PAPERS BY MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY. (continued 2)

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 y^e morn Dean George Barkley preacht in y^e Chapell from y^e 1^st Epistle to Timothy, y^e 3^d 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 Brig^t 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

IRISH IMMIGRATION TO THE UNITED STATES SINCE 1790.^[4]

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

THE FIRST IRISH IN ILLINOIS.

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.

Chorus—

“The Irish homes of Illinois,

The happy homes of Illinois,

No landlord there

Can cause despair,

Nor blight our fields in Illinois!”

109

THE IRISH VANGUARD OF RHODE ISLAND.

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 Early Larkins of 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, an Early Rhode Islander.

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.

Michael Kelly, of the Island of Conanicut.

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 Pioneer of Newport, R. I.

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.”