Chapter XVII: Introduction (11)

In 1781, when Continental money was so terribly depreciated that it took, in the language of one of the old settlers, “seventeen dollars of it to buy a quart of whiskey,” the government was in too straitened a condition to furnish this frontier guard with ammunition and provisions, so that the force was considerably reduced. Small scouting parties were still kept up, however, to watch the savages, who again made their appearance in the neighborhood in the summer, retarding the harvest operations. About the middle of July, the scouts reported everything quiet and no traces of Indians in the county. Accordingly, Mr. Holliday proceeded to his farm, and, with the aid of his sons, succeeded in getting off and housing his grain. Early in August, Mr. Holliday, accompanied by his sons Patrick and Adam and his daughter Janet, then about fourteen years of age, left Fort Roberdeau for the purpose of taking off a second crop of hay. On their arrival at the farm they went leisurely to work, and mowed the grass. The weather being extremely fine, in a few days they began to haul it in on a rudely constructed sled, for in those days few wagons were in use along the frontiers. They had taken in one load, returned, and filled the sled again, when an acquaintance named McDonald, a Scotchman, came along on horseback. He stopped, and they commenced a conversation on the war. William Holliday was seated upon one of the horses that were hitched to the sled, his two sons were on one side of him, and his daughter on the opposite side. All of the men, as was customary then, were armed with rifles.

While this conversation was going on, and without the slightest previous intimation, a volley was suddenly fired from a thicket some sixty or seventy yards off, by which Patrick and Adam were instantly killed and the horse shot from under Mr. Holliday. The attack was so sudden and unexpected that a flash of lightning and peal of thunder from a cloudless sky could not have astonished him more. The echoes of the Indian rifles had scarcely died away before the Indians themselves, to the number of eight or ten, with a loud “whoop!” jumped from their place of concealment, some brandishing their knives and hatchets and others reloading their rifles. Appalled at the shocking tragedy, and undecided for a moment what course to pursue, Holliday was surprised to see McDonald leap from his horse, throw away his rifle, run toward the Indians, and, with outstretched arms, cry “Brother! Brother!” which it appears was a cry for quarter which the savages respected. Holliday, however, knew too much of the savage character to trust to their mercy—more especially as rebel scalps commanded nearly as good a price in British gold in Canada as prisoners; so on the impulse of the moment he sprang upon McDonald’s horse and made an effort to get his daughter up behind him. But he was too late. The Indians were upon him, and he turned into the path which led down the ravine. The yells of the savages frightened the horse, and he galloped down the path; but even the clattering of his hoofs did not drown the dying shrieks of his daughter, who was most barbarously butchered with a hatchet.

In a state of mind bordering on distraction, Holliday wandered about until nearly dark, when he got upon the Brush Mountain trail, on his way to Sinking Valley. His mind, however, was so deeply affected that he seemed to care little whither he went; and, the night being exceedingly dark, the horse lost the trail and wandered about the mountain for hours. Just at daybreak Mr. Holliday reached the fort, haggard and careworn, without hat or shoes, his clothes in tatters and his body lacerated and bleeding. He did not recognize either the fort or the sentinel on duty. He was taken in, and the fort alarmed, but it was some time before he could make anything like an intelligible statement of what had occurred the day previous. Without waiting for the particulars in detail, a command of fifteen men were despatched to Holliday’s farm. They found the bodies of Patrick and Adam precisely where they fell, and that of Janet but a short distance from the shed, and all scalped. As soon as the necessary arrangements could be made, the bodies of the slain were interred on the farm; and a rude tombstone still marks the spot where the victims of savage cruelty repose.

This was a sad blow to Mr. Holliday; and it was long before he recovered from it effectually. But the times steeled men to bear misfortunes that would now crush and annihilate the bravest.

After the declaration of peace, or, rather, after the ratification of the treaty, Gordon came back to Pennsylvania and claimed his land under its stipulation. He had no difficulty in proving that he had never taken up arms against the colonies, and Congress agreed to purchase back his lands. The Commissioners to adjust claims, after examining the lands, reported them worth sixteen dollars an acre; and this amount was paid to Adam Holliday, who suddenly found himself the greatest monied man in this county—having in his possession sixteen or seventeen thousand dollars. Adam Holliday lived to a good old age, and died at his residence on the bank of the river, in 1801. He left two heirs—his son John, and a daughter married to William Reynolds.

After the estate was settled up, it was found that John Holliday was the richest man in this county. He married the daughter of Lazarus Lowry, of Frankstown, in 1803, and in 1807 he left for Johnstown, where he purchased the farm, and all the land upon which Johnstown now stands, from a Doctor Anderson, of Bedford. Fearing the place would never be one of any importance, John Holliday, in a few years, sold out to Peter Livergood for eight dollars an acre, returned to Hollidaysburg, and entered into mercantile pursuits.

William Holliday, too, died at a good old age, and lies buried on his farm by the side of his children, who were massacred by the Indians. In the ordinary transmutation of worldly affairs, the lands of both the old pioneers passed out of the hands of their descendants; yet a beautiful town stands as a lasting monument to the name, and the descendants have multiplied until the name of Holliday is known, not only in Pennsylvania, but over the whole Union.

[Note.—There are several contradictory accounts in existence touching the massacre of the Holliday children. Our account of it is evidently the true version, for it was given to us by Mr. Maguire, who received it from Mr. Holliday shortly after the occurrence of the tragedy. It may be as well here to state that the original Hollidays were Irishmen and Presbyterians. It is necessary to state this, because we have heard arguments about their religious faith. Some avow that they were Catholics, and as an evidence refer to the fact that William called one of his offspring “Patrick.” Without being able to account for the name of a saint so prominent in the calendar as Patrick being found in a Presbyterian family, we can only give the words of Mr. Maguire, who said: “I was a Catholic, and old Billy and Adam Holliday were Presbyterians; but in those days we found matters of more importance to attend to than quarrelling about religion. We all worshipped the same God, and some of the forms and ceremonies attending church were very much alike, especially in 1778, when the men of all denominations, in place of hymn-books, prayer-books, and Bibles, carried to church with them loaded rifles!”]

GEORGE CROGAN AND AUGHWICK, HUNTINGDON COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

BY JAMES S. O’NEILL, ELIZABETH, N. J.

George Crogan was born in Dublin, Ireland. He came to Aughwick Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, about the year 1742 and soon after took up the business of an Indian trader. At first he located at Harris’ trading house, now Harrisburg, on the Susquehanna, and from there moved over the river into Cumberland, some eight miles from his first place. From there he made excursions to Path Valley, Aughwick and finally to the Ohio river by way of the old Bedford trail. His long residence among the Indians not only enabled him to study Indian character thoroughly, but he acquired the language of both the Delaware and Shawnee tribes.

The history of Aughwick and of Crogan are identical during the years 1754–55–56. Aughwick was not originally an Indian town, as is generally supposed, but was a settlement of whites to which the Indians came after Crogan had made it his residence, the time of their coming being clearly shown by official records. It is therefore difficult, if not impossible, to give any reliable information concerning the origin of the name. There is no certainty that it belongs to any of the Indian languages; the probability is that it is derived from one of the European tongues. The first settlers there, as in nearly all parts of Huntingdon County, were Irish. They could furnish a name, or the town which they may have proposed founding, without resort to any other vocabulary than their own. Aughwick is said to resemble in sound two Irish words which mean literally “Swift running steed.” In early times the orthography of the name was almost as various as were the hands by which it was first written. Crogan at first wrote it “Aughick,” afterwards “Aughick Old Town” and finally “Aughwik Old Town.” Crogan—first letter—published in the Colonial Records, is dated “May 26, 1747,” and is directed to Richard Peters. It was accompanied by a letter from the Six Nations, some wampum and a French scalp, taken somewhere on Lake Erie. In a letter from Governor Hamilton to Governor Hardy, dated July 5, 1756, in speaking of Crogan, who was at one time suspected of being a spy in the pay of the French, Hamilton says: “There were many Indian traders with Braddock—Crogan among others, who acted as a captain of the Indians under a warrant from General Braddock, and I never heard of any objections to his conduct in that capacity. For many years he had been very largely concerned in the Ohio trade, was upon that river frequently, and had a considerable influence among the Indians, speaking the language of several nations, and being very liberal in his gifts to them, which, with the losses he sustained by the French, who seized great quantities of his goods, and by not getting the debts due to him from the Indians, he became bankrupt, and since has lived at a place called Aughwick, in the back parts of this province, where he generally had a number of Indians with him, for the maintenance of whom the province allowed him sums of money from time to time, but not to his satisfaction. After this he went by my order with these Indians, and joined General Braddock, who gave the warrant I have mentioned. Since Braddock’s defeat, he returned to Aughwick, where he remained till an act of assembly was passed here granting him a freedom from arrest for ten years. This was done that the province might have the benefit of his knowledge among the Indians; and immediately thereupon, while I was last at York, a captain’s commission was given to him, and he was ordered to raise men for the defence of the western frontier, which he did in a very expeditious manner, but not so frugally as the commissioners for disposing the public money thought he might have done. He continued in the command of the companies he had raised, and of Fort Shirley, on the western frontier, about three months; having a dispute with the commissioners about some accounts between them, in which he thought himself ill-used, he resigned his commission, and about a month ago informed me that he had not received pay upon General Braddock’s warrant, and desired my recommendation to General Shirley; which I gave him, and he set off directly for Albany, New York.”

Crogan settled permanently in Augwick in 1754, and built a stockade fort, and must have been some kind of an agent among the Indians, disbursing presents to them for the government. In December of that year he wrote to Secretary Peters, stating the wants of his Indians, and at the same time wrote to Governor Morris as follows:

“I am Oblige to advertize the Inhabitance of Cumberland county in ye
honours Name nott to barter or sell Spirituous Liquors to the Indians
or any other person to bring amongst them, to prevent ye Indians from
Spending there Cloase, tho I am obliged to give them a bag Now and
then my self for a frolick, but that is Attended with no Expense to ye
Government nor bad consequences to ye Indians as I do it Butt onst a
Month. I hope your honour will approve of this Proceeding, as I have
Don itt to Prevent Ill consequences attending ye Indians if they
should be always be kept Inflamed with Liquors.”

That Crogan and his Indians were of some service would appear from the fact that the assembly passed a law exempting him from arrests—for debt it is supposed—for ten years, and commissioning him a captain in the Colonial service. The supposition that Crogan was a spy in the service of the French was based upon the idea that he was a Roman Catholic, inasmuch as he was born in Dublin, Ireland. His loyalty was first brought into question by Governor Sharpe, in December 1753, who wrote to Governor Hamilton, informing him that the French knew every move for defence made in the Colonies, and asked his opinion of Crogan. In answer, Governor Hamilton said: “I observe what you say of Mr. Crogan; and, though the several matters of which you have received information carry in them a good deal of suspicion, and it may be highly necessary to keep a watchful eye upon him, yet I hope they will not turn out to be any thing very material, or that will affect his faithfulness to the trust reposed in him, which, at this time, is of great importance and a very considerable one. At present I have no one to inquire of as to the truth of the particulars mentioned in yours but Mr. Peters who assures me that Mr. Crogan has never been deemed a Roman Catholic, nor does he believe that he is one, though he knows not his education, which was in Dublin, Ireland, nor his religious profession.” To keep the Indians loyal, he advanced many presents to them and the company of Indians he commanded was fitted out at his own expense; and it was the attempt to get what he advanced on that occasion that led to his quarrel with the commissioners and his resignation.

From Philadelphia, Pa., he went to Onondago, in September, 1756, and soon after was appointed deputy-agent, and again he took an active part in Indian affairs. After the French had evacuated Fort Duquesne, in 1758, Crogan resided for a time in Fort Pitt. From there he went down the river, was taken prisoner by the French, and taken to Detroit. Soon after his liberation he went to New York, where he died in 1782.

Thus ended the career of George Crogan, who was an old acquaintance of George Washington.

EXTRACTS FROM AMERICAN-IRISH HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHIES.

BY DR. MICHAEL F. SULLIVAN.

The history of a people, like the history of the literature of a people, depends upon the historian’s accumulation and verification of knowledge and the manner in which this knowledge is presented to the reader.

It would be an extraordinary thing, indeed, if all writers of history and biography were to speak and write the truth; it would still be a most remarkable condition if many people would overcome their prejudices and recognize the truth when they saw it.

It is lamentable to see how persons of the best intentions will let themselves be deceived when they have taken a false position and try to maintain it.

Some British and pro-British writers have taken a prejudiced position into which they will admit only such truthful ingredients as meet their views and shut out all the rest; just as much truth, as much sincerity, as much justice, as will allow them to call themselves fair and unbiased. It cannot be said that all act wittingly and purposely, but it seems to be the favorite practice of many writers of American history and biography to write events and conditions as they would like to have had them occur rather than as they really were.

What real historian, or writer of historical truths, will deny to the Celts the credit due them for the wonderful part taken by them in the constructing, upbuilding and general welfare of our great country? What people have done more than the warm-hearted and susceptible Celts, the hereditary fervor of their patriotism, the sacrifices which they have made and which—unchecked by defeat and disappointment, and hope deferred—they are daily making for their country and every country of their adoption; their Celtic veneration for ancient usages, and more than Celtic tenacity of ancient recollections; above all, their still unextinguished spirit of nationality and imperfect amalgamation even to this day with English interests and English feeling, could not fail, one would suppose, to find an echo in the heart of the most prejudiced writer of history. England has not only stolen the country of the Celt, but she has often stolen her genius. The biographical history of Ireland cannot be contemplated without pride and satisfaction to every one who feels an interest in her glory and sympathy with her sufferings.

Reduced to a condition of slavery such as no other nation on earth has endured—her name a by-word—her miseries a mockery—herself the amphitheatre upon which the dishonest ministers of England exhibited their games of blood and rioted in drunkenness and corruption,—it is, nevertheless, consoling to discover that from her condition she has partially recovered and is not completely cursed, but that the master spirits whom she produced may well take their stand beside the highest minds of any other nation, whether in poetry or literature, in eloquence or statesmanship, in camp or court.

Oppression, however it may debase the physical and mental energies of a people, cannot thoroughly destroy them; those very periods that to the ordinary observer seem less likely to be illuminated by distinguished minds, genius has often most splendidly adorned.

Mrs. Stopford Green, in her book, “The Making and Undoing of Ireland,” says: “There is no more pious duty to all of Irish birth than to help in recovering from centuries of obloquy the men of noble birth, Irish and Anglo-Irish, who built up the civilization that once adorned their country.

“It is by the study of this history alone that Irishmen will find a just pride restored and their courage assured. In this effort, however, Irishmen are confronted with a singular difficulty.

JOHN O’SULLIVAN, ESQ.,

Of New York City.

A Member of the Society.
]

“In no other country in the world has it been supposed the historian’s business to seek out every element of political instability, every trace of private disorder, every act of personal violence, every foreign slander and out of these alone neglecting all indications of industry or virtue to depict a national life.

“Irish annals are still in our own days quoted by historians as telling merely the tale of a corrupted land,—feuds and battles, murderings and plunderings; with no town or church or monastery founded, no law enacted, no controversy healed by any judgment of the courts. If the same method had been found for England, what an appalling story we should have had of that mediæval time, of its land-thefts, its women lifting, its local wars, the feuds handed from father to son with their countless murders and atrocious devastating for generations whole country sides.

“The Irish have long been famed for their love of learning. By their missionaries they gave to the English the alphabet and the Christian faith. When the English made returns by breaking the Irish schools and destroying their libraries, they were still forced to recognize the talents of the people—‘sharp-witted lovers of learning, capable of any study to which they bend themselves,’ lovers of music, poetry and all kinds of learning.”

Bancroft says, in Volume 5, in referring to the Irish in 1763: “Their industry within the kingdom was prohibited or repressed by law, and then they were calumniated as naturally idle. Their savings could not be invested on equal terms in trade, manufactures or real property; they were called improvident. The gates of learning were shut on them and they were derided as ignorant. In the midst of privations they were cheerful. Suffering for generations under acts which offered bribes to treachery, their integrity was not debauched; no son rose against his father, no friend betrayed his friend. Fidelity to their religion, to which afflictions made them cling more closely, chastity, and respect for the ties of family remained characteristics of the down-trodden race.”

Gordon’s Civil War in Ireland speaks of the literature of Ireland as follows: “The literature of Ireland has a venerable claim to antiquity; for, as has been already mentioned, in the centuries immediately following the introduction of Christianity, many writers arose, whose works principally consist of lives of Saints, and works of piety and discipline, presenting to the inquisitive reader many singular features of the history of the human mind. The chief glory of the ancient Irish literature, arises from the revival of the rays of science, after it had almost perished in Europe, on the fall of Roman Empire in the west. The Anglo-Saxons, in particular, derived their first illumination from Ireland; and in Scotland, literature continued to be the special province of the Irish clergy, ’till the thirteenth century.”

Greece and Egypt, in very remote antiquity, were seminaries of learning to the rest of the world; and Ireland, in latter days, seems to have answered the same description to the other nations of Europe. When the ravages of the Goths and Vandals had desolated the improvements of Europe, and reached also to a considerable extent on the African continent, learning appears to have flourished in Ireland. Spencer says it is certain that Ireland had the use of letters very anciently, and long before England; he thought they were derived from the Phœnicians. Bede speaks of Ireland as the great mart of literature, to which they resorted from all parts of Europe. He relates that Oswauld, the Saxon King, applied to Ireland for learned men to instruct his people in the principles of Christianity. Camden says, it abounded with men of splendid genius, in the ages when literature was rejected everywhere else; according to him and others, who wrote at the same time, the abbeys Luxieu in Burgundy, Roby in Italy, Witzburg in Frankland, St. Gall in Switzerland, Malmsbury and Lindisfern in England, and Jona in Scotland, were founded by Irish Monks. The Younger Scaliger, and others, say, at the time of Charlemagne, and two hundred years before, almost all the learned were of Ireland. The first professors in the University of Paris were from this Island; and the great Alfred even brought professors to his newly founded college of Oxford from this country. It would be too tedious to enumerate the benefits diffused through various parts of Europe, by the numbers of distinguished and learned men from Ireland, who imparted the early lights of Science and of Christianity, and founded monasteries in various parts of Britain, France and Italy. At this day, the Patron Saints, as they are called, of several nations on the continent, are acknowledged to be Irish; hence we may see, how Ireland obtained the name of Sanctorum Patria. We have also the testimony of venerable Bede, that, about the middle of the seventh century, whole flocks of nobles and other orders of the Anglo-Saxons, retired from their own country into Ireland, either for instruction, or for an opportunity of living in monasteries of stricter discipline; and the Scots (as he styles the Irish) maintained them, taught them, and furnished them with books, without fee or reward; “a most honorable testimony,” says Lord Lyttleton, “not only to the learning, but likewise to the hospitality and bounty of that nation.” Dr. Leland remarks, “that a conflux of foreigners to a retired Island, at a time when Europe was in ignorance and confusion, gave peculiar lustre to this seat of learning; nor is it improbable or surprising, that seven thousand students studied at Armagh, agreeable to the accounts of Irish writers, though the seminary of Armagh was but one of those numerous colleges erected in Ireland, and the grand ruins of them, to this day, stand as so many learned monuments of the ancient and literary fame of the country. Ireland retained the name of Scotia, till so late as the fifteenth century, with the addition of Major, or Vetus, to distinguish it from Caledonia or Albania, that is, the present Scotland, which, in the eleventh century, began to be called Scotia Minor, as deriving its improvement immediately from hence. The ancient Scotch writers, of the greatest repute, are so far from denying their Irish extraction, that they seem to glory it; and King James I, in one of his speeches, boasts of the Scottish dynasty being derived from that of Ireland.”

The dazzling array of Irish names by which the annals of America has been graced is far more extensive than the ordinary observer would suppose.

To some of the friendly and to all of the unfriendly a man to be Irish must bear a pronounced Celtic name.

It is a fact from the most reliable authority that many Irish on coming to this country adopted English names, many taking the names of colors and trades. Dr. Thomas Dunn English says “they often took the names of Black, Brown, Grey and Green, or as fancy may dictate.” He says “the names were generally retained on this side of the Atlantic.” He also adds: “In the eighteenth century as well as the latter part of the seventeenth century, Philadelphia, then the greatest commercial port, was the spot of the greatest debarkation of the Irish hosts. While many remained in the east there was a time when the greatest portion pushed their way into the western wilds where the land could be had for the asking. They scattered themselves over the slopes of the great Allegheny range and its various spurs and tributaries.”

From Londonderry in New Hampshire down to Coloraine in the far south, Dr. English says he found many Celtic names changed with the “Macs” and “O’s” dropped. He said: “If nevertheless all these names were blotted out and their place taken by those of English or German sound the character of the original settlement would be known by the prevalence of certain words and survival of certain customs.”

Spencer, the historian, says: “Multitudes of laborers and husbandmen from Ireland embarked for the Carolinas. The first colony of these located in 1737 near Santee.” He also says “emigration to America was so heavy as to show the depopulation of whole country districts in Ireland.” Ramsey, the historian of the Carolinas, declares “that of all the European countries none has furnished this province with so many inhabitants as Ireland. Scarcely a ship,” he says, “sailed from any Irish port for Charlestown that was not crowded.” All this, he declares, occurred years and decades before the revolutions.

Jenkins, in his life of President Polk, says: “About the year 1735 two large parties from Ireland sought the wilds of America, one by the Delaware to Philadelphia and the other by Charlestown, South Carolina.”

New York World’s History of the United States says: “An Irish colony under Ferguson settled in South Carolina in 1679.”

There was a combined movement of Celts, Catholic and Presbyterian and Quakers to South Carolina and of all the colonies sent out by the prolific isle none had greater Americans than the emigration between 1750–’70.

At any rate it may challenge comparison with any other—Jackson, Calhoun, O’Kelly, O’Grady, Polk, Crockett, Houston, McDuffie, Adair, McKemy, McWorter, O’Farrell, McNairy. All these are of Irish extraction and still (some of them Americanized by dropping the O’ or the Mc) adorn the annals of their states or nation. If anyone had said, in 1692, that a British parliament could succeed in exiling thousands of Catholic and Protestant Irish in such a way as to make them fight side by side with Catholic Frenchmen and non-sectarian colonists against the United Kingdom he would have been denounced as a fool. The wise men would have told him that legislative folly might do wonders, but it could not work miracles. Yet that is just what parliament accomplished, for scarcely was the ink dry on the treaty of Limerick (which provided that Catholics should enjoy in Ireland such rights as they had enjoyed in the reign of Charles II) when it was violated by a series of laws that now make honest Englishmen blush. It is needless to repeat the black details. Says one British writer: “The laws were so many and so atrocious that an Irishman could scarcely draw a full breath without breaking a law.”

Grimshaw’s History of the United States, 1821, says: “Philadelphia in 1683, which was begun on the site of the Indian village, Coquanoc, derives its name from a city in Asia Minor celebrated in sacred history for its having been the seat of an early Christian church. During the first twelve months of its foundation about a hundred houses were erected and, since that period, it has received a continual accession of inhabitants from Ireland and Germany.” It also says: “In the interval between 1730 and the period when this history will relinquish the distinct colonial proceedings to conduct the narrative of a more sublime and awful period when individual interests combine and move forward with a unity of action there was an annual influx of emigrants. These were principally from Germany and Ireland. The Irish and German people at an early day brought the useful arts and manufactures into Pennsylvania. The Irish and French emigrants had enjoyed a large share of civil liberty and boldly contended for total enfranchisement from regal domination.”

Grimshaw says, in relating an incident of the war of 1812: “Scenes of the most distressing kind were occurring in the Chesapeake. It was now that Admiral Cockburn was satiating his unmanly and unsoldierlike propensities in a species of warfare at once reflecting dishonor. At first his depredations were directed against the farm houses and seats of private gentlemen. These were plundered, their owners in the rudest manner insulted, and cattle which could not be removed were wantonly destroyed.

“Georgetown and Fredericktown were destroyed. The people of Frenchtown, after firing a few shots, fled on the enemy’s approach with the exception of an old Hibernian, named O’Neil. This heroic citizen continued the battle alone, loading a piece of artillery and firing it himself, until, by recoiling, it ran over his leg and wounded him severely; and even then, exchanging his piece of ordnance for a musket, and limping away, he still kept up a retreating fight with the advanced column of the British. He was, at length, made prisoner, but soon afterwards released.” Holmes (Annals of America) says: “From Dec. 31, 1728, to Dec. 31, 1729, there entered the port of Philadelphia 5,655 Irish immigrants, 243 Germans, 267 English and Welsh and 43 Scotch.”

Rev. S. F. Hotchkin, in Penn’s Greene Country Towne, writes: “In 1729 Miss Elizabeth McGawley, an Irish lady, brought hither tenantry to the Dickson property between Nicetown and Frankford and had a chapel there. A priest named Michael John Brown was buried in a stone enclosure not far away. Roman Catholic services may be traced, as Watson says, to a letter of Penn to Logan, in 1708, wherein he mentions that Mass had been celebrated in Philadelphia and that the services were held in a frame building on Cor. of Front and Walnut Sts.”

The _New York Sun_, in commenting on Galletin, says his sponsors were John Smilie, Blair McClenachan, and Thomas McKean, sturdy leaders of the strong Philadelphia Irish colony of that era, 1789.

John Sanderson’s Biography (1823) of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, says: “In Pennsylvania the Quakers reared the most durable monuments of their fame, and advanced of their most elevated grade the interests of their order. The freedom, liberality and benevolence of their policy invited among them, as well from the adjacent provinces as from Europe, a numerous population; and the industry of the German, the activity and enterprise of the Irishman joined to the pre-existing order and economy of this province, raised it to a sudden height of prosperity which has been seldom equalled in the history of nations.”

Drake, in his Landmarks of Boston, says: “About 1718 a number of colonists arrived from Londonderry, Ireland, bringing with them the manufacture of linen and the implements used in Ireland.”

Early records of the Town of Derryfield, now Manchester, N. H., 1751–’82, says: “On Sept. 23, 1751, at the call of John McMurphy, the proprietors, free-holders and inhabitants of Derryfield gathered at the inn of John Hall for the purpose of laying the foundation of self-government. Its early inhabitants were made up of Irish, who had begun to settle within its bounds as early as 1718, mostly near Amoskeag Falls. About 100 families settled there at that time.”

Harris’ Memorials to Oglethorpe (1841) says: “Governor Oglethorpe, founder of the colony of Georgia’s Mother was Elenora Wall, an Irishwoman of Rogane, Ireland.” Charles Dempsey was an able assistant to Governor Oglethorpe and did much to settle differences between Florida and Georgia. Under Governor Oglethorpe, as a military officer, was a Patrick Sutherland. That there were thousands of Irish settled not only in New Hampshire, Georgia, Pennsylvania, the Carolinas, but Maine, Virginia, Massachusetts and New York, in colonial days, may be attested if we are to believe Prendergast in his book, “Cromwellian Settlement of Ireland,” he says: “Thousands of Irish were sold into a kind of slavery by Cromwell to Massachusetts and the West India Islands from Ireland. Between 1651 and 1655 over 6,000 boys and girls, namely from the south of Ireland, were shipped to those two ports.” It seems difficult for some writers to give credit and justice to a people against whom they have an unwarranted prejudice—prejudice stimulated by ignorance of facts or malice.

After the quotations from the most reliable authorities as to the early settlement of America in colonial days by the Irish, it is to be wondered at which of the afore-mentioned causes impelled the president of a great university to give credit to other peoples in the settlement and upbuilding of America and omit the important part taken by the Irish.

Was it malice or ignorance that caused a gentleman holding one of the two highest positions in the United States government from Massachusetts, to give the Irish but partial credit in his paper, “Distribution of Ability in the United States,” published in the _Century_ Magazine? The honorable gentleman quotes Appleton’s Encyclopedia of Biography for his authority, which, if closely examined, it will be found that his time or vision must have been exceedingly limited. A careful examination of the above authority will prove malice or ignorance or delegating the examination to some Celtophobe of the Goldwin Smith stamp. These writers can be truly accused of carelessness or credulity. The colonial settlers from Ireland did not claim to be anything but Irish,—God had not created at that time the new breed of higher animals, the Scotch-Irish.

Mr. James McMillen of Cincinnati, Ohio, in the _New York Sun_, refers to an article of Dr. Lyman Abbot in the _North American Review_, in which “he (Dr. Abbot) declares that the great forces which contribute to our civilization in this country are not Celtic, Slavic, Mongolian or African, but Anglo-Saxon.” Mr. McMillen adds: “From the very beginning we have been in the front ranks with our Anglo-Saxon brethren and will not be crowded out at this late day by any authority who would place us in the same category with the African, Mongolian or Slavic so long as we continue to demonstrate our equality if not superiority to the Anglo-Saxon.” The Abbots, Lodges, Eliots, Fisks and other minor satellites will find it an impossibility to eliminate from the pages of American history the absolutely necessary part taken by the Celt in the originating and perpetuating American liberty, institutions and ideals. The misinformers of history should stop to consider that civilization is not made up only of heat or cold, light or darkness, but a community of human beings, with likes and dislikes, with hopes and aspirations, with hearts beating with passion or sentiment and while human peculiarities are modified to a certain degree by condition and environment, they are not wholly changed. This will apply to the early Irish and English settlers of America. It would be a very uncertain belief to suppose that the thousands of Irish who settled in America in colonial days to escape the lauded Anglo-Saxon civilization, would tamely submit to a continuance of it in this broad land of liberty and opportunities.

The Celt came to America to better his condition and not for exploitation and plunder; and his splendid sentimental and kindly nature did have a modifying effect on the character of the brutal Saxon and if much of the land of America in colonial days was claimed as the land of the Saxon the sun that gave it national heat and light was Celtic love of God, Celtic love of justice, Celtic valor, Celtic zeal, Celtic intelligence that made it the greatest country on earth.

He who has read American history has read it in vain, if he does not know that had it not been for the moral and physical aid given by not only the Irish colonists, but by the people of Ireland, American independence would not have been achieved. Washington, himself, acknowledged publicly the great indebtedness to Ireland.

The admirers of the prefix and hyphen in American history probably had in mind the attempts of that brilliant young Irish scientist, John Butler Burke, to produce life artificially. The preface to Burke’s book, “Origin of Life,” somewhat changed, is “Although it is not the object of this book to lend support to the doctrine of abiogenesis or the development at the present day of living from absolutely non-living (Scotch-Irish) matter, the more hopeful, though as it must be admitted less gratifying view to take is that we have arrived at a method of structural organic synthesis of artificial (Scotch-Irish) cells, which if it does not give us organic life such as we see around us, gives us, at least, something which, according to (Eliot, Lodge, Fisk and others) admits of being placed in the gap, or, as it might be preferably called, the borderland between living and dead matter.” Dr. Burke says: “The why and wherefore we may ask, but get no answer to; the how is our only consolation; and even in that do the most careful steering to avoid the pitfalls and precipices of error.”

The afore-mentioned “historians” did not share Dr. Burke’s doubt, but went ahead and created a new set of cellular tissue and called it the Scotch-Irish. With characteristic zeal and industry begotten of their love of justice and fair play, “that the world may know” a Murray, a Linehan, a Roache, a Gargan and hosts of others of beloved memory have shed lustre on Ireland not only as men of Irish blood but as disseminators of historical truths as to the priceless part taken by men of Irish blood from the earliest days of the country’s history until the present time for the permanency of American institutions and government. In no man’s heart do the Stars and Stripes awake a more sincere and ardent patriotism than the Irish-American.

Rev. Edward Everett Hale writes in the _Boston Daily Advertiser_, January, 1852, the following:

“PROPORTIONS OF ORIGINAL RACES IN AMERICA.

“In writing these letters to the _Boston Daily Advertiser_, I
attempted to confine myself to the facts which directly affect
legislation or charitable action. There is, however, a curious
question as to the effect to be produced on national character by
intermixture of blood and race, produced by such large emigration as
we see. What I have said in my last letter has been carefully guarded,
so as to refer everywhere to the absolutely unmixed Celtic race. Of
its value intermixed I have spoken as highly as I could.

“An anxious question is asked, however, by men of the old American
blood, whether there is not an over-preponderance of the Celtic
element coming in upon us? I do not profess to answer the question,
how far the origin of the native American blood is Celtic.

“In what proportions do the Celtic and Gothic or Germanic elements
mingle in the Englishman of today (1852) and, of course, in the
American of today? Dr. Kombst estimates in 1841 that there are of pure
German blood in England 10,000,000. Of mixed blood where the Teutonic
prevailed in England and the northeast of Ireland, 6,000,000. Of mixed
blood, where the Celtic prevailed in England, Scotland and Ireland,
4,000,000. And of pure Celtic in Scotland, Wales and Ireland,
6,000,000.

“But Dr. Lantham, with more reason, I think, doubts the purity of any
Germanic blood in England, saying that ‘a vast amount of Celticism,
not found in our tongue, very probably exists in our pedigrees.’ And
in another place he says that in nine-tenths of the displacements of
races made by conquest the female half ancestry of the present
inhabitants must have belonged to the beaten race.

“I think the history of the Saxon invasions is such as to give color
to this idea in the case of England. And I am not sure, but what it
could be made out, that the American people, before the recent Irish
invasion, showed in their proportion of black-haired men of dark
complexion and other Celtic signs that as large a fraction as
two-thirds of its blood ran in the dark ages of the past in Celtic
veins. If this be so, if the proportion, two-thirds Celtic to
one-third Gothic or Germanic, is the proportion which makes up that
‘perfect whole,’ the ‘true American,’ which considers itself so much
finer than either of the ingredients, the recent emigrations furnish a
happy co-incidence with the original law. For five past years the
arrivals at New York, which are three fourths the whole, and represent
it in kind exactly, have been 547,173 Irish; 278,458 Germanic; 153,969
English and Scotch; 71,359 others. Now keep these 71,359 ‘others’ for
condiments in the mixture. There are Norwegians and French, Belgians
and Spaniards, Swiss and Italians, balanced against each other (and a
few Magyars).

“The English, of course, we need not count; but of pure Celts and pure
Germans we have to fraction just two to one; and in that proportion
are they to affect the blood of the American people.

“This computation which I had prepared before I read a courteous
article in the _American Celt_ of January 24, 1852, will, perhaps,
show to the writer of that paper, that we are not so far apart in our
views as he supposed.”

Mr. James Anthony Froude, in his history of Ireland, maligned the Irish people and did much to prejudice the world against them. Previous to his death he tried to undo the injustice he had done them. The following letter from Mr. Philbrick, superintendent of schools, explains itself:

_Donohue’s Magazine_, August, 1855, taken from _Boston Transcript_
letter by Mr. Philbrick, superintendent of schools in Boston.

“James Anthony Froude, in his recent rapid passage across the country
on the homeward stretch of his round-the-whole trip, was interviewed
in New York and among other things was asked for reminiscences of his
visit to the United States.

“The reading of the notice of his interview revived the memory of an
incident of that visit, which is perhaps worth relating.

“During this visit, Mr. Froude delivered lectures in the principal
cities on the Irish question. The theory which he propounded and
advocated was, that the troubles in Ireland were not the result of bad
government at all, but of bad blood in the Irish race. But he was
anxious to get more light on the subject, if possible, and so, when in
Boston, he wanted to visit public schools which were frequented by
children of the Irish race. Accordingly, I took him to some boys’
schools and some girls’, where the children were almost wholly of
Irish parentage. At the last of these girls’ schools, of the grammar
grade installed in a splendid new school house of large size, after
passing through twelve or fourteen rooms, filled with bright,
well-dressed girls full of animation in their recitation in the
various branches of instruction, Mr. Froude asked: ‘Do you mean to
says that these are the children of Irish immigrants?’ ‘Yes,’ I
answered, ‘I believe there is not a single pupil in this school of the
Yankee race.’ ‘Well,’ he continued, ‘I must confess I’m staggered.’
‘Now,’ said I, ‘I will take you to a mixed school (boys and girls
being in separate rooms and classes), which stands on a spot that two
years ago was a mud hole in a marsh surrounded by poor dwellings,
mostly occupied by Irish immigrants.’

“After passing through most of the rooms in the fine building, in
which were neatly-dressed pupils in the most perfect order, earnestly
engaged in their work, we came to a boys’ room where a recitation in
history was in progress. Here he took a seat and proceeded to question
the class, from which he got very prompt and appropriate answers. At
length, he singled out a little tan-headed boy of the Irish
nationality and plied him with a lot of pretty hard questions, but
every one was answered with admirable promptness and accuracy. Mr.
Froude stopped, remained silent for a short time with his eyes cast
down as though in a profound study. He then addressed the boys again
and said: ‘My boys, where did you learn this?’ ‘Out of a book, sir,’
was the ready reply. ‘And where did you get the book?’ ‘Out of the
public library,’ was the answer.

“Mr. Froude then arose to leave and I said: ‘Now, Mr. Froude, I will
take you to the Girls’ High School, where you will find
representatives of the Irish nationality in a higher grade of
instruction.’ ‘Well,’ replied Mr. Froude, ‘you may take me where you
please; it makes no difference; I’m full; I can’t hold any more.’”

Spencer says: “The Irish had the use of letters long before the English, and that Oswald, a Saxon king, applied to Ireland for learned men to instruct his people.”

Camden says: “Ireland abounded with men of genius and erudition when learning was trampled on in every other quarter of the globe.”

Plutarch calls Ireland, “Ogygia,” _i.e._, the most ancient isle.

Ralph Waldo Emerson says: “The sources from which tradition derives their stock are mainly three. And, first, they are of the oldest blood in the world, the Celtic. Some people are deciduous or transitory.

“Where are the Greeks? Where the Etrurians? Where the Romans?

“But the Celts or Sidonides are an old family, of whose beginning there is no memory and their end is likely to be still more remote in the future; for they have endurance and productiveness. They planted Britain, and gave to the seas and mountains names which are poems and imitate the pure voice of nature.

“They are favorably remembered in the oldest records of Europe. They had no violent feudal tenure, but the husbandman owned the land. They had an alphabet, astronomy, priestly culture, and a sublime creed and precarious genius. They made the best popular literature of the middle ages in the songs of Merlin and the tender and delicious mythology of Arthur.”

The most ancient manuscripts in the world are in the Irish language and the oldest Latin manuscripts were written by an Irishman.

The Irish language is as old as Hebrew and more ancient than Greek or Latin.

Matthew Arnold made the statement: “If Celticism had not moulded England she would not have produced a Shakespeare.”

There were a few Irishmen evidently in business in Boston before 1847–8. The Columbian Centennial of May 12 and March 17, 1812, gives James Magee, owner of Coffee Exchange House; William Barry, Dealer in Hats and Furs; William Sullivan, Corn Hill Square, Sale of farms; J. L. Sullivan, Manager of Merrimac Boating Co.; William Sullivan’s orations for sale; James Barry, Fish, Pork and Lard Dealer; Walter Welsh, Real Estate.

THE IRISH IN RHODE ISLAND, TO AND INCLUDING THE REVOLUTION.

BY JOHN J. COSGROVE, PROVIDENCE, R. I.

When it was first suggested to me that I prepare a paper dealing with some phase of the history of the Irish in America I decided that I would take as my subject the history of the Irish in Rhode Island up to the present time. My belief was that the part played by the men and women of Irish birth or descent in the early history of our state was so slight, and the facts relating thereto so meagre, that I could in a few words deal with the early history of the Irish in Rhode Island, and could pass on to their history for the last three-quarters of a century.

Upon beginning my researches I was at once convinced of my mistake and soon learned that if I adhered to my original intention, instead of preparing a short paper I would be obliged to write a large volume. Therefore, I have taken as my subject: “The history of the Irish in Rhode Island to and including the Revolution,” with the hope that some abler Irish man or woman will, at some future time, tell the story of the part played by the men and women of Irish birth or extraction in the modern history of the “lively experiment” of Roger Williams.

In discussing the history of the Irish in America it is not our intention to belittle the work of others, or to steal from other nations the glories of their achievements; neither are we seeking to dim the lustre of the Puritan crown, nor to call our own the mighty deeds of the pioneer Pilgrims who landed in New England and conquered the wilderness. We have no desire to turn Plymouth Rock into a Blarney Stone. We are not going to assert that Roger Williams was the grandson of Fin Mac Cumbal, or that the clam was first planted in Narragansett Bay by the founder of Clan McFadden.

Our object is simply to record the deeds of the men and women of our race in the making of America; to enable Americans to judge us in true perspective; to tell the world what we Irish have done and are doing in the upbuilding of this state and nation. We are trying to bring to the minds of the country a knowledge of the fact that we have been here from the beginning, that we have given our service and our lives for the promotion of America’s happiness, that, by our brain, by our brawn, by our courage, tenacity of purpose, morality, we have fairly earned the right to the highest and best that America can offer to its devoted sons and daughters. We seek to tear away the veil of ignorance that has blinded many to our worth and to bring into relief a better picture of our race that has too often been falsely depicted. We are proving our claim, not by appeals to race prejudice or bigotry, but by incontrovertible evidence. In the words of the American-Irish Historical Society, we are laboring “that the world may know.”

There is a very erroneous impression in the minds of many, even in this enlightened age, that the struggle for liberty in Ireland has been a religious struggle, a struggle for the principles of Catholicity and for these principles alone. Our fight is not a religious fight. It is the fight for the liberties of a race, not a religion; for the right of a distinct, ethnic entity to work out its salvation in the way best suited to its temporal needs. “Nations have no hereafter, their reward must be of this world”; neither have they religions as nations.

Many are also of the opinion that unless a man or woman is a Catholic he or she is not Irish, though bearing an Irish name. Thus we see people of other faith with the name of Sullivan or Murphy classed as “Scotch-Irish,” that race with no existence, repudiated alike by Irish and Scotch, and which someone has called the “Equinoctial Gael.”

Another fact to be borne in mind in connection with Irish names is that many Irish men and women have come to America, and particularly to New England, who, for one reason or another, bore names distinctly un-Irish. Why this is so will be explained later.

FIRST TRACE OF THE IRISH IN NEW ENGLAND.