1. From Mr. Crimmins’ recent book, Irish-American Historical Miscellany. (New York, 1905.)
The horrors of the Jersey prison ship have often been told. The Jersey and other hulks, used by the British, were anchored near the Wallabout, Brooklyn, N. Y. Many thousands of prisoners perished on these ships by cruelty and disease. The conduct of their captors was inhumane and dastardly. It is not surprising, therefore, that the mortality was so great.
William Burke, a prisoner aboard the Jersey, at one time, has left a record in which he states that he was confined on the ship fourteen months, and that he saw, among other cruelties, many American prisoners put to death by the bayonet. This cruel treatment was never relaxed by the English or Scots, but sometimes the more humane Hessians evinced pity for the unfortunate sufferers. Burke says:
“During that period, among other cruelties which were committed, I have known many of the American prisoners put to death by the bayonet: in particular, I well recollect, that it was the custom on board the ship for but one prisoner at a time to be admitted on deck at night, besides the guards or sentinels. One night, while the prisoners were many of them assembled at the grate at the hatchway, for the purpose of obtaining fresh air, and waiting their turn to go on deck, one of the sentinels thrust his bayonet down among them, and in the morning twenty-five of them were found wounded, and stuck in the head, and dead of the wounds they had thus received. I further recollect that this was the case several mornings, when sometimes five, sometimes six, and sometimes eight or ten, were found dead by the same means.”
It is estimated that over eleven thousand prisoners perished, from all causes, aboard these ships during the Revolution. The dead would be carried ashore and carelessly buried in the sand, their bodies, in many cases, to be uncovered by returning tides. For many years after, the bones of these martyrs were visible along the shore.
About 1801, John Jackson sold to the United States, through Francis Childs, a middleman, forty acres of the Wallabout for $40,000. About this time large numbers of Irish refugees arrived and located in New York and Brooklyn. They bought some land of Jackson at, or near, the Wallabout, the settlement being named “Vinegar Hill.”
During the summer of 1805, a Mr. Aycrigg, shocked at the exposed remains of the prison-ship victims, made a contract with an Irishman residing at Wallabout, to “collect all the human bones as far as may be without digging,” and deliver the same to him. This was done, and these bones were a portion of those interred in the vault patriotically erected by Tammany.
Among the patriots imprisoned aboard the Jersey were a great many Irish. In 1888, the Society of Old Brooklynites published a pamphlet dealing with the Jersey, and giving the names of several thousand persons who had been confined therein, many of whom perished. A copy of this pamphlet is in the possession of the New York Historical Society. From that authoritative source we have compiled the following list of patriots, bearing Irish names, who were confined on the Jersey:
Many other Irish names could be added, but sufficient have been given to establish the fact that a large number of the sons of Erin were among those who suffered the rigors of the Jersey prison ship.
Capt. Thomas Dring, who was a prisoner aboard the Jersey, tells us in his Recollections many startling facts about that terrible ship. He says: “Silence was a stranger to our dark abode. There were continual noises during the night. The groans of the sick and dying; the curses poured out by the weary and exhausted upon our inhuman keepers; the restlessness caused by the suffocating heat and the confined and poisonous air, mingled with the wild and incoherent ravings of delirium, were the sounds which, every night, were raised around us in all directions.”
And another writer states that the lower hold, and the orlop deck, were such a terror that no man would venture down into them. Dysentery, smallpox and yellow fever broke out, and “while so many were sick with raging fever, there was a loud cry for water; but none could be had except on the upper deck, and but one was allowed to ascend at a time. The suffering then from the rage of thirst during the night, was very great. Nor was it at all times safe to attempt to go up. Provoked by the continual cry to be allowed to ascend, when there was already one on deck, the sentry would push them back with his bayonet.”
Stiles in his History of the City of Brooklyn, narrates a scene that took place on the Jersey, July 4, 1782. He says: “A very serious conflict with the guard occurred ... in consequence of the prisoners attempting to celebrate the day with such observances and amusements as their condition permitted. Upon going on deck in the morning, they displayed thirteen little national flags in a row upon the booms, which were immediately torn down and trampled under the feet of the guard, which on that day happened to consist of Scotchmen. Deigning no notice of this, the prisoners proceeded to amuse themselves with patriotic songs, speeches and cheers, all the while avoiding whatever could be construed into an intentional insult of the guard; which, however, at an unusually early hour in the afternoon, drove them below at the point of the bayonet, and closed the hatches. Between decks, the prisoners now continued their singing, etc., until about nine o’clock in the evening. An order to desist not having been promptly complied with, the hatches were suddenly removed and the guards descended among them, with lanterns and cutlasses in their hands. Then ensued a scene of terror. The helpless prisoners, retreating from the hatchways as far as their crowded condition would permit, were followed by the guards, who mercilessly hacked, cut, and wounded everyone within their reach; and then ascending again to the upper deck, fastened down the hatches upon the poor victims of their cruel rage, leaving them to languish through the long, sultry summer night, without water to cool their parched throats, and without lights by which they might have dressed their wounds. And to add to their torment, it was not until the middle of the next forenoon that the prisoners were allowed to go on deck and slake their thirst, or to receive their rations of food, which, that day, they were obliged to eat uncooked. Ten corpses were found below on the morning which succeeded that memorable fourth of July, and many others were badly wounded.”
An especially affecting incident is told regarding one prisoner, who died on the ship: “Two young men, brothers, belonging to a rifle corps, were made prisoners and sent on board the Jersey. The elder took the fever and, in a few days, became delirious. One night (his end was fast approaching) he became calm and sensible, and lamenting his hard fate and the absence of his mother, begged for a little water. His brother, with tears, entreated the guard to give him some, but in vain. The sick youth was soon in his last struggles, when his brother offered the guard a guinea for an inch of candle, only that he might see him die. Even this was denied. ‘Now,’ said he, drying up his tears, ‘if it please God that I ever regain my liberty, I’ll be a most bitter enemy!’ He regained his liberty, rejoined the army, and when the war ended he had eight large and one hundred and twenty-seven small notches on his rifle stock.”
The Pennsylvania Packet, September 4, 1781, published a letter from the Jersey, which said: “We bury six, seven, eight, nine, ten, and eleven men in a day; we have two hundred more sick and falling sick every day.” This will illustrate the terrible mortality aboard the ship.
In his Recollections of Brooklyn and New York in 1776, Johnson says of the prisoners dying on the Jersey: “It was no uncommon thing to see five or six dead bodies brought on shore in a single morning, when a small excavation would be dug at the foot of the hill, the bodies be thrown in and a man with a shovel would cover them by shovelling sand down the hill upon them. Many were buried in a ravine of the hill; some on the farm. The whole shore, from Rennie’s Point to Mr. Remsen’s dooryard was a place of graves; as were also the slope of the hill near the house ...; the shore from Mr. Ramsen’s barn along the mill pond, to Rapelje’s, and the sandy island between the floodgates and the mill-dam, while a few were buried on the shore on the east side of the Wallabout. Thus did Death reign here, from 1776 until the peace. The whole Wallabout was a sickly place during the war. The atmosphere seemed to be charged with foul air from the prison ships, and with the effluvia of the dead bodies washed out of their graves by the tides. We believe that more than half of the dead buried on the outer side of the mill-pond, were washed out by the waves at high tide, during northeasterly winds. The bones of the dead lay exposed along the beach, drying and bleaching in the sun, and whitening the shore, till reached by the power of a succeeding storm; as the agitated waters receded, the bones receded with them into the deep.... We have, ourselves, examined many of the skulls lying on the shore. From the teeth, they appeared to be the remains of men in the prime of life.”
“The Jersey at length,” declares Stiles, “became so crowded, and the increase of disease among the prisoners so rapid, that even the hospital ships were inadequate for their reception. In this emergency, bunks were erected on the larboard side of the upper deck of the Jersey for the accommodation of the sick between decks. The horrors of the old hulk were now increased a hundred-fold. Foul air, confinement, darkness, hunger, thirst, the slow poison of the malarious locality in which the ship was anchored, the torments of vermin, the suffocating heat alternating with cold and, above all, the almost total absence of hope, performed their deadly work unchecked. ‘The whole ship, from her keel to the taffrail, was equally affected, and contained pestilence sufficient to desolate a world—disease and death were wrought into her very timbers.’”
“There was, indeed,” Stiles remarks, “one condition upon which these hapless sufferers might have escaped the torture of this slow but certain death, and that was enlistment into the British service. This chance was daily offered them by the recruiting officers who visited the ship, but their persuasions and offers were almost invariably treated with contempt, and that, too, by men who fully expected to die where they were. In spite of their untold physical sufferings, which might well have shaken the resolution of the strongest; in spite of the insinuations of the British that they were neglected by their government—insinuations which seemed to be corroborated by the very facts of their condition; in defiance of threats of even harsher treatment, and regardless of promises of food and clothing—objects most tempting to men in their condition; but few, comparatively, sought relief from their woes by the betrayal of their honor. And these few went forth into liberty followed by the execrations and undisguised contempt of the suffering heroes whom they left behind. It was this calm, unfaltering, unconquerable spirit of patriotism—defying torture, starvation, loathsome disease, and the prospect of a neglected and forgotten grave—which sanctifies to every American heart the scene of their suffering in the Wallabout, and which will render the sad story of the ‘prison ships’ one of ever-increasing interest to all future generations.”
The corner-stone of a vault for the reception of so many of the bones of the martyred dead as could be collected, was laid in April, 1808, by Tammany. The event was made the occasion of a great demonstration. There was a big military and civic parade, artillery salutes and other features. Major Aycrigg was marshal of the day and an eloquent oration was delivered by Joseph D. Fay of Tammany. On May 26, 1808, the vault being completed, the bones were removed thereto, the event being signalized by another great demonstration. There were thirteen coffins filled with bones of the dead, and 104 veterans of the Revolution acted as pall-bearers. Stiles informs us that “The procession, after passing through various streets, reached the East River, where, at different places, boats had been provided for crossing to Brooklyn. Thirteen large open boats transported the thirteen tribes of the Tammany Society, each containing one tribe, one coffin, and the pall-bearers.” The scene was most inspiring. “At Brooklyn ferry the procession formed again ... and arrived at the tomb of the martyrs amidst a vast and mighty assemblage. A stage had been here erected for the orator, trimmed with black crape. The coffins were placed in front, and the pall-bearers took their seats beneath the eye of the orator. There was an invocation by Rev. Ralph Williston, and the orator of the day was Dr. Benjamin DeWitt. The coffins were huge in size and each bore the name of one of the thirteen original states.”
Including Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island has a long extent of coast line. There are in the state 90,000 acres of safe anchorage, varying in depth from six feet to twenty fathoms. The state has the Atlantic Ocean as its southern boundary. Of its cities and towns some twenty border on deep, salt water. It is not surprising, therefore, that Rhode Island early attained maritime importance.
For many years ships were sent all over the world from Providence, Warren, Bristol and Newport. Their sails whitened many seas. These Rhode Island mariners were a hardy race and worthy of the great merchants for whom they sailed.
Before the year 1700, their vessels had already become numerous. In due time they were known in Barbadoes, Jamaica, St. Kitt’s, Nevis, Montserrat and Bermuda. Their sailors cheerily sang in the ports of Madeira, Fayal, Surinam and Curaçao, and were welcomed even in India and China.
The slave trade was the object of some of these voyages, commerce of others, while the fisheries engaged the attention of the rest. In 1738, Newport alone had over one hundred vessels engaged in business throughout the world. In 1763, the same place sent out 182 vessels on foreign voyages in addition to the 352 coastwise and fishing vessels. These were manned, all told, by 2,200 seamen. In June and July, 1774, the vessels arriving at Newport from foreign voyages numbered 64, in addition to 132 coastwise and 17 whalers.
Providence was also a great port. An address to Congress, in 1790, stated that there “is a greater number of vessels belonging to this port (Providence) than to New York,” and that “it is a place of more navigation than any of its size in the Union.” Fortunes were rapidly made by merchants engaged in the foreign trade, while domestic commerce also brought in its wealth. In reaching out to trade with the world Rhode Island merchants, unlike some “historians” of today, did not forget Ireland.
Several Rhode Island vessels made regular voyages to and from Irish ports. Others made occasional ones, or touched at Belfast, Newry, Dublin, Londonderry, Cork or Waterford, on their way to or from British and other ports. A list of fifteen vessels engaged regularly or occasionally in the Irish trade, is here given: Ships, Hope, Mary, Neptune, Tristram, Nancy, Robert Burns, Catherine and Faithful Stewart; brigs, Little John, Betsy, Recovery, Sally, Lydia and Happy Return; schooner, Mayflower. There were probably many others, but these fifteen are sufficient to illustrate the point.
Among the captains were Rathbun, Davis, Ambrose, Taggart, Dring, Warner, Crawford, Staples, Coffin, Noyes, Allen, Smith, Cook, McCansland, Coggeshall and Howland.
Of the foregoing vessels, the Mary and Little John belonged to George Gibbs of Newport; the Hope to Samuel Fowler of Newport; the Betsy to Charles Handy and the Recovery to Chris. Ellery, both also of Newport. These five vessels are specifically mentioned in the Newport Historical Magazine as making regular voyages to Ireland. From time to time the Newport Mercury chronicles the arrival from Ireland, or departure therefor, of other ships and brigs. These were all in addition to those sailing between Ireland and Providence.
Among the articles imported from Ireland to Rhode Island at various times, were linen and woolen goods, Irish poplins, cambrics, lawns, silks, hosiery, sheetings, etc. Irish butter, beef and other food products, were also imported. The Newport Mercury, August 3, 1772, contains an advertisement in which, among other things, “Irish beef” is announced for sale. In the Providence Gazette, November 20, 1762, appears the following:
“By the Newport packet from New York, we are informed, for certain, that there are 2000 Firkins of the Best Irish Rose butter, arrived there.—A quantity of it is expected to be imported into this town, which we are confident will fall the price of that commodity.” Under date of December 25, 1762, the Gazette says: “Since our last, we hear that a vessel has arrived at Newport from Ireland, with 1300 Firkins of butter—Captain Champlain, the master of her, died soon after he came out.” In December, 1764, a vessel from Ireland mistook her bearings and went ashore on Block Island. The following notice of the disaster was published in the Gazette, January 12, 1765:
“On the 25th of last month, in the day time, a large double-decked brig, loaded with beef, pork, butter, and candles, bound from Ireland to Halifax run ashore on the north part of Block Island, where she soon beat to pieces; the people were all saved except the boatswain, who perished on the deck, which he would not be permitted to quit with the rest.—About 500 barrels of the cargo, with some other articles, were also saved. The master’s name we cannot learn.”
The name of the wrecked brig is believed to have been the Golden Grove. Her Irish cargo was in the nature of supplies for the British garrison at Halifax. The fact that the cargo consisted of beef, pork, butter and candles, indicate that those articles were exported from Ireland in considerable quantities at that period.
Speaking of this wreck, recalls the fact that in 1763, the year before, a Rhode Island vessel was stranded on the Irish coast. She was the Samuel and Joseph, Captain Brown, bound for Amsterdam. In November and December, 1766, the Providence Gazette contained this advertisement:
Catherine, Thomas Allen, commander; Takes in her cargo at Newport, and will be ready to sail by the 12th Day of January.—For freight or passage, apply to said Captain on board or to Mr. Benjamin Greene, in Newport.
Providence, Nov. 7, 1766.
June 15, 1772, the Newport Mercury notes the arrival at Newport of “the brig Joseph, Captain Pie, bound to New York in 49 days from Waterford in Ireland.” July 19, 1773, the same paper states that “Last Thursday arrived the brig Sally, Capt. John Murphy, in 30 days from Jamaica.” She brought several passengers. This was probably the Sally that at another time is mentioned as having reached Dublin under Captain Davis. The Providence Gazette, February 24, 1776, has this interesting note: “Arrived from Ireland, but last from Barbadoes, the sloop N. York packet, Capt. John Freers, who informs that the people in Ireland and Barbadoes are very warm in the cause of America.” The Gazette also published the following:
Will sail from Newport in ten days.—For Passage apply to Messieurs Clark and Nightingale, in Providence, or the Captain on board.
Providence, Jan. 29, 1785.
Special attention is called to the fact that “passage” is advertised in connection with these voyages. This is good evidence that passengers sailed direct for Rhode Island from Ireland. Some of these were probably merchants or their agents engaged in the Irish trade. The fact that such accommodations were provided, likewise justifies the conclusion that immigrants also came direct from Ireland to Rhode Island, and in considerable numbers, too. These immigrants, in all probability, landed, some in Newport and others in Providence. It may be, too, that Warren, Bristol, Westerly and other places, likewise received direct Irish accessions from this source. Further on will be found additional evidence of direct immigration from Ireland.
Another advertisement in the Providence Gazette reads as follows:
Now lying at Mrs. Hayley’s Wharff, will sail in 10 or 12 days. For Freight or Passage apply to the Master on board or to Joseph and William Russell. She has good accommodations for Passengers.
Providence, Jan. 14, 1786.
Here again “passage” is advertised, it will be noted. Soon after a news item appeared in the Gazette, stating that “the ship Tristram, Captain Crawford, sails this day for Dublin.” It appears that the Tristram made many voyages to and from Ireland. On April 26, 1788, over two years after the trip just mentioned, the Gazette had the following budget of marine news:
The ship Tristram, Capt. Warner, of this port, is arrived at Dublin.—The ship Mary, Capt. Rathbun, and Brig Little John, Capt. Ambrose, of Newport, are also arrived at Dublin.—The Brig Recovery, Capt. Taggart, of Newport, is arrived at Newry.
In June, 1791, Joseph and William Russell of Providence had an assortment of Irish linens “Just imported in the ship Tristram from Dublin.” The Gazette, under date of Providence, April 13, 1776, says: “Capt. Cook, from Belfast, informs that recruiting parties had been beating up there from September till January to reinforce the ministerial army in America, but they had only inlisted ten men.” This helps the reader to form a good idea as to the direction of Irish sympathies at that time.
The quotations in the remainder of this chapter are from the Providence Gazette. A news paragraph, dated Newport, states that on “Monday last arrived here the ship Mary, Captain Ambrose, in fifty-nine days from Cork.” On February 14, 1789, under the head of Providence, we are told that “On Wednesday also arrived the brig Happy Return, Capt. Dring, from Dublin, Isle of May, and St. Eustatia.” The Happy Return has frequent mention, sometimes as arriving from Dublin and again from other ports. But there came a time when she returned no more. The incident occurred in 1790, and is thus narrated: “The brig Happy Return, Capt. Dring, of this port (Providence), bound for Dublin, is lost near that port. The crew and a part of the cargo were saved.” In April, 1790, is chronicled the arrival at Dublin of the brig Sally, Captain Davis, of Providence, “after a short passage of twenty two days.” In November of the same year, the ship Tristram, Captain Warner, is again mentioned as having cleared for Dublin from Providence. Among the arrivals in the port of Providence in May, 1791, was the “ship Tristram, Warner, Dublin.” In November, 1791, the Tristram, commanded by Captain Holowell, departed from Providence for Newry. December 14, 1792, the brig Betsy left Providence for Newry and in May of the next year, her arrival at Providence is noted “from Newry, which she left the 5th of March, having touched at the Cape de Verds.”
In April, 1796, the brig Lydia, Capt. John Cook, arrived at Providence from Cork in forty-nine days. We find it recorded December 21, 1799, that “A ship from Cork put into Newport on Sunday evening last, and sailed next morning. She brought Cork papers to the 24th of October.” Elsewhere it is stated that earlier in that year the ship Palmyra, Captain Trotter, of Providence, for Hamburg, put into “the Cove of Cork.”
The schooner Mayflower left Providence for Dublin in February, 1801. In 1809, among the departures from the port of Providence was the “Ship Neptune, Staples, Ireland.” The same year it is stated that the “ship Nancy, of Rhode Island, 14 days from Richmond for Cork, was spoke July 6, lat. 43:52.” In October, 1809, the brig Orient arrived at New York “53 days from Dublin. Left there among others, ship Nancy, Capt. Noyes, just arrived from Providence.” These Rhode Island captains became great favorites in Irish ports. They were frequently entertained and were treated in a hospitable manner generally. In 1811, Capt. Peregrine Howland of Newport, died in Belfast. He was in his thirty-ninth year at the time, and his passing away caused much sorrow. The ship Robert Burns, Captain Coffin, arrived at Newport January 3, 1820, “in 39 days from Ireland.” The ship George Washington, of Providence, is noted as having arrived at Cork March 26, 1820, “from Madeira in 15 days.” She was commanded by Captain Allen. Under a Newport date of January 6, 1820, we find the following: “Arrived on Tuesday last, in distress, ship William and Jane, Brown, from N. York, with flaxseed, bound to Londonderry,—Sailed from N. York, Dec. 24, and next day the ship sprung a leak, which continued to increase, and was compelled to throw over part of the cargo, and put into this port.”
It will thus be seen that flaxseed was exported to Ireland from this country. That is perhaps what Black & Stewart, Irish merchants of Providence, intended to do with the “2000 bushels of good and well clean’d flax seed” they advertised for in 1763.
From facts here adduced it will be seen that for a great many years, until Irish manufacturing industries were crushed by English law, commercial relations existed between Ireland and Rhode Island. Irish goods and Irish passengers were landed on the wharves in Newport and Providence, while outgoing ships took goods and passengers for the old land. Too long have these facts been forgotten or ignored. But a new era has dawned and the sun of investigation will yet bring forth even greater and more interesting developments.
John Burns, a native of the city of Dublin, where he was born in 1730, was a prominent character in Pennsylvania history. He emigrated to Philadelphia when quite young. He prospered in business in that city, where we are told “he took a prominent part in all local and national questions, and was honored by his fellow-citizens with many positions of trust.” He was the first governor of Pennsylvania elected after the adoption of the federal constitution, and “retained in a high degree the respect and confidence of his fellow-citizens till his death.”
One of the very earliest white settlers in Greene County was Thomas Hughes, who emigrated from Donegal with his wife, Bridget O’Neill, to Virginia. One of his descendants, Thomas Hughes, wrote the memoirs of his family in 1880, in which he said: “The motive that sent our first ancestor to this country from his native Irish home was of this character, i. e., a desire for religious freedom; he was a devout Catholic.” “Settling,” he continues, “in the valley of Virginia, in Loudoun County, before the year 1739, Thomas Hughes, son of Felime or Felix, and his wife, with his brother Felime or Felix, all from Inver, in Donegal, Ulster, first laid the foundations of his family in this country.”
“Thomas Hughes was a noted hunter, and in one of his expeditions into the backwoods, which lasted for several months, he spent some time in what is now Greene County, Pennsylvania, the soil and general appearance of which pleased him so well that he determined to make his future home there. This he did in 1771, and was one of the very first white settlers in that country. He located where Carmichaelstown now stands, but several years afterwards exchanged farms with a party named Carmichael, and called his new place Jefferson, after his old county in Virginia.”
His nephew, Felix Hughes, also settled in Pennsylvania, where he erected a fort or blockhouse as protection against the Indians and wild animals. It was a building of only one story and a half, of hewn logs and rough boards, and as an instance of the primitiveness of the period when this Irish pioneer settled in this locality, this building was looked upon as “an elegant house!” His wife’s name was Cinthia Kaighn (or Kane). In 1780, he set out with others to Kentucky to look up lands, but the party was attacked by Indians while descending the Ohio and, after a narrow escape, Hughes returned to Greene County, where he spent the remainder of his days. He and his father were buried in Neill’s burying ground, near Carmichaelstown. Their descendants are still found in considerable numbers in Greene and Fayette counties, Pennsylvania.
A prominent Irish Catholic who settled early on Sherman’s Creek, was Henry Gass. He and his brother erected log cabins on Indian lands in Perry County, but were dispossessed from there in 1750, when they located at Falling Springs.
Patrick Gass, who was born in the latter place in 1771, and who is said to have been the first white man to make an overland trip to the Pacific, is presumed to have been a son of Henry Gass. The original name, of course, was Prendergast.
Among the earlier Irish inhabitants of Carlisle is found the Prendergrass family, whose name is identified with almost all the larger settlements west of Carlisle. Kline’s Carlisle Gazette of November 29, 1797, gave an account of the death of the aged Philip Prendergrass, which occurred two weeks previously, in which it described him as “an old inhabitant of this borough.” The name is found on the “list of taxables” in 1762. He took part in the expedition of Kitanning, in 1756, to repulse the Indians. It was a member of this family, Garrett Prendergrass who, in February, 1770, purchased the ground now occupied by the city of Allegheny, from the Six Nations. The old Prendergrass homestead was near Hanover, and is still occupied by the family. It was built in the last century by an Irishman names Byrnes, who married into the family.
Wing’s History of Cumberland County mentions John and Charles McManus, as settlers in Carlisle in 1762, the latter as “one of the oldest, most progressive and successful business men in the community.”
“The large and commodious dwelling he erected on East Street,” says Ganss, one of the historians of Carlisle, “still remains as a monument of post-colonial massiveness, spaciousness and solidity, with its marble slab conspicuously placed in the second story, bearing the date of its erection, 1797, and the name of its builder, and which gives evidence not only of enterprise and wealth, but cultured taste. Originally, he was proprietor of one of the largest distilleries in the county, and amassed a sufficient competence which permitted him to live, if not in luxury, at least in ease and comfort. After the death of Mrs. Mary McManus (born 1703, died 1809), the name becomes less prominent, although that of Charles is still found on the pew list of the Catholic Church as late as 1823. The descendants drifted to Mexico and Philadelphia. The former branch of the family, in the course of time, founded the prosperous and famed banking firm of McManus & Co., an institution of international reputation and the largest and most prominent in our sister republic. The Philadelphia family likewise, achieved more than ordinary success in life.”
Here we have a conspicuous example of the class of men whom Ireland gave to America in her early days.
John Frazer, who was born at Glassborough, County Monaghan, in 1709, left Ireland in 1735 and located in Philadelphia. In course of time he became a very wealthy man. He was a shipping merchant, owning several vessels engaged in the West Indian trade. He married Mary Smith, who was born in Cleary, County Monaghan. He died in Philadelphia in 1765. His son, Patrick Frazer, commanded a company of the Fourth Pennsylvania, a regiment under the command of Anthony Wayne. He became lieutenant-colonel of the Fifth Pennsylvania, and was brigadier-general of Pennsylvania militia. His grandson, Robert Frazer, was a distinguished lawyer at Thornbury, Pa.
John McCord emigrated from Ireland in 1750, and settled in Sherman’s Valley, Pa. His father also located at Landisburg, Pa., about the same time, and on his farm a fort was erected for protection against the Redmen in the Indian war of 1755. It is still known as McCord’s Fort.
David Milligan came from Ireland to Mifflin County, Pennsylvania, in 1766. He and his two brothers, John and James, served in the Fifth Battalion of Cumberland Militia through the Revolutionary War. David was twice taken prisoner. All these were in active service up to 1778. Their brother, Thomas, and their mother, joined them from Ireland in 1785.
Robert Guthrie, a name Anglicized from McGrath, was born in Derry; settled with his family in Lancaster County in 1744. His wife’s name was Brighid Dougherty, a native of Carndonagh, County Donegal. Their son was a lieutenant-colonel in Colonel Brodhead’s regiment through the Revolutionary War. He was in the expedition against the Six Nations, and with Harbison’s company of rangers in the border wars against the Indians. His great-grandson was mayor of Pittsburg in 1897.
Roger Connor, a native of Cork, settled at Lancaster in 1740. He established a hat factory there and purchased lands in many parts of the province, principally in Lancaster, Carlisle and York. He had Irishmen in his employ, too, and in the Philadelphia Mercury of November 24, 1743, he advertised for “Patrick Dollard, a hatter by trade, aged about twenty years, a lusty, well-set fellow, etc.” Patrick was a redemptioner and had left the service of his countryman before his term had expired. It was Roger Connor who gave the land on which St. Mary’s Church, in Lancaster, was built. His name appears on the list of subscribers to the fund for the relief of the sufferers by the Boston massacre in the Revolution. He died at Lancaster in 1776.
John and Charles Connor also settled in Lancaster about 1740, and are thought to have been kinsmen of Roger. In 1758, Charles went to Philadelphia and his name appears on the list of the early contributors to St. Mary’s Church. He died in 1775 and bequeathed his property to his nephew, Charles, son of Cornelius O’Connor, of Carrigtwohill, County Cork.
Another family named Connor lived in Ashton Township, Chester County. Charles Connor died there in 1750.
Thomas G. Connor, son of another Charles Connor, who was born at Philadelphia in 1786, is buried in Mount Vernon Cemetery, Philadelphia. His wife’s name was Martha Fitzgerald.
Morgan Connor, or O’Connor, was one of the early settlers in Pennsylvania. In the Pennsylvania Archives, Vol. X, he is referred to as “among the first to enter the service of his country as lieutenant in Captain George Nagle’s company, in Colonel Thompson’s regiment.” After the campaign of 1775–’76 he was ordered south as a brigade major for Gen. John Armstrong. He served with credit down to the winter of 1779, and on his return in that year he became lieutenant-colonel of Hartley’s regiment and subsequently colonel of the Eleventh Regiment. He was lost at sea in 1780, on a voyage to the West Indies. According to Volume I, No. 47, Register of Wills Office, Philadelphia, letters of administration on O’Connor’s estate were granted to Dennis McCarthy, on September 8, 1780, when McCarthy, Bryan O’Hara and Patrick Byrne gave a bond in the sum of £3,000.
In a pamphlet issued by Benjamin Franklin in 1744, entitled, Plain Talk, or Serious Considerations on the Present State of the City of Philadelphia and Province of Pennsylvania, appears a letter written in that year by Governor Morris of New Jersey, to Governor Clinton of New York, in which he said: “There are here a Popish chapel and numbers of Irish and Germans that are Papists, and I am told that should the French land 1,500 or 2,000 men, they would in that province soon get ten or twelve thousands together, which would in that case be not a little dangerous to these and neighboring colonies.”
Edward McGuire, who belonged to the staff of General McGuire in Austria, came to Philadelphia in 1751, with wines, in which he had invested his patrimony. He was the son of Constantine McGuire and Julia MacEllengot of the County of Kerry. He established himself in business in Philadelphia, but subsequently went to Alexandria, Va., thence to Winchester in 1753, where he built a hotel and gave the ground for and built the Catholic Church at Winchester in 1790. He died in 1806. His descendants were lawyers, doctors and ministers, some of whom married into the best old Virginia families.
Acrelius, in his History of New Sweden (as Pennsylvania was sometimes called prior to the English settlement), writing of 1758, said: “Forty years back our people scarcely knew what a school was. In the later times there have come over from Ireland some Presbyterians and some Roman Catholics, who commenced with school keeping, but as soon as they saw better openings they gave that up.”
Among the early Philadelphia schoolmasters, the following advertised in the Mercury: Charles Phipps, “from Dublin,” in 1729, and James Conway, on July 17, 1729. George Brownwell also advertised his school in the same year. The schoolroom later became a dancing academy, and was opened by “Theobald Hacket, dancing master, lately come from England and Ireland.” Alexander Butler advertised his school on November 12, 1741. On June 21, 1790, John Reilly opened a school at Columbia, and in the following year his scholars were taken by Francis Dunlevy, who taught the higher branches. This was continued until 1793, when Reilly gave the entire school to Dunlevy and opened another school at Mill Creek. It is stated in the Magazine of Western History for February, 1888, that this was the first school in the American settlements of the Ohio.
Many of these Irish schoolmasters are mentioned in Wickersham’s History of Education in Pennsylvania.
An Irish schoolmaster taught school at Chester in 1741. Rev. Mr. Backhouse of that borough, wrote the London Society for Propagation of the Gospel, that the Quakers had “set up another schoolmaster, one of their own sort truly, but a native Irish bigoted Papist, in opposition to one Charles Fortesque.” The name of this Irish schoolmaster is not mentioned.
John Conly taught “an advanced school” at Byberry, Philadelphia County, before the Revolutionary War.
John Downey, who was among the first settlers of Harrisburg, according to Wickersham, taught school at Harrisburg for a number of years. He was also a justice of the peace, town clerk and member of the Assembly. In 1796, he presented Governor Mifflin a plan for a state system of education, “in which he discussed the whole subject of education, showing a wonderful sense of its importance in a government like ours and a clear conception of the nature of the system necessary to make it general.”
On May 15, 1767, Miss Mary McAllister advertised in the Philadelphia papers to open a boarding school for young ladies in that city. “Hers was the first school of the kind in Philadelphia” (Wickersham).
Thomas Neill was a schoolmaster in the Wyoming Valley before the massacre of 1778. He is described as “an Irishman of middle age, learned, a Catholic, a Free Mason, fond of dress, remarkable for his fine flow of spirits and pleasing manners, a bachelor and a schoolmaster.” He lost his life in the massacre of Wyoming.
In 1790, a number of Catholics from Maryland settled in Cambria County, Pennsylvania. “A school was opened there,” says Wickersham, “under the direction of a schoolmaster named O’Connor.”
Wickersham also states that the pioneer settler of northern Cambria County was a Captain Maguire. Other settlers who followed him from Maryland in 1790 were named Kaylor, Burns, McDale and Carroll, the descendants of the latter having been the founders of the present town of Carrolltown. The second white child born in that section is said to have been Michael Maguire. The number of places in Cambria County which bear Irish names indicate the extent of these Irish settlements. For instance, Driscoll, Carrolltown, Kaylor, Dale, Dougherty, Sheridan, Condon and Patton, called after the settlers, and Dysart and Munster, called after Irish places. Immediately to the north of Cambria, in Clearfield County, there are places names Mahaffey, McGee, McCartney, McCauley, Welshdale, Moran, Curryrun, Mitchel, Shawville, Barrett and Donegal, and in the other counties surrounding Cambria, are places called Tyrone, Armagh, Avonmore, McKee, Curryville, Kelley, Fleming, Connor, Daley, Downey, Lavansville, and so on.
James Nowlins taught school at Mauch Chunk. According to Wickersham, he was one of the first white men who located at that place.
“Paddy” Doyle taught school at Phœnixville. He is mentioned in Pennypacker’s Annals of Phœnixville. A description of him says “his nationality was revealed by a very decided brogue.”
Robert Williams, an Irishman, was a teacher at Greensburg.
John Sharpless conducted an academy on Second Street, Philadelphia, in 1791.
Rev. S. Magaw opened an academy on Spruce Street in 1800.
Philip Garrett and two other teachers opened a night school at Philadelphia in 1799, and their advertisement stated it was “for poor children and would do the teaching themselves.” Two years later their effort was organized into the “Philadelphia Society for the Establishment and Support of Charity Schools.”
In the settlement of New Londonderry, Chester County, Samuel Blair, an Irishman, established a school in 1740. This settlement was founded fourteen years before by immigrants from Derry and Donegal. Blair is described in Pennsylvania history as “one of the most able, learned, pious, excellent and venerable men of his day.” His academy was called “the school of the prophets,” and “from it there came forth many distinguished men who did honor to their instructor and their country.”
One of the most eminent educators in the province was Dr. Samuel Finley, who arrived from Ireland in 1734 and located in Pennsylvania, where he taught school. In 1744 he founded an academy at Nottingham, Md., where some of the most distinguished men in the country laid the foundation of their education and usefulness. Among his many scholars were such men as Governor Martin of North Carolina, the famous Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia, his brother, Judge Rush, Governor Henry of Maryland, and Doctor McWhorter of New Jersey. It is said “there were no better classical scholars formed anywhere in the county” than in this school. In 1761, Doctor Finley was appointed president of Princeton College. He died in 1766.
Dr. Francis Alison, of Donegal, came to Pennsylvania in 1735, and settled at New London, Chester County, where he opened a school. At the time of its establishment there was a great want of learning in the Middle Colonies, and Doctor Alison is said to have instructed all who came to him “without fee or reward.” A Dr. Patrick Allison, who was born in Lancaster County in 1740, is thought to have been a relative of the Donegal schoolmaster. He held a place “in the very first rank of the American clergy, and had scarcely an equal for his eloquence.”
The father of John W. Geary, governor of Pennsylvania from 1867 to 1873, was an Irishman who had settled early in Franklin County. He became an iron manufacturer, but having failed in business and lost his entire investment in the mines, he opened a select school in Westmoreland County, to which he devoted the remaining years of his life. His son, General Geary, commanded a Pennsylvania regiment in the Mexican War, and was commissioned governor of Kansas in 1856. He fought in the War of the Rebellion and distinguished himself for his bravery at Gettysburg. “His name will forever be associated with the great events of the brilliant Chattanooga campaign.” While in the command at Lookout Mountain, his son, Capt. Edward Geary, a youth of eighteen, was killed by his side.
William Powers, who was elected a member of the Hibernian Society of Philadelphia in 1790, is referred to in Campbell’s history of that society as “a teacher in the university.”
Benjamin Workman, who also joined in the same year, is described as a teacher of mathematics. He advertised in the Freeman’s Journal on June 28, 1786, as “from the University of Pennsylvania.”
Rev. S. B. Wylie, a native of Moylarg, County Antrim, was a teacher in a private academy at Philadelphia in 1797, in which year he fled from the wrath of the British government. He was an early member of the Society of United Irishmen in Belfast. He became professor of languages in the University of Pennsylvania and was vice-provost of that institution. He joined the Hibernian Society in 1811.
William Findlay, who was born in Ireland in 1750, came to Pennsylvania in August, 1763, and taught school in Westmoreland County for several years after his arrival. He was elected to the state Legislature from Westmoreland County, and was a member of Congress from 1791 to 1799, and again from 1803 to 1817. He was a prominent writer and pamphleteer on subjects devoted to the public welfare. He was a member of the Hibernian Society.
Among the members of the Hibernian Society who were elected in 1790, Francis Donnelly, John Barry, John Heffernan and James Kidd are described as schoolmasters in Philadelphia.
Patrick Farrall, who joined the Society in 1792, and who is described as “the first clerk in the office for settling accounts between the United States and individual states” after independence had been won, is thought to have been a Pennsylvania schoolmaster.
Andrew Porter, a member of the Hibernian Society, opened “an English and Mathematical School” in Philadelphia in 1767, in which he taught till 1776, when he was appointed a captain of marines and ordered to the frigate Effingham. He was a son of Robert Porter, who emigrated from Derry to New Hampshire in 1720, and who afterwards removed to Montgomery County, Pa. He was transferred from the marine corps to the command of the Fourth Pennsylvania Artillery, which post he held until the close of the war. He fought in several battles of the Revolutionary War at the head of his gallant regiment, and is said to have been personally commended by Washington for his conduct at the battle of Germantown. He became general of Pennsylvania militia, and took a prominent part in all movements for the welfare of his native state. Gov. David R. Porter of Pennsylvania, Gov. Bryan Porter of Michigan, and James M. Porter, secretary of war under Tyler, were grandsons of the exile from Derry, Robert Porter.