but the goods and £100 to be free
and clear to wife. To son Stephen, the homestead at death of his
mother. To son Nicholas, £100 and 50 acres, at death of wife, and
saw and grist mill. To son Daniel, a farm at age. To daughter,
Elizabeth Babcock, 10 acres where she lives with house and orchard
for life, and then to one of her sons as she sees fit. To daughter
Penelope, £30. To daughters Tabitha and Lydia, each £50 at
eighteen. To son Nicholas, 10 acres of salt marsh. To son Joseph,
50 acres adjoining land formerly given him. To grandson Joseph,
my son Edward’s son, 5s., his father having had. To sons John and
Samuel, 5s., they having had. To sons, John and Samuel, rest of
estate.” The inventory showed, among other things, books, three
beds, pewter, loom, linen wheel, woolen wheel, card, seven cows,
two pairs of oxen, horse, 37 sheep, etc.
The will of Mary Larkin, widow of Edward, Jr., was proved in
1743. It gives “To son Nicholas, £50, and bonds against him if he
is not able to pay them. To son David, great bible, and the mortgage
to be cleared off his land, and a house built 16 feet square if
he lives to be 21 years of age. To daughter Tabitha, a horse. To
daughter Lydia, a little bible and £100. To daughters Tabitha and
Lydia, all wearing apparel and a double portion of what is left over
the debts. To three sons, the rest equally.”
112Descendants of Edward Larkin, the original immigrant, are still
found in the state. Many of them take a notable pride in their Irish
ancestry. Since the first Edward’s time, other Irish Larkins have
come to Rhode Island and have done their share toward the upbuilding
of the state.
William Hefernan, or Heffernan, was another early Rhode Island
settler of whose Irish origin there can be no doubt. He is first
heard from at Newport, but in 1671 was an inhabitant of Pettaquamscutt.
In May of the latter year “His Majestie’s Court of Justices”
met at Pettaquamscutt and “ordered that a warrant bee issued out
to William Hefernan, to warne in the inhabitants of this Plantation
to attend tomorrow morning, at six of the clock, at the house of Mr.
Jireh Bull.”
Notwithstanding the early hour and short notice, the people
assembled. “Mr. William Hefernan was chosen and engaged to the
office and place of a Conservator of the Peace in jointe commission
with Mr. Samuel Wilson and Mr. Jireh Bull.” In 1674, Hefernan is
found with his three sons residing in Wickford, R. I. Later he
appears to have taken up his residence in Newport, for on August
25, 1676, he was present as a witness at a court martial there on
Indians charged with being implicated in King Philip’s designs. A
William Hefernan, Jr., was admitted a freeman of the colony by the
general assembly in 1724, and another of the name in 1746. The
name[8] is variously spelled Hefernan and Heffernan. Now and
then it appears as Hefferman and Heffermon, which forms are evidently
derivative. John Heffernan of Newport was admitted a freeman
in 1759. Descendants of William Hefernan, once numerous
throughout Rhode Island, are now believed to be extinct.
The island of Conanicut is situated in Narragansett bay. It has
a total length of about nine miles and a width of from one to two
miles. It is just within the bay from the Atlantic ocean.
Beaver Tail light on its extreme southern point overlooks the sea,
and that portion of the island’s coast frequently resounds with the
113thunder of the breakers. Indeed, most of the island’s shore is exposed
more or less to the billows driven in by old ocean.
The island derives its name from Canonicus, an Indian sachem
who formerly resided there. It is, of course, a part of the state of
Rhode Island and is comprised in the town of Jamestown. The
latter was incorporated in 1678 and named in honor of King James
II, then heir to the throne which he ascended two years later. Conanicut
is about midway in the bay between Newport, Middletown,
and Portsmouth on the east, and North Kingstown and the old District
of Narragansett on the west. The first purchase of land on the
island by whites was made of the Indians in 1657 by Benedict
Arnold and William Coddington.
Michael Kelly[9] figures as a freeman in 1667. His wife’s name
was Isabel. In 1669, he had become prominent on the island.
Michael has been especially fortunate in that, so far as known, no
one has ever had the temerity to label him “English” or “Scotch.”
In 1669, he and two others were commissioned by the “Councill” to
prepare the inhabitants against possible surprises or attacks by the
Indians. The order for this action bears date of August 26, and
reads thus:
“Whereas, there are severall out plantations in this Colony, which
are not included in any towneship, and they being as lyable or rather
more lyable to danger and invasion than where there is more strengh;
and the Councill seeing it incumbent on them to provide for their
safety, doe heerby order that the Conservators of the Peace at Pettaquomscut,
Narragansett or Acquidneesitt or Block Island, and such
persons as the Councill shall appoint on the Island Quononicutt,
[Conanicut], doe assemble the inhabitants of each of those places
and consider among themselves what may bee most suitable for
their defence and preservation against any mission or insurrection
of the Indians, and forthwith to put it in execution; and that a
copie of this order bee sent to the first Conservator of the Peace
in each respective place, and the persons appointed for Quononicutt.”
Two days later the following entry appears in the records:
“The persons appointed to execute the Councill’s order of the
11426th inst., for the Island of Quononicut, are John Homes, John
Remington and Michaell Kelly.”
The fact that Kelly was one of those selected indicates that he
must have been a man of considerable influence at the time. In the
will of ex-Governor Brenton, probated in 1674, mention is made of
“Michael Kaly,” who was no doubt the same individual here described.
The following extracts are taken from the will:
“To daughter Sarah Brenton, a farm in Conanicut, in possession
of Michael Kaly with house, etc.... To Michael Kaly,
100 acres on Merrimack.... To Michael Kaly, ⅔ and to his
wife, ⅓ of £15 due from land granted him at Pattacomscott.”
In 1680, Kelly was taxed £5, 18s. 7½d. He died in that year.
It is not known that he left any descendants.
Thomas Casey, a Rhode Island settler, was born about 1636, and
died in 1719. That Ireland was his native land is generally conceded.
A suggestion has been set up in some quarters, however,
that he was of English parentage.
To support this idea, a “tradition” is produced. Yet Casey as a
family name is Irish of the Irish. For centuries it has been prominent
in the east and south of Ireland. It derives from O’Cathasaigh
which has been anglicized O’Casey, Cahasy, Casey, Casie, and
Case. Those intent on making out an English, rather than an Irish,
parentage for Thomas Casey, the immigrant, declare that “By tradition,
he was a son of one of the English planting families in Ulster
county, Ireland. His father and mother and all his family were
destroyed in the Irish massacre [1641], he, a child, being saved by his
uncle and carried to his relatives in Gloucestershire. It is further
asserted that he sailed for America from Plymouth, England.”
The “tradition” here noted is radically defective. In the first
place, there is no Ulster county in Ireland. Perhaps the province
of Ulster was what the writer was aiming at. In the second place,
the “Irish massacre” mentioned never happened. For a long period,
writers in the English interest asserted that on October 23, 1641, the
Irish Catholics rose and slaughtered in cold blood thousands of
English and other Protestants then in the country. But the charge
is now rejected as untrue by impartial historians. W. J. O’Neill
Daunt brands the story of such a massacre as “a thorough and most
impudent falsehood,” and as being another of those “stupendous
115calumnies” circulated by the enemies of the Irish people. Other
authoritative writers similarly testify.
“It has been represented,” says Prendergast, a Protestant,[10] “that
there was a general massacre [by the Irish], surpassing the horrors
of the Sicilian Vespers, the Parisian Nuptials, and Matins of the
Valtelline, but nothing is more false.”
Consequently, as there was no massacre by the Irish Catholics,
then as charged, Thomas Casey’s “father and mother and all his
family” could not have perished in it. In February, 1642, however,
a dreadful massacre was ordered—not by the Irish Catholics, but
by the English lords justices. The mandate was issued to Lord
Ormund, the lords justices signing the fearful instructions, being
Dillon, Rotheram, Loftus, Willoughby, Temple, and Meredith.
The mandate for the massacre as issued to Ormund was, “That
his lordship do endeavor with his majesty’s forces to wound, kill,
slay, and destroy, by all the ways and means he may, all the said
rebels, their adherents, and relievers; and burn, waste, spoil, consume,
destroy, and demolish all the places, towns, and houses, where
the said rebels are, or have been, relieved or harbored, and all the
hay and corn there; and kill and destroy all the men there inhabiting
capable to bear arms.”
The orders were only too well obeyed. Men, women and children
perished alike. The English soldiery made no distinction between
age or sex. In their savage fury they committed massacre after
massacre. The English garrison of Carrickfergus alone murdered
3,000 men, women and children in that neighborhood. Lord Broghill
perpetrated like cruelties in Cork and Waterford. In County
Wicklow Sir Charles Coote was guilty of a massacre so horrible that
after it, to use his own language, “not a child, were it but a hand
high, was left alive.”
It is probable that the family of Thomas Casey, the Rhode Island
settler, were Irish Catholics, and if they perished in a massacre it is
quite possible it was in the one thus inaugurated by the English. It is
quite likely that the author of the “tradition” and “Ulster county”
got matters somewhat mixed. Hosts of Irish Catholics fled the
country at the period mentioned, and if Thomas Casey’s uncle did
so, taking the child with him, it would be entirely in accord with the
facts and conditions here described. The statement that Thomas
116eventually sailed from Plymouth, England, if he did so sail, has no
particular significance and proves nothing.
Thomas Casey is first heard of in Rhode Island at Newport. His
wife’s name was Sarah. They had, so far as known, three children,
Thomas, Adam and Samuel. In 1692, the father and his son,
Thomas, witnessed a deed given by James Sweet of East Greenwich,
R. I., to Thomas Weaver of Newport. Adam Casey, another son,
was a lieutenant in 1742, and in 1750 purchased 50 acres in
Scituate, R. I. In 1760, Adam and his son, Edward Casey, sold
100 acres to Nathan Brown of Swanzey, Mass., and removed to
Coventry, R. I. Adam Casey’s will was proved in 1765.
Samuel, the third son of Thomas Casey, the immigrant, lived at different
times in Newport, Kings Town and Exeter, R. I. He held
various town offices. At his death, his personal estate inventoried
£2,803 18s. 6d. He had six children; his brother, Thomas, four;
and Adam, five. Several members of this noted family have been
distinguished in American civil and military life. The family is still
represented in Rhode Island.
John Dailey, in 1689, bought 90 acres of land in Providence, R. I.,
and the year following exchanged certain lands with Ann Pratt.
Dailey is an anglicized form of O’Dalaighe.[11] In Irish history the
O’Dalys figure as powerful chieftains. Some of the name were hereditary
poets and antiquarians to the MacCarthys Mor. John Dailey
here mentioned of Providence had four children, Joseph, Samuel,
Elizabeth and one other, a daughter. In 1703, he deeded to Joseph
for “divers good causes,” 40 acres. In 1718, Joseph sold 57½ acres
to Peter Ballou with house, orchard, etc., for £336. Some years
previously, Samuel had sold 40 acres to Zachariah Jones for £20.
John Dailey, Sr., died about 1719.
John Macoone was another Irish settler of Rhode Island. In the
records the name is variously written Macoone, Mackoone, McCoon,
Mackown, etc. Late generations have sometimes abbreviated it to
Coon or Cooney. It probably comes from the old Irish MacCoonan.
John, the immigrant, was a resident of Westerly, R. I., as early as
1669. Ten years later he is recorded as taking the oath of allegience.
117In 1681, he officiated as a juryman. He had, at least, two
children, Isabel and John. In some accounts he is said to have
had two others, who went from Westerly about 1695 and settled at
Oyster Bay, L. I. Isabel married Edward Bliven and had five children.
Her death occurred in 1753. Her brother John received a
grant of 100 acres in 1692 and 100 more in 1709. In 1724, he and
his wife, Ann, deeded land to their sons, John and Daniel.
John Malavery[12] was a resident of Providence as early as 1687.
He had 56 acres of land, and other property. In 1704, he had 12
acres laid out in exchange with the town. He died about 1712. His
son John was executor. The inventory included 18 loads of hay,
14 barrels of cider, gun, sword, etc. John Malavery, Jr., of Providence
died in 1718. In his will he desires his wife to provide
things fit and comfortable for his mother in her old age, and authorizes
his wife to raise £30, which shall be levied out of his estate.
The rest of movable estate to wife and income of land and use of
dwelling house for life, while his widow. To sons, John and Nathaniel,
equally, but if they died before of age, then the land was to go to
Michael Inman, David Phillips and Daniel Mathewson, “my three
sisters’ three sons.” The inventory included “4 guns, 2 swords.”
A John Malavery of the third generation married Susannah Arnold
in 1736.
At a session of the general assembly at Providence, in 1685,
Joseph Devett, also spelled Devitt in the records, was a member of
a committee appointed to consider and report concerning a petition
for settling a “Plantation in the Narragansett and Niantick countries.”
The difference between the names Devitt and McDevitt is
not great.
Owen Higgins was a resident of Newport, R. I., very early. His
wife was born in 1640. In 1701, his son Richard is recorded as a
freeman in Newport.
Charles MacCarthy was a resident of Rhode Island in 1677.
When he came to the colony is unknown. He resided on the island
of St. Christopher, otherwise known as St. Kitts, before arriving in
Rhode Island, a fact mentioned in his will. Some of the recording
clerks of those days were not particularly brilliant in writing proper
names, Irish or otherwise. They appear to have in a way adopted
118the phonetic idea of spelling, that is, according to sound. But it frequently
happened that some names sounded differently to different
clerks and thus, as in the case of Charles MacCarthy, we have a
variety of spelling. At the same time it should be said, in justice to
the clerks, that there were instances, no doubt, when they should
not be held responsible for variations that appear. Orthography was
not fixed then as now.
The Rhode Island pioneer of whom we are treating has had his
name rendered as Macarte, Macarta, Macarty, Mackarte, and Mecarty.
In his will it is “Macarte,” but whether that was the form authorized
by him, or whether it was the work of the clerk who drew up the
will, cannot now be determined. The same name applied to other
early Rhode Island people is also recorded as Maccartee and McCartie.
The style “Mac Carthy,” used, for the sake of uniformity,
in the caption of this paper, and in the text, is that common to the
MacCarthys Mor, the MacCarthys Reagh, the MacCarthys Glas, and
other grand divisions of this great Irish clan.
Charles, the Rhode Island settler, had a brother who went from
Ireland to Spain. This brother had been exiled and may have been
among the Irish troops who, in 1652, after surrendering to Cromwell
and Ireton, were allowed to depart and enlist in the Spanish service.
These troops embarked for Spain at Kinsale, Waterford, Galway,
Limerick, and Bantry. With them also went many of the Irish
nobility and gentry who had been ruthlessly dispossessed of their
estates. In more propitious times some of these exiles returned
from Spain. Charles’s brother did so and from Kinsale wrote to
Charles whom he supposed to be still in St. Christopher, urging him
to return to Ireland. But Charles had, in the meantime, left St.
Christopher and was probably then in Rhode Island. Though long
delayed, the letter finally reached its destination, but Charles never
went back nor, it is believed, did he and his brother ever meet again.
In 1677, Charles was one of a party of forty-eight settlers to whom
a grant of five thousand acres, to be called East Greenwich, was
made by the general assembly of Rhode Island. The grant was
awarded largely for services rendered during King Philip’s War
(1675–’76). This would seem to indicate that Charles MacCarthy
had been a participant in that war and it is quite within the bounds
of probability that he had seen military service, too, in the Old Land.
At a session of the general assembly held at Newport, R. I., May,
1677, it was
119Ordered that a certain tract of land in some convenient place in
the Narragansett country, shall be laid forth into one hundred acre
shares, with the house lots, for the accommodation of so many of the
inhabitants of this Colony as stand in need of land, and the General
Assembly shall judge fit to be supplied.
It was likewise enacted that the said tract be laid forth to contain
5,000 acres. Of this, 500 were to be laid in some place near the sea,
as convenient as may be for a town, which said 500 acres “shall be
divided into 50 house lots and the remainder of the 5,000, being
4,500, shall be divided into 50 equal shares or great divisions.”
It was further decreed that the persons to whom the grant was
made have the rights, liberties, and privileges of a town; also “that
they, or so many of them as shall be then present, not being fewer
than twelve, on the said land, [are] required and empowered to meet
together upon the second Wednesday in April next and constitute a
town meeting, by electing a Moderator and a Town Clerk, with such
constables as to them shall seem requisite; and also to choose two
persons their Deputies to sit in General Assembly, and two persons,
one to serve on the Grand Jury, and one on the Jury of Trials in the
General Court of Trials.”
Thus was launched the town of East Greenwich. The founders,
no doubt, included “men from all parts,” and if names may be taken
as a criterion several of them, in addition to Charles MacCarthy, were
from Ireland. The date of the incorporation of the town was October
31, 1677, the year following the close of King Philip’s War and
the overthrow of the Narragansetts. Later, the boundaries of the
town were enlarged by the addition of 35,000 acres on the western
border. Facing a great bay, it was hoped by the founders that the
town might in time equal or surpass Newport or Providence. In
1741, the town was divided and the western part incorporated as
West Greenwich. Both towns exist to-day, East Greenwich with a
population of about 3,000, and West Greenwich with a population of
between 600 and 700.
The most thickly settled part of East Greenwich is built mainly on
a hillside and fronts Greenwich Bay. The town is a favorite summer
resort. Some of the early settlers engaged in shipbuilding, and
when the town was laid out two locations were set apart for shipyards.
The persons named as incorporators of East Greenwich, including
Charles MacCarthy, were each required to build within a
year, on his lot, a house suitable for habitation, under pain of forfeiture.
120It was also required that highways be provided “from the bay
up into the country” convenient for settlement. In addition to MacCarthy,
the founders included Philip Long, Thomas Dungin, and
John Strainge—all three names typically Irish. Among the proprietors
in 1700 was Anthony Long. About 1732, the town possessed
stocks and whipping post, pillory, irons for mutilating ears, branding
faces, cropping, etc., and similar appliances rife at that period.
The records of the “General Assembly held at Newport, the 6th
of May, 1679,” show that “Charles Mecarte” and two others “being
freemen of the towne of East Greenwich, are admitted freemen of
the Collony.” It does not appear that Charles ever married, at least
the writer has met no record to that effect. Neither wife nor child
are mentioned in the copy of the will extant. It is, of course, possible
that he may have had both wife and children in the Old Land
and that he survived them, but of that nothing definite is known.
His will[13] is dated “the 18th day of February, 1682,” and was witnessed
by John Knight and Thomas Fry, Jr. It was the first will to
be recorded in the probate record book of East Greenwich where it
was entered by “John Spenser, Town Clark.” Written over two
hundred years ago, its quaint phraseology is a source of much interest
at the present time. The will thus begins:
Unto all Christian people unto whome these pents [presents] may
com know yee that I Charles Macarte now of the towne of Est grenwich
in the Colony of Rhod Island and providence planteteons
Being in parfact memory but weake in body doe meake this my lastt
will and testiment.
First, he requests that all his debts be paid. Then he makes
John Spencer, Jr., his lawful heir and bequeaths him “my house and
Land or Lands in this Towne.” He designates John Spencer, Sr.,
“father to the aforesaid Spencer, Guardian to his sonn to teak cere
that my will be parformed.”
One Pasco Whitford owed Charles a debt. This debt the latter
cancels and, in addition, gives Whitford “halfe the sheepe of mine
in his keeping.” The other half he gives to Edward Carter, to
whom he likewise bequeaths his arms, i. e., two guns and a sword and
also his chest “with the lock and cea.” To Charles Heseltun, Jr.,
he bequeaths a young horse “that will be two yere old next Spring
branded with IS on the shoulder.” To John Andrew is given “my
121biggest yron poot” [pot] and four narrow axes. His pewter he
bequeaths Susanna Spencer, the same to be delivered to her when
she is of age.
All his carpenter and joiner tools are given by testator to William
Spencer “which shall be resarved for him till hee is capable unto
mak youse of them,” or of age. After disposing of certain clothing
and household goods to Susanna Spencer, Sr., he mentions “one
piece of brod cloth that I had to make mee a wascoat”; this he
gives to his heir. Unto Hannah Long, the younger, is given “one
heffer of three yere” old, to be delivered her at his decease, and
to “John Garard,[14] a poor Country man of mine” he gives “three
bushels of corne to be paid him presently after my desese.” But
one of the most striking passages of the entire will is the following:
I have a letter that came from my Brother from Kingsile [Kinsale]
after his return from Spaine Being fersed from home in the war in
which Letter he sent for mee home; but the troubles in Cristifars at
that time fersed me from thence to New England and soe hee herd
not of mee nor I of him.... I will that that letter with another
[which] within it is, be sent unto him with a letter to signifie unto
him how it hath been with mee since and when and where I end my
dayes.
Charles then provides that Richard Dunn[15] of Newport, R. I., be
added unto John Spencer, Sr., the first mentioned guardian, to carry
out the provisions of the will, and “if aither of these soo Before
men’oned betrusted should die before that my haire is of edge [age];
then he that doth survive shall heve power; and my will is that hee
chuse one to him it being one that my haire doth approve of.” The
will goes on to say that “My ould mere [mare] I give to Samuel
Bennett and hir foule [foal] or my young mere I give unto Mychell
Spenser ... and the rest of my Chatle Goodes and catten
[cattle] I give unto John Spenser Senior and all the deapts dowe to mee....
As Concaning [concerning] the Land that I Give unto my
haire and the house my will is that the land and house [be] unto
him and his lawful haires forever ... and for the Conformation
of this my will and that it may apere unto all parsons [persons]
unto whome it may come I have sett to my hand and seale this
122psent 18th day of February 1682.” Charles died soon after, his will
being entered in the town records in 1683–’84.
The orthography of Charles MacCarthy’s will must not be severely
criticised. It was as correct as that found in the average document
of the period in which he lived. Whether it was written by Charles
or by someone acting for him, due allowance must be made for the
times and conditions and for the fact that educational facilities were
very meagre then as compared with those available at the present
day.
It is a source of deep regret that so little is known about this
Rhode Island pioneer. That he was a man of sturdy character, cannot
be questioned. That he was worthy to rank as a founder of a
town or a state must also be admitted. He plainly possessed traits
and qualities entitling him to a place in the front rank of Rhode
Island settlers.
And here we may indulge briefly in a retrospective glance at the
status of the MacCarthys[16] in the land of Erin. For from these,
unquestionably, the Rhode Island pioneer was descended. Then we
will touch upon certain “troubles in Cristifars” which may have
been the same as those to which Charles MacCarthy alludes as having
forced him to New England.
Burke, Ulster King of Arms, the great authority on the British
and Irish peerages, declares that “few pedigrees in the British empire
can be traced to a more remote or exalted source than that of the
Celtic house of M’Carty.” The learned Dr. O’Brien says that it
was “the most illustrious of all those families whose names begin
with Mac.” It has also truthfully been declared that “The MacCarthys
may proudly defy any other family in Europe to compete
with them in antiquity, or accurate preservation of the records of
123their descent.” Their patrimony was chiefly in Cork and Kerry,
where they had strongholds for many centuries. They built over
twenty castles there, many of them overlooking “the pleasant Bandon
crowned with many a wood.”
These castles were massively constructed, the towers and battlements
being equal in grandeur and strength to those elsewhere in
Europe. For generation after generation they defied the attacks of
time and the elements and proudly reared aloft their stately walls.
The ruins of some of them still remain, crowned with ivy, and
frequented by appreciative tourists. The MacCarthys have been
Princes of Carbery, Earls of Clancarthy, Earls of Muskerry, Earls
of Mountcashel, Viscounts of Valentia, and have also held other
titles. Their history has been replete with chivalrous deeds, brave
men, handsome women, noted clerics, generous benefactors, whole-souled
hospitality.
The MacCarthys were the dominant family in Desmond (South
Munster), at the period of the Anglo-Norman invasion. The MacCarthy
Mor, lord of the elder branch, was generally inaugurated in
Kerry. The O’Sullivan Mor and the O’Donoghoe Mor presided at
the ceremony. The hereditary judges of the McCarthy Mor were
the MacEgans; his captains of war, the O’Rourkes; and his poets
and antiquaries, the O’Dalys and O’Quinns. His feudatories also
included the O’Donovans and O’Hurleys. Charles, who died in 1770,
was styled “the last MacCarthy Mor.” The arms of the family are
thus described: “Arg. a stag trippant, attired and unguled or.”
One branch of the family had as its motto: “Forti et fideli nihil
difficile,” and another: “Ex arduis perpetuum nomen.” The motto of
the MacCarthy Reagh was: “Fortis ferox et celer.” “The MacCarthys
were a regal and princely house,” observes Burke, and he
states that at one period the head of the clan could muster 3,000
men-at-arms. The MacCarthys Reagh constituted the second sept
of the clan in point of importance, while the MacCarthys Glas were
also a strong branch of the family.
Dermot MacCarthy, feudal lord and founder of the house of
Muskerry, was killed in 1367. Cormac MacCarthy, slain in 1494,
had been lord of Muskerry for 40 years. Donoch MacCarthy Mor
was, in 1556, created Earl of Clancare (Clancarthy), and Viscount
Valentia. Cormac Oge MacCarthy became a viscount in 1628.
There was a Ceallachan MacCarthy who married Elizabeth Fitzgerald,
daughter of the Earl of Kildare, and died 1676. A Charles
124MacCarthy, born about 1721, was a solicitor, seneschal of the manor
of Macroom, recorder of Clonakilty, and clerk of the crown for the
county of Cork. A Donoch MacCarthy, lord viscount Muskerry,
was an Irish officer exiled to the continent in 1641–’42. He had commanded
the king’s forces in Munster against Cromwell. At the
restoration of Charles II, Donoch returned to Ireland and contested
the right of Florence and Charles McCarthy to the title and dignity
of “MacCarthy Mor.” He was created Earl Clancarthy, and died in
1665.
It is to be regretted that we do not know the name of the brother
of Charles MacCarthy, the Rhode Island settler—the one to whom
he refers in his will as having written from Kinsale. Did we have
access to that letter which Charles of Rhode Island received, the
desired knowledge would, no doubt, be obtained. But at this distance
of time, all efforts to locate the letter have failed.
It seems reasonable to conclude that the brother of the Rhode
Island pioneer was a man of some prominence—possibly of much
prominence. It has been suggested that he was Donoch, Earl Clancarthy,
just mentioned, but this could hardly have been so, as the
Earl died in 1665 and Charles of Rhode Island, when he made his
will in 1682, speaks of his brother as still living.
There was another Donoch MacCarthy, descendant of the first
named, who was privately married when but sixteen years of age to
Lady Elizabeth Spencer, daughter of Robert Spencer, Earl of Sunderland.
It may be recalled, purely as a coincidence, that Charles
MacCarthy of East Greenwich, R. I., was an intimate friend of the
Spencers of that town and made one of them his heir. It is quite
possible that John Spenser,[17] the Rhode Island settler, and intimate
friend of Charles MacCarthy, was an Irish officer who, like many
other chivalrous spirits of his time, was obliged by the fortunes of
war to leave Ireland and reside in other parts. On the arrival of
James II, in Ireland (1688), this second Donoch MacCarthy was
one of the Irish officers who received him at Kinsale. At the fall
of Cork in 1690, MacCarthy was captured and imprisoned in the
Tower of London. He had succeeded to the title of Earl Clancarthy
125and was a man of immense estate. All this was forfeited owing to
his adhesion to the cause of James II. In 1694, he escaped from
the Tower and fled to France. Upon rashly going back to England
in 1698 he was rearrested and exiled. He died in 1704 at a locality
in Hamburg. If Charles MacCarthy of Rhode Island was
“forced from home” at the same time as his brother, it would be interesting
to know why one went to Spain and the other to the island
of St. Christopher. The whole matter, however, is wrapped in mystery.
Charles tells us that his brother returned “from Spaine,”
which statement reminds us of a prominent fact. King Charles II
in a famous declaration mentions a large number of Irish “restorees,”
who were to be given back their former estates in Ireland for having
“Continued with Us or served faithfully under Our ensigns beyond
the Seas.” Among these Irish restorees is mentioned Col. Charles
MacCarthy of County Cork, and Capt. Charles MacCarthy, also of
Cork. In another place Charles II mentions Charles James MacCarthy,
Viscount Muskerry.
A fourth Charles MacCarthy is mentioned during the Cromwellian
settlement as a “Papist,” whose property was to be confiscated.
These four Charles MacCarthys were all Irish officers or leading
gentlemen, and the Rhode Island settler may have been one of them.
Yet another point: Charles of Rhode Island tells us that his brother,
who was again in Ireland, had written from Kinsale asking
him to return. Why? It may be that Charles and his brother were
both “restorees,” as defined in the King’s Declaration above mentioned.
At what period Charles MacCarthy left Ireland and located in
St. Christopher, or St. Kitts, is problematical. If we knew the time
of his coming to New England we might be able to approximate the
St. Kitts date. It is assumed, however, that he was in St. Kitts as
early as 1650. In an old French atlas by Sanson, published that
year, Montserrat is described as having been settled by Irish. Rev.
Andrew White, S. J., who accompanied the first colonists to Maryland,
in 1634, makes a like statement. He adds that these Irish
Catholics had gone first to Virginia, but being refused permission to
land had taken possession of Montserrat. Large numbers of Irish
are heard from in St. Kitts in 1650. They were visited by Father
John Destriche (also written De Stritch) disguised as a trader to protect
him from persecution, or even death, at the hands of the English
officials who had no tolerance for a priest of the Church of Rome.
126In time he collected on that and the neighboring islands a flock
of 3,000 Catholics for whom he conducted religious services in the
depths of the forest. Persecution at the hands of the English, however,
soon broke up this condition of affairs and dispersed the Irish
to New England and other parts along the coast. Were these the
“troubles in Cristifars” that obliged Charles MacCarthy to leave that
place? It is possible. Be that as it may, his coming was of benefit
to Rhode Island, it being at a time when stout hearts, strong
arms, and vigorous characters were especially desired in the colony.
Constant Maguire settled in Rhode Island prior to 1750. His
first name as here given was probably an abbreviated form of Constantine.
He was a native of the County Fermanagh, in Ireland,
was evidently a man of education and seems to have taken much
interest in matters pertaining to genealogy.
In one record book he is described as “Constant Maguire, son of
John, son of Constantine, the younger, natives of the County
Fermanagh.”
It should here be stated that Fermanagh was the ancient patrimony
of the Maguires. Thomas Maguire, lord of Fermanagh, died
in 1430. He was described by the Irish annalists as “a man of
universal hospitality toward poor and mighty, founder of monasteries
and churches, ... peacemaker for many chiefs and septs,
beloved by all conditions for the excellence of his administration.”
Bryan, another of the Maguires, was made baron of Enniskillen
in 1627. The title was forfeited by his son, Connor, attainted
by British law in 1644.
Constantine, or Constant, the Rhode Island settler, located in
Warwick, R. I., but later removed to East Greenwich, R. I. His
wife’s name was Ruth. Among their children were Mary, born February
16, 1750; Mercy, born March 28, 1753; and John, born April
19, 1755. Mary was born in Warwick and the others in East Greenwich.
Another numerous family in East Greenwich and vicinity were
the Boyds. Some of them were born in Ireland; all are believed to
have been of Irish blood. Several bore the name Andrew. One
Andrew Boyd is mentioned as having been born in the County
Antrim, Ireland, of which his mother, Sarah (Moore) Boyd, was also
a native. Another Andrew, probably of the same stock, is thus
127mentioned in the records of the Rhode Island Assembly, October,
1776:
In Council was read the return of Andrew Boyd, clerk of the
company of Kentish Guards, choosing Christopher Greene, of Warwick,
son of Nathaniel, second lieutenant of said company, in the
room of Thomas Holden, who refused.
The action of the Guards was approved. The East Greenwich
records show the marriage of Andrew Boyd and Abigail Moor in
1763; Mrs. Sarah Boyd and a Mr. Weeden in 1783; Andrew Boyd
and Elizabeth Spencer in 1788; William Boyd and Freelove Arnold,
daughter of Capt. Thomas Arnold, in 1792; Hannah Boyd and Capt.
Michael Spencer in 1805; William Boyd and Rhoda Andrews in
1819. In the Warwick records is found noted the marriage, in 1797,
of Catherine Boyd and Timothy Bentley. In 1798, Hannah Boyd
and Darius Havens were married.
A brother of the Baron Kinsale, of Ireland, settled in Newport,
R. I., about 1720. Some hold that he was married in the old country;
others, that his wife was a Newport woman.
They had a son[18], Thomas, born in Newport, who early displayed
a love for the sea. In due time he was bound an apprentice to
Captain Beard. The latter had command of a Newport merchantman
and ranked among the ablest captains of his day.
Thomas de Courcy, the apprentice, advanced rapidly in nautical
accomplishments and became a general favorite. After serving under
Captain Beard, he enlisted in the navy and participated in the honor
of taking Porto Bello in 1740.
The manner in which he succeeded to the title and estates of
his uncle is thus told by himself. He was serving aboard Admiral
Vernon’s flagship. The latter was returning to England from the
West Indies. While on the voyage they fell in with a merchantman
bound from London to Jamaica. She was spoken and on inquiry,
her captain sent aboard the flagship two late papers for the gratification
of the admiral. The latter read them attentively. Suddenly
he exclaimed:
“Ah! the Baron of Kinsale is dead!”
128A steward overhearing the remark quickly carried the news to a
gallant young tar in the forecastle whose name was De Courcy.
“Is he dead? Then by the powers! something will come to me,”
was the reply.
The incident was reported to Admiral Vernon who immediately
sent for De Courcy. The following conversation then ensued between
the two:
“My lad, what is your name?”
“De Courcy, sir.”
“Where were you born?”
“In Newport, Rhode Island, sir.”
“Are you related to the late Thomas de Courcy, Baron of Kinsale?”
“He was my uncle, sir—he was my father’s eldest brother.”
“What induced your father to leave Ireland and settle at Newport?”
“That reason was my father’s secret, your Honor, and not mine.”
“Well, my lad, return to your station, and whatever may be your
change of condition hereafter, I hope you will continue to do your
duty faithfully till you shall be discharged.”
“Your Honor may rely on that!”
The foregoing anecdote was told by De Courcy, many years after,
to Captain Benjamin Pearce of Rhode Island who dined with him at
Kinsale. The Baron always entertained great affection for Newport,
his native place. It is told of him that no Rhode Islander ever, to
his knowledge, came within fifty miles of his residence without being
invited to partake of his hospitality. To Captain Beard of Newport
his former commander, he annually sent a cask of rare old wine.
For years the people of Newport took a special interest in all that
concerned their distinguished townsman, The Right Honorable
Thomas de Courcy, Lord Baron Kinsale.
Edward Thurston writing from Newport, R. I., March 5, 1767, to
James Coggeshall informs the latter that “Mac Gee the baker has
failed.” Mac Gee was, no doubt, quite an important personage in
the community.
Under date of November 15, 1764, is recorded at Newport the
marriage of “John Robinson of Ireland and Mary Cawdry of Newport.”
Rev. Ezra Stiles performed the ceremony.
129Richard Field, a native of Dublin, Ireland, resided in Newport.
He died in 1769.
Another prominent Newport family were the Dillons. James
Dillon was a native of the County Roscommon. His wife died at
Newport in 1799 and was laid away in Trinity churchyard.
Thomas Green advertised in the Newport Mercury, August, 1772,
that he had for sale Irish poplins, sheetings, and other goods. He
also announces “Lately come to hand, a trunk of choice Irish linens.”
In May, 1793, Thomas Green & Son advertise in the Mercury that
“at the sign of the buck, near the red market” they have for sale,
Irish linens and muslins “at 14½d. and upward.” In the Mercury
of April 27, 1772, appears a legal notice regarding “the estate of
Edward Keeney, late of Newport, shipwright, deceased.” Students
of Irish names will recognize in Keeney a typical one.
Moses M. Hays, a Hebrew, advertises under date of August 3,
1772, that he has, among other goods, “a few barrels of Irish beef
for sale.” That is, beef from Ireland.
The name Murphy has figured in Newport from an early period.
Frequently it appears as Murfey. The original comers were, of
course, from Ireland. They, doubtless, arrived directly from the old
country, from some of the colonies adjacent to Rhode Island or by
way of the West Indies. Many of the Newport Murphys have been
mariners, and some of them figured prominently in the Revolution.
Edward Murphy died at Newport in 1809, “in the 62d year of his
age.” In March, 1809, the death also occurred at Newport of
“Phœbe Murfey, comfort of Capt. John Murfey, aged 29.” The
Providence Gazette of February 17, 1810, announces the marriage at
Mansfield, Conn., of “Capt. John Murfey of Newport to Miss Adaliza
Southworth, daughter of Capt. Samuel Southworth.”
An entry in Trinity church Annals, Newport, states that on “May
1, 1775, Lieut. James Conway died and was buried in the churchyard,
aged 45 years.” Conway was lieutenant of marines on the man-of-war
Rose, which was then in the bay. He was probably of Irish
origin. Another entry in the same annals informs us that on
“October 5, 1783, Gilbert Eames died and was buried in the churchyard.”
He was a native of the County Limerick, Ireland, and was
54 years of age at the time of his death. For several years prior to
the reduction of Granada by the French in 1779, Mr. Eames had
been a member of the Honorable Council for the island.
Rev. Erasmus Kelly, a native of Pennsylvania, was born in 1748,
130and came to Newport about 1771. On the outbreak of hostilities he
removed to Warren, R. I. When the British overran the latter town
they burned the house in which he resided together with its contents.
He removed to Connecticut and later to Pennsylvania. At the close
of the Revolution, he returned to Newport, and died there on
November 7, 1784.
In February, 1801, there died in Newport, Mrs. Lucia C. Grattan.
She was the widow of Colonel Grattan, cousin-german to Henry
Grattan, the Irish orator. Her brother was Lord Viscount Falkland.
An obituary notice states that “Her remains were interred with every
mark of respect.”
Among the Newport marriages noted in the Trinity church records
are the following: Miles Coursey to Abigail Williams, December
13, 1713; William Cook to Catherine Fallon, August 20, 1723;
John Murphy to Mary Casside, March 1, 1732; James Gallagher to
Bathsheba Fairchild, March 21, 1736; John Rourk to Ann Drower,
January 23, 1742; Patrick Delaney to Margaret McFarling, October
29, 1742; Patrick Rogers to Eleanor Dowling, October 29, 1742;
Edward Murfee to Catherine Fitzgerald, October 25, 1743; Patrick
Durfey to Elizabeth Lacy, January 17, 1748; Patrick Cenfill to
Meriam Powers, October 15, 1752; Edward Pye to Deborah Bourke,
January 4, 1756; John Brown to Mary Kelly, March 13, 1756;
Thomas Collins to Margaret Bourke, May 29, 1756; John Dwyer to
Elizabeth McDaniel, October 10, 1756; Thomas Holland to Mary
Dwyar, June 1, 1775; James Dillon to Sarah Dupay, October 13,
1778; James O’Brien to Margaret Dunton, November 23, 1778.
In the records of Newport, the following additional early marriages
are noted. To simplify matters the writer gives only the year in
which each marriage took place: William Mackey and Eliza George,
1737; Ebenezer Murphy and Mercy Reynolds, 1739; Michael Sullivan
and Elizabeth High, 1740; John Lashley and Katherine
McKane, 1740; Robert Odlin and Mary Conner, 1742; Patrick
Farrell and Rachel Beere, 1742; John Mulholland and Elizabeth
Hooper, 1742; James Harkins and Amy Higgins, 1743; Timothy
Egan and Hester Wilson, 1745; James Murphy and Margaret Pitman,
1746; John Vial and Elizabeth Donnelly, 1747; John Donnelly
and Jane Mence, 1747; Joseph Tally and Elizabeth Naps, 1747; George
Smith and Sarah Tally, 1747; William Byrn and Jemima Jant, 1747;
Daniel McGow (or McGowan) and Miss Donnelly, 1747; Jeremiah
Ross and Mary Brayton, 1749; Elisha Newcome and Elizabeth
131O’Brien, 1751; James Hickey and Mary Carr, 1752; Thomas Jones
and Mary Higgins, 1753; John Dyer and Mary Hickey, 1754; Jeremiah
Heffernan and Elizabeth Mackee, 1755; William Cowdry and
Mary Murphy, 1756; Michael Ryan and Leah Kelly, 1756; John
Magee and Phebe Fairchild, 1758; Mr. Ross and Katherine
McGowan, 1758; John Wyatt and Martha Magrah, 1759; John Fairbanks
and Amey Heffernan, 1760; Alexander Mullen and Mary
Chapman, 1760; James Bourk and Eleanor Whiting, 1761; Edward
Kenney and Patience Chadwick, 1762; Nathaniel Locke and Mary
Burk, 1764; Daniel Dennison and Amey Murphy, 1766; Lawrence
Carroll and Susannah Holden, 1768; Daniel Read and Ann McMahon,
1793; Eleazer Read, Jr., and Elizabeth Murphy, 1795.
From which it will be seen that the Irish began coming to Newport,
and were numerous there, at much earlier periods than has been
generally supposed.
The following is a list of Irish surnames found in the official records[19]
of Rhode Island, and in books, papers, and documents relating
to the history of the latter. The names appear as early as the
year mentioned in each case, but in some instances may have been
represented at even an earlier period:
- Banon, 1766.
- Barret, 1751.
- Baxter, 1751.
- Bennett, 1646.
- Blake, 1675.
- Bourk, 1755.
- Boyd, 1741.
- Boyle, 1675.
- Brandon, 1675.
- Brian, 1675.
- Burg (Burk?), 1667.
- Burk, 1764.
- Burns, 1772.
- Butler, 1670.
- Byrn, 1747.
- Cain (Kane), 1738.
- Carroll, 1768.
- Carty, 1721.
- Cary, 1693.
- Casey, 1663.
- Casside (Cassidy), 1732.
- Cavenaugh, 1752.
- Clinton, 1752.
- Cogin, 1755.
- Coleman, 1702.
- Collins, 1642.
- Conner, 1732.
- Connor, 1742.
- Coursey, 1713.
- Crane, 1775.
- Creman, 1746.
- Cummings, 1739.
- Curley, 1775.
- Dailey, 1689.
- 132Daley, 1710.
- Daly, 1736.
- Darcey, 1718.
- Day, 1677.
- DeCourcy, 1720–25.
- Delaney, 1742.
- Dempsey, 1743.
- Dermott, 1761.
- Devett, 1685.
- Devitt, 1685.
- Donnelly, 1747.
- Donohoe, 1758.
- Donovan, 1751.
- Dowling, 1742.
- Downer, 1760.
- Downing, 1731.
- Doyle, 1698.
- Driskell (Driscoll), 1774.
- Drury, 1675.
- Dunn, 1682.
- Dwyer, 1756.
- Egan, 1745.
- Farrell, 1742.
- Fitzgerald, 1743.
- Fitzpatrick, 1761.
- Flannagan, 1762.
- Flynn, 1752.
- Ford, 1675.
- Fox, 1704.
- Gallagher, 1736.
- Geery, 1675.
- Gibbons, 1636.
- Glenn, 1756.
- Gorman, 1761.
- Hagerty, 1775.
- Haley, 1719.
- Hanley, 1745.
- Harvey, 1746.
- Harvie, 1665.
- Hartagan, 1753.
- Hayes, 1675.
- Healey, 1675.
- Hearn, 1759.
- Heffernan, 1671.
- Hefernan, 1671.
- Hickey, 1752.
- Higgins, 1699.
- Holland, 1729.
- Hurley, 1740.
- Joyce, 1731.
- Keeny, 1765.
- Kelly, 1669.
- Kenney, 1675.
- Lanahan, 1750 (about).
- Lane, 1675.
- Larkin, 1655.
- Lawless, 1720.
- Linniken, 1690.
- Long, 1677.
- Lyon, 1737.
- Macarte, 1677.
- Macfarline, 1759.
- Mackenny, 1720.
- Mackey, 1737.
- Mackown, 1723.
- Macoone, 1669.
- MacSparran, 1718.
- McCane, 1740.
- McCarty, 1677.
- McClure, 1748.
- McCone, 1740.
- McCorrie, 1765.
- McDonald, 1745.
- McGee, 1767.
- McGonegal, 1742.
- McGoron, 1758.
- McGow, 1747.
- McGowan, 1747.
- McGrath, 1759.
- McKane, 1740.
- McMillen, 1754.
- Magee, 1758.
- Magenis, 1675.
- Magill, 1749.
- Maguire, 1750.
- Mahoney, 1774.
- Malavery, 1687.
- Maloney, 1675.
- 133Manning, 1762.
- Martin, 1677.
- Mitchell, 1703.
- Moore, 1700.
- Mulholland, 1742.
- Mullen, 1760.
- Mulligan, 1775.
- Murphy, 1675.
- Murray, 1752.
- Neale, 1675.
- Nevill, 1675.
- Nixon, 1722.
- Norton, 1716.
- O’Brien, 1751.
- O’Harra, 1728.
- O’Kelly, 1774.
- O’Neil, 1756.
- Orr, 1695.
- Phelon, 1730.
- Read, 1667.
- Reed, 1727.
- Rily, 1675.
- Ring, 1755.
- Roach, 1773.
- Ross, 1751.
- Russell, 1736.
- Ryan, 1756.
- Shay, 1731.
- Sheehan, 1759.
- Sheen, 1754.
- Stewart, 1724.
- Sullivan, 1740.
- Sullivant (Sullivan?), 1733.
- Tally, 1747
- Tracy, 1675.
- Ward, 1677.
- Watson, 1722.
- Walch, 1703.
- Welch, 1675.
- Welsh, 1738.
MEMBERSHIP ROLL OF THE AMERICAN-IRISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
146
[For officers of the Society see pages 5 and 6.]
Adams, Hon. Samuel, president and treasurer of the Adams Dry Goods Co.,
339–355 Sixth Avenue, New York city; director, Garfield National Bank,
New York; member of the New York Chamber of Commerce; an ex-senator
of Colorado.
Adams, T. Albeus, president of the Gansevoort Bank, Fourteenth Street and
Ninth Avenue, New York city; also president of Adams & Co; president
of the Adams Bros. Co.; president of the Manhattan Refrigerating
Co.; director, Mercantile National Bank.
Ahern, John, 5 Highland Street, Concord, N. H.
Aspell, John (M. D.), 139 West 77th Street, New York city; member of
the Academy of Medicine; of the County Medical Association, and of
the Celtic Medical Society; recently president of the latter; visiting
surgeon to St. Vincent’s Hospital.
Bannin, Michael E., of Converse, Stanton & Co., dry goods commission
merchants, 83 and 85 Worth Street, New York city; member of the
Merchants Association, New York; director, Merchants Trust Co.;
director, the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank; director, the Catholic
Summer School (Cliff Haven); member of the Merchants and Catholic
clubs, New York, of the Montauk Club, Brooklyn, and of the Brooklyn
Arts and Science Institute; director, the Columbian National Life
Insurance Co.
Bannon, Henry G., 107 East 55th Street, New York city; president of the
Irish National Club; secretary, Celtic-American Publishing Co.
Barrett, Frank B., 254 Fourth Avenue, New York city; with Pierce, Butler
& Pierce Manufacturing Co.
Barrett, Michael F., of Barrett Bros., wholesale and retail dealers in teas,
coffees, etc., 308 Spring Street and 574 Hudson Street, New York city.
Barry, Hon. Patrick T., 87–97 South Jefferson Street, Chicago, Ill. (Life
member of the Society); advertising manager, Chicago Newspaper
Union; director, First National Bank of Englewood, Ill.; director,
The Chicago Citizen Company; has been a member of the State Legislature
of Illinois; prominently identified with educational interests.
147Barry, Rev. Michael, Oswego, N. Y.
Batters, Henry W., educator, Waterbury, Conn.
Bennett, Richard, 206–208 Broadway, New York city.
Bodfish, Rev. Joshua P. L., Canton, Mass.; formerly chancellor of the
Roman Catholic archdiocese of Boston; a director of the Bunker Hill
Monument Association.
Boyle, Hon. Patrick J., now serving his tenth term as mayor of Newport,
R. I.
Brady, Rev. Cyrus Townsend (LL. D.), 455 East 17th Street, Flatbush,
Brooklyn, N. Y.; member of the Society of Colonial Wars, of the Sons
of the Revolution, of the Military Order of Foreign Wars, and of other
patriotic organizations; chaplain of the First Pennsylvania Volunteer
Infantry, war with Spain; formerly Protestant Episcopal archdeacon of
Pennsylvania; author of For Love of Country, For the Freedom of the
Sea, Stephen Decatur, Commodore Paul Jones, Border Fights and
Fighters, and other works.
Brady, Owen J., The H. B. Claflin Co., 224 Church Street, New York city.
Brady, Patrick, 445 Seventh Avenue, New York city.
Brandon, Edward J., city clerk, Cambridge, Mass.
Brann, Rev. Henry A. (D. D.), 141 East 43d Street, New York city (Life
member of the Society).
Bree, Hon. James P., lawyer, 902 Chapel Street, New Haven, Conn.; state
auditor of Connecticut; recently a senator.
Brennan, Hon. James F., lawyer, Peterborough, N. H.; a trustee of the
New Hampshire State Library.
Brennan, James F., contractor, 2½ Grove Street, New Haven, Conn.
Brennan, Michael, Hotel San Remo, Central Park West, New York city.
Brennan, P. J., 788 West End Avenue, New York city.
Breslin, T. J., Fries-Breslin Co., Camden, N. J.
Britton, Thomas P., 1221 Lexington Avenue, Cleveland, Ohio.
Broderick, William J., 52 Morton Street, New York city.
Brosnahan, Rev. Timothy, rector of St. Mary’s church, Waltham, Mass.
Burke, Robert E., recently city solicitor, Newburyport, Mass.
Burr, William P., lawyer, 35 Nassau Street, New York city.
Buttimer, Thomas H., lawyer, Hingham and Boston, Mass.
Byrne, C. E., of the C. E. Byrne Piano Co., East 41st Street, New York
city.
Byrne, Major John, 45 Wall Street, New York city; director, Detroit City
Gas Co.; president, Shawmut Coal & Coke Co.; chairman Board of
Directors, Pittsburg, Shawmut & Northern R. R. Co.; president, Kersey
Mining Co.; president, Kersey R. R. Co.; chairman Board of
Directors, Shawmut Mining Co.; trustee, Emigrant Industrial Savings
Bank of New York city.
Byrne, Joseph M., insurance, 800 Broad Street, Newark, N. J.
148Byrne, Rt. Rev. William (V. G., D. D.), rector of St. Cecilia’s church, St.
Cecilia Street, Boston, Mass.
Byrns, John, 734 Lexington Avenue, New York city.
Cahill, John H., 15 Dey Street, New York city.
Cahill, M. J., dry goods merchant, Essex Street, Lawrence, Mass.
Cahill, Thomas M. (M. D.), 60 Edwards Street, New Haven, Conn.; son
of the late Col. Thomas W. Cahill who commanded the Ninth Connecticut
Volunteer Infantry (an Irish regiment), in the Civil War.
Calnin, James, 101–107 Lakeview Avenue, Lowell, Mass.
Campbell, James C., post-office, Cleveland, Ohio.
Cannon, Thomas H., of the law firm Cannon & Poage, Stock Exchange
Building, Chicago, Ill.
Carbray, Hon. Felix, Benburb Place, Quebec, Canada; member of the Royal
Irish Academy; Fellow of the Royal Society of Antiquaries, Ireland;
member of the Quebec Harbor Commission and of the Quebec Board
of Trade; consul for Portugal at Quebec, and dean of the Consular
Corps; trustee of St. Patrick’s church, and of St. Bridget’s asylum;
has represented his district in the parliament of the Province of Quebec.
He was one of the pioneers in the lumber trade between the St. Lawrence
and South America; has engaged in the general commission and
shipping business, and has been a member of the successive firms:
Carbray & Routh; Carbray, Routh & Co.; and Carbray, Son & Co.
Carmody, T. F., lawyer, Waterbury, Conn.
Carney, Michael, of M. Carney & Co., Lawrence, Mass.
Carroll, Edward, Leavenworth National Bank, Leavenworth, Kansas.
Carroll, John L., 18 State Street, Newark, N. J.
Carter, Hon. Thomas H., Helena, Mont.; recently a U. S. senator.
Casey, Stephen J., Exchange Building, 53 State Street., Boston, Mass.;
Boston manager of the Empire State Surety Co.
Cassidy, John J., Inspector of Buildings, Wilmington, Del.
Cassidy, Patrick (M. D.), Norwich, Conn.; was surgeon-general on the
staff of Gov. Luzon B. Morris of Connecticut, ranking as brigadier-general.
Chittick, Rev. J. J., Hyde Park, Mass.
Clancy, Laurence, dry goods merchant, West Bridge Street, Oswego, N. Y.;
trustee, Oswego County Savings Bank; director, electric street railway;
member, Normal school board; has repeatedly declined a nomination
for mayor of Oswego.
Clare, William F., lawyer, 149 Broadway, New York city.
Clark, Rev. James F., New Bedford, Mass.
Clarke, James, of James Clarke & Co., booksellers and publishers, 3, 5 and
7 West 22d Street, New York city.
Clarke, Joseph I. C., Sunday editor New York Herald, Herald Square, New
York city.
149Clarke, Robert, 27 Harbor Street, Cleveland, O.
Clary, Charles H., Hallowell, Me.; a descendant of John Clary, “of Newcastle,
province of New Hampshire,” who married Jane Mahoney, of
Georgetown, Me., in 1750. Four children were born to them before
1760. Mr. Clary of Hallowell, Me., here mentioned, was one of the
founders of the Clary Reunion Family which meets annually.
Cleary, James, 120 Liberty Street, Cleveland, O.
Coffey, John J., Neponset (Boston), Mass.; served during the Civil war in
the Twenty-eighth Massachusetts Infantry (the Faugh-a-Ballagh regiment),
which formed part of Meagher’s Irish Brigade, First Division,
Second Corps; participated in the valorous charges of the brigade
against the Confederates at Marye’s Heights; was wounded at Gettysburg
and still carries the bullet in his body. His brother, Michael J.,
was color sergeant of the Irish flag of the regiment and carried it until
he fell mortally wounded at the second battle of Bull Run.
Coffey, Rev. Michael J., East Cambridge, Mass.
Coghlan, Rev. Gerald P., 2141 North Broad Street, Philadelphia, Pa.
Cohalan, Daniel F., lawyer, 271 Broadway, New York city.
Coleman, Bernard F., 38 East 69th Street, New York city.
Coleman, James S., 38 East 69th Street, New York city; of Coleman,
Breuchaud & Coleman.
Coleman, John, capitalist, Louisville, Ky.
Collins, James M., 6 Sexton Avenue, Concord, N. H.
Collins, Hon. John S., Gilsum, N. H.; manufacturer of woolens; an ex-state
senator of New Hampshire.
Collins, Hon. Patrick A., mayor of Boston, Mass.; formerly a member of
Congress, and later U. S. Consul General at London, England.
Collins, William D. (M. D.), Haverhill, Mass.
Conaty, Bernard, 30 Cypress Street, Providence, R. I.
Conaty, Rev. B. S., 340 Cambridge Street, Worcester, Mass.
Conaty, Rt. Rev. Thomas J. (D. D.), Bishop of the Roman Catholic diocese
of Los Angeles, Cal.
Condon, Edward O’Meagher, Custom House, New Orleans, La.; connected
with the office of the U. S. Supervising Architect, Washington, D. C.,
as an inspector of public buildings; served in the Union army during
the Civil War.
Coney, Patrick H., lawyer, 316 Kansas Avenue, Topeka, Kan. He entered
the Union army in 1863, at the age of 15 years, enlisting in the One
Hundredth and Eleventh New York Infantry. He was detailed as dispatch
bearer on Gen. McDougall’s staff, promoted as an orderly dispatch
bearer on Gen. Nelson A. Miles’ staff, served in this capacity on
to Appomatox and Lee’s surrender, and was transferred June 5, 1865,
to Company H, Fourth New York Heavy Artillery. He served until
October 5, 1865, when he was honorably discharged at Hart’s Island,
150N. Y. He was wounded at the battle of Peach Orchard in front of
Petersburg, Va., on June 16, 1864, and rejoined his command from
the hospital after sixty days’ convalescence. In addition to his law
practice, he is general manager of the American Investment and Development
Co., which is engaged in the promotion and development of
11,000 acres of mineral, gas, and oil lands in Benton county, Mo.
Gen. Nelson A. Miles is president of the company.
Conlon, William L., Portsmouth, N. H.
Connery, William P., Wheeler and Pleasant Streets, Lynn, Mass.; recently
candidate for mayor of Lynn.
Connolly, James, Coronado, Cal.
Connolly, Rev. Arthur T., Center and Creighton Streets, Roxbury (Boston),
Mass.
Connor, Michael, 509 Beech Street, Manchester, N. H.
Conway, James L., 113 Worth Street, New York city.
Cooke, Rev. Michael J., Fall River, Mass. (Life member of the Society.)
Corcoran, John H., dry goods merchant, 587 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge,
Mass.
Coughlin, John, 177 Water Street, Augusta, Me.
Cox, Michael F. (M. D., M. R. I. A.), 26 Merrion Square, Dublin, Ireland.
Cox, Michael H., 54 Commerce Street, Boston. Mass.
Cox, William T., 12 South Second Street, Elizabeth, N. J.; owner of Cox’s
Towing Line; for three years chairman of the fire commissioners of
Elizabeth; ex-chief of the Elizabeth Volunteer Fire Department.
Coyle, Rev. James, Taunton, Mass.
Coyle, Rev. John D., 79 Davenport Avenue, New Haven, Conn.
Crane, John, of Crane & MacMahon, Maritime Building, 8–10 Bridge Street,
New York city; a veteran of the Civil War; member of the Military
Order of the Loyal Legion.
Crimmins, Hon. John D., 40 East 68th Street, New York city; a Life member
of the Society; president-general of the organization in 1901 and
1902; a member of the New York Municipal Art Commission. Mr.
Crimmins served as a park commissioner of New York city from 1883
to 1888, during which time he was treasurer and president of the board.
He was a member of the Board of Visitors to West Point in 1894, and
presidential elector (Democratic), in 1892 and 1904. He was appointed
by President Roosevelt and served as a member of the Greater New
York Charter Revision Commission. In 1894, he was a member of the
New York State Constitutional Convention. Mr. Crimmins is a member
of the New York Chamber of Commerce, and is officially connected
with many railway, realty, and banking corporations. He is president
of the Essex and Hudson Land Improvement Co.; president of the
Port Richmond and Bergen Point Ferry Co.; president of the Bergen
Point and Staten Island Ferry Co.; vice-president of the City Trust
151Co. of New York; vice-president of the Title Insurance Co. of New
York; vice-president of the New York Mortgage and Security Co.;
director of the Fifth Avenue Bank of New York, and also a director in
the following companies: New York City Railway Co., Metropolitan
Securities Co., the Century Realty Co., and the Chelsea Realty Co.
He is prominently identified with the charities of the Roman Catholic
Church as well as with non-sectarian charities. He is chairman of the
executive committee of the trustees of St. Patrick’s Cathedral; member
of the board of managers of the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum; member
of the board of managers of St. Vincent’s Hospital; member of the
board of trustees of St. John’s Guild, and also of the Provident Loan
Society of New York. Mr. Crimmins is also a director of the City and
Suburban Homes Co. of New York, which has for its object to provide
model homes at reasonable cost for working people. He is a member
of the following clubs: Catholic, Metropolitan, Lawyers, Democratic,
Manhattan, and of the Wee Burn Golf Club, of which he was formerly
president. He is likewise a member of the board of managers of the
Sevilla Home for Children, a non-sectarian charity, and is also one of
the managers of the Society for the Reformation of Juvenile Delinquents.
Crimmins, Lieut. Martin L., of the Nineteenth U. S. Infantry; a son of
Hon. John D. Crimmins, of New York city.
Cronin, Capt. William, Rutland, Vt.
Croston, J. F. (M. D.), Emerson Street, Haverhill, Mass.
Cummings, Matthew J., Overseer of the Poor, Providence, R. I.
Cummins, Rev. John F., Rosindale (Boston), Mass.
Cunningham, James, 277 Congress Street, Portland, Me.
Curran, James, of the James Curran Manufacturing Co., 512–514 West 36th
Street, New York city; a veteran of the Civil War.
Curry, Capt. P. S., contractor and builder, Lynn, Mass.; a veteran of the
Civil War.
Curry, E. J., 69–71 East 89th Street, New York city.
Curtin, Jeremiah, Bristol, Vt.; author of Hero Tales of Ireland, Myths
and Folk-Lore of Ireland, Myths and Folk-Tales of the Russians,
Western Slavs and Magyars; translator of works of Henryk Sienkiewicz.
Mr. Curtin was acting U. S. Consul-General in Russia, 1865–’66;
actively connected with the Bureau of Ethnology, Smithsonian Institution,
1883–’91. He is one of the greatest of living philologists and linguists.
Daly, Hon. Joseph F. (LL. D.), Wall Street, New York city; Chief Justice
of the Court of Common Pleas, New York, 1890–’96; Justice of the
New York Supreme Court, 1896–’98; member of the Board of Managers,
Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum; member of the Advisory Board, St.
Vincent’s Hospital.
152Danaher, Hon. Franklin M., Albany, N. Y.; member of the State Board of
Law Examiners; many years Judge of the City Court of Albany.
Danvers, Robert E., 349–351 West 58th Street (the St. Albans), New
York city; dealer in iron and steel.
Dasey, Charles V., Board of Trade Building, Broad Street, Boston, Mass.;
steamship and insurance agent; general Eastern agent, Anchor Line
S. S. Co., and of the Italian Royal Mail S. S. Co.; general agent, Insular
Navigation Co.; general agency for ocean travel.
Davis, Dr. F. L., Biddeford, Me.
Davis, Hon. Robert T. (M. D.), Fall River, Mass. He was born in County
Down, Ireland, 1823; was a member of the Massachusetts State Constitutional
Convention, 1853; a state senator, 1858–1861, and member
of the National Republican Convention that nominated Abraham
Lincoln for president in 1860. In 1873, Dr. Davis was elected mayor
of Fall River. In 1882, he was elected to Congress, and was reëlected
in 1884 and 1886. He has been prominently identified with the manufacturing
interests of Fall River, has been president of the Wampanoag
and Stafford mills, and has also been officially connected with the Merchants’,
Robeson and other mills.
Day, Joseph P., 932 Eighth Avenue, New York city.
Deeves, Richard, of Richard Deeves & Son, builders, 305–309 Broadway,
New York city.
Delahanty, Dr. W. J., Trumbull Square, Worcester, Mass.
Delehanty, Hon. F. B., Judges’ Chambers, Court House, City Hall Park,
New York; a Judge of the City Court.
Dempsey, George C., Lowell, Mass.
Dempsey, William P., treasurer and manager, the Dempsey Bleachery and
Dye Works, Pawtucket, R. I.
Devlin, James H., 35 Parsons Street, Brighton (Boston), Mass.
Dixon, Richard, insurance, 52–54 William Street, New York city.
Donahoe, Col. John P., Wilmington, Del.
Donahue, Dan A., Essex Street, Lawrence, Mass.
Donoghoe, D. F. (M. D.), Holyoke, Mass.
Donovan, Daniel, 21 High Rock Street, Lynn, Mass.; an authority on heraldry,
armorial bearings, etc., particularly as the same relate to Ireland.
Donovan, Henry F., editor and proprietor The Chicago Eagle, Teutonic
Building, Chicago, Ill.; late colonel and inspector-general, Illinois
National Guard.
Donovan, John W., of Larkin, Donovan & Co., real estate, mortgages, and
insurance, 1228 Amsterdam Avenue, New York city.
Donovan, Col. William H., Lawrence, Mass.; commander of the Ninth
Regiment, M. V. M.; served with the regiment in Cuba during the
recent war with Spain.
153Doogue, William, Superintendent of Public Grounds, Boston, Mass.
Dooley, Michael F., Treasurer of the Union Trust Co., Providence, R. I.
Doran, Patrick L., Salt Lake City, Utah.
Dowd, James J., insurance, High Street, Holyoke, Mass.
Dowling, Hon. M. J., Olivia, Minn.
Dowling, Rev. Austin, Warren, R. I.
Doyle, Alfred L., of John F. Doyle & Sons, real estate agents, brokers and
appraisers, 45 William Street, New York city.
Doyle, James, 50 Front Street, New York city; present oldest member of
the flour trade in New York; member of the N. Y. Produce Exchange
from the beginning; member of the Board of Managers of the Exchange,
1897–1901. He and his son, Nathaniel, are associated in trade as
James Doyle & Company.
Doyle, John F., of John F. Doyle & Sons, 45 William Street, New York
city. (Life member of the Society.)
Doyle, John F., Jr., of John F. Doyle & Sons, 45 William Street, New
York city.
Doyle, John M., 14 South Third Street, Philadelphia, Pa.
Doyle, Nathaniel, of James Doyle & Co., flour, etc., 50 Front Street, New
York city; member of the board of managers, N. Y. Produce Exchange;
secretary of the exchange; member of the New York Club, Fifth Avenue
and 35th Street.
Drummond, M. J., of M. J. Drummond & Co., 182 Broadway, New York
city.
Duggan, John T. (M. D.), Worcester, Mass.
Dunn, Hon. Robert C., publisher of The Union, Princeton, Minn.; candidate
in 1904 for governor of Minnesota.
Dunne, F. L., 328 Washington Street, Boston, Mass.
Dyer, Dr. William H., Dover, N. H.
Editor of “The Rosary Magazine,” Somerset, O. (Life membership in the
Society. See page 25 of this volume.)
Egan, James T., lawyer, Banigan Building, Providence, R. I.
Egan, Maurice Francis (LL. D., J. U. D.), Professor of English Language
and Literature, Catholic University of America, Washington,
D. C.
Egan, Rev. M. H., rector, Church of the Sacred Heart, Lebanon, N. H.
Egan, Hon. Patrick, 271 Broadway, New York city; recently U. S. Minister
to Chile.
Ellard, George W., 180 Lisbon Street, Lewiston, Me.
Emmet, Dr. J. Duncan, 91 Madison Avenue, New York city.
Emmet, Robert, 54 West 53d Street, New York city.
Emmet, Thomas Addis (M. D., LL. D.), 89 Madison Avenue, New York
city (Life member of the Society); grand nephew of the Irish patriot,
Robert Emmet.
154Eustace, Hon. Alexander C., of the law firm A. C. & J. P. Eustace, 334
East Water Street, Elmira, N. Y.; during the past fifteen years identified,
as attorney or counsel, with many of the most important litigations
before the courts in southern and western New York; was for three
years, prior to 1893, president of the New York State Civil Service
Commission.
Fallon, Hon. Joseph D. (LL. D.), 789 Broadway, South Boston, Mass.;
justice of the South Boston Municipal Court; vice-president, Union
Institution for Savings.
Fallon, Hon. Joseph P., 1900 Lexington Avenue, New York city; justice of
the Ninth District Municipal Court.
Farley, Charles J., Department of Docks, New York city.
Farrell, James P., 95th Street and Shore Road, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Farrell, John F., Brander-Walsh Co., 89 Worth Street, New York city.
Farrell, John P., 230 Grove Street, New Haven, Conn.
Farrell, J. T. (M. D.), 16 Messer Street, Providence, R. I.
Farrelly, Frank T., 424 Main Street, Springfield, Mass.
Farrelly, Stephen, American News Co., New York city. (Life member of
the Society.)
Fay, Martin, 55 Bainbridge Street, Roxbury (Boston), Mass.
Feeley, William J., treasurer of the W. J. Feeley Co., silversmiths and
manufacturing jewelers, 185 Eddy Street, Providence, R. I.
Ferguson, Hugh, of Hugh Ferguson & Co., George Street, Charleston, S. C.
Finen, Rev. J. E., Tilton, N. H.
Finerty, Hon. John F., 69 Dearborn Street, Chicago, Ill.; editor of the
Chicago Citizen; ex-member of Congress.
Finn, Rev. Thomas J., East Port Chester, Conn. (Hawthorne P. O.)
Fitzgerald, Rev. D. W., Penacook (Concord), N. H.
Fitzgerald, Hon. James, New York city; a justice of the New York Supreme
Court.
Fitzpatrick, Edward, on the staff of the Louisville, Ky., Times; a resident
of New Albany, Ind.; member of the committee to select books for the
New Albany public library; was, from 1878 to 1885, Indiana correspondent
of the Louisville Courier-Journal, reporting the legislature two
terms, 1883–’85, for that paper, and at the same time was assistant to
the chief clerk in the House of Representatives; was appointed a clerk
in the U. S. Q. M. Depot at Jeffersonville, Ind., in 1885, but resigned
to re-enter the employ of the Courier-Journal as political reporter in
Louisville; was for four years on the Louisville Post; returned to the
Courier-Journal; was transferred to the Times (the afternoon edition
of the Courier-Journal), and has been on that paper for eleven years
past. He is a keen and forceful writer, and is one of the ablest men in
American journalism.
155Fitzpatrick, John B., real estate, etc., 23 Court Street, Boston, Mass.; has
been deputy sheriff of Suffolk county, Mass.
Fitzpatrick, Thomas B., senior member of the firm Brown, Durrell &
Co., importers and manufacturers, 104 Kingston Street, Boston,
Mass.; Rand McNally Building, Chicago, Ill., and 11–19 West 19th
Street, New York city; president of the Union Institution for Savings,
Boston, and a director in the United States Trust Co. of that city.
Fitzpatrick, Rev. William H., 2221 Dorchester Avenue, Boston, Mass.
Flanagan, Andrew J. (D. D. S.), Main Street, Springfield, Mass.
Flannery, Capt. John, Savannah, Ga.; of John Flannery & Co., cotton factors
and commission merchants; was a non-commissioned officer of
the Irish Jasper Greens in garrison at Fort Pulaski, 1861; was later
lieutenant and captain, C. S. A., serving under Gen. Joe Johnston and
General Hood; became a partner, 1865, in the cotton firm, L. J. Guilmartin
& Co., having a line of steamers from Charleston, S. C., to
Palatka, Fla.; bought out the business in 1877; founded the house of
John Flannery & Co.; became director and president of the Southern
Bank of the State of Georgia; is ex-president of the Southern Cotton
Exchange; captain, 1872–’98, of the Jasper Greens.
Fogarty, James A., 264 Blatchley Avenue, New Haven, Conn.; recently a
police commissioner of New Haven.
Fogarty, Jeremiah W., Registry of Deeds, Boston, Mass.
Ford, Hon. Peter J., 501 Rodney Street, Wilmington, Del.
Fox, John J., 1908–10 Bathgate Avenue, New York city.
Foy, Julius L., lawyer, Rialto Building, St. Louis, Mo.
Franklin, A. H., 56 West 33d Street, New York city.
Gaffney, Thomas St. John, lawyer; member of the French Legion of
Honor; 41 Riverside Drive, New York city.
Galligan, Edward F. (M. D.), Taunton, Mass.
Gallagher Patrick, contractor and builder, 11 East 59th Street, New York
city. (Life member of the Society.)
Gargan, Hon. Thomas J., of the law firm Gargan, Keating & Brackett,
Pemberton Building, Boston, Mass.; Life member of the Society, and
president-general of the same in 1899 and 1900; member of the Boston
Transit Commission; director, United States Trust Co.; director,
the Columbian National Life Insurance Co.
Garrigan, Rt. Rev. Philip J. (D. D.), bishop of the Roman Catholic diocese
of Sioux City, Iowa.
Garvan, Hon. Patrick, 236 Farmington Avenue, Hartford, Conn. (Life
member of the Society.)
Garvey, Patrick J., lawyer, Holyoke, Mass.
Gavin, Michael, of M. Gavin & Co., wholesale grocers and cotton factors,
232–4 Front Street, Memphis, Tenn.
Gavin, Dr. P. F., 331 Broadway, South Boston, Mass.
156Geary, William M., headquarters K. of C., New Haven, Conn.
Geoghegan, Charles A., 537–9 West Broadway, New York city.
Geoghegan, Joseph, Salt Lake City, Utah (Life member of the Society);
vice-president of the board of education, Salt Lake City; director of
the Utah National Bank; director of the Utah Loan and Building
Association; director of the Butler Liberal Manufacturing Co.; all
three concerns of Salt Lake City; also director in many other corporations.
He is general agent in Utah for Swift & Co., of Chicago; Borden’s
Condensed Milk Co., of New York; the American Can Co., of
New York, and the Pennsylvania Salt Mfg. Co., of Philadelphia. He
is broker for the following: the Western Sugar Refining Co., of San
Francisco, Cal.; the Utah Sugar Co., of Lehi, Utah; the Amalgamated
Sugar Co., of Ogden, Utah; the Idaho Sugar Co., of Idaho Falls,
Idaho, and the Fremont County Sugar Co., of Sugar City, Idaho.
Geoghegan, Joseph G., 20 East 73d Street, New York city. (Life member
of the Society.)
Geoghegan, Walter F., 537–539 West Broadway, New York city.
Giblin, William, Mercantile Safe Deposit Co., 120 Broadway, New York
city.
Gillespie, George J., of the law firm Gillespie & O’Connor, 56 Pine Street,
New York city; trustee, Catholic Summer School (Cliff Haven); president
of the Champlain Club there; member of the board of managers
of the Catholic Club, New York city; member of the board of managers
of the Roman Catholic Orphan Asylum; vice-president of the
Particular Council, Society of St. Vincent de Paul, New York city;
recently tax commissioner of the city of New York. (Life member of
the Society.)
Gilman, John E., 43 Hawkins Street, Boston, Mass.; was recently appointed
Adjutant-General on the staff of the national commander-in-chief,
Grand Army of the Republic. In August, 1862, Mr. Gilman enlisted
in Co. E, Twelfth Massachusetts Infantry (Webster Regiment), and
participated in the campaigns under Generals Pope, McClellan, Burnside,
Hooker and Meade up to the battle of Gettysburg, Penn., where,
on July 2, 1863, his right arm was shot off near the shoulder. Securing
his discharge from the army on September 28, 1863, he returned
to Boston. In 1864, he entered the service of the state and served in
various departments until 1883, when he was made Settlement Clerk of
the Directors of Public Institutions of Boston. He was appointed Soldiers’
Relief Commissioner April 2, 1901. He has been a comrade of
Posts 15, 7, and 26, G. A. R., since 1868, being commander of the
latter post in 1888. He was Department Inspector of the Massachusetts
G. A. R. in 1895; Junior Vice-Commander in 1896; Senior Vice-Commander
in 1897; Delegate at Large in 1898; and Department
Commander in 1899.
157Goodwin, John, of the John Goodwin Co., dressmakers’ supplies, 70–72
West 23d Street, New York city. (Life member of the Society.)
Goff, Hon. John W., Recorder, New York city.
Gorman, Dennis J., assessors’ office, City Hall, Boston, Mass.
Gorman, William, lawyer, Stephen Girard Building, Philadelphia, Pa.;
member of the Pennsylvania Bar Association, the Pennsylvania Academy
of Fine Arts, the American Academy of Social and Political
Science, the Alumni Association of the University of Pennsylvania, and
other organizations. He is officially connected with the Commonwealth
Title Insurance and Trust Co., of Philadelphia. (Life member
of the Society.)
Gray, Dr. Joseph F., 10 North Hammels Avenue, Rockaway Beach, L. I.,
N. Y.
Griffin, Martin I. J., 2009 North 12th Street, Philadelphia, Pa.; editor and
publisher American Catholic Historical Researches.
Griffin, Rev. P. J., Holyoke, Mass.
Griffin, Rt. Rev. Mgr. Thomas (D. D.), St. John’s church, Worcester,
Mass.
Guiney, John, Biddeford, Me.
Haggerty, J. Henry, of the Haggerty Refining Co., oils, 50 South Street,
New York city.
Haigney, John, 439 Fifty-eighth Street, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Hall, Edward A., 66 Spring Street, Springfield, Mass.; secretary and
treasurer of the Automatic Postal and Commercial Service Co.; director,
Springfield Coöperative Bank; vice-president, Mercy Hospital Corporation;
chairman of board of directors, Connecticut Valley Historical
Society; secretary, Good Shepherd Corporation; president, Central
Council of the St. Vincent de Paul society of the Roman Catholic
diocese of Springfield, Mass. Mr. Hall has devoted close attention to
the history of the Irish element in western Massachusetts, and has
written much and interestingly on the subject.
Hanlon, Marcus, P. O. Box 1920, New York city.
Hanrahan, John D. (M. D.), Rutland, Vt.; surgeon in the U. S. Navy
during the Civil War; ex-postmaster of Rutland; first president of
the Rutland County Medical and Surgical Society.
Harbison, Hon. Alexander, Hartford, Conn., recently mayor of Hartford.
Harrington, Rev. J. C., rector of St. Joseph’s church, Lynn, Mass.
Harrington, Rev. John M., Orono, Me.
Harrington, William, Manchester, N. H.
Harris, Charles N., 89 Madison Avenue, New York city.
Harrison, A. J., 514 East 23d Street, New York city.
Harson, M. Joseph, Catholic Club, 120 Central Park South, New York city;
member of the Rhode Island Historical Society.
158Hart, Frank M., 62 Ascension Street, Passaic, N. J.
Harty, Rev. John, rector of the church of the Sacred Heart, Pawtucket,
R. I.
Haverty, Frank, 361 West 27th Street, New York city.
Hayes, John, Concord Street, Manchester, N. H.
Hayes, John F. (M. D.), 15 South Elm Street, Waterbury, Conn.
Hayes, Nicholas J., Fire Commissioner, 157–159 East 67th Street, New
York city.
Hayes, Col. Patrick E., Pawtucket, R. I.
Hayes, Timothy J., 688 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Healy, John F., general superintendent of the Davis Coal and Coke Co.,
Thomas, Tucker county, West Virginia.
Healy, Col. John G., insurance, 117 Sherman Avenue, New Haven, Conn.;
a captain in the Ninth Connecticut Infantry, April, 1862, to October,
1864. Upon the consolidation of the regiment, in the latter year, into
the Ninth battalion he, being the senior captain, was given command
of the latter. On December 1, 1864, he was promoted lieutenant-colonel
and as such commanded the battalion until the same was mustered
out. Since the war he has been vice-president of the Nineteenth
Army Corps Association. When Luzon B. Morris was governor of
Connecticut, Col. Healy served on his staff as assistant adjutant-general.
Col. Healy is a member of the Military Order of the Loyal
Legion, of the Army and Navy Club of Connecticut, and of the Second
Company of the Governor’s Foot Guard, New Haven.
Healy, Richard, Main Street, Worcester, Mass.
Hennessy, Dr. Daniel, Bangor, Me.
Hennessy, Michael E., on the staff of the Boston Daily Globe; a newspaper
man of wide experience and exceptional ability. One of the most
highly valued men on the Globe, he is regularly assigned to “cover”
events of national importance and annually travels thousands of miles
in the service of his paper.
Henry, Charles T., 120 Liberty Street, New York city.
Hickey, James G., manager of the United States Hotel, Boston, Mass.
(Life member of the Society.)
Hickey, Michael J., manufacturer, Haverhill, Mass.
Hickey, Rev. William A., Clinton, Mass.
Hicks, Michael, 147 West 121st Street, New York city.
Hogan, John W., lawyer, Providence, R. I.; recently a candidate for Congress.
Holland, John P., 65 Nelson Place, Newark, N. J.; inventor of the submarine
torpedo boat.
Horigan, Cornelius, Biddeford, Me.; has been a member of the state legislature
of Maine.
159Howes, Osborne, secretary and treasurer of the Board of Fire Underwriters,
55 Kilby Street, Boston, Mass. He is a descendent of David O’Killia
(O’Kelly), who settled on Cape Cod as early as 1657, and who is mentioned
in the old Yarmouth, Mass., records as “the Irishman.” The
records show that at the close of King Philip’s War, O’Killia was
assessed his proportionate part toward defraying the expenses of that
struggle.
Hughes, Rev. Christopher, Fall River, Mass.
Hurley, John E., Remington Printing Co., Providence, R. I.
Jameson, W. R., 1786 Bathgate Avenue, borough of the Bronx, New York
city.
Jenkinson, Richard C., 678 High Street, Newark, N. J.; of R. C. Jenkinson
& Co., manufacturers of metal goods; candidate for mayor of Newark
in 1901; was president of the Newark Board of Trade in 1898–’99 and
1900; has been a director in the Newark Gas Co.; was president of
the New Jersey Commission to the Pan-American Exposition, and one
of the vice-presidents of the Exposition, representing the state of New
Jersey by appointment of Governor Voorhees.
Jennings, Michael J., 753 Third Avenue, New York city.
Johnson, James G., of James G. Johnson & Co., 649, 651, 653 and 655
Broadway, New York city.
Jordan, Michael J., lawyer, 42 Court Street, Boston, Mass.
Joyce, Bernard J., salesman, 82 Devonshire Street, Boston, Mass.
Kane, Dr. John, Lexington, Mass.
Keating, Patrick M., of the law firm Gargan, Keating & Brackett, Pemberton
Building, Boston, Mass.
Keenan, John J., Public Library, Copley Square, Boston, Mass.
Kehoe, John F., 26 Broadway, New York city; officially connected with
many corporations. (Life member of the Society.)
Kelly, Eugene, Temple Court Building, New York city.
Kelly, John F., 284 West Housatonic Avenue, Pittsfield, Mass.
Kelly, Michael F. (M. D.), Fall River, Mass.
Kelly, T. P., 544 West 22d Street, New York city; of T. P. Kelly &
Co., manufacturers of black leads, foundry facings, supplies, etc.; mills
in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Illinois.
Kelly, William J., 9 Dove Street, Newburyport, Mass.
Kelly, William J., insurance, Kittery, Me., and Portsmouth, N. H.
Kenedy, P. J., 3 and 5 Barclay Street, New York city.
Kennedy, Charles F., Brewer, Me.
Kennedy, Daniel, 197 Berkeley Place, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Kennedy, Roderick J., 924 Sixth Avenue, New York city.
Kenney, James W., Union Brewing Co., Roxbury (Boston), Mass.; vice-president
and director, Federal Trust Co., Boston.
160Kent, Daniel V., Kansas City, Mo.
Kerby, John E., architect, 452 Fifth Avenue, New York city.
Kiernan, Patrick, 265 West 43d Street, New York city.
Killoren, Hon. Andrew, Dover, N. H.; recently a senator of New Hampshire.
Kilroy, Patrick, lawyer, Main Street, Springfield, Mass.
Kilroy, Philip (M. D.), “Glen Rath,” Springfield, Mass.
Kinney, Thomas I., Whitney Avenue, New Haven, Conn.; recently candidate
for mayor of New Haven.
Kinsela, John F., 509 Gorham Street, Lowell, Mass.
Kinsella, James E., 1337 St. Clair Street, Cleveland, O.
Kivel, Hon. John, Dover, N. H.
Knights of St. Patrick, San Francisco, Cal. (Life membership.)
Lally, Frank, 161 Saratoga Street, East Boston, Mass.
Lamb, Matthew B., 516 Main Street, Worcester, Mass.
Lamson, Col. Daniel S., Weston, Mass.; Lieutenant-Colonel commanding
Sixteenth Regiment (Mass.), 1861; A. A. G., Norfolk, 1862; served
on staff of General Hooker; is a member of the Society of Colonial
Wars, Sons of the American Revolution, and Military Order of the
Loyal Legion; one of his ancestors landed at Ipswich, Mass., in 1632,
and received a grant of 350 acres; another ancestor, Samuel, of Reading,
Mass., participated in King Philip’s War and had a son in the expedition
of 1711. Another member of the family, Samuel of Weston,
commanded a company at Concord, Mass., April 19, 1775, and was
major and colonel of the Third Middlesex Regiment for many years,
dying in 1795.
Lappin, J. J., 7 Grant Street, Portland, Me.
Lavelle, John, Inquiry Division, Post-office, Cleveland, O.
Lawler, Thomas B., 70 Fifth Avenue, New York city; with Ginn & Company,
publishers; member of the American Oriental Society and of the
Archæological Society of America.
Lawless, Hon. Joseph T., lawyer, Norfolk, Va.; recently Secretary of
State, Virginia.
Leahy, Matthew W., 257 Franklin Street, New Haven, Conn.
Leary, William, 450 Fifth Avenue, New York city.
Lee, Hon. Thomas Z., of the law firm Barney & Lee, Industrial Trust Building,
Providence, R. I.
Lenehan, John J., of the law firm Lenehan & Dowley, 165 Broadway, New
York city. (Life member of the Society.)
Lenihan, Rev. B. C., Fort Dodge, Iowa.
Lenihan, Rt. Rev. M. C., bishop of the Roman Catholic diocese of Great
Falls, Mont.
Leonard, Peter F., 343 Harvard Street, Cambridge, Mass.
161Linehan, Hon. John C., Concord, N. H.; State Insurance Commissioner
of New Hampshire; Treasurer-General of the Society; has been a member
of the Council of the Governor of New Hampshire; commander of
Brown Post, No. 31, G. A. R., for three years; commander of the
G. A. R., Department of New Hampshire, two years; president of the
N. H. Veteran Association, two years; Junior Vice Commander-in-Chief;
member of Pension Committee of the National Encampment; director
of the Gettysburg Battlefield Association, ten years; recently a leading
candidate at Buffalo, N. Y., for National Commander-in-Chief; president,
board of trustees of New Hampshire State Industrial School;
recipient of an honorary degree from Dartmouth College. He is an
authority on the early history of the Irish in New England, and has
written many articles on the subject.
Linehan, John J., manufacturer, Springfield, Mass.
Linehan, Rev. T. P., Biddeford, Me.
Linehan, Timothy P., Wolfe Tavern, Newburyport, Mass.
Lonergan, Thomas S., Hotel Raleigh, Broadway, New York city.
Loughlin, Peter J., Court House, Chambers Street, New York city.
Lovell, David B. (M. D.), 32 Pearl Street, Worcester, Mass.
Luddy, Timothy F., Waterbury, Conn.
Lyman, William, 51 East 122d Street, New York city.
Lynch, Bernard E., lawyer, 42 Church Street, New Haven, Conn.
Lynch, Eugene, 24 India Street, Boston, Mass.
Lynch, J. H., Dyker Heights, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Lynch, John E., school principal, Worcester, Mass.
Lynch, Thomas J., lawyer, Augusta, Me.
Lynn, John, 48 Bond Street, New York city.
Lynn, Hon. Wauhope, 257 Broadway, New York city; recently a judge of
one of the New York courts.
MacDonnell, John T. F., paper manufacturer, Holyoke, Mass.
Madden, Joseph, Keene, N. H.
Magenis, James P., lawyer, 62–65 Chadwick Building, Tremont Street,
Boston, Mass.
Magrane, P. B., dry goods merchant, Lynn, Mass.
Magrath, P. F., 244 Front Street, Binghamton, N. Y.; with the George
A. Kent Company, Binghamton, wholesale cigar manufacturers. He
has been connected with this house for the past twenty-six years, for
nineteen of which he has been its Eastern representative. (Life member
of the Society.)
Maguire, P. J., 204 Madison Street, New York city.
Maher, Stephen J. (M. D.), 212 Orange Street, New Haven, Conn.
Mahony, William H., dry goods, 844 Eighth Avenue, New York city.
(Life member of the Society.)
162Malloy, Gen. A. G., El Paso, Texas; a veteran of the Mexican and Civil
wars; during the latter conflict he was successively major, colonel and
brigadier-general; has been collector of the port of Galveston.
Maloney, Cornelius, publisher of the Daily Democrat, Waterbury, Conn.
Maloney, Dr. Thomas E., North Main Street, Fall River, Mass.; state
commissioner on veterinary medicine.
Maneely, John, 309–311 Arch Street, Philadelphia, Pa.
Marshall, Rev. George F., rector of St. Paul’s church, Milford, N. H.
Martin, Hon. John B., penal institutions commissioner, 762 Fourth Street,
South Boston, Mass.
McAdoo, Hon. William, President-General of the society; police commissioner
of the city of New York; ex-member of Congress; ex-assistant
secretary of the navy; member of the law firm McAdoo & Crosby, 25
Broad Street, New York city.
McAleer, Dr. George, treasurer Bay State Savings Bank, Worcester, Mass.
McAlevy, John F., salesman, 26–50 North Main Street, Pawtucket, R. I.
McAuliffe, John F., care the Livermore & Knight Co., Westminster Street,
Providence, R. I.
McCaffrey, Hugh, manufacturer, Fifth and Berks Streets, Philadelphia, Pa.
(Life member of the Society.)
McCall, John A., president of the New York Life Insurance Co., New York
city. (Life member of the Society.)
McCarrick, James W., Clyde’s Steam Lines, Norfolk, Va.
McCarthy, Charles, Jr., Portland, Me.
McCarthy, George W., of Dennett & McCarthy, dry goods, Portsmouth,
N. H.
McCarthy, Patrick J., lawyer, Industrial Trust Building, Providence, R. I.;
has been a member of the General Assembly of Rhode Island.
McCaughan, Rev. John P., Holyoke, Mass.
McCaughey, Bernard, of Bernard McCaughey & Co., house furnishers, 93
to 105 North Main Street, Pawtucket, R. I.
McCauley, Terence, 116 Birch Street, Cleveland, O.
McClean, Rev. Peter H., Milford, Conn.
McConway, William, The McConway & Torley Co., Pittsburg, Pa. (Life
member of the Society.)
McCormick, Edward R., 15 West 38th Street, New York city.
McCoy, Rev. John J., rector of the Church of the Holy Name, Chicopee,
Mass.
McCreery, Robert, room 427, Produce Exchange, New York city.
McCullough, John, 55 Maxfield Street, New Bedford, Mass.
McDonald, Mitchell C., care Navy Department, Washington, D. C.; paymaster
U. S. N.
McDonnell, Robert E., lawyer, 206 Broadway, New York city.
163McDonough, Hon. John J., Fall River, Mass.; justice of the second district
court of Bristol county, Mass.
McEldowney, W. A., 225 Sixth Street, Ashland, N. J.
McElroy, Rev. Charles J., rector of St. Mary’s church, Derby, Conn.
McEvoy, John W., 137 Central Street, Lowell, Mass.
McGann, James E., real estate, 902 Chapel Street, New Haven, Conn.
McGauran, Michael S. (M. D.), Lawrence, Mass.
McGillicuddy, Hon. D. J., of the law firm McGillicuddy & Morey, Lewiston,
Me.; ex-mayor of Lewiston.
McGinness, Col. John R., ordnance corps, U. S. A.; care War Department,
Washington, D. C.
McGolrick, Rev. E. J., 84 Herbert Street, Brooklyn, N. Y.
McGolrick, Rt. Rev. James (D. D.), bishop of the Roman Catholic diocese
of Duluth, Minn. (Life member of the Society.)
McGovern, Joseph P., of J. P. McGovern & Bro., fur brokers, 193 Greene
Street, New York city.
McGowan, James, Wall Street, New York city. (Life member of the
Society.)
McGowan, P. F., manufacturer, 224 East 12th Street, New York city;
member of the board of education. (Life member of the Society.)
McGuire, Edward J., lawyer, 52 Wall Street, New York city.
McGurrin, F. E., of F. E. McGurrin & Co., investment bankers, Security
Trust Building, Salt Lake City, Utah; president of the Salt Lake Security
& Trust Co.
McIntyre, John F., of the law firm Cantor, Adams & McIntyre, 25 Broad
Street, New York city.
McKelleget, George F., of the law firm R. J. & G. F. McKelleget, Pemberton
Building, Boston, Mass.
McKelleget, Robert J., of the law firm R. J. & G. F. McKelleget, Pemberton
Building, Boston, Mass.
McLaughlin, Edward A., lawyer, Tremont Building, Boston, Mass.; was for
several years clerk of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
McLaughlin, Henry V. (M. D.), Kent Street, Brookline, Mass.
McLaughlin, John, builder, 348 East 81st Street, New York city.
McLaughlin, Marcus J., 250 West 25th Street, New York city.
McLaughlin, Thomas, Hallowell, Me.
McLaughlin, Thomas F., 19 East 87th Street, New York city.
McMahon, James, 51 Chambers Street, New York city.
McMahon, Rev. John W. (D. D.), rector of St. Mary’s church, Charlestown
(Boston), Mass.
McManus, Col. John, clothing merchant, 145–147 Westminster Street,
Providence, R. I.; served on the staff of Governor Davis, of Rhode
Island.
164McManus, Gen. Thomas, 333 Main Street, Hartford, Conn.; adjutant and
major of the Twenty-fifth regiment, Connecticut infantry, in the Civil
War; recently quartermaster-general of Connecticut with the rank of
brigadier-general.
McManus, Michael, clothing merchant, 670 Washington Street, Boston,
Mass.
McManus, Rev. Michael T., rector of St. Mary’s Church of the Assumption,
Brookline, Mass.
McNamee, Hon. John H. H., 51 Frost Street, Cambridge, Mass.; recently
mayor of Cambridge.
McOwen, Anthony, 515 Wales Avenue, borough of the Bronx, New York
city.
McPartland, John E., Park Street, New Haven, Conn.
McWalters, John P., 141 Broadway, New York city.
McQuade, E. A., 75–77 Market Street, Lowell, Mass.
McQuaid, Rev. William P., rector of St. James church, Harrison Avenue,
Boston, Mass.
McSweeney, Edward F., 4 Liberty Square, Boston, Mass.
Meade, Richard W., 621 Broadway, New York city; son of the first president-general
of the society.
Mellen, James H., 119 Providence Street, Worcester, Mass.; has been a
member of the Massachusetts legislature.
Mellen, Dr. W. M. E., Chicopee, Mass.; ex-mayor of Chicopee.
Milholland, John E., Witherspoon Building, Philadelphia, Pa.; president of
the Batcheller Pneumatic Tube Co., of Philadelphia; president of the
Pneumatic Dispatch Manufacturing Co., of Pennsylvania; director in
the Pearsall Pneumatic Tube and Power Co., of New York, and a
director in the Pneumatic Transit Co., of New Jersey. Under him the
successful pneumatic tubes of the large diameter have been constructed,
and it is largely due to his energy and effort that the U. S. post-office
department now considers a part of its general delivery system the
pneumatic tube service. He is a member of the Transportation Club of
New York, the New York Press Club, the Republican Club, The Metropolitan
Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History,
and a number of other organizations.
Molony, Henry A., of Molony & Carter, 16 New Street, Charleston, S. C.
Monaghan, Hon. James Charles, chief of the Bureau of Statistics of the
U. S. Department of Commerce and Labor, Washington, D. C.; formerly
U. S. consul at Mannheim and at Chemnitz; recently professor
of Commerce, University of Wisconsin.
Monaghan, Rt. Rev. John J. (D. D.), bishop of the Roman Catholic diocese
of Wilmington, Del.
Montfort, Richard, Louisville, Ky.; chief engineer of the Louisville & Nashville
R. R.
165Montgomery, Gen. Phelps, 39 Church Street, New Haven, Conn.
Moore, O’Brien, president and general manager of The Citizen Printing and
Publishing Co., Tucson, Ariz. On the breaking out of the war with
Spain, he entered the service as lieutenant-colonel of the Second
West Virginia Infantry. After a year’s service, and peace being declared
with Spain, he became lieutenant-colonel of U. S. Volunteers
for the operations in the Philippines, where he served for eighteen
months, until his regiment was mustered out. He then settled in Tucson,
and is now head of a valuable newspaper plant, which issues a
daily and a weekly. (Life member of the Society.)
Moran, Col. James, Providence, R. I.; a veteran of the Civil War. He was
appointed second lieutenant in the Third regiment, Rhode Island Volunteers,
by Special Orders 53, A. G. O., R. I., Aug. 27, 1861; was
commissioned second lieutenant, Fifth Rhode Island Heavy Artillery,
Nov. 5, 1861; mustered in, Dec. 16, 1861; in command of Company
A, from Aug. 8, 1862, until Sept. 20, 1862; assumed command of
Company D, Sept. 26, 1862; was commissioned captain and mustered
in as such Feb. 14, 1863; on General Court Martial, July, 1863; in
command of Fort Amory, at Newberne, N. C., from Sept. 1, 1863,
until Oct. 15, 1863; assumed command of Post, at Hatteras Inlet,
N. C., April 21, 1864; in command of Forts Foster and Parke, at
Roanoke Island, from May 2, 1864, until January, 1865; mustered out
Jan. 17, 1865. In May, 1873, he was commissioned colonel of the
Rhode Island Guards regiment, and in June, 1887, became colonel of
the Second regiment, Brigade of Rhode Island Militia.
Moran, Dr. James, 333 West 51st Street, New York city.
Morgan, John, 44 West 46th Street, New York city.
Morrissey, Very Rev. Andrew (C. S. C., LL. D.), president of the University
of Notre Dame, Indiana.
Morrissy, Thomas, 48–50 West 14th Street, New York city.
Moseley, Edward A., Washington, D. C.; president-general of the Society
in 1897 and 1898. He succeeded to the position, in the former year,
on the death of Admiral Meade, who was the first president-general of
the organization. Mr. Moseley is secretary of the U. S. Interstate
Commerce Commission. He is ninth in descent from Lieut. Thaddeus
Clark, who came from Ireland, and died in Portland, Me., May 16,
1690. Clark was lieutenant of a company of men engaged in the
defence of Falmouth, now Portland, during the Indian War. He fell
into ambuscade with his company while making a reconnoitre, and was
killed with twelve of his men. Mr. Moseley is also a descendant of
Deputy-Governor Cleeves (or Cleaves), a founder of Portland, formerly
Falmouth, and is sixth in descent from Lieut. John Brown, of Belfast,
Me., who came with his father from Londonderry, Ire., and was one of
the settlers of Londonderry, N. H.; Brown was chairman of the first
166Board of Selectmen of Belfast, Me., chosen Nov. 11, 1773, ’74 and
’75; he removed from Londonderry, N. H. While residing there he
had been a commissioned officer in the Provincial Army, and had served
in the French War. Mr. Moseley is also of patriotic Revolutionary
stock, and is a member of the Society of the Cincinnati.
Moynahan, Bartholomew, lawyer, 120 Broadway, New York city; official
stenographer to the New York Supreme Court.
Mullen, John F., 26 Trask Street, Providence, R. I.
Murphy, D. P., Jr., 31 Barclay Street, New York city.
Murphy, Edward J., of the Edward J. Murphy Co., real estate brokers,
Springfield, Mass.
Murphy, Frank J., 44 Boston Street, Salem, Mass.
Murphy, Fred C., of the Edward J. Murphy Co., Springfield, Mass.
Murphy, James R., lawyer, 27 School Street, Boston, Mass.
Murphy, Hon. John R., lawyer, Boston, Mass.
Murray, John F., captain of police, Cambridge, Mass.; residence, 9 Avon
Street.
Murray, Michael J., lawyer, 27 School Street, Boston, Mass.
Murray, Thomas Hamilton, 36 Newbury Street, Boston, Mass.; Secretary-General
of the Society; a newspaper man of twenty years’ experience,
during which he has been editorially connected with journals in Boston
and Lawrence, Mass., Providence, R. I., and Bridgeport and Meriden,
Conn.; has devoted much attention to historical research, particularly
in relation to the Irish element in American history, and has delivered
addresses on the subject before the New England Historic, Genealogical
Society; the Rhode Island Historical Society; the Phi Kappa
Sigma of Brown University; the Boston Charitable Irish Society
(founded 1737), and other organizations; is the author of a number
of papers, pamphlets and books.
Naphen, Hon. Henry F., lawyer, 42 Court Street, Boston, Mass.; member
of the Boston School Board, 1882–5; state senator, 1885–6; member
of Congress, 1899–1903.
Neagle, Rev. Richard, Malden, Mass.
O’Beirne, Gen. James R., 290 Broadway, New York city. In military life
he has held every commissioned rank up to brevet brigadier-general of
volunteers; has also been provost marshal, District of Columbia; deputy
U. S. marshal, District of Columbia; register of wills, District of Columbia;
editor Sunday Gazette, Washington, D. C.; special agent U. S.
Indian affairs; special agent U. S. treasury department; assistant U. S.
commissioner of immigration at New York city; commissioner of charities,
New York city; commander U. S. Medal of Honor Legion. In business
life has been president of Yonkers Electric Light Co.; secretary of
Flemington Coal and Coke Co. of West Virginia, and treasurer of Manhattan
Distilling Co. In social life, president of the United Irish societies
167of New York city and vicinity, and member of various clubs and
other organizations.
O’Brien, Hon. C. D., lawyer, Globe Building, St. Paul, Minn.; prosecuting
attorney of Ramsey county, Minn., from 1874 to 1878; assistant U. S.
district attorney from 1870 to 1873; mayor of St. Paul from 1883 to
1885.
O’Brien, Rev. James J., Somerville, Mass.; a son of the late Mayor Hugh
O’Brien of Boston, Mass.
O’Brien, John D., Bank of Minnesota Building, St. Paul, Minn.; of the law
firm Stevens, O’Brien, Cole & Albrecht.
O’Brien, Capt. Laurence, 70 Beach Street, New Haven, Conn.; a veteran
of the Civil War. He enlisted in the Ninth Connecticut Infantry (an
Irish regiment), Aug. 30, 1861; assisted Capt. Patrick Garvey in organizing
Company B, and was commissioned first lieutenant of the company.
He was made captain of Company D, Oct. 15, 1862, and participated
with his regiment in all the movements of the latter. At one
period during the war he was provost marshal and military judge of the
Parish of St. James, Louisiana. He became identified with the Fenian
movement, and in 1867 went to Ireland, like many other gallant officers,
in furtherance of the cause of Irish freedom. The Croffut-Morris
history of Connecticut in the Civil War speaks of Captain O’Brien as
“a brave and efficient officer, and fertile in expedients.”
O’Brien, Hon. Morgan, J. (LL. D.), 42 West 44th Street, New York city;
a justice of the New York Supreme Court; trustee of the New York
Public Library.
O’Brien, Patrick, contractor and builder, 399 South Broadway, Lawrence,
Mass.
O’Brien, Thomas, real estate and insurance, 155 Main Street, Pawtucket,
R. I.; an alderman of the city of Pawtucket in 1895, 1896, 1897 and
1898; member of the General Assembly of Rhode Island in 1899–1900
and 1902.
O’Byrne, M. A., 370 West 118th Street, New York city.
O’Callaghan, P. J., Lawrence, Mass.
O’Callaghan, Rev. Denis (D. D.), rector of St. Augustine’s church, South
Boston, Mass.
O’Connell, J. C. (M. D)., Medical Board, U. S. Pension office, Washington,
D. C.; brother of Col. John J. O’Connell of the Thirtieth U. S. Infantry.
O’Connell, John, 302 West End Avenue, New York city.
O’Connell, John F., 306 Broadway, Providence, R. I.
O’Connell, P. A., vice-president of the Wm. Filene’s Sons Co., dry goods,
453–463 Washington Street, Boston, Mass.
O’Connor, Edward, 302 Broadway, New York city.
O’Connor, Hon. J. J., 414–416 Carroll Street, Elmira, N. Y. (Life member
of the Society.)
168O’Doherty, Rev. James, Haverhill, Mass. (Life member of the Society.)
O’Doherty, Hon. Matt., Louisville, Ky.; a judge of the Circuit Court.
O’Donnell, Rev. James H., Norwalk, Conn.
O’Donnell, Hon. John B., lawyer, Northampton, Mass.; ex-mayor of Northampton.
O’Donovan, Jeremiah (Rossa), editor The United Irishman, 15 Vandewater
Street, New York city.
O’Dwyer, Hon. E. F., 37 West 76th Street, New York city; chief justice
of the City Court of New York.
O’Farrell, P. A., Waldorf-Astoria, New York city. (Life member of the
Society.)
O’Flaherty, James, advertising, 22 North William Street, New York city.
O’Flaherty, John (M. D.), Hartford, Conn. (died July 31, 1904); served
during the Civil War as assistant surgeon One Hundred and Seventieth
Regiment, New York Volunteers (of Corcoran’s Legion); was mustered
out June 15, 1865; located in Hartford; was a member of the State,
County and City medical societies, and was elected president of the last
named on Jan. 4, 1904. He was one of the promoters of St. Francis’
Hospital, Hartford, took a great deal of interest in its affairs, and had
been president of its staff; was also a member of the city board of
health. Dr. O’Flaherty leaves a wife and three daughters,—Miss Mary
P. O’Flaherty, teacher of Greek in the Holyoke, Mass., High school;
Miss Anna P. O’Flaherty, a teacher at the New Park Avenue school;
and Dr. Ellen P. O’Flaherty of Hartford, who had of late assisted her
father in his practice. Dr. O’Flaherty was twice married, his first wife,
who died in 1880, having been Miss Hannah Pembroke, a teacher in
the South School District. In 1886, Dr. O’Flaherty married Mrs. Ellen
Duggan of Hartford.
O’Gorman, Hon. J. A., 312 West 54th Street, New York city; a justice of
the New York Supreme Court.
O’Gorman, Thomas A., The O’Gorman Co., dry goods, Providence, R. I.
O’Hagan, Thomas (Ph. D.), 151 Mutual Street, Toronto, Canada.
O’Keefe, Edmund, superintendent of buildings, New Bedford, Mass.
O’Keefe, John A., lawyer, Lynn, Mass.; formerly Principal of the Lynn
High school.
O’Leary, Jeremiah, 275 Fifty-eighth Street, Brooklyn, N. Y.
O’Leary, P. J., 161 West 13th Street, New York city.
O’Loughlin, Patrick, lawyer, 23 Court Street, Boston, Mass.
O’Malley, Thomas F., lawyer, 21 Dane Street, Somerville, Mass.
O’Meara, Maurice, of the Maurice O’Meara Co., paper manufacturers, 448
Pearl Street, New York city.
O’Neil, Hon. Joseph H., president of the Federal Trust Co., Boston, Mass.;
formerly a member of Congress; was later U. S. Treasurer at Boston.
O’Neil, Rev. John P., Peterborough, N. H.
169O’Neill, Rev. Daniel H., 935 Main Street, Worcester, Mass.
O’Neill, Rev. D. P., Westchester, N. Y.
O’Neill, Francis Q., Charleston, S. C., of the firm Bernard O’Neill & Sons
(house founded in 1845); president of the Hibernia Trust and Savings
Bank, Charleston; president of the Standard Truck Package Co.;
president of the Riverside Paper Box Factory; director, First National
Bank; director, Equitable Fire Insurance Co.; an alderman of Charleston,
and mayor pro tem. of the city; president of the Charleston Country
Club; member of the Board of Trustees of the College of Charleston.
O’Neill, James L., 220 Franklin Street, Elizabeth, N. J.; connected with
the Elizabeth post-office for the past fifteen years; has been president
of the Young Men’s Father Mathew T. A. Society, and treasurer of St.
Patrick’s Alliance, Elizabeth. He was one of the prime movers in the
projection and completion of a monument to the late Mayor Mack of
Elizabeth.
O’Rourke, Hon. Jeremiah, of J. O’Rourke & Sons, architects, 756 Broad
Street, Newark, N. J.; U. S. Supervising Architect under President
Cleveland. (Life member of the Society.)
O’Rourke, John F., consulting and contracting engineer, 26 Nassau Street,
New York city.
O’Sullivan, Humphrey, treasurer of the O’Sullivan Rubber Co., Lowell,
Mass.
O’Sullivan, James, president of the O’Sullivan Rubber Co., Lowell, Mass.
O’Sullivan, John, with the H. B. Claflin Co., Church Street, New York
city.
O’Sullivan, Sylvester J., 66 Liberty Street, New York city, manager of the
New York office of the United States Fidelity and Guaranty Co., of
Baltimore, Md.
Owens, Joseph E., of the law firm Ketcham & Owens, 189 Montague Street,
Brooklyn, N. Y.
Patterson, Rev. George J., rector of St. Vincent’s church, South Boston,
Mass.
Perry, Dr. Charles J., World Building, New York city.
Phelan, Hon. James D., Phelan Building, San Francisco, Cal.; recently
mayor of San Francisco.
Phelan, James J., 16 Exchange Place, New York city; president of the
Traders’ and Travelers’ Accident Co.; treasurer of the King’s County
Refrigerating Co., Astoria Cordage Co., and the Pontiac Building Co.;
director in the Stuyvesant Insurance Co. When Ferdinand de Lesseps
contracted to build the Panama canal, Mr. Phelan became treasurer and
manager of the American Contracting and Dredging Co., in which he
was associated with the late Eugene Kelly, H. B. Slaven and others.
170This company contracted for and built fifteen miles of the canal. In
1891, Mr. Phelan was appointed treasurer of the Department of Docks
of the city of New York, which office he held for five years.
Phelan, John J., lawyer, 7 Wall Street, New York city; graduate of Manhattan
College, and of the Columbia Law School; member of the
Xavier Alumni Sodality, the N. Y. Catholic Club, and the Manhattan
Alumni Society.
Phelps, H. Warren, the Phelps Real Estate Agency, 20 East Broad Street,
and 88 Pugh Avenue, Columbus, O.; member of the Old Northwest
Genealogical Society, of Columbus.
Philbin, Eugene A., of the law firm Philbin, Beekman & Menken, 111
Broadway, New York city.
Piggott, Michael, 1634 Vermont Street, Quincy, Ill.; a veteran of the Civil
War. He was made second lieutenant of Company F, Western Sharpshooters,
in 1861, while at Camp Benton, St. Louis, Mo.; was promoted
first lieutenant, and while at Fort Donaldson, in the spring of
1862, was made captain; lost a leg at Resaca, Ga., in May, 1864; was
subsequently connected with the U. S. Revenue Service; messenger in
the National House of Representatives, Washington, D. C.; was made
postmaster of Quincy, Ill., during President Grant’s first term, and held
the position for over sixteen years; was appointed Special Indian Agent
by President Harrison, and in that, as in every position held, displayed
eminent ability.
Plunkett, Thomas, 257 Sixth Street, East Liverpool, O.
Power, Rev. James W., 47 East 129th Street, New York city.
Powers, Patrick H., president of the Emerson Piano Co., Boylston Street,
Boston, Mass.
Prendergast, W. A., 20 Nassau Street, New York city.
Quinlan, Daniel J., 53 East 127th Street, New York city.
Quinlan, Francis J. (M. D.), 33 West 38th Street, New York city; was for
a number of years surgeon in the U. S. Indian Service; recently president
of the New York Celtic Medical Society.
Quinlan, Col. James, 120 Liberty Street, New York city; a veteran of the
Civil War; served in the Eighty-eighth New York regiment (of Meagher’s
Irish Brigade); member of the U. S. Medal of Honor Legion.
Quinn, John, lawyer, 120 Broadway, New York city.
Quinn, W. Johnson, manager of the Hotel Empire, New York city.
Quinton, Gen. William (U. S. A., retired), care of U. S. War Department,
Washington, D. C.
Regan, John H., lawyer, 422 55th Street, Brooklyn, N. Y.
Regan, W. P., architect, Lawrence, Mass.
Reilly, Robert J., Cedar Street, Bangor, Me.
Richardson, Stephen J., 1785 Madison Avenue, New York city; editor
The Gael.
171Roche, James Jeffrey (LL. D.), editor of The Pilot, 211 Tremont Street,
Boston, Mass.
Rooney, John Jerome, of Rooney & Spence, customs and insurance brokers,
forwarding agents, 66, 68 and 70 Beaver Street, New York city.
Rorke, James, 40 Barclay Street, New York city.
Roosevelt, Hon. Theodore, president of the United States, White House,
Washington, D. C.
Ryan, Charles V., Springfield, Mass.
Ryan, Christopher S., Lexington, Mass.
Ryan, James T., 68 William Street, New York city.
Ryan, John J., 158 East 95th Street, New York city.
Ryan, Michael, 377 Broadway, New York city.
Ryan, Michael J., Waterbury, Conn.
Ryan, Most Rev. Patrick J. (D. D.), Archbishop of Philadelphia, Pa.;
the Cathedral, Philadelphia.
Ryan, Nicholas W., 1444 Boston Road, borough of the Bronx, New York
city.
Ryan, Richard, Rutland, Vt.
Ryan, Hon. William, of Wm. Ryan & Co., grocers, Port Chester, N. Y.
Sanders, Col. C. C., Gainesville, Ga.; president of the State Banking Co. of
Gainesville; alternate commissioner to World’s Fair, Chicago, Ill., 1893;
vice-president for Georgia, American Bankers’ Association. Col. Sanders
is of Irish and English ancestry. On the maternal side, he is descended
from Thomas and Theodosia M. Smyth who emigrated from
Ireland, in 1793, landing in Charleston, S. C. They settled in Jones
county, Ga. Thomas died Nov. 28, 1799. On the paternal side,
Colonel Sanders is a descendant of Rev. Moses Sanders who emigrated
from England, with two brothers, John and David, and arrived in
Petersburg, Va., 1765. They embraced the Patriotic cause in the
Revolution and were active in operations against the British. Col.
Sanders, the subject of this sketch, graduated from the Georgia Military
Institute, in June, 1861; entered the Confederate service; was
made lieutenant-colonel of the Twenty-fourth regiment of infantry,
Georgia volunteers, August, 1861; served under General Lee in the Peninsular
campaign, in the seven days’ battles around Richmond, Va., and
was among the bravest of the brave; commanded his regiment at Malvern
Hill and at Marye’s Heights, Fredericksburg, where the Twenty-fourth
was a part of the Confederate forces that received the valorous
charges of Meagher’s Irish Brigade. He also commanded the regiment
at the battles of Chancellorsville and Antietam, at which latter conflict
he was placed in command of Wofford’s Brigade. While in this position
he met a bayonet charge from the Federals by a counter bayonet
charge, and in the desperate fighting that ensued, fifty-eight per cent.
of Sanders’ heroic force was swept away. Colonel Sanders also led the
172Twenty-fourth at Cedar Creek, Chickamauga, Knoxville, the Wilderness,
Spottsylvania Court House, and Sailor’s Creek. On Apr. 6, 1865,
Ewell’s corps, to which Colonel Sanders’ regiment was then attached,
was captured, and Colonel Sanders was sent as a prisoner of war to
Washington, D. C. Writing of Meagher’s Irish Brigade, Colonel Sanders
says: “I was in command of the Twenty-fourth Georgia regiment,
with other troops, at the foot of Marye’s Heights, receiving the five
heroic and gallant charges of the Irish Brigade, whose prodigies of valor
have filled the country with admiration. I saw the devoted Irish charge
up to our breastworks, to be mowed down by a line of Confederate fire
that no soldiers could withstand. I saw the Irish battalions cut down
like grain before the reaper, yet the survivors would magnificently close
up their ranks only to have huge gaps again cut through them. When
forced back they rallied and came bravely on again, only to be riddled
with bullets and torn by artillery. Their fifth charge was made with
greatly decimated ranks that slowly recoiled like the waves of a tempestuous
sea. When twilight descended upon the scene, a spectacle was
presented unequaled in warfare. At least three fourths of my command
was composed of men of Irish descent and knew that the gallant
dead in our front were our kindred of the land beyond the sea. When,
one by one, the stars came out that night, many tears were shed by
Southern Confederate eyes for the heroic Federal Irish dead.” During
the war Colonel Sanders was offered the rank of brigadier-general but
declined the same.
Sasseen, Robert A., 50 Pine Street, New York city; insurance investments.
(Life member of the Society.)
Shahan, Very Rev. Thomas J. (S. T. D., J. U. L.), professor of Church
History, Catholic University of America, Washington, D. C.
Shanahan, Very Rev. Edmund T. (Ph. D., S. T. D., J. C. L.), professor
of Dogmatic Theology, Catholic University of America, Washington,
D. C.
Shanley, John F., 17 Washington Street, Newark, N. J.
Shanley, Thomas J., 344 West 87th Street, New York city.
Shea, John B., 19 Maiden Lane, New York city.
Sheedy, B. D. (M. D.), 10 West 46th Street, New York city.
Sheran, Hugh F., 46 Woodbine Street, Roxbury (Boston), Mass.
Sheridan, Rev. John A., 97 South Street, Jamaica Plain (Boston), Mass.
Sherman, P. Tecumseh, of the law firm Taft & Sherman, 15 William
Street, New York city; member of the Union League Club, and of the
Military Order of the Loyal Legion; son of the late Gen. William T.
Sherman.
Shine, Jerome, 137 West Clinton Street, Cleveland, O.
Shuman, A., merchant clothier, 440 Washington Street, Boston, Mass.
Slattery, John J., president Todd-Donigan Iron Co., Louisville, Ky.
173Sligo Social Club, Roxbury (Boston), Mass. (M. J. Mulroy, secretary,
24 Faxon Street, Roxbury.)
Smith, James, 26 Broadway, New York city.
Smith, Rev. James J., 88 Central Street, Norwich, Conn.
Smith, Joseph, secretary of the Police Commission, Lowell, Mass.
Smith, Dr. Thomas B., Wyman’s Exchange, Lowell, Mass.
Smith, Thomas F., clerk of the City Court, 32 Chambers Street, New York
city.
Smyth, Rev. Thomas M., East Liverpool, O.
Smyth, Philip A., 11 Pine Street, New York city.
Smyth, Rev. Hugh P., rector of St. Joseph’s church, Roxbury (Boston),
Mass.
Smyth, Rev. Thomas, Springfield, Mass.
Somers, P. E., manufacturer, 17 Hermon Street, Worcester, Mass. (Life
member the Society.)
Spellman, John H., 109-111 Park Row, New York city.
Spillane, J. B., managing editor Music Trade Review, Metropolitan Life
Building, 1 Madison Avenue, New York city.
Steele, Hon. John H., Phenix Building, Minneapolis, Minn.
Storen, William J., 232 Calhoun Street, Charleston, S. C.
Sullivan, James E. (M. D.), Vice-President-General of the Society, Banigan
Building, Providence, R. I.
Sullivan, James Mark, lawyer, Exchange Building, New Haven, Conn.
Sullivan, John B., contractor, New Bedford, Mass.
Sullivan, John J., 61-63 Faneuil Hall Market, Boston, Mass.; of Doe, Sullivan
& Co.
Sullivan, Dr. M. B., Dover, N. H.; formerly a state senator.
Sullivan, M. F. (M. D.), Oak Street, Lawrence, Mass.
Sullivan, Patrick F., of Sullivan Bros., 68 Pemberton Square, Boston,
Mass.
Sullivan, Hon. Richard, lawyer, Hemingway Building, Tremont Street,
Boston, Mass.; an ex-senator of Massachusetts.
Sullivan, Roger G., cigar manufacturer, 803 Elm Street, Manchester, N. H.
Sullivan, Dr. T. P., 318 South Main Street, Fall River, Mass.
Sullivan, Timothy P., Concord, N. H.; furnished granite from his New
Hampshire quarries for the new National Library Building, Washington,
D. C.
Supple, Rev. James N., rector of St. Francis de Sales church, Charlestown,
(Boston), Mass.
Sweeney, Rev. Timothy P., St. Patrick’s church, Fall River, Mass.
Sweeny, William Montgomery, 120 Franklin Street, Astoria, L. I., N. Y.
Swords, Joseph F., superintendent U. S. Reservation, Sulphur, Indian Territory.
He is a descendant of Cornet George Swords, one of the A. D.
1649 officers in the service of Kings Charles I and Charles II in Ireland.
174Joseph F. Swords is a member of the Sons of the American Revolution.
He is of the fourth American Generation from Francis Dawson Swords,
graduate of Trinity College, Dublin, 1750, who was exiled from Ireland,
1760, and who served in the Patriot Army throughout the War of the
Revolution.
Tack, Theodore E., 52 Broadway, New York city.
Teeling, Rt. Rev. Arthur J., rector of St. Mary’s church, Lynn, Mass.
Thompson, Frank, 1867 Seventh Avenue, New York city.
Thompson, Frank V., 116 Princeton Street, East Boston, Mass.
Thompson, James, of James Thompson & Bro., Louisville, Ky.
Thompson, Robert Ellis (Ph. D.), president Central High school, Philadelphia,
Pa.; recently a professor in the University of Pennsylvania.
Tierney, Dennis H., real estate and insurance, 167 Bank Street, Waterbury,
Conn.
Tierney, Edward M., Elmira, N. Y.
Tierney, Miles, 317 Riverside Drive, New York city. (Life member of the
Society.)
Toale, Patrick P., Toale P. O., Aiken county, S. C.
Toland, M. A., 148 West Canton Street, Boston, Mass.
Toomey, A. J., F11 Produce Exchange, New York city.
Travers, Ambrose F., vice-president of the Travers Brothers Co., cordage,
etc., 41 Worth Street, New York city.
Travers, Francis C., president of the Travers Brothers Co., 41 Worth
Street, New York city.
Travers, Vincent P., treasurer of the Travers Brothers Co., 41 Worth
Street, New York city.
Vail, Roger, associate editor of the Irish Standard, Minneapolis, Minn.
Ver Planck, William Gordon, 149 Broadway, New York city; of the law
firm Young, Ver Planck & Prince.
Vincent, John, lawyer, 45 Cedar Street, New York city; was first assistant
district attorney under the late Hon. John McKeon for two years, and
on his death was appointed by the court as his successor ad interim.
Vredenburgh, Watson, Jr., civil engineer, 32 Broadway, New York city.
Waldron, E. M., builder, Newark, N. J.
Walker, William O’Brien, 90 Wall Street, New York city; a descendant of
the Revolutionary O’Briens of Machias, Me.
Wallace, Rev. T. H., Lewiston, Me.
Waller, Hon. Thomas M., ex-governor of Connecticut, 15 Wall Street,
New York city.
Walsh, James A., Lewiston, Me.; agent Lewiston Bleachery.
Walsh, Philip C., 260 Washington Street, Newark, N. J.; of Walsh’s
Sons & Co., dealers in irons and metals.
Walsh, Philip C., Jr., 260 Washington Street, Newark, N. J.
Walsh, P. J., 503 Fifth Avenue, New York city.
175Walsh, Wm. P., 247 Water Street, Augusta, Me.
Ward, Edward, Kennebunk, Me.
Ward, John T., Kennebunk, Me.
Ward, Michael J., Brookline, Mass.
Wilson, Hon. Thomas (LL. D.), general counsel for the Chicago, St. Paul,
Minneapolis & Omaha Railway Co., St. Paul, Minn.; was chief justice
of the Supreme Court of Minnesota, 1864-9; member of the Minnesota
House of Representatives, 1880; member of the Minnesota Senate,
1883; member of Congress, 1887-9.
Woods, John J., 54 Federal Street, Newburyport, Mass.
Wright, Henry, 584 East 148th Street, New York city.
Zabriskie, George A., 123 Produce Exchange, New York city.