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Title: The Journal of the American-Irish Historical Society (Vol. I)

Author: Various

Editor: Thomas Bonaventure Lawler

Thomas Hamilton Murray

Release date: December 27, 2017 [eBook #56261]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Larry B. Harrison and the Online Distributed
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN-IRISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY (VOL. I) *** 




Transcriber’s Note:


The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.









REAR-ADMIRAL RICHARD WORSAM MEADE

First President-General








THE JOURNAL
 
 OF THE
 
 AMERICAN-IRISH
 Historical Society








EDITED BY


THOMAS HAMILTON MURRAY


Secretary-General


AND


THOMAS BONAVENTURE LAWLER


Librarian-Archivist


VOLUME I


BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS


MDCCCXCVIII













1

AMERICAN-IRISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY.




The American-Irish Historical Society was founded, as its
constitution declares, for “the study of American history generally;
to investigate specially the immigration of the people
of Ireland to this country, determine its numbers, examine the
sources, learn the places of its settlement; to examine records
of every character wherever found; to endeavor to correct
erroneous, distorted, and false views of history in relation to
the Irish race in America; to encourage and assist the formation
of local societies; to promote and foster an honorable and
national spirit of patriotism; to place the result of its historical
investigations and researches in acceptable literary form;
to print, publish, and distribute its documents; to sift and
discriminate every paper, sketch, document bearing on the
society’s line of work, before the same is accepted and given
official sanction.” The work was inaugurated by the issuance
of the following invitation to prominent men throughout the
country:


A Call for the Organization of an American Historical
Society whose Special Line of Research shall be the
History of the Irish Element in the Composition of
the American People.


Dear Sir,—A number of gentlemen, interested in the part taken
in American history by people of Irish birth or lineage, are about
to organize themselves into an historical society for the purpose
of investigating and recording the influence of that element in the
up-building of the nation.


People of Irish blood have been coming to this continent, voluntarily
and otherwise, since the date of its earliest settlement. While
they have been a valuable addition to colony and republic in all
2departments of human activity, their work and contributions have
received but scant recognition from chroniclers of American history.


Whether this omission springs from carelessness, ignorance, indifference,
or design, is now of little moment. The fact that such a
condition does exist makes it imperative that it should be remedied
not only in the interest of historical truth, but of racial fair play.
Certain elements in the make-up of the American people have not
hesitated on occasion to masquerade, at the expense of the Irish,
in borrowed plumes, and to pose under plundered laurels. It is
the duty of honest historians to look after the rights of the lawful
owners.


The history of Irish immigration to this country is of profound
interest. The motive that inspired this sturdy people in coming to
these shores was largely the one that animated and inspired all
immigration—discontent with the existing home conditions, civil,
religious, political, industrial, and the hope of living under better
and nobler conditions here.


The American of English stock has his historical society; the
descendants of the Dutch, Huguenot, and Spaniard have associations
which specialize the historical work of the bodies they represent;
and we feel that the story of the Irish element should be told
before the mass of legend and fiction now flooding the country under
misleading designations has completely submerged historic facts.


The work of our projected society will be influenced by no religious
or political divisions, for with us the race stands first, its qualifying
incidents afterwards. It matters little where the people came
from, whether from the north, the south, the east, or the west of
Ireland. It is of minor importance in what church they worshiped;
we wish merely to concern ourselves with the work done by them
here; to record the story of their settlement; to state the extent of
their participation in the civil, military, and political activities of the
land, and to try truthfully and fearlessly to record their achievements.


The society now in process of formation must, we believe, be
made up of men who have the patience to search, the knowledge
and wisdom to sift and discriminate, and the ability to place the
results in acceptable literary form. Lastly, the character of the
membership must be such that it will command the respect and
attention of the community, so that its work will be accepted as
having a definite historical value which can be used in general
works treating of the growth of the republic by historians of a
future date. This, in brief, is the project; it is ambitious, but it is
3worthy; it is absolutely necessary if the good name and influence of
an essential, but much neglected, chapter in American history shall
be perpetuated.


To place the Irish element in its true light in American history,
to secure its correct perspective in relation to historic events on this
soil, is the final aim of the new society. Its primal object will be to
ascertain the facts, weigh them in relation to contemporary events,
and estimate their historical value, avoiding in this process the
exaggeration and extravagance of poorly informed writers on the
one hand and the prejudice and misrepresentation of hostile writers
on the other.


The organization will be constructed on a broad and liberal plan.
It will be non-political, and no religious test will be required for
admission to membership or the holding of office. Being an American
organization in spirit and principle, the society will welcome to
its ranks Americans of whatever race descent who evince an interest
in the special line of research for which the society is organized.


Some of the projectors belong to other historical bodies, and it
was at first believed that the work for which this new society is to
be formed could better be done through the medium of those bodies
and without the necessity of a separate organization. Experience,
however, has led to the conclusion that this is not so. Hence the
resolve to form a distinct body, with its own special object, program,
and mode of procedure.


There is a place for such a society in the community; its purposes
are honorable and useful, and its work should begin while yet documents,
records, and historical material are available. We feel that
such a work will be valuable not only to the Irish race, but to the
American race also, to whose fiber this element has contributed its
share.


We will be glad to have your good wishes and coöperation in the
work.


The meeting for organizing the society will be held at the Revere
House in Boston, Mass., on Wednesday, Jan. 20, 1897, at 6.30 P.M.
Introductory to the proceedings, a dinner will be served.






Very respectfully,












John C. Linehan,


State Insurance Commissioner, Concord, N. H.






Joseph Smith,


Secretary, Board of Police, Lowell, Mass.






4Robert Ellis Thompson,


President, Central High School, Philadelphia, Pa.






James Jeffrey Roche,


Editor, The Pilot, Boston, Mass.






Theodore Roosevelt,


New York City.






Thomas J. Gargan,


Boston, Mass.






Patrick Walsh,


Ex-U. S. Senator; publisher, The Chronicle, Augusta, Ga.






Thomas Hamilton Murray,


Editor, Daily Sun, Lawrence, Mass.






Thomas A. E. Weadock,


Member of the LII.d and of the LIII.d Congress, Detroit, Mich.






John J. Phelan,


Late Secretary of State, Connecticut, Bridgeport, Ct.






Edward A. Hall,


Member, Connecticut Valley Historical Society, Springfield, Mass.






Hugh J. Carroll,


Late a Member of the Rhode Island General Assembly; Ex-Mayor


of the city of Pawtucket, R. I.






J. D. O’Connell,


Bureau of Statistics, Treasury Department, Washington, D. C.






Walter Lecky,


Redwood, Jefferson County, N. Y.






J. W. Fogarty,


Assessors Department, City Hall, Boston, Mass.; Secretary,


Charitable Irish Society (instituted 1737).






Thomas Addis Emmet,


New York City.






Dennis Harvey Sheahan,


Ex-Reading Clerk, Rhode Island House of Representatives,


Providence, R. I.






M. J. Harson,


Founder, Phi Kappa Sigma, Brown University, Providence, R. I.






James R. O’Beirne,


Late Brevet Brigadier-General of Volunteers; Ex-Commander, U. S.


Medal of Honor Legion, New York City.






St. Clair A. Mulholland,


Brevet Major-General of Volunteers; commanded Fourth Brigade,


First Division, Second Corps, Philadelphia, Pa.






5Rev. Thomas J. Conaty, D.D.,


Rector, Catholic University, Washington, D. C.






Rev. George C. Betts,


Rector, St. James Protestant Episcopal Church, Goshen, N. Y.






Rev. George W. Pepper,


(Methodist), Cleveland, Ohio.






Rev. Andrew Morrissey, C. S. C.,


President, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Ind.






Osborne Howes,


(Eighth American generation), Secretary, Board of Fire


Underwriters, Boston, Mass.






Henry Stoddard Ruggles,


(Ninth American generation), Member, Sons of the Revolution and


Sons of the American Revolution, Wakefield, Mass.






Henry G. Crowell,


(A descendant of David O’Killia, who was a settler in Plymouth


Colony as early as 1657), South Yarmouth, Mass.






Richard W. Meade,


Rear Admiral, U, S. N.






John Cochrane,


President of the N. Y. Society of the Cincinnati, New York City.






Matthew Calbraithe Butler,


Late a Senator of the United States, Edgefield, S. C.














Issued at Boston, Mass.,


Dec. 26, 1896.








In response to this call, fifty gentlemen met at the Revere
House on Wednesday, January 20, and organized the American-Irish
Historical Society by signing the following agreement:


“We, the undersigned, by our subscription herewith, agree with
the other subscribers hereto to organize ourselves into a body to be
known as the American-Irish Historical Society of the United
States, whose object shall be the study of American history and
whose special line of work shall be the history of the Irish element
in the composition of the American people, and the investigation,
record and publication of the influence of that element in the up-building
of the nation.”








Thomas Hamilton Murray, Lawrence, Mass.


James Jeffrey Roche, Boston, Mass.


Joseph Smith, Lowell, Mass.


6Edward A. Hall, Springfield, Mass.


Bernard E. Donigan, Lawrence, Mass.


Timothy P. Sullivan, Concord, N. H.


James F. Brennan, Peterboro, N. H.


Hugh J. Carroll, Pawtucket, R. I.


Bernard McCaughey, Pawtucket, R. I.


Edward F. Radikin, Pawtucket, R. I.


Peter J. Heffern, Pawtucket, R. I.


William Farrell, Pawtucket, R. I.


M. W. Kelliher, M. D., Pawtucket, R. I.


John C. Linehan, Penacook, N. H.


Rev. Timothy P. Linehan, Biddeford, Me.


Rev. M. H. Egan, Lebanon, N. H.


James Cunningham, Portland, Me.


M. A. Toland, Boston, Mass.


George H. Moses, Concord, N. H.


Thomas B. Smith, Lowell, Mass.


P. J. Flatley, Boston, Mass.


T. Carl O’Brien, Boston, Mass.


John A. O’Keefe, Lynn, Mass.


Daniel Donovan, Lynn, Mass.


W. J. Ahern, Concord, N. H.


David E. Murphy, Concord, N. H.


Michael J. McNeirny, Gloucester, Mass.


Jas. H. Carmichael, Lowell, Mass.


Geo. C. Dempsey, Lowell, Mass.


Thos. F. Harrington, M. D., Lowell, Mass.


Dr. Philip Kilroy, Springfield, Mass.


Thomas B. Lawler, Worcester, Mass.


Rev. John J. McCoy, Chicopee, Mass.


Dr. Patrick J. Timmins, South Boston, Mass.


J. W. Fogarty, Roxbury, Mass.


John E. Lynch, Worcester, Mass.


Francis P. McKeon, Worcester, Mass.


M. J. Harson, Providence, R. I.













EDWARD A. MOSELEY

President-General











JOHN C. LINEHAN

Treasurer-General











THOMAS HAMILTON MURRAY

Secretary-General











THOMAS B. LAWLER

Librarian-Archivist






7Several others were also present, but, coming in later, their
signatures to this agreement were not obtained. They included
Hon. Thomas J. Gargan and Osborne Howes, of Boston,
Mass.; Charles A. De Courcy, of Lawrence, Mass.; Dennis H.
Sheahan, of Providence, R. I.; and Thomas Carroll, of Peabody,
Mass. Of these, Mr. Gargan, Mr. Howes, and Mr. Sheahan
were among the signers of the call for the meeting. All
expressed themselves in favor of the organization and a desire
to be identified with it.




The following constitution was adopted:


 Preamble.


Believing that the part taken in the settlement, foundation, and up-building
of these United States by the Irish race has never received
proper recognition from historians, and inspired by love for the
republic, a pride in our blood and forefathers, and a desire for historic
truth, this society has met and organized.


Its mission is to give a plain recital of facts, to correct errors, to
supply omissions, to allay passions, to shame prejudice, and to labor
for right and truth.


While we, as loyal citizens of this republic, are earnestly interested
in all the various phases of its history, we feel that we should
be false to its honor and greatness and recreant to our own blood
if we did not make a serious effort to leave to those generations
which will follow us a clearer and better knowledge of the important
work done by men and women of the Irish race on this continent.
People of this race—men and women born on Irish
soil—have been here from the first, prompted in their flight by the
motives common to all immigration, dissatisfaction with the old order
of things, and the resolve to obtain a freer and better life in the new
land under new conditions.


And so we have come together—natives of Ireland, American
sons of Irish immigrants, and descendants of immigrants even unto
the seventh, eighth, and ninth American generations—to duly set
forth and perpetuate a knowledge of these things.


In the days to come, that lie in the womb of the future, when all
the various elements that have gone and are going to make the republic
great, are united in the American,—the man who in his person
will represent the bravest elements of all the old races of earth,—we
desire that the deeds and accomplishments of our element
shall be written in the book of the new race, telling what we did and
no more; giving us our rightful place by the side of the others.


To accomplish this is the purpose of this organization; it is a work
worthy of the sympathy and aid of every American who can rise above
the environment of to-day and look into the broad future. Fidelity,
8truth, honor, are the watchwords of such a purpose, and under their
noble influence should our work be done.


 Article I.—Name.


This organization shall be known as the American-Irish Historical
Society.


 Article II.—Objects and Purposes.


The objects and purposes of this society are:


(1) The study of American history generally.


(2) To investigate, specially, the immigration of the people of Ireland
to this country, determine its numbers, examine the sources,
learn the places of its settlement; and estimate its influence on contemporary
events in war, legislation, religion, education, and other
departments of human activity.


(3) To examine records of every character, wherever found, calculated
to throw light on the work of the Irish element in this broad
land.


(4) To endeavor to correct erroneous, distorted, and false views of
history, where they are known, and to substitute therefor the truth
of history, based on documentary evidence and the best and most
reasonable tradition, in relation to the Irish race in America.


(5) To encourage and assist the formation of local societies in
American cities and towns for the work of the parent society.


(6) To promote and foster an honorable and national spirit of
patriotism, which will know no lines of division, which will be based
upon loyalty to the laws, institutions, and spirit of the republic to
whose up-building the Irish element has unselfishly contributed in blood
and treasure, a patriotism whose simple watchwords will be true Americanism
and human freedom, and which has no concern for any man’s
race, color, or creed, measuring him only by his conduct, effort, and
achievement.


(7) To promote by union in a common high purpose a sincere
fraternity, a greater emulation in well-doing, a closer confidence and
mutual respect among the various elements of the Irish race in America,
that, by putting behind them the asperities of the past, they may
unite in a common brotherhood with their fellow-citizens for the
honor of the race and the glory of the republic.


(8) To place the result of its historical investigations and researches
in acceptable literary form; to print, publish, and distribute
9its documents to libraries, institutions of learning, and among its members,
in order that the widest dissemination of historical truth may
be obtained and placed within the reach of historians and other
writers and readers.


(9) To sift and discriminate every paper, sketch, document,
bearing on the society’s line of work, before the same is accepted and
given official sanction, in order that its publication may be a guarantee
of historical accuracy; to do its work without passion or prejudice,
to view accomplished facts in the true scientific historical spirit,
and, having reached the truth, to give it to the world.


 Article III.—Membership.


Any person, of good moral character, who is interested in the special
work of this society, shall be deemed eligible for membership in
the same. No tests other than that of character and devotion to the
society’s objects shall be applied to membership.


Every applicant for membership shall be recommended by two
members of the society before his application shall be considered by
the Secretary-General, and the application shall be accompanied by
the dues in the amounts laid down in the by-laws.


Members will be elected as follows: Candidates may send their
applications—for which blanks will be furnished—to the Secretary-General,
accompanied by the fee as provided in the by-laws, and each
application must be endorsed by two members of the society. The
Secretary-General shall submit the application to the Executive
Council, and a three-fourths vote of that body, by ballot or otherwise,
will be necessary to elect the candidate.


 Article IV.—Classes of Members.


The society shall comprise life members and annual members who
shall pay dues provided by the by-laws. The society may also choose
honorary and corresponding members who shall be exempt from
dues but shall not have the right to vote.


 Article V.—Officers.


The officers of the society shall consist of:


1. A President-General.


2. A Vice-President for each state and territory and for the District
of Columbia.


103. A Secretary-General.


4. A Treasurer-General.


5. A Librarian and Archivist.


6. An Historiographer.


7. An Executive Council.


(The word “General” herein to be considered equivalent to
National.)


The officers of the society shall be elected annually.


 Article VI.—The President-General.


The duties of the President-General shall be to open and preside
over the society during its deliberations, to see that the constitution
is observed and the by-laws enforced, to appoint committees, and exercise
a watchful care over the interests of the society, that its work
may be properly done and its purposes adhered to. In the absence
of the President-General a presiding officer pro tem. may be chosen.


 Article VII.—The Vice-Presidents.


It shall be the duty of the Vice-President of each state to represent
the President-General at all meetings of state chapters of the
society, and for the Vice-President of the state to which the President-General
belongs, or in which the meeting is held, to represent
him at all meetings of the parent society when he cannot be present,
and in his absence to act as chairman pro tem. In the absence
of both the President-General and state Vice-President, a presiding
officer pro tem. may be chosen from the assembled members of the
society.


 Article VIII.—The Secretary-General.


The Secretary-General shall keep a record of all the proceedings
of the society and the Executive Council; he shall have charge of the
seal and records; he shall issue and sign in conjunction with the
President-General all charters granted to the subsidiary chapters, and
shall with him certify to all acts of the society. He shall, upon
orders from the President-General, give due notice of time and place
of all meetings of the body; give notice to the several officers of all
votes, resolutions, orders, and proceedings of the body affecting them
or appertaining to their respective offices, and perform such other
duties as may be assigned him.



11

 Article IX.—The Treasurer-General.




The Treasurer-General shall collect and receive all dues, funds, and
securities, and deposit the same to the credit of the American-Irish
Historical Society, in such banking institution as may be approved
by the Executive Council. This money shall be drawn to the check
of the Treasurer-General for the purposes of the society and to pay
such sums as may be ordered by the Executive Council of the society
in meeting, said orders to be countersigned by the President-General
and Secretary-General. He must keep a full and accurate account
of all receipts and disbursements, and at each annual meeting shall
render the same to the society when a committee shall be appointed
by the President-General to audit his accounts. He shall present at
annual or special meetings a list of members in arrears.


 Article X.—The Librarian and Archivist.


The Librarian and Archivist shall be the custodian of all published
books, pamphlets, files of newspapers, and similar property of
the society. He shall have charge of all documents, manuscripts,
and other productions not assigned by this constitution to other officers
of the society, and shall keep the same in a place or places easy
of access and safe from loss by fire or other causes.


 Article XI.—The Historiographer.


The Historiographer, or official historian, of the society shall perform
the duties usually pertaining to that office.


 Article XII.—The Executive Council.


The Executive Council shall consist of the President-General,
Secretary-General, Treasurer-General, Librarian and Archivist, Historiographer,
and not less than ten nor more than twenty other members
to be elected by the society. The Executive Council shall be
judge of the qualifications of applicants for admission, and if satisfactory,
shall elect the same. The Council shall recommend plans for
promoting the objects of the society, digest and prepare business,
authorize the disbursement and expenditure of unappropriated money
in the treasury for the current expenses of the society; shall prepare
and edit—or cause to be prepared and edited—contributions of an
historical or literary character bearing on the special work of the
12society, for publication and distribution; may appropriate funds for
the expenses of special branches of research for historical data and
for the purchase of works to form a library for the society whenever
it shall have a permanent home and headquarters. The Council
shall have power to fill vacancies in offices until the annual meeting,
exercise a supervisory care over the affairs of the society, and perform
such other duties as may be intrusted to them. At a meeting
of the Executive Council five members shall constitute a quorum.


 Article XIII.—Meetings.


The annual meeting of this society shall be held on the third
Wednesday in January, at a place to be selected by the Executive
Council. A field day of the body shall be held during the summer
of each year at such time and place as the Executive Council shall
select, due regard being given to the convenience of the greatest
number, and, as far as possible, the meeting place selected shall be
one whose historical associations are of interest to American citizens.


The annual meeting shall be for the purpose of electing officers,
hearing reports, and transacting such other business as may come
properly before it. There shall be four stated meetings each year.


Special meetings may be called at any time by the Executive
Council.


 Article XIV.—Subsidiary Societies.


Chapters of the parent society may be established in any city or
town in the United States upon the petition of ten persons for a
charter, and such charter shall be issued upon payment of the sum
designated for such in the by-laws.


The President, Secretary, Treasurer, Librarian, and Historiographer
of all subsidiary societies shall be admitted to all meetings
of the parent society as members during their term of office, with all
the privilege of membership except that of voting.


 Article XV.—Amendments.


Amendments to the constitution shall be submitted to the Executive
Council through the Secretary-General at least thirty days before
the meeting of the society. A vote of two-thirds of the members
present at the meeting shall be necessary for the adoption of such
amendments.



13

 By-Laws.




1. The initiation fee shall be three dollars.[1] The annual membership
fee shall be three dollars, payable not later than the first day
of February in each year.




1.  The requirement that an initiation fee be paid is not yet enforced.




2. Payment of fifty dollars in advance at one time shall constitute
a life membership. Life members shall be exempt from further
membership dues.


3. The Executive Council shall provide for each regular meeting
of the society an address, essay, or paper dealing with some topic
in the society’s line of work.


4. A copy of all original productions read before the society
shall be requested for deposit in the society’s archives.


5. The annual field-day program shall include an oration, poem,
and dinner. Other features of an appropriate nature may be added.


6. A fraternal spirit shall be cultivated with other American
historical bodies. The society shall also keep in touch with historical
organizations in Ireland, France, and other countries.


7. Any person elected to membership in this society who fails
to pay his initiation fee within one year from the date of his election
shall, having been duly notified by the Secretary-General, be considered
as having forfeited his right to membership and his election
shall be canceled.


8. A member, neglecting for two years to pay his annual fee,
shall be notified of such omission by the Secretary-General. Still
neglecting for three months to pay the dues, such delinquent member
shall be dropped as no longer belonging to the society.


9. The stated meetings of the society shall be held in January,
April, July, and October. The President-General upon receiving a
request in writing, signed by ten members, asking for a special meeting,
shall cause the said meeting to be convened forthwith.


10. Ten members shall constitute a quorum at any meeting of
the society, except stated meetings when fifteen members shall be
necessary.


11. The general order of business at meetings of the society
shall be as follows:








a. Minutes of previous meeting.


b. Report of Executive Council on candidates for membership.


c. Balloting on candidates for membership.


14d. Reports of officers and committees.


e. Unfinished business.


f. New business.


g. Adjournment








12. When not otherwise provided, Cushing’s Manual shall be
the authority on points of procedure at meetings of the society.


13. No part of these by-laws shall be amended, altered, or repealed,
unless proposition is submitted in writing covering the proposed
amendment at least thirty days before the meeting when it is
to be acted upon, when, if two-thirds of the members present and
voting express themselves in favor of the change, the same shall be
made.


After the reception and introduction of those present, dinner
was served. Hon. Thomas J. Gargan presided, having as his
guest Paul B. Du Chaillu, the noted explorer, author of The
Viking Age, The Land of the Midnight Sun, and numerous
other works.


Upon the conclusion of the dinner, Mr. Gargan arose and
said:


“In the name of the committee who have issued the call for the
organization of an American Historical Society, whose special line of
research shall be the history of the Irish element in the composition
of the American people, I congratulate you on the success of this
initial movement and bid you a cordial welcome to this meeting.


“But little has yet been done to show how much the sons of Ireland
and their descendants have contributed to the settlement, to
the civilization and reclamation of this country, as also to its liberation
from oppression.


“In our proposed work we will discard the legendary and the
mythical. We recognize that we are living in a scientific age at
the end of the nineteenth century, the age of the microscope and
the X-ray, and we ask for the acceptance of no historical data that
will not bear the modern search-light and that is not sufficiently
proven.


“We claim that due credit has not been given to the Irish contributions.
That through prejudice or through gross ignorance there
has grown up a myth about the Scotch-Irish. Of all the myths that
have crept into history this is the most mythical. Why any man
should be ashamed of his honorable Irish ancestry surpasses my
comprehension and subjects the man who attempts to deny it to the
scorn and contempt of all honest and intelligent men.







THOMAS J. GARGAN
Boston, Mass.











JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE
Boston, Mass.











JOHN D. CRIMMINS
New York City











JOSEPH SMITH
Lowell, Mass.










EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE






15“Descendants of Irishmen may well feel proud of the honorable
part which the Irish race has borne in the settlement and development
of the country. As early as 1649, Cromwell, by his cruel policy,
transported 45,000 of them beyond the seas. A large number came
to Barbadoes. Many of them afterwards came to the continent of
North America.


“The revolution of 1688 in England, and the acts of British Parliament
to discourage manufactures in Ireland, drove 100,000 operatives
out of Ireland, and a writer of that time says multitudes of them went
to America.


“In 1729 a writer stated that 3000 males left Ulster yearly for the
American colonies. And the arrivals at the port of Philadelphia for
1729 are set down as: English and Welsh, 267; Scotch, 43; German,
343; Irish, 5655, or a proportion of ten Irish immigrants to one from
all other European nations. This constant influx continued, though
not in so great proportion. So we see what an important factor they
were in the settlement of the colonies.


“James Logan, of Lurgan, Ire., came over with William Penn, and
complaint was made against him that public Mass was permitted in
the colony.


“The name of Logan has through all our history been honorably
identified with every step of our progress. In 1729 several families
came from Longford, Ire., who were landed at Cape Cod, but made
their way to New York. Among them was Charles Clinton, whose
three children became historical men in the annals of New York.
The colony of Maryland was largely settled from Ireland; the
Carrolls, whose names are indissolubly associated with American
history, coming to the colony in 1689.


“In 1710 we find in Virginia along the Blue Ridge, in what are
now the counties of Patrick and Rockbridge, the McDowells, Breckenridges,
McDuffies, McGruders, and others, and the two rivers
Mayo, and the towns called McGaheysville, Healysville, Kennedysville,
McFarland, Lynchburg, and Kinsdale,—all names that tell us
plainly what was the origin of the settlers.


“In 1737 an Irish settlement was established on the Santee
River in South Carolina, and the historian of that time says none
has furnished so many settlers to this province as Ireland.


“In 1746 Daniel Boone commenced the settlement of Kentucky,
and had with him Hugh McGrady, also Harland and McBride.


16“In the Massachusetts Bay Colonies, prejudices against natives
of Ireland existed almost from the settlement of the colony. There
were restrictions as to land, and in 1720 the General Court warned
settlers from Ireland to leave the colony within seven months.


“As you all know, in 1737 the Charitable Irish Society was founded
here in Boston by twenty-six natives of Ireland, Robert Duncan
heading the list. William Hall was the first president, and in that
list of names are the founders of many distinguished Boston families,
some of whom, I am sorry to say, are not inclined to own their origin,
or choose rather to call themselves Scotch-Irish, an appellation which
their ancestors would have despised. We find at Concord the burial
place of Hugh Cargill, born in Ballyshannon, who came to this
country, in 1744, a poor emigrant, acquiring no mean estate, leaving
as a legacy the Stratton farm to the town of Concord to be used for
the poor.


“There also came to Massachusetts the Limerick schoolmaster,
John O’Sullivan, a name illustrious in our country’s annals. One of
his sons was General Sullivan, of Revolutionary fame. One of his
lineal descendants, Mr. Russell Sullivan, the well-known author, is
one of the signers of our roll. There were Higginses and Reillys at
Plymouth and along the shores of Cape Cod.


“One of the Indian transfers of land was to one of the Reillys.


“One of the most distinguished Irishmen who came to New
England was George Berkely, a native of Kilkenny. Born near
Thomaston, he came here to found a college for the civilization of
the Indians. He is best remembered by his poems. Those of you
who have visited the national capitol at Washington will see in fresco
on the walls at the foot of the stairway portrayed by the brush of the
artist in almost speaking pictures the story of the settlement and
civilization of the United States, and you will see inscribed the lines
which gave the artist inspiration, written by George Berkely:








Westward the course of empire takes its way;


The four first acts already past,


A fifth shall close the drama with the day:


Time’s noblest offspring is the last.








“Yet we should not be vainglorious. We are but representatives
of many nations who from the earliest settlement of the country have
helped to plant here free institutions, but we are not intruders, nor
are we here by the tolerance of any party. We live here under
the constitution and laws of the country, and are vitally interested in
17its well-being and future prosperity. We, of this generation, decline
to accept that series of lies which English historians and their imitators
have agreed upon as truthful history of what the Irish have
done in this country or any other country.


“We propose to investigate facts and ask for their impartial
consideration.


“The object of this association is to call to mind those noble types
of men and women that the Irish race have sent here, that we may
receive credit for our fair share in the development and maintenance
of a government founded upon manhood.”


Hon. John C. Linehan spoke briefly, saying: “I think there is not
a prouder title than that of American citizen. I am proud of it. I
glory in it. But as I believe that a man who cannot love his mother
cannot love his wife, a man who is false to the land of his birth can
never be true to the land of his adoption. New Hampshire presents
a rich field for the society’s research.


“Our first governor was an Irishman. Darby Field, an Irish
soldier, discovered the White Mountains, and there was not a battle
of the French and Indian wars in which Irish blood was not spilt
just as freely as in the battles of the Civil War.


“If we do our work, the American people, of whatever birth, will
put the present Scotch-Irish myth where it belongs.”


Joseph Smith, secretary of the Lowell Police Board, urged work on
the part of every member. “We cannot deal in hurrah business,”
he said. “We must produce the cold documents and facts that no
one can dispute, and eliminate from history its imaginary and fictitious
bluffs. All must work in investigation in their own towns and
vicinity. We must organize in every town and city, and every year
have a meeting of this parent society to garner and publish our discovered
and compiled facts. This cold documentary evidence cannot
be disputed, and falsehood and fiction will cease.”


Osborne Howes, the seventh in line from an Irish settler of Cape
Cod, said it was not so much a matter of self-laudation, but to create
a spirit in the people. He believed in the necessity of a race living
up to its ideal, and the higher the ideal could be placed the better
for all of the race; they will have something to look forward to,
something to eliminate.


Paul Du Chaillu heartily endorsed the purpose as a most laudable
one. “But don’t be self-laudable,” he advised, “you want the facts,
the truth; unearth the truth for truth’s sake; present it to the world
and don’t be afraid of opposition. Defy it.”


18Charles A. De Courcey, of Lawrence, spoke of the feeling and
experience and slurs cast upon every school child of Irish parentage
in the past, and to some extent to-day. “We were foreign. We did
not feel at home. But we began to know. We began to feel at home.
We learned of our race’s participation in the up-building of the
nation. We will prove our part in America’s history; then the
children as Americans can feel as Americans.”


The Rev. John J. McCoy, in an able speech, declared: “The records
are so honorable that, although it is rather late to make the start, we
all ought to find very pleasant work in assisting to look them up.”


Editor George H. Moses, of the Concord Monitor, Senator Chandler’s
paper, ex-Mayor Hugh J. Carroll, of Pawtucket, and Hon. P. J.
Flatley, of Boston, made speeches, urging the conduct of the research
with true historic spirit.


Mr. Flatley, in his impromptu speech, handled the “Scotch-Irish”
myth without gloves.


The following officers were elected:


Rear-Admiral Richard Worsam Meade, U. S. Navy (retired),
President-General; Thomas Hamilton Murray, Pawtucket, R. I.,
Secretary-General; Hon. John C. Linehan, Concord, N. H.,
Treasurer-General; Thomas B. Lawler, Worcester, Mass., Librarian
Archivist; Hon. Theodore Roosevelt, New York; James
Jeffrey Roche, Boston; Augustus St. Gaudens, New York;
Hon. Thomas J. Gargan, Boston; Dr. Thomas Dunn English,
Newark, N. J.; Prof. Maurice F. Egan, Washington; Edward A.
Moseley, Washington; Robert Ellis Thompson, Philadelphia;
T. Russell Sullivan, Boston; Joseph Smith, Lowell, Executive
Committee.


The vice-presidents are: Massachusetts, Osborne Howes,
Boston; Connecticut, Joseph Swords, Hartford; Maine, James
Cunningham; Rhode Island, M. J. Harson, Providence; Vermont,
T. W. Maloney; New York, Gen. James R. O’Beirne;
New Jersey, Hon. William McAdoo; District of Columbia, J.
D. O’Connell, Washington; Pennsylvania, Gen. St. Clair Mulholland,
Philadelphia; South Carolina, Hon. Matthew C. Butler;
Georgia, Hon. Patrick Walsh; Ohio, Rev. George W. Pepper,
Cleveland; Michigan, Thomas A. Weadock, Detroit; New
Hampshire, T. B. Sullivan, Concord.


19The position of historiographer has been left vacant until a
subsequent meeting of the executive body.


Mr. Joseph Smith, of Lowell, in behalf of the committee
appointed to prepare a constitution and by-laws, submitted a
report, and the same met with the unanimous approval of the
gathering. The preamble is as follows:


Believing that the part taken in the settlement, foundation,
and up-building of these United States by the Irish race has
never received proper recognition from historians, and inspired
by love for the republic, a pride in our blood and forefathers,
and a desire for historic truth, this society has met and
organized.


Its mission is to give a plain recital of facts, to correct errors,
to supply omissions, to allay passions, to shame prejudice, and
to labor for right and truth.


While we, as loyal citizens of this republic, are earnestly
interested in all the various phases of its history, we feel that
we should be false to its honor and greatness, and recreant to
our own blood, if we did not make a serious effort to leave to
those generations which follow us a clearer and better knowledge
of the important work done by men and women of the
Irish race on this continent. People of this race—men and
women born on Irish soil—have been here from the first,
prompted in their flight by the motives common to all immigration,—dissatisfaction
with the old order of things and the
resolve to obtain a freer and better life in the new land under
new conditions.


And so we have come together—natives of Ireland, American
sons of Irish immigrants, and descendants of immigrants
even unto the seventh, eighth, and ninth American generations—duly
to set forth and perpetuate a knowledge of these
things.


In the days to come, that lie in the womb of the future, when
all the various elements that have gone and are going to make
the republic great are united in the American,—the man who
in his person will represent the bravest elements of all the old
races of earth,—we desire that the deeds and accomplishments
20of our element shall be written in the book of the new race,
telling what we did, and no more; giving us our rightful place
by the side of others.


To accomplish this is the purpose of this organization; it is
a work worthy of the sympathy and aid of every American who
can rise above the environment of to-day and look into the
broad future. Fidelity, truth, honor are the watchwords of
such a purpose, and under their noble influence should our work
be done.


Thomas Hamilton Murray, secretary of the meeting, was
then introduced and stated that letters expressive of interest
in the organization, acknowledging an invitation or giving an
expression of opinion, had been received from a large number
of people. The list of writers included the following:








Hon. George F. Hoar,


United States senator from Massachusetts.






Rear-Admiral Richard W. Meade, U. S. N.


(Retired), Philadelphia, Pa., and Washington, D. C.






Hon. Thomas Dunn English,


Newark, N. J.






Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet,


New York City.






Samuel Swett Green,


Worcester, Mass. (of the American Antiquarian Society).






Henry Stoddard Ruggles,


Wakefield, Mass. (of the Sons of the Revolution).






Hon. Daniel H. Hastings,


Governor of Pennsylvania.






President Tyler,


Of the college of William and Mary, Virginia.






President Lee,


Of Washington and Lee University, Virginia.






President Morrissey,


Of the University of Notre Dame, Indiana.






Rev. Dr. Conaty,


Rector of the Catholic University, Washington, D. C.






Provost Harrison,


Of the University of Pennsylvania.






21H. B. Adams,


Professor of American and Institutional history, Johns Hopkins University.






W. M. Sloane,


Professor of history, Princeton College, New Jersey.






Ex-Governor Waller,


Of Connecticut.






Gen. Francis A. Walker,


Boston, Mass.






Edward A. Moseley,


Washington, D. C.






Rev. J. Gray Bolton, D. D.,


(Presbyterian), Philadelphia, Pa.






Rev. Cyrus Townsend Brady,


Philadelphia, Pa. (Protestant Episcopal archdeacon of Pennsylvania).






Rev. George W. Pepper,


(Methodist), Cleveland, O.






Rev. George C. Betts,


(Protestant Episcopalian), Goshen, N. Y.






Rev. Thomas J. Shahan,


Catholic University, Washington, D. C.






Hon. Patrick Walsh,


Augusta, Ga. (ex-United States senator).






Hon. Thomas A. E. Weadock,


Detroit, Mich. (ex-member of Congress).






Col. D. S. Lamson,


Weston, Mass.






John P. Donahue,


Wilmington, Del. (national commander, Union Veteran Legion).






Hon. John Cochrane,


President of the New York Society of the Cincinnati.






Rev. W. A. McDermott,


(“Walker Lecky”) Redwood, N. Y.








 Letters of Warm Approval.


The following are the letters that were received:


 From Admiral Meade.








Philadelphia, Dec. 8, 1896.








Dear Mr. Roche:—Your note of November 26 with its enclosure
has only just reached me here. In reply I would say that you are at
22liberty to enroll my name as you desire. My ancestor, Robert
Meade, who died in this city in August, 1754, was an Irish gentleman,
who, having to choose between his conscience and his native land,
chose to leave his native land for the sake of conscience and to
cast in his lot with the people of the New World. He was one of the
“Wild Geese.” His son, George Meade, born in this city, Feb. 27,
1741, died here in 1808. His life has been written for the volumes
of the American Catholic Historical Society of this city. He was a
patriot of the finest type, and his name is on the Roll of Honor in
Independence Hall in this city.


Since then four generations have borne the name of Richard Worsam
Meade, and all, I believe, with honor. My father’s younger
brother, George Gordon Meade, is sufficiently well known to the
country in connection with Gettysburg. In the life of George Meade,
alluded to above, you will see what I say about “Irishmen.”


My father’s mother was Margaret Butler, of this city, and she also
traced her ancestry to a famous strain of Norman-Irish blood.


No, sir! None of the Meades or Butlers are ashamed of their
Irish lineage! Rather the contrary do we rejoice that our forefathers
came from the Emerald Isle, the land of dauntless men and
pure women, and that they represented the best blood of the Island.








Very truly yours,


R. W. Meade, 3d,


Rear-Admiral, U. S. N.








 From the Governor of Pennsylvania.








January 11, 1897.








My Dear Sir:—It would give me great pleasure to unite with
yourself and other gentlemen who are interested in recording the relation
and influence of Americans of Irish birth or lineage to the
history of our country, were it possible for me to be away from
the Capitol on the 20th inst. I am in entire sympathy with the
movement and hope to render assistance along the lines indicated in
your letter. My father was born in Londonderry and came to this
country when a youth. I believe I am entitled to membership in
the proposed organization.








Very truly yours,


Daniel H. Hastings.









23

 From the Rev. Dr. Shahan.










Washington, D. C., Jan. 18, 1897.








Dear Captain Tobin:—I regret to say that it will be practically
impossible to go to Boston. I cannot very well leave all the work
I have on hand, and I must go back again the following week, for
Monday, the 25th, to Hartford. But I am entirely in favor of the
good work, and I hope that from the beginning it will be a success.
I regret again very much that so many duties all crowd in on the end
of January, and make it impossible to be with so many men of one
mind and one race next Wednesday. If members are proposed,
please put me down as one.








Yours sincerely,


Thomas J. Shahan.








Judge Smith, of the Superior Court of Pennsylvania, wrote:


“I have just read the letter which you kindly sent me, giving in
outline the scope and purpose of the proposed Historical Society
and bearing the names of many distinguished citizens. I am very
much pleased with the project and gratified to see that so many eminent
gentlemen have become interested in the movement, and regret
that official duties will prevent my attendance at the initial meeting.
That the undertaking is needful and timely, the letter well demonstrates,
and the broad foundation indicated will undoubtedly attract
the moral and material support of all American citizens who want
nothing but the truth recorded and preserved in the archives of history.
May success attend the noble work of vindicating the worth
and memory of a superior race!”


Henry Stoddard Ruggles, of Wakefield, wrote:


“Your proposal to found a society devoted to the preservation of
records of the services of Irishmen in the colonization and subsequent
history of America meets my approval. Although the biographies
of some of the early pioneers of that race have been carefully
and fully treated, owing to the devotion of their descendants to their
memory, only a very small part has ever been written of the history
of the stock as a whole, and some of their achievements have, through
prejudice, been ascribed to another people. Many Protestants of
Irish derivation are claiming a Scotch lineage for their immigrant
24ancestor, which he would have repudiated; and yet they are often
innocent of intent to mislead; so thoroughly in certain quarters has
the theory been nursed, that Protestant Irishmen, particularly those
from the northern province, are invariably descended from the Scotch
blood. As an American in the ninth American generation, who, by
the services of three great grandfathers in the armies of the Revolution,
holds membership in both the ‘Sons of the Revolution’ and
‘Sons of the American Revolution,’ and as a member of the ‘Essex
Institute’ and ‘Roxbury Military Historical Society,’ both devoted
to historical research, I naturally desire that all branches of our
country’s history should receive the attention they deserve. That
a race so prolific, so inwrought with the old stock of the land, so productive
of men of mark and merit, should till now remain without a
representative society to defend its record and its heroes, is most surprising.
That it is soon to have such we may rest assured from the
names of its sponsors, who are a guaranty of success.”


 From Rt. Rev. Dr. Conaty.








Worcester, Nov. 20, 1896.








My Dear Sir:—I am in full accord with a movement toward the
establishment of an American Historical Society, according to the
lines projected by you. The object is most praiseworthy, and
the results will be most valuable. It is a shame for us that so much
valuable matter has been lost because of no medium of salvation.
Let us save what we can, and gather together the records of our race
in the fields of literature, patriotism, business, and professional life.
The story has not been fully written; but when this has been done, it
will be found that our people have done their share in the work of
civilization, liberty, and letters in the great Republic, for the preservation
of which so many generously gave their lives.


You have my best wishes, and you can depend upon my earnest
coöperation.








Yours very truly,


Thomas J. Conaty.








 From Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet.








New York, Jan. 4, 1897.








Dear Sir:—I am too much occupied with my professional
engagements to be able to get away from home at this season, and I
will therefore not be able to attend the meeting for organizing the
25society on January 20. But I am in close sympathy with the movement,
and believe that there exists a large and promising field for an
Irish Historical Society in this country. This opinion is based on
the fact that during a long life I have devoted the greater part of my
leisure time to the study of American history. Until recently I
possessed probably the largest library and the largest collection of
autographic documents bearing on American history ever held by one
individual. From my knowledge thus gained, I am firmly of the
conviction that the Irish, by birth or descent, have contributed during
the past two hundred years, and from every station in life, more in
number, more brain work and muscle for the development of the
country at large than has been furnished by every other nationality
of the world combined.


With some experience in getting up such an undertaking, I will
take the liberty of making a suggestion: The success of the proposed
society will rest entirely, I believe, on one feature—putting it in the
hands of young men, who must be put forward with the responsibility
to do the work. It is but proper that the older men should make
the first move, give it their support and contribute hereafter so far
as they may be able to do; but unless the young men become interested
in the undertaking, and sufficiently to be willing to do the
work, it will prove a failure.








Yours very truly,


Thomas Addis Emmet.








 From Hon. E. A. Moseley.








Washington, January 6.








Dear Sir:—I am very glad indeed to know that there will be an
American Historical Society whose special line of research will be
the history of the Irish element in this country, and I will cheerfully
aid in the work as far as I can.


I am ninth in descent from Lieut. Thaddeus Clark, who came from
Ireland and died in Portland, May 16, 1690. He was lieutenant of
a company of men engaged in the defense of Falmouth, now Portland,
during the Indian War. He fell into ambuscade with his
company while making a reconnoitre, and was killed with twelve of
his men.


I am eleventh in descent from Deputy-Governor George Cleeves,
who was the founder of Portland, formerly Falmouth. I have the
impression that he was an Irishman also.


26I am sixth in descent from Lieut. John Brown, of Belfast, Me., who
came with his father from Londonderry, Ire., and was one of the
settlers of Londonderry, N. H. He was chairman of the first Board
of Selectmen of Belfast, Me., chosen Nov. 11, 1773–75. He removed
from Londonderry, N. H. While residing in Londonderry,
he had been a commissioned officer in the Provincial Army, and had
served in the French War. He was one of the Committee of Safety
and Inspection.


If I had the time for research, I feel that I could find others of my
ancestors who came from Ireland.








With kindest regards, sincerely yours,


Edward A. Moseley.








 From the National Commander of the Union Veteran Legion.








Wilmington, Del., January 20.








Respected Sir:—I am in hearty sympathy with your proposed
organization, and should feel myself honored by being considered a
member of it, and will work to the best of my ability to accomplish
the desired purpose in the limited field presented to me in this state
of Delaware. I am now engaged in convention at Dover, Delaware,
framing a new constitution for our state, and will have more leisure
when that has been accomplished. In the meantime I beg to assure
you of my sincere thanks and high appreciation at the honor conferred
upon me by yourself and honorable colleagues in so worthy a movement,
and have the honor to remain,








Very truly,


Jno. P. Donahoe,


National Commander.








 From Samuel Swett Green, Librarian of Worcester.


“Thank you for sending me a circular regarding the historical
society, which it is in contemplation to form for the purpose of
promoting the study of the work which has been done by Irishmen
in furthering the interests of the American Colonies and the United
States. It is natural and commendable for residents of the United
States, born in foreign countries or descended from persons born
outside of this country, that, while esteeming the institutions of this
land and having a patriotic interest in its welfare, they should at the
27same time retain warm affection for the mother country and a strong
interest in the doings of its sons. Because such persons love a new
country, there is no reason why they should cease to love the old
country. They would show a lack of right feeling were they to do
so. I heartily favor the formation of societies by studious people
interested in the history of different elements of our population, and
should think that Americans of Irish origin would find the study of
the history of the Irish in this country especially interesting and
profitable. They would find, I should think, a rich return in striving
to bring to light incidents in their history by forming a society with
this purpose in view.”


 From Ex-U. S. Senator Patrick Walsh.








Augusta, Ga., Sept. 8, 1896.








Dear Sir:—I am in receipt of your favor of August 31, enclosing
proof of an article in reference to the formation of an “American-Irish
Historical Society.” I have read the announcement with
pleasure, and I most cordially endorse the object in view. The
history of the Irish race in America should be written. In peace and
in war citizens of Irish birth have always been faithful to the United
States. I regret to say that I do not very well see, at this time, how
I can be present at your first meeting, but I beg to assure you of my
most hearty approval of the proposed American-Irish Historical
Society.








Yours very sincerely,


Patrick Walsh.








 From Theodore Roosevelt.








New York, Jan. 13, 1897.








My Dear Mr. Roche:—I regret extremely that I cannot be
present at the opening meeting of the Association. All these
associations do good. We are a new people, derived from many race
strains, and different from any one of them, and it is a good thing to
have brought before us our diversity in race origin. Like most New
Yorkers, whose American ancestry goes back for more than two centuries,
I have an ancestral right to belong to several societies of this
kind, and I enjoy equally attending the dinners of the Hollander, the
Huguenot, the Scotchman, and the Irishman. It seems to me the
one lesson to be remembered always by those who belong to these
associations is that in time their descendants will most surely have
28the right to belong to many other similar associations; for in time the
different strains of blood will all be blended together, English and
Irish, German and French. When that time comes, and before it,
the chief thing for all of us to keep in mind is that we must be good
Americans, purely as such, no matter what be our creed or our
ancestry in Europe.








Very sincerely yours,


Theodore Roosevelt.








 From Senator Hoar.








Worcester, Mass., Nov. 12, 1896.








Dear Mr. Murray:—I think your plan for an historical society
is excellent. The facts in regard to this most important contribution
to our national life ought to be collected and preserved. If,
as I am sure they will, they are collected and preserved in the true
historic spirit, without concealing or slurring over, or exaggerating
anything, they will be of great value. Let no Irishman be ashamed
of his origin or the humble condition from which so many of his
countrymen came. The Irish race has done a great service to
America. They made a splendid contribution toward saving our
national life during the Rebellion. The story of their generosity and
affection for the kindred they left behind is one of the most touching
and stirring in history. But they have had, have now, and will continue
to have for a good while to come, grave faults. To say this is
only to say that they are human. Do not be afraid to record their
faults as well as their virtues, and the faithful portraiture will be one
well deserving a place in our nation’s gallery.








I am, with high regard, faithfully yours,


George F. Hoar.








 From the Protestant Episcopal Archdeacon of Pennsylvania.








Philadelphia, Jan. 8, 1897.








My Dear Sir:—I have seen a notice of the meeting called for
the evening of the 21st of January, at the Revere House, Boston, for
the organization of an American Historical Society, whose special
line of research is to be the history of the Irish element in the composition
of the American people.


Although unable to be present, to my great regret, I very much
desire to be counted one of the charter members of the society when
29it is organized. I am a member of the Society of the Sons of the
Revolution, and my name, as well as my family history, indicates my
Celtic descent, a derivation of which I am very proud.


I think the purposes of such a society are admirable, and if I can
do anything to further its objects I shall be delighted. Kindly advise
me of the receipt of this letter at your convenience, and oblige,








Very sincerely yours,


C. T. Brady,


Archdeacon of Pennsylvania.








 From Dr. Thomas Dunn English.








Newark, N. J., January 11.








Dear Sir:—My age and consequent infirmities prevent me from
attending too many night meetings in a month. I have promised to
be present on the 16th at the annual dinner of the Alumni of the
University of Pennsylvania, and on the 25th to attend the Burns
celebration of the Newark Caledonian Club. This is about as much
as I can attend to without endangering my health. I regret, however,
my enforced absence, because I have a cordial sympathy with
the proposed movement. As a descendant on my father’s side
through over two centuries of American ancestors from Norman-Irish
stock, and more immediately on my mother’s side from the Gaelic, I
naturally take an interest in all that concerns the honor and reputation
of my lineage. I therefore beg of you to place my name on the
list of original members when you organize.


I have a further interest in the matter as a native American desiring
that our federal and state historical records should be accurate
and complete. Writers covering the part played by Irishmen in this
country’s history generally confine themselves to services rendered
during a revolutionary and post-revolutionary wars; and these the
enemies of Ireland constantly depreciate, and the friends of Ireland
sometimes exaggerate. Both sides lose sight of the fact that very
much is due to Irish efforts in the colonization of the country and in
its civil and social development. The society proposed will be able
to show how much the Quaker Irish in Philadelphia and its vicinity,
the Catholic Irish in Maryland, and bodies and individuals of them
elsewhere on the seaboard did to develop our civilization and promote
our progress. The society will have a rich and poorly worked mine
of historical wealth in another quarter. The Appalachian and Alleghanian
30ranges and their immediate valleys found large numbers of
Irish settlers among the pioneers, and from Londonderry in New
Hampshire to Murphy and Coleraine in Georgia, there extends a long
line of settlements where many customs, terms, phrases, and modes
of thought and action attest the country of the founders. “The dark
and bloody ground” of Kentucky has among its residents so many
with Hibernian names, though the sept mark of O’ has been dropped
in many cases, the Macs being more adherent, that in calling off the
assessment rolls in some quarters it would seem to the hearer as
though he had dropped in upon the meeting of some Irish society.


With my best wishes for the thorough success of the proposed
organization,








I am yours truly,


Thomas Dunn English.








 From Gen. Francis A. Walker.








Boston, Nov. 25, 1896.








My Dear Sir:—Your letter of the 18th inst., enclosing a cutting
relating to the proposed new historical society, arrived during my
absence from the city. As regards the desirability of thorough
investigation into the early history of the Irish element of our American
population, there can be no question whatever. The confusion
that has arisen regarding the several constituents of the Irish immigration—as
witnessed, for example, in the general use of the word
Scotch-Irish, applied indifferently to persons of pure English, pure
Scotch, and pure Irish blood—shows abundantly the need of careful
dispassionate research; and all should rejoice to see the work undertaken
in the most effective way.


The question whether such an investigation should be begun and
carried on through existing historical societies and agencies, or
through the organization of a new society specifically for this object,
is one regarding which my opinion would be of little value. My life
has not been mainly devoted to historical investigation; and, even
where I have worked by myself in this field, I have, I fear, been a
very poor member of the several historical societies to which I
belong.








I am, dear Sir, Faithfully yours,


Francis A. Walker.









31

 From Rev. J. Gray Bolton, D. D.










1906 Pine Street, Philadelphia, Jan. 16, 1897.








My Dear Sir:—I regret that other duties will prevent me from
being with you on Wednesday, January 20, 1897. I assure you that
I am in hearty accord with the purpose of your organization. The
Irish race owe it to themselves and their successors to leave a united
history of an undivided people in America. One of the noblest
characteristics of the Irishman is that he is religious, and has enough
of religion to be willing to fight for it. But God forbid that this
should in any way hinder in telling the united story of our people.
The Irish Catholic and the Irish Presbyterian have more than once
stood together for liberal government in Ireland. And the Irish
Presbyterian and Irish Catholic stood together here when Washington
was leading the people from under the yoke of oppressive taxation
without representation. The Irish-American has a place and a
name in this glorious country of ours, and as we fought for our freedom
and then for the Union we will live—and, if need be, fight side
by side to maintain it.








I am truly yours,


J. Gray Bolton, D. D.








 From Rev. John J. McCoy, P. R.








Chicopee, Mass., Jan. 3, 1897.








Dear Sir:—For some twelve years and more I have been doing
some work in looking up the records of our people here in New
England, especially the records of their church building. During that
time I felt the great need of some such society as you now have in
intention, and I hail your work as most opportune and useful. Make
me one of you and kindly tell me what is to be done to have active
participation in the society’s work.








Truly yours,


(Rev.) Jno. J. McCoy, P. R.








The second meeting of the society was held in accordance
with the following invitation:


Dear Sir:—You are hereby notified that the second meeting of
the American-Irish Historical Society will be held at the Revere
House in Boston, Mass., Monday evening, April 19, 1897 (the anniversary
of the battle of Lexington, Concord, and Cambridge).


32There will be a business session of the society at 6.30 P.M., followed,
at 7 o’clock, by a dinner and post-prandial exercises appropriate
to the anniversary.


At the business session, action will be taken on the completion of
the constitution and by-laws, the admission of new members, and on
such other business as may properly come before the meeting.


The price of dinner tickets has been placed at $1.50 each. They
are now ready.


The after-dinner features will include:


(1) A reading, “Paul Revere’s Ride,” by Mr. Thomas A.
Santry, of Lawrence, Mass.


(2) A paper by the Secretary-General on “The Irish Bacons
who Settled at Dedham, Mass., in 1640,” one of whose descendants,
John Bacon, was killed April 19, 1775, in the fight at
West Cambridge (battle of Lexington).


(3) An address by the Treasurer-General, Hon. John C. Linehan,
of New Hampshire, on “The Seizure of the Powder at Fort
William and Mary,” by Maj. John Sullivan and his associates,
some of which powder was later dealt out to the patriots at
Bunker Hill.


(4) Address by Mr. Edward J. Brandon, city clerk of Cambridge,
Mass., during which he will read a list of Irish names
borne by minutemen or militia in the battle of the nineteenth
of April, when the shot was fired “Heard Round the World.”


(5) A brief essay by Mr. Joseph Smith, of Lowell, Mass., on
“The Irishman, Ethnologically Considered.”


Invitations to attend the dinner have been sent to the town clerks
and selectmen of Lexington and Concord; also to descendants of the
patriots who stood on the green at Lexington when Captain Parker
exclaimed, “Don’t fire unless fired upon.”


It is earnestly desired that every member of the society who can
possibly be present at the coming meeting will attend and help make
the event the great success this patriotic anniversary so richly deserves.


If each member attending the dinner will bring with him at least
one gentleman as his personal guest, it will add éclat to the occasion
and may be the means of acquiring a large number of very desirable
new members for the society.








Fraternally, and in behalf of the


Executive Council of the Society,


Thomas Hamilton Murray,


Secretary-General.








33In response to the foregoing call, some thirty-five or forty
gentlemen assembled at the time and place mentioned. The
business meeting was dispensed with, and the time that would
have been so occupied was devoted to introductions and general
conversation.


About 8 o’clock the company proceeded to dinner. Hon.
Thomas J. Gargan, of Boston, presided. Among those present
were: John C. Linehan, State Insurance Commissioner of New
Hampshire; Joseph Smith, Secretary of the Police Commission,
Lowell, Mass.; Rev. John J. McCoy, Chicopee, Mass.;
James Jeffrey Roche, Boston, Mass.; Thomas B. Lawler,
Worcester, Mass.; Charles A. De Courcey, Lawrence, Mass.;
Rev. George F. Marshall, Milford, N. H.; Daniel Donovan,
Lynn, Mass.; Lawrence J. Smith, Lowell, Mass.; Thomas
Hamilton Murray, Editor of the Daily Sun, Lawrence, Mass.;
Edward J. Brandon, City Clerk, Cambridge, Mass.; Thomas
A. Santry, Lawrence, Mass.; P. J. Flatley, Boston, Mass.;
Robert A. Woods, Boston, Mass.; John A. Callahan, Holyoke,
Mass.; M. A. Toland, Boston, Mass.; Dr. Eugene McCarthy,
Cambridge, Mass.; Dr. M. F. Sullivan, Lawrence, Mass.;
Edward Arundel, Lawrence, Mass.; Dr. George A. Leahey,
Lowell, Mass.; Capt. P. S. Curry, Lynn, Mass.; E. B. Newhall,
Lynn, Mass.; and several other gentlemen.


In opening the after-dinner exercises, Mr. Gargan referred
to the anniversary on which this meeting is held, and read the
following communication from Rear-Admiral Meade, U. S. N.:








220 Winona Ave., Germantown, Pa.,


Jan. 26, 1897.








My Dear Sir:—Your note of the 23d informing me that I have
been unanimously chosen for the office of President-General of the
American-Irish Historical Society, found me confined to my bed,
where I have been since the 8th, with a severe attack of grippe.
The hardships of a long naval career are beginning now to revenge
themselves on me, and I have to take great care of my health.


I am, of course, deeply sensible of the honor your society confers
upon me and shall accept the office with pleasure if you think the
duties will not try me physically beyond my strength. I am vigorous
34enough for my years, but I am peculiarly sensitive to cold, having
spent a great part of my naval life in the tropics, and I cannot travel
about in winter without serious risk to my health.


I am ready to work in the ranks for the good of the new society
as cheerfully as at the top. No organization is more needed than
the one you have completed, and you can count on me to further its
success.








Very truly yours,


R. W. Meade, 3d.














Mr. Thomas H. Murray,


Secretary-General, etc.








Letters of regret at inability to attend the meeting were received
from the selectmen of Concord, Mass.; the town clerk
of Lexington, Mass.; and from Governor Hastings, of Pennsylvania;
Hon. Theodore Roosevelt, of New York; Osborne
Howes, of Boston; Hon. William McAdoo, of Washington,
D. C.; Augustus St. Gaudens, of New York; Patrick Donahoe,
of Boston; the Very Rev. John Hogan, D. D., president
of St. John’s Seminary, Brighton, Mass.; J. D. O’Connell, of
Washington, D. C.; Robert Ellis Thompson, of Philadelphia;
and others.


The addresses mentioned in the call for the meeting were
delivered, and were appreciatively received.


Mr. Murray, in his paper on “The Irish Bacons,” noted that
the family has reflected honor on both Dedham and Needham,
as it has on other towns where representatives of it have resided.


Hon. John C. Linehan read the following paper:


 John Sullivan and the Capture of the Powder at Newcastle.


The province of New Hampshire was among the first to resist the
unjust exactions of the British government, and, on the authority of
one of the Royal Councillors, her sons were the very first to commit
an overt act against it. From the time of its early settlement, under
the proprietorship of Capt. John Mason, her sturdy colonists were
bound to appropriate to their own use the first fruits of their labors,
and, regardless of act of parliament or magisterial edict, they were
35able to accomplish their purpose. Owing to the civil dissensions in
England between 1640 and 1700, the little band of adventurers who
had established themselves at “Old Strawberry Bank,” as well as
their descendants who came after them, were practically, so far as
the home government was concerned, left to their own resources, and
obliged to defend themselves as best they could against the French
and Indians, who were ever on the alert to harass and annoy them.
The establishment of William of Orange on the English throne, and
the complete subjugation of those who supported the unfortunate
James, changed matters, however, and gave the new ruler an opportunity
to bestow a little of his paternal care on the colonists who had
so long prospered greatly without it.


One of his very first acts was to appoint, as governor of New
York, the Earl of Bellmont, who was a native of Ireland, and a son
of Sir Charles Coote, who earned an Irish estate fighting for
Cromwell.


Under his administration the heirs of Captain Mason, fortified by
a proclamation from the king and parliament, endeavored to establish
their ownership to the property left them in New Hampshire,
and, although not authorized by the act mentioned to collect arrearages
of rent from the descendants of the original settlers, little progress
was made in the collection of any. The men, and the children
of the men who had for half a century contested every inch of New
Hampshire soil with the elements, the wild beasts, the Indians, and
their white allies from Quebec, did not propose to pay tribute to the
grandchildren of the man whose name was but a tradition. The result
was the creation of a period in the records of New Hampshire,
whose history reads strangely like a page from Ireland’s annals describing
landlord rule.


For in all parts of the province, and among all classes of people,
the most determined efforts were made to prevent the impositions of
the new proprietors. The sheriff and his officers, while engaged
in the performance of their duties, were often confronted with the axe
and the musket, and when opportunity offered, the women took a
hand and tested the efficacy of hot water. The sacred person of the
governor even was not exempt from insult and assault, for on at
least one occasion, while endeavoring to shield Captain Mason, the
grandson of the original proprietor, from one of his irate tenants, he
was thrown into the fireplace on the burning coals, sat upon, three
of his ribs broken, two teeth knocked out, and his body severely
burned.


36William Vaughan, one of the Royal Councillors, and among the
most influential men in the colony, for an assault upon one of the
officers of the king, was arrested, and for several years kept in confinement.


The records of the province during this period, as printed in the
state papers, make very interesting reading. The little rock-ribbed
province was the northern picket line of New England, and in consequence
her sons were equally expert with the musket, the axe, and
the spade.


That these traits had been transmitted to their descendants is
very clear, for the construction of the grapevine bridge across the
Chickahominy in 1862, by the boys of the 5th New Hampshire, as
well as the record made by the same regiment during the Civil War,
is the evidence; the axe, the spade, and the rifle figuring in both,
as they had in the hands of their ancestors at Bunker Hill and Bennington
nearly a century before. But the demands of Captain
Mason were not the only grievances. The government was bound
to suppress any industry in the colonies which would in any way
interfere with those already in operation at home. An elaborate
project had been already planned by the Earl of Bellmont, for the
production of tar and pitch in New Hampshire.


The home government was paying Denmark one hundred thousand
pounds annually for these two articles. Both could, with a little
perseverance and care, be produced on this side of the water, and
be paid for, not in cash, but in the products of the English mills and
shops, and in this manner saving the money and finding a new market
for goods.


To this end, pine trees were selected and stripped, but before the
scheme had matured, and the first step taken, the wicked New Hampshire
men set fire to the trees, and this, with the Indian troubles,
which were endless, put an end to the tar and pitch arrangement.
This was not all they did, however. The governor claimed that not
only did these lawless men of “Old Strawberry Bank” cut down the
king’s timber which had been reserved for the Royal Navy, but that
they had sawn it up into deals, and actually sold it to the enemies of
the government, in the French and Spanish West Indies; and that no
less a person than the Lieutenant-Governor of New Hampshire was
engaged in the business, and not only engaged in it, but had boasted
of his profits, and thus incited others to go and do likewise. He
next tried to introduce the cultivation of flax, but this was a failure,
labor costing three times here what it would in Ireland. This paternal
care of the government continued under William’s successors.
In 1749 an act of parliament, while encouraging the production of
pig and bar iron, absolutely forbade its manufacture, and to carry
its terms into effect, proclamation was made by the provincial sheriffs,
and an inquiry as to the number of mills and forges in the province
was instituted by the governor, to the end that steps might be
taken to have them discontinued. With such an experience as this
extending over three-quarters of a century, the people of New Hampshire
were not only in sympathy with their fellow-countrymen in the
other colonies, but stood ready as well to coöperate in any movement
having for its object the welfare of the people as against the
government.







THOMAS DUNN ENGLISH
Newark, N. J.











ROBERT ELLIS THOMPSON
Philadelphia, Pa.











FRANCIS C. TRAVERS
New York City











T. RUSSELL SULLIVAN
Boston, Mass.










EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE






37At a meeting held in Portsmouth on Dec. 16, 1773, one of the
resolutions adopted was, “That every virtuous and public-spirited
freeman ought to oppose, to the utmost of his ability, every attack of
the ministry to enslave the Americans.” Five months later, on May
19, 1774, a committee of the town of Portsmouth sent their sympathies
to the people of Boston on the closing of their port, and for
their fellow-townsmen, promised to exert themselves to carry into
effect any plan which might be concerted by the colonies for the
general relief, and that the interests of the people of Boston would
be considered as their own.


From this time to the departure of the royal governor forever,
it was a game of battledoor and shuttlecock between his excellency
and the general assembly; the latter energetic and firm; the former
diplomatic, but cautious and watchful, and ever on the alert to subserve
the interest of the home government.


To this end he refused at first to adjourn the assembly in May,
1774, but finally acceded to the request of the members, and an adjournment
was made to June 12 of the same year. Meantime the
excitement increased; events at home and abroad intensifying the
feeling against the government.


At the adjourned meeting in May, the House of Representatives,
in common with the assemblies of the other colonies, had appointed
a committee of correspondence. This Governor Wentworth tried to
prevent, and when he dissolved the assembly he was fain to believe
the committee of correspondence would disappear with it.


In this he was disappointed, for its very first act after the dissolution
of the assembly was to issue a summons to the representatives,
who again met in their own chamber. The governor, attended by
the sheriff of the county, entered, and in accordance with custom
38they rose when he presented himself. He addressed them, declaring
the meeting illegal, and directed the sheriff to make proclamation
accordingly, ordering all to disperse. He then retired, but they
resumed their seats.


On further consideration they adjourned to another house, where
it was resolved to hold a convention at Exeter, which should choose
delegates to the General Congress to meet in Philadelphia, and to that
end, letters were sent to each town and parish in the colony, inviting
the people therein to send deputies to the Provincial Congress. The
last business transacted by the representatives was to recommend
a day of fasting and prayer to be observed by the people of the
province. According to Belknap, this was observed with religious
solemnity. A request was made at the same time for funds to defray
the expenses of the delegates to the Continental Congress, and
this was promptly responded to.


The convention called at Exeter assembled on July 21, 1774, and
is now known in history as the “First Provincial Congress” of New
Hampshire. There were eighty-five members present, with the
speaker of the assembly, Hon. John Wentworth, a relative of the
governor in the chair.


This distinguished body, composed of the best men in the province,
many of whom had seen service in the French and Indian wars, and
who can justly be styled the founders of the state, chose for their
first representatives to the Continental Congress Maj. John Sullivan
and Col. Nathaniel Folsom; and for the first time in the
history of his native state does the name of John Sullivan officially
make its appearance in its legislative records. It is evident to any one
who has read closely the history of the stirring events of the period
that some master hand was at work directing all the movements,
civil and military, occurring at the time; and that this was the hand
of John Sullivan later events prove clearly. The son of an Irish exile,
and the grandson of one of the ill-fated defenders of Limerick, he
was born in Somersworth, N. H., at a point opposite Berwick, Me.,
on February 18, 1740.


He was educated by his father, who had himself enjoyed the benefits
of a liberal and thorough training before he settled in America,
and who, through a long life, extending to his one hundred and fifth
year, was diligently employed in the education of youth. After a
voyage to the West Indies he became a member of the family of
Hon. Isaac Livermore, a lawyer of Portsmouth having an extensive
practice, and under his instruction prepared himself for his profession.
39He early exhibited ability of a high order, gained the respect and
encouragement of his instructor, and soon acquired a distinguished
position at the bar of New Hampshire. Just before reaching his
majority he located in the town of Durham, purchased a handsome
residence, which is still in existence, and in which he lived up to the
time of his death. Such was his professional success, that he married
at the age of twenty, and for ten years later he was constantly
employed in the most lucrative causes, thereby incurring the resentment
of sundry persons in Durham and elsewhere, who petitioned
the executive council in 1766, complaining of him for evil practices
as attorney-at-law. This trouble, whatever its nature may have been,
existed even to the end of his days, and was doubtless at the bottom
of the scheme to injure his reputation years after his death; for to
this day there are some who would rob him of the credit given him
in the state records for planning the capture of the powder at Newcastle
and leading the party that effected it.


In eloquence as an advocate he won a place in the front rank, and
earned the reputation of being a sound lawyer and a judicious
counsellor. This character was not confined to his native state, for
in addition to the friendship of men like the Wentworths and Langdons
in New Hampshire, he had secured the esteem and respect of
Lowell, Adams, Otis, and other well-known legal lights in Massachusetts.
Although attached to his profession, he found time to devote
to agriculture and manufactures, being one of the early promoters of
the latter, establishing cloth and fulling mills in Durham, and succeeding
so well that on the authority of John Adams he was worth
ten thousand pounds before the Revolution broke out. From his
father and mother he inherited a robust constitution, and was blessed
with an active, lively disposition. He had a natural taste for military
life, but except an occasional bout with the Indians, generally on
the defensive, he had, before the Revolutionary War, no actual experience
in warfare; but all around him were the veterans of the Indian
and French wars, whose descriptions of the campaigns of Louisburg
and Quebec aroused all the martial spirit in his fiery nature.


To his historical studies, especially those relating to military movements,
he was greatly devoted; and read them to such good purpose
that he was able accurately to describe nearly all of the great battles
of the world. It was natural, therefore, for him to seek the exercise
of arms early; so at the age of thirty-one he held the commission of
major in the Colonial militia, and spared no pains to make himself
familiar with the duties connected with the position. From the first
40rumble of discontent, down to the actual outbreak of hostilities, he
was one of the most active men engaged in the cause of liberty.
His nature and his abhorrence of oppression, two traits transmitted
by generations of heroic ancestors, marked his career from the beginning,
and his extended influence and popularity marked him early as
a leader in the coming contest. With a full realization of what was
before him he organized a company numbering eighty-three men in
Durham, and associated with him was the gallant young Scammell,
who was then a law student in his office. With a knowledge of
these facts it is not too much to say, especially when comparing
them with the events occurring afterwards, that the “hidden hand”
which directed the movements of the patriots in New Hampshire,
down to the convening of the First Provincial Congress in July, 1774,
was that of the grandson of the Limerick soldier, who, in little less
than a century from the broken treaty, was paying with interest the
debt due the government which had driven his father to the wilds of
America. He was chosen by the First Provincial Congress to represent
his province in the Continental Congress, being the first person
to represent New Hampshire in that body. Two instances will be
sufficient to show his energy and usefulness in that assemblage.
On qualifying, he was at once placed on two of the most important
committees, of one of which, that upon the grievances of the people,
he was chairman.


“The committee of violation of rights,” says John Adams in his
diary, “reported a set of articles which were drawn by John Sullivan,
of New Hampshire; and these two declarations, the one of rights
and the other of violations, which are printed in the journals of Congress
for 1774, were two years afterwards recapitulated in the
Declaration of Independence on the 4th of July, 1776.”


“New Hampshire has perhaps not remembered that the bold hand
and the legal training of John Sullivan are in the immortal Declaration
of Independence.”


On the adjournment of Congress, Sullivan returned to New
Hampshire. During his absence the agitation had increased;
nearly every town had its committee of safety, and many persons
of note, suspected of a leaning towards the government, placed
under arrest and kept in confinement, or sent out of the state,
unless they took the test oath prescribed by the Assembly. Steps
were also taken to prevent the sending of carpenters and other mechanics
to Boston to build barracks for the royal troops, as men
could not be secured there for that purpose. In one instance a man
41suspected of procuring workmen for General Gage, was waited on,
and the charge being proven, he was obliged to go on his knees, as
nothing less would be satisfactory, and make the following confession
and promise:


“Before this company I confess I have been aiding and assisting
in sending men to Boston to build barracks for the soldiers to live in,
at which you have reason to be justly offended, which I am sorry
for and humbly ask your forgiveness. And I do affirm that for the
future I never will be aiding or assisting in any wise whatever, in act
or deed contrary to the constitution of the country, as witness my
hand.”


The military stores in Fort William and Mary at Newcastle were a
constant source of anxiety to the governor, but he felt confident that
no lawless act would be committed by the people without provocation,
and as he was cautious in his course, no pretext could be found
in that direction, but the inevitable was to happen. A report was
circulated that General Gage was to send a body of troops to secure
the ammunition.


The arrival of Paul Revere from Boston gave color to the rumor,
and on the day following, armed men from the surrounding towns
assembled in Portsmouth, and after effecting an organization and
choosing their leaders, marched in broad daylight, to the number
of four hundred, for Newcastle. On arriving at the fort the commander
bade them to enter at their peril. No heed being paid to his
words, one volley was fired from the three-pounders in position, but
before the guns could be reloaded the walls were scaled and the fort
captured at three o’clock P.M. on Dec. 14, 1774. The result was the
possession of one hundred barrels of powder, sixty muskets, sixteen
cannon, and other valuable stores.


In his letter to General Gage informing him of the event, Governor
Wentworth said, “The principal persons in this enormity are well
known.”


He mentioned no names, but a little over two years later Peter
Livius, who was at the time of the capture, one of the Provincial
Councillors, wrote thus to John Sullivan in June, 1777: “You were
the first man in active rebellion, and drew with you the province you
live in. You will be one of the first sacrifices to the resentment
and justice of government; your family will be ruined and you must
die with ignominy.”


Belknap wrote that “Maj. John Sullivan and John Langdon distinguished
themselves as leaders in this affair.” Adams, in his
42annals of Portsmouth, said it occurred “under the direction of Maj.
John Sullivan and Capt. John Langdon.”


Sullivan himself said: “When I returned from Congress in 1774,
and saw the order of the British king and council prohibiting military
stores being sent to this country, I took alarm, clearly perceiving
the designs of the British ministry, and wrote several pieces upon the
necessity of securing military stores, which pieces were published in
several papers.” Quint said: “Sullivan, bold and daring, then an
active member of the Continental Congress, and well known throughout
the province by his leadership at the bar, had great influence.
The seizure of the munitions at the fort, though sudden at last, was
doubtless not without previous thought. The result of this act was
momentous. It was the first act of armed rebellion. It preceded
Concord and Lexington by four months of time. The captors of the
fort entered it against the fire of fieldpieces and muskets openly,
and in daylight they pulled down the royal flag, the first time in
American history. They gave three cheers in honor of their success.
They carried off a hundred barrels of gunpowder, some light guns
and small arms which, under the care of Sullivan, were taken up the
river, which was at that time covered with thick ice, through which a
channel had to be cut.”


This bold and audacious act was deeply felt in Great Britain.
Conciliation was now out of the question. The king’s anger was
aroused. It was already bitter enough on account of the Massachusetts
troubles. Governor Wentworth issued threatening proclamations.


He dismissed the offending major and captain from their posts in
the militia. In answer to his edict all persons in Durham holding
civil or military positions under the governor, headed by Sullivan,
assembled at the tavern on the green, and there publicly burned
their commissions and insignia of office. There was no further need
of secrecy. The die was cast and the leaders were well known.
The official positions, civil or military, held by many of those who
were principals in the affair, obliged them, up to this time, to act
with caution. After the burning, not of his ships, but of his commission,
Sullivan boldly stepped to the front. The very next day
after the capture of the powder he headed a body of men numbering
between three and four hundred from Durham and the adjoining
towns, and, marching to the Council Chamber, demanded an answer
to the question as to whether or not there were any ships or troops
expected here, or if the governor had written for any.


43His excellency meekly answered: “I know of none.”


The greater part of the powder was stored in the basement of the
meeting-house in Durham. The balance, for safety, was distributed
in several places, some of it going to Exeter. That stored at Durham,
as well as another portion placed with Capt. John Demerritt,
was taken by the latter in his own ox-cart, under Sullivan’s direction,
to Cambridge, where it arrived barely in time to be dealt out to the
troops at Bunker Hill. Of how much value it was there and how
badly it was needed, is too well known to bear repetition. Without
it and lacking the men from the old Granite State accompanying
it, Bunker Hill would not have been such a serious affair for the
British army.


In claiming the leadership for Sullivan in this affair there is no
desire to extol him at the expense of those with whom he was associated,—men
like Langdon, Weare, Bartlett, Thornton, Scammell,
Thompson, Folsom, Wentworth, Gilman, and others whose names
are now household words. The position was freely conceded by
them at the time, and acknowledged by the best informed to-day.
After the Lexington fight, and while Sullivan was in attendance at
the Second Continental Congress, the gallant young Scammell, who
was in his office in Durham, wrote him that, “when the horrid din of
civil carnage surprised us on the 20th of April, the universal cry was
‘Oh, if Major Sullivan was here!’ ‘I wish to God Major Sullivan
was here!’ ran through the distressed multitude.”


Capt. Eleazer Bennett, who died in Durham in 1852, at the age
of one hundred and one, said “that at the time of the capture of the
powder he was in the employment of General Sullivan, at his mill at
Packer’s Falls, when word was brought in to come down to Durham,
to go to Portsmouth, and to get anybody else he could to come with
him.” So far as he could remember, the following persons were with
him: Maj. John Sullivan, Capt. Winborn Adams, Ebenezer Thompson,
John Demerritt, Alpheus and Jonathan Chesley, John Spencer,
Micah Davis, Isaac and Benjamin Small, Alexander Scammell,
John Griffin, James Underwood, and Eben Sullivan, the major’s
brother.


On arriving at Portsmouth they were joined by John Langdon
with another party. They captured the fort, took the captain and
bound him, and frightened away the soldiers. In the fort they found
one hundred casks of powder and one hundred small arms. A portion
of the powder was taken by Major Demerritt to his house in
Madbury, but most of it was stored under the pulpit of the meeting-house
44in Durham. On July 19, 1775, as a final proof of Sullivan’s
leadership in this movement, Matthew Patten, chairman of the committee
of safety for the county of Hillsborough, wrote to General
Sullivan congratulating him on his appointment to the rank of Brigadier-General,
in which he said: “An appointment which, as it distinguishes
your merit, so at the same time it reflects honor upon, and
shows the penetrating discernment of those truly eminent patriots
from whom you received it; nor are we less sanguine in our expectations
of the high advantages which must result under God to the
public by your military skill and courage, as you have been indefatigable
in attaining the first, and have given a recent instance of
the latter, to your great honor and reputation, in depriving our
enemies of the means of annoying us at Castle William and Mary,
and at the same time furnishing us with materials to defend our
invaluable rights and privileges. This, sir, must ever be had in remembrance,
and (amongst the actions of others, our heroes of 1775)
handed to the latest posterity. That the Almighty may direct your
counsels, be with you in the day of battle, and that you may be preserved
as a pattern to this people for many years to come, is our frequent
prayer.” In Sullivan’s reply he said: “It gives me great
pleasure to find so respectable a number of the worthy sons of freedom,
in the colony to which I belong, have so publicly given their
approbation of my conduct in assisting to secure the warlike stores
at Fort William and Mary, and thereby preventing these evils
which must have resulted from our enemies having possession of
them.”


Nothing further need be said regarding the value of the powder
captured on this occasion, or the boldness of the act itself. At Lexington
and Concord the British were the aggressors, the Americans
acting on the defensive; but at Newcastle the Americans were the
aggressors, made the attack boldly in the open day, and as Quint
said, “for the first time in American history the British flag was
torn down by men in armed rebellion.” John Sullivan’s history is
well known. He and his three brothers gave their best services to
the land of their birth, and in memory of those services the state of
New Hampshire erected a monument of Concord granite on the site
of the church in Durham, under which was stored the powder, and in
the presence of the governor, council, and other officials, state and
national, and a large concourse of people on Thursday, Sept. 27,
1894, the one hundredth anniversary of his death, dedicated it with
appropriate exercises. The inscription reads:






45IN MEMORY OF


JOHN SULLIVAN.


Born Feb. 17, 1740.


Died Jan. 23, 1795.


Erected by the State of New Hampshire upon the


site of the Meeting-house under which was


stored the gunpowder taken from


Fort William and Mary.






The tributes paid to Sullivan’s worth on this occasion by every one
of the speakers were ungrudging and hearty. Professor Murkland
said: “This may never become a large community, but it will always
be exalted by its association with John Sullivan, lawyer, soldier,
statesman, and judge.


“The plain granite shaft, inadequate as it may appear, will yet
serve, when we shall have been forgotten, to recall the life of one
who served his country so bravely and so well that he made slander
dumb and malice impotent.”


Gov. John B. Smith said: “It is no invidious distinction to say
that of all the New Hampshire men of the Revolutionary period
Sullivan was not only peer, he was preëminently chief. His life is a
part of the country’s history, and now, by virtue of my office (an
office I am all the more proud to hold because John Sullivan filled
and honored it), I accept these grounds from the town of Durham,
and this monument from the committee in behalf of the state.”


O’Meara said:








“Your deeds for all the land that hold your fame


Shall link you now to love New Hampshire’s name,


While throbs high manhood round her glistening hills—


While patriot gleam or pristine glory thrills.”








Dr. Quint said: “To John Sullivan, the man who in all the American
provinces was the first to take up arms against the king, New
Hampshire erects this monument of native granite.”


Professor Hadley said: “Washington’s never-failing trust and ever-affectionate
respect are of themselves sufficient to prove their possessor’s
title clear to proud historic praise; and Sullivan’s name does
belong of right to that choice list of eminent commanders which
bears such other names as Greene and Knox, Steuben and Stark.”


46Senator Chandler said: “John Sullivan was one of the finest characters
of the Revolution. A great general, and as a lawyer, a legislator,
a statesman, a governor, and a judge, ranked among the very
greatest men of the Revolutionary period. The luster in our annals
of the gift to our early glories, bestowed by Ireland in sending to us
the family of Sullivan, will never be obliterated or forgotten.”


Senator Blair said: “There is no sphere of public life in which he
was not eminent, nor of private life in which he was not influential
and beloved. The whole list of Revolutionary worthies does not
furnish one name which, on the whole, shines more resplendently
in all the great department of public service than that of John
Sullivan.”


Hon. Henry M. Baker said: “The influence of such a life never
dies. Seldom is it the fortune of any one to serve his country in
such diverse yet responsible positions as General Sullivan held and
honored. Still more rare to discharge every duty with such great
energy and ability.”


Gov. Frederick Smythe said: “Wherever the rights of man are
recognized, and so long as government by the people shall endure,
the name of John Sullivan must be one of the imperishable, of those
who were not born to die.”


Col. Daniel Hall said: “Sullivan is worthy of lasting commemoration
as one of the most serviceable of the men it was New Hampshire’s
great honor to contribute to the cause of American Independence.”


Secretary of State Stearns wrote: “Sullivan was a born leader of
men, and preëminently a man for Revolutionary times. He was not
a slave to ancient forms and customs, ruthlessly trampling upon the
traditions of his time. He boldly assaulted the conservative barriers
that confined the people of New Hampshire within the pale of accustomed
usage.


“He early declared for a free government for a free people. In the
march of events, when the people reached his early standpoint, the
Constitution of 1776 was drafted on the line of his suggestions.”


“It is a century since the life of Sullivan was ended, and the qualities
of his character and the magnitude of his work were submitted
to the generous estimate of his fellow-men. His fame with the lapse
of time suffers no impairment. A brilliant and an accomplished
civilian, a distinguished lawyer, a matchless orator, a brave and an
able general, a senator, a magistrate, and a governor, he bore his
accumulating honors with modesty, and served the state which he
loved with the restless power of a vigorous and versatile mind. The
study of his life is instructive. Through the vista, obscured by a
century, we read the story of his time in the light of the undimmed
luster of his achievements.”







REV. GEORGE W. PEPPER
Ohio











VERY REV. ANDREW MORRISSEY
Indiana











COL. O’BRIEN MOORE
West Virginia











JOSEPH T. LAWLESS
Virginia










VICE-PRESIDENTS






47With tributes like these from the men who were associated with
John Sullivan in the struggle for independence, as well as from their
descendants who participated in the dedication of the monument to
his memory, we, who are members of the American-Irish Historical
Society, can well be proud of the character and the services of
Maj.-Gen. John Sullivan.


Edward J. Brandon, Esq., city clerk of Cambridge, read the
following paper:


On a certain April morning, one hundred and twenty-two years
ago, Samuel Adams prophetically remarked, “What a glorious
morning is this!” and, as I stand here, I cannot restrain the feeling
that the shade of that illustrious and honored American makes use
of the expression with much greater emphasis to-day.


For the accomplishments of his country during the past four generations,
her marvelous strides in acquiring and attaining a potent
position among the world’s nations, the tremendous development
of her magnificent natural resources, the genius and perseverance
displayed by her children, the prosperity and importance of her institutions,
the advance of her people in culture, the triumph of her principles
of democracy, with its lesson to the world that “the people can
be trusted with their own,” are surely causes for congratulation and
satisfaction. And all this reality dates from an incident comparatively
slight in the world’s history, but which is an important epoch in the
story of America.


The period of resistance by the Colonies to British tyranny antedates
April 19, 1775, by many years, but the culmination of a series
of oppressive acts was realized on that day, and in the exciting events
preceding and following the fight at Concord and Lexington, the
town of Cambridge acted well its part, and contributed its blood and
treasure to the common weal.


All Cambridge knows and feels a glow of patriot’s pride in the
Declaration of Independence of the people of Cambridge, made
months in advance of the Declaration of the Continental Congress,
when the town instructed its representative that if the Provincial
Congress should for the safety of the Colonies declare them independent
of the Kingdom of Great Britain, “we, the said inhabitants,
48will solemnly engage with our lives and fortunes to support them in
the measure.”


In all the preliminary work of the period Cambridge was active
and conspicuous, and the animosity aroused by the opposition of her
citizens doubtless inspired the hatred of the retreating soldiery of
Britain, and caused the shocking brutality which has been told and
so often retold. But the history of the time records all these events,
and it is needless for me to recite them.


The British troops landed at Lechmere Point on the night of April
18, and marched across the marshes to the Milk Row Road in
Charlestown, now Somerville, thence by Beech Street and the present
Massachusetts Avenue to Menotomy, Lexington, and Concord.
Captain Thatcher and his Cambridge men were among the first to
rally for the public safety, and the militia of Cambridge improved
the opportunity to attest its loyalty to principle. The muster roll
shows that they marched on the alarm, and did service as far as
Concord.


Paige, Cambridge’s historian, tells us that from Lexington line to
Beech Street the passage of the British troops in retreat was “through
a flame of fire.” Despite the fact that the conflict of this day is
generally known as Concord Fight or Lexington Battle, the carnage
in Cambridge was greater than in any other place, greater than in all
others combined; for, according to Rev. Samuel Abbott Smith, in his
address at West Cambridge, “at least twenty-two of the Americans,
and more than twice that number of the British, fell at West
Cambridge.”


Of the fierceness of the conflict we can to-day present ocular proof.
The large number of bullet holes in the house then owned by Jacob
Watson, some of which may be seen at this time, is one indication of
the amount of fighting done in Cambridge; while the spoliation of
Cooper’s Tavern in Menotomy and the Memorial stones all along the
line of march teach the heat and bitterness of the strife. In our
ancient burial ground, by which Lord Percy’s battalion marched to
the relief, will be found a neat granite monument over the remains
of John Hicks, William Marcy, and Moses Richardson, and in memory
of these and of Jason Russell, Jabez Wyman, Jason Winship,
buried at Menotomy—men of Cambridge who fell in defense of the
liberty of the people.


These things are the inspiration which the Cambridge boy and
girl breathe at every step, impelling influences to love of country and
fearlessness in her defense.


49The Journal of the Provincial Congress estimates the loss of property
in Lexington at £1761, in Cambridge at £1202, and in Concord
at £274.


But when we consider these exciting events of that memorable day
and read the stories of individual heroism, we feel a particular pride
that our race was permitted to be a factor in the great result. It
would be to us a matter of sincere regret if Ireland, who had contributed
so much that was noble and sublime to the military history of
other nations, had been deprived of the opportunity to manifest her
sympathy by active participation in the “Lexington Fight.” More
especially as the feeling of the people of Ireland was well known to
Britain and Britain’s rulers, as is evident from the records of the
House of Parliament in 1775, where it is of record that Governor
Johnstone, in the debate at the opening of the session used these
words:


“I maintain that the sense of the best and wisest men of the
country is on the side of the Americans; that three to one of the
people of Ireland are on their side; that the soldiers and sailors feel
an unwillingness to service; that you will never find the same exertion
of spirit in this as in other wars. I am well informed that the
four field officers in the four regiments now going from Ireland have
desired leave to retire or sell out.”


Again, Mr. George Washington Parke Custis, the adopted son of
Washington, says that Ireland contributed men to the Continental
Army at the rate of 100 to 1 of any nation before the coming of the
French. General Lee—Light Horse Harry—said that one-half of
the Continental Army was derived from Ireland. It is an undoubted
fact that two hundred and fifty soldiers served in the Revolutionary
War who bore the Christian name of Patrick. It is also undoubted
that the rolls of the soldiers who served at Bunker Hill contained
over one hundred and fifty typical Irish names. Verplank referred
to the services of Irishmen in the Revolutionary War in these words:
“Both in that glorious struggle for independence and in our more
recent contest for American rights, England’s penal laws gave to
America the support of hundreds of thousands of brave hearts and
strong arms.” I might repeat many more instances did the time
permit. Sufficient to say that the opportunity was accorded to
Ireland’s sons to do glorious work in the first conflict of the
Revolution.


Cullen says: “The Irish came into the full light of colonial history
at Lexington and Concord. The cry of Paul Revere roused them to
50take their share in the defense of the common cause. Among them
was Hugh Cargill, the Ballyshannon man. To his prompt response
Concord owed the safety of her records.”


Rev. Mr. Maccarty is heard from in Worcester on that eventful
morning of April 19, 1775. Lincoln’s history of Worcester states
that as the minutemen were paraded on the green, under Capt.
Timothy Bigelow, a fervent prayer was offered up by Rev. Mr.
Maccarty, after which they took up their line of march.


“Another prominent name in the accounts of Concord and Lexington
is Dr. Thomas Welsh, who was army surgeon to the patriots. He
it was who met brave Dr. Joseph Warren as he rode through Charlestown
at about 10 o’clock on the morning of that April day.”


With the evidence of participation indisputable, cannot we of Irish
lineage feel the glory of this day as our own right, purchased by the
self-sacrificing effort of our predecessors?


And can we not, in fullest measure, in dwelling on the great and
famous events of April 19, 1775, exclaim with America’s noble son,
“Thank God, I also am an American!”


Cullen (pp. 86, 88) gives the following names found on the rolls of
minutemen at that period:








Joseph Burke,


Richard Burke,


Daniel Carey,


Joseph Carey,


Peter Carey,


Patrick Carroll,


Joseph Carroll,


Cornelius Cockran,


Daniel Connors,


William Connors,


James Dempsey,


Philip Donahue,


Joseph Donnell,


John Donnelly,


Andrew Dunnigan,


John Farley,


Michael Farley,


John Flood,


William Flood,


John Foley,


Matthew Gilligen,


Richard Gilpatrick,


James Gleason,


Daniel Griffin,


Joseph Griffin,


John Hacket,


Joseph Hacket,


John Haley,


John Kelly,


Patrick Kelly,


Peter Kelly,


Richard Kelly,


Stephen Kelly,


Daniel Lary,


John McCarty,


Michael McDonnell,


Henry McGonegal,


John McGrah,


Daniel McGuire,


Patrick McKeen,


John McMullen,


John Madden,


Daniel Mahon,


James Mallone,


John Mahoney,


John Murphy,


Patrick Newjent,


Patrick O’Brien,


Richard O’Brien,


Daniel Shay,


John Shea,


John Walsh,


Joseph Walsh.








Joseph Smith, Esq., of Lowell, read the following paper on
“The Irishman Ethnologically Considered.”


51It is almost as hopeless a task to define an Irishman as it is to
give the dimensions of a perfume; for the Irishman is as evasive
and delusive, as pervasive and variable in type and character as the
sweetness rising from the glowing bed of flowers.


If this society is to have a logical and reasonable plea for existence,
if its title of American-Irish is to mean anything, we must
reach some solid basis upon which to build our fabric; we must
agree upon an acceptable definition of what is an Irishman.


This is what I shall try to do rather than attempt to show the
ethnical components that enter into the Irishman. I have gone
past the point in my speculations and theories on the Irishman where
I place much stress upon the racial elements that go to make the
Irish nation. We must start with these facts—the race and the
nation are two distinctly different things; the terms Celtic and Irish
are not synonymous.


I will state, so as to avoid the polemics of ethnology, just a few
facts upon which all people are agreed, to explain why I attach so
little importance to the merely racial elements that go to make up a
nation. The islands of Ireland and Great Britain were at one time
peopled by the one race which was known variously as the Celtic,
Cymric, and Gaelic. By emigration, conquest, settlement, slavery,
and intermarriage, and all those causes that mix races, Dane, Norse,
German, Norman-French, Dutch, French, Walloon, and Flemish
were mingled and intermingled with the original race, the constituent
elements varying with time, place, and circumstances. So we
have to-day in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England four distinct
peoples different in characteristics, temperaments, thought, and methods,
peoples made up practically from the very same elements. As
the different sections of Great Britain are separated by purely artificial
frontiers, they do not differ as profoundly as do the people of
Ireland from those of the neighboring island. We observe in this
republic people who claim a direct descent from English and other
stocks producing a people as widely separated in thought, ideals,
and physical appearance, and other distinctive features from the
stock of the old countries as the Russian is from the Spaniard.


It is clear to me that there are other and more potent elements
that make and differentiate peoples than mere racial admixtures.


The Irish, though speaking the English tongue and living under
laws foreign to the instincts of the people, are a nation apart from
the English, hating intensely the tie that binds them, out of sympathy
with English ideas, ambitions, religions, and methods; and yet
52they are both the product of the same racial elements, the alleged
preponderance of the Celt in the Irish being largely a matter of
doubt and speculation.


What is it, then, that makes this tremendous difference in the
two nations? What were the forces that were at work to produce
from the same ingredients such profoundly different results? That
is the question we must answer; and in answering it we will reach
the basic idea of this society. Let me try and answer it in my way,
and endeavor to show as simply as possible what an Irishman is.


There are in England as well as in America, among that class that
for lack of a better term we must call Celtophobes, those who have
an original if unsatisfactory and unscientific way of answering this
question which adds to the accumulation of their stolen laurels and
seems to afford them much satisfaction. If an Irishman break the
record in science, art, literature, or any department of human activity,
he is at once classed as an Englishman in England, an American
in America; if, however, he merely break the Decalogue, the law, a
bank, or his mother’s heart, he must perforce be an Irishman. This
differentiation will not do for us, however.


There are some things we must remember, for our work has to
bear the closest scrutiny and the most searching criticism.


The characteristics which we deem essentially Irish are not distinctly
Irish; they are merely more widely distributed among the
Irish. Wit, humor, poesy, melancholy, loyalty to faith and fatherland,
patience under trial and hardship, daring in adventure, valor in battle,—these
are found in all lands, among all peoples, though the
Irish have displayed them so conspicuously in all the centuries that
some, aye, many of our own people have come to regard them as
exclusively theirs. While good blood will tell and bad, we must look
to other things, we must consider other causes than race and blood,
if we are to understand the workings of a mysterious Deity and learn
how he makes nations and differentiates peoples.


The crude ore lies in the mines of the hills all over the earth,
potential in its possibilities, yet heavy, dull, inert, awaiting the day
when man shall dig it from its hiding place, try it in the fires of the
furnace, beat it on the anvil and transform it into the polished rail
that ties together the ends of civilization, that will shape it into the
massive engine that carries the fruits of industry and commerce to
the uttermost parts of the world, that moulds it into the type and
press that spreads intelligence and frees the soul, and that fashions
it into the sword that frees the slave. And as the ore, so is man;
53he must be tried in the fires to be re-made for the work he is to do.
The elements lie everywhere; circumstances and conditions weld
and mould him into nations. He may creep on into the centuries
dull, heavy, oppressed, carrying the thrall of the master, content that
he shall eat and drink and sleep in the peace of ignorance, content
that his master shall do his thinking and fighting, heedless who the
master is, for the hands of all are heavy; taking his religion and his
lot from him who rules and starves him.


Others there are who have lived for centuries watching the tide of
civilization and the higher life sweep by them, too hotly engaged in
the struggle of life and death to snatch the prizes as they go by.
Such a land for the long centuries has been Ireland. Seven hundred
years has Ireland felt the edge of the sword, and for seven centuries
she has shown the naked breast and empty hand to the oppressor,
beaten but unsubdued.


Into the fires of hate and oppression, into the hell of battle and
persecution, into the inferno of famine, misgovernment, robbery,
torture, and all the evils that cold, deliberate malice and wickedness
could invent, Celt and Saxon, Norman and French, Dane and Norse,
Englishman and Scotchman were thrown, to be fused and mingled,
that, in the cooling, God might draw from the ashes the Irishman.


In all those long dark centuries his courage never failed, his hope
never dimmed, his faith in God never faltered; he never acknowledged
the right of might; he accepted nothing from the man who
boasted himself the conqueror of him who is to-day unconquered;
he believed the day would come, and it is coming, when the forces
of evil would sink beneath the scorn of the world.


In this terrible school the Irishman was made; here was
learned the infinite patience of his kind; here was bred that
mental alertness, that wit and humor, tinged with the melancholy
the world calls typical; here he drank into his blood the courage
and flame and battle, that marches him to death with a song
and a laugh; here every fiber and tissue of his elemental parts
were made over, and upon the green sod, that blood-soaked
soil, he preserved the virtues of the man who lives with God and
nature.


THIS IS THE IRISHMAN.


The man born on Irish soil, breathing Irish air, drinking in the
beauty of the hills and vales and streams and loughs of Ireland,
listening to whispering winds of Irish seas, hearing the story and
54legend of the Irish days long gone, his heart and soul responding to
the hopes of those around him, be his father English or Norman,
Scotch or Welsh, Dane or Norse, French or Dutch, that man will
grow into an Irishman. This is the verdict of history; this is the
experience of seven centuries. Let them come from where they
will, those who plunge into the Irish Lethe emerge on the other
bank Irishmen, better betimes than the son of the older race, more
Irish than the Irish.


Conditions, climate, environment are more potent than blood;
they are the instruments with which God works. The normal man
born on Irish soil and growing to manhood on it is an Irishman.
Carry him to the most remote quarter of the earth, and he is still
Irish, and his children even to the tenth generation.


On May 4, 1897, the sad tidings reached the society of the
death of Admiral Meade, the President of the society. He
was born in New York City, 1837; appointed midshipman
Oct. 2, 1850; first sea service in sloop-of-war Preble, 1851;
warrant as master and commission as lieutenant, 1858; lieutenant-commander,
1862; was a commander in 1870; commissioned
captain in 1880; became a commodore in 1892, and
rear-admiral in 1894; admitted to the society at its organization,
Jan. 20, 1897, and chosen President-General of the same,
being the first to hold the office.


The Meade family has been to a wonderful extent identified
with the growth and development of our national life. A
glance at the societies of which Admiral Meade was a member,
will show the active and heroic part this family has taken in
every movement since the settlement of the land.




1. The Order of the Founders and Patriots of America,
1607–57, 1775–83. (Councillor of New York Society.)




Period 1607–57.


 



Ancestors.
1) Vincent Meigs, 1583–1658.




 
2) John Meigs, 1st, 1612–72.




 
3) John Meigs, 2d, 1640–91.










THEODORE ROOSEVELT
New York City











PATRICK WALSH
Georgia











THOMAS ADDIS EMMET
New York City






55Vincent Meigs and his son John, 1st, were emigrants to
Connecticut in 1637–38, and in 1639 were among the founders
of Guilford, Conn. John Meigs, 2d, was one of the patentees
of Guilford mentioned in the Charter granted by James II to
the town, May 25, 1685.


 Period 1775–83.


The patriot progeny of the above-named who made their
mark in the War of Independence were four brothers (sons
of Admiral Meade’s maternal great-great-grandfather, Return
Meigs, of Middletown, Conn., born 1708, died 1770) as follows:


1) Col. Return Jonathan Meigs, of the 6th Connecticut line,
born 1740, died 1823. He was with Montgomery at Quebec,
having crossed the wilderness with Arnold, and he commanded
the expedition against Sag Harbor, May 21, 1777, which
destroyed the British vessels’ defenses and stores. He was
one of the four colonels that led the forlorn hope at the storming
of Stony Point, July 15, 1779, under General Wayne. He
figures as one of the best and most reliable soldiers of the
Revolution.


2) Maj. Giles Meigs.


3) Capt. John Meigs.


4) Josiah Meigs, of Yale College. (Eighteen years of age
when Revolution broke out.)


2. The Society of Colonial Wars, 1607–1775.


Admiral Meade was the Deputy-Governor of the District of
Columbia Society.


Ancestors. 1) Maj. Simon Willard, born 1605, died 1676.
(Son of Richard Willard, of Horsemonden, Kent, Esquire.)


Simon Willard emigrated from England to America in 1634,
and in 1635 was one of the founders of Concord in the colony
of Massachusetts Bay; deputy to the General Court, 1636–54;
assistant to governor and a councillor from 1654–76; commander-in-chief
of the expedition of the United Colonies
against Ninigret, Sachem of the Nyantics, 1655; led the heroic
relief against the Indians at the battle of Brookfield; commanded
the Middlesex Regiment of Massachusetts troops in
King Philip’s War; a magistrate of Salem.


562) Capt. Janna Meigs, born 1672, died 1739. (Son of John
Meigs, 2d, of Guilford.) Served in the Queen Anne Wars as
lieutenant and captain of the Guilford Company; deputy to
the General Court of the Province of Connecticut in 1717–26.


3. The Military Order of Foreign Wars of the United
States of America.


War of Independence.—War with Tripoli.—War of 1812.—War
with Mexico.


Admiral Meade was Vice-Commander-General for Pennsylvania.


Hereditary member by right of his father, Richard Worsam
Meade, 2d, who served as a lieutenant in the U. S. Navy, during
the Mexican War, on board of the U. S. frigate Potomac,
Captain Aulick, at Vera Cruz.


Incidentally it may be said that Richard Worsam Meade, 1st,
was naval agent of the United States abroad, during the War of
Tripoli and War of 1812, and that George Meade (father of
R. W. Meade, 1st) was a prominent agitator against the Stamp
Act of 1765, and was one of the signers of the non-importation
resolutions of merchants of Philadelphia, Oct. 25, 1765, and
though a man of wealth, served as a private soldier in 3d
battalion of Col. Cadwalader’s regiment. He gave £2000 sterling
to the fund for Washington’s suffering army at Valley
Forge. Was a member of the Philadelphia “Associators”
during the Revolutionary War. Left the city when the British
army came in and did not return until Washington’s troops
reoccupied it.


4. The Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United
States, 1861–65. Pennsylvania Commandery.


Joined 1866, No. 187 on general roll.


5. The Grand Army of the Republic, 1861–65.


Commander of Lafayette Post, No. 140, Department of New
York. Reelected December, 1896, for a second term.


6. The California Pioneer Society of New York City, 1849–50.


An ex-President of the society, 1893–94.


577. The New England Society in the city of New York.
Life member.


8. The American Catholic Society of Philadelphia.


9. The Christ Church Historical Society of Philadelphia.


10. The National Geographical Society of Washington, D. C.


11. The Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers,
New York City. A Vice-President of the society.


12. The Navy Mutual Aid Society. An ex-President,
having held the office five years.


13. The Society of Graduates of the U. S. Naval Academy,
Annapolis, Md. Class of 1850.


Admiral Meade is also a lineal descendant of John Benjamin
(gentleman), who came over from Wales, England, with Governor
Winthrop in 1630, and settled at Cambridge, Mass.
His son John removed to Connecticut. Admiral Meade’s great-great-grandfather,
Col. John Benjamin, of Stratford, served
in the War of Independence and received a British musket
ball in his shoulder at the battle of Ridgefield. His brother,
Col. Aaron Benjamin, of Stratford, was with Montgomery in
the expedition to Quebec, and in the battles of White Plains,
Princeton, Monmouth, Germantown, Fort Mifflin, Stony Point,
and at Valley Forge. He was more than one hundred times
under fire. At Stony Point, it is said, he was the second man
to enter the fort. He was lieutenant and adjutant during the
greater part of his service.


The Admiral is also a lineal descendant of John Hopkins, of
Hartford, Conn., who came to America in 1630. This John
Hopkins is now alleged to have been one of the children (by
first wife) of Stephen Hopkins, who came over in the Mayflower,
1620, and was the fourteenth signer of the compact of the
Plymouth colonists. It is alleged (see the Signers of Mayflower
Compact, by A. A. Haxtun) that John Hopkins (of
Hartford) having a harsh stepmother, was left behind with his
dead mother’s relatives in England, but followed his father to
America in 1630, being then only seventeen years of age.


58Another line of descent is through Thomas Coates, who
came over with William Penn in 1682. The descendant of
this Thomas Coates was William Coates, of Philadelphia (a
colonel in the Revolution), and the great-great-grandfather of
the admiral.




Summing up the various strains of blood, here is the result:


Irish.—Meade, Butler.


English.—Meigs, Willard, Hopkins, Austin, Worsam,
Stretch, Hosmer, Hamlin, Wilcox, Judd, Fry, Backus, Beckley,
Sharpe, and Bronson.


Welsh.—Benjamin.


French.—Jacques.




Religions. Catholic.—Meade.


Church of England.—Worsam, Butler, Austin, Richard
Willard.


Non-Conformist or Puritan.—Meigs, Simon Willard, Hopkins,
Hosmer, Benjamin, Wilcox, Hamlin, Judd, Fry, Backus,
Beckley, Bronson, and Sharpe.


Quaker.—Coates.


Huguenot.—Jacques.[2]




2.  This Jacques was Thomas Jacques, who, with his wife Elizabeth, were Huguenot
refugees from France, settling in Leicestershire, England. They subsequently
emigrated to America, and their daughter Beulah married, October, 1694, Thomas
Coates (son of Henry), who was born 1659 in Sproxton, England, emigrated, as
before stated, with William Penn, and died in Philadelphia, July 22, 1719.






At the funeral of Admiral Meade, the society was represented
by Messrs. Edward A. Moseley, J. R. Carmody, J. D.
O’Connell, and Capt. John M. Tobin. The honorary bearers
were: Rear-Admiral John G. Walker, Commodore Charles S.
Norton, Admiral George Dewey, Commodore Norman H.
Farquhar, Commodore Winfield S. Schley, Capt. A. S. Crowninshield,
Capt. Charles O’Neil, U. S. N., and Col. Charles Heywood,
United States Marine Corps. Eight stalwart seamen
bore the body. A battalion of marines from the Washington
barracks, under command of Capt. E. B. Robinson, and a delegation
59from Lafayette Post of New York City, escorted the
body to Arlington, preceded by the United States Marine Band.


The following letter was subsequently received:








1100 Vermont Ave.,


Washington, D. C., May 7, 1897.








My Dear Mr. Moseley:—Your kind and sympathetic note of the
5th was most gratefully received, as was also the beautiful emblem
of your society, which now rests on my father’s grave. On behalf
of my mother and sisters, as well as myself, I want to thank you,
individually, and the American-Irish Historical Society, for the
touching tributes you have paid his memory. We shall not forget
how much this crushing blow has been lightened by the sympathy
of my father’s associates in the organizations of which he was a
member.








Respectfully and sincerely yours,


(Signed)      Richard W. Meade, Jr.








The council of the society, at its September meeting, was
entertained by the Rhode Island members at a banquet in
Pawtucket, at which Hon. Hugh J. Carroll presided. Mr.
Thomas Hamilton Murray delivered the following address of
welcome on that occasion:


Gentlemen of the Council of the American-Irish Historical Society,—We
are glad to have the honor of your visit, and we hope that your
stay in Pawtucket will be pleasant to you and profitable to the great
movement in which you are engaged.


The organization you represent seeks to write an unwritten chapter
of American history, an essential chapter which has been too long
ignored. Yet, until this chapter is written and its prime importance
recognized, American history as published will be radically defective.


Every American, therefore, no matter what his ancestry and no
matter what his creed, must wish you Godspeed in your patriotic
labors.


While supplying this missing chapter in American history, you
are at the same time helping to supply a missing chapter in Rhode
Island history.


The Irish chapter in the history of Rhode Island has its roots
away back in the days of Roger Williams. But it is little known by
this generation. In the old colonial days men of Irish blood figured
60prominently in this land of refuge. Like Williams and his colleagues,
they found here a haven of peace, found rest and freedom.


Many soldiers of Irish birth or extraction battled during King
Philip’s War, 1675–76, in defense of the homes and lives of the
settlers. Not a few of them participated in the Great Swamp Fight
in Southern Rhode Island, and settled here when that war had ended.
We may mention as an interesting fact that an Irishman, Robert
Beers, was killed by the Indians in 1676 within a few miles of where
you meet to-night.


Another Irishman, Charles Macarty (McCarthy), was one of the
founders in 1677 of our town of East Greenwich. The town of
Warren in this state was named in honor of an Irishman, Sir Peter
Warren, whose deeds of valor no word of ours need chronicle.


Irish Rhode Islanders are heard from in the capture of Louisburg,
and there the bones of some of them repose to this day.


The Revolution found among its most ardent supporters in Rhode
Island men of Irish lineage. The Blacks, the Dorrances, the Sterlings,
the Larkins, and a host of other people of Hibernian origin are evidence
of this.


General Knox, a member of the Boston Charitable Irish Society,
was here during the early part of the Revolution; Gen. John Sullivan,
son of the Irish schoolmaster, commanded the Rhode Island Department
for a considerable period, and was in command of the patriot
forces at the siege of Newport and the battle that ensued. His
brother James, the Governor of Massachusetts, received in after years
the degree of LL.D. from Brown University.


You see, therefore, gentlemen, that Rhode Island is rich in historic
material for your society. The shaft needs but be sunk to bring the
treasures to the surface. Your coming here on this occasion helps
to sink it.


We Rhode Islanders are very proud of our little state. That much
of the Irish chapter in the history of this state is but little known
we acknowledge and regret.


Yet some of it we do know. We recall many noble men that
Ireland has given us—Berkeley, McSparran, Brown, Jackson, and
the rest. We recall the Irishman Wilson, who was head of one of
the first free schools opened in Providence, and of those other Irish
schoolmasters here at an early day—Kelly, Reilly, Knox, Phelan.
May their memory be in benediction!


We know, too, that Irish blood was not wanting in the veins of
Perry and of Burnside. At least two of our governors could truthfully
61claim an Irish ancestry on the one side or the other, and at least
three of our secretaries of state. We know that at the founding of
Rhode Island College, now Brown University, the first funds for the
institution came from Ireland, generously contributed by Irish men
and women.


We are aware that many people of Irish extraction have married
into families of other extractions, some of these families representing
the oldest in the state. Thus we learn from the colonial and state
records that a Mahoney wedded an Olney, that a McGowan married
an Angell, that a McCarthy married a Maxson, that a Connor became
the wife of a Robinson, a McLoughlin the wife of a Steere, a Murphy
the husband of a Pitman. We see, moreover, that Prudence Mathewson
became Mrs. Kelley, that Harriet Thayer became Mrs. Patrick
Brown, that Rachel Aldrich wedded David Flynn.


Patrick Cunningham, the records show, was married in Providence
to Mary Goddard; Sally Mahoney became the wife of Asa Capron.
The records further show the marriage of persons bearing the following
names: Heffernan and Coggeshall, Flanagan and Cornell, Riley
and Sabin, Fallon and Cook, Connor and Odlin, Burke and Greene,
Kenney and Chadwick, Mulholland and Hooper, Hurlihy and Thorp,
Carroll and Slater, O’Brien and Newcome, McGee and Perkins,
Donohue and Sutleff, Egan and Wilson, and a long list of others.


I have already referred to the Olney name. I take it up again.
Thomas Olney came from England in 1635, and was one of the
original thirteen proprietors of Providence. His descendants are
widespread. Some of them were married as follows: Benjamin
Olney to Mary McFadyan, Sylvester Olney to Eliza McLaughlin,
Sylvanus Olney to Joanna W. Gorman, Frances M. Olney to J. P.
Mahan, George E. Olney to Mary E. Gilpatrick, Thomas D. Olney to
Mary A. Dunagan, Bradley Olney to Dora Fitzgerald, William N.
Olney to Mary Oday (O’Day), Amanda Olney to Jerry Mackay, Louis
B. Olney to Kitty Sheehan, Hattie M. Olney to Casper McManus.


This indicates that the process of assimilation has been progressing
in Rhode Island for many generations, and that Irish blood courses
to-day through the veins of thousands of the old Rhode Island stock.


These things we know, but there are many other facts just as
important we do not know.


We depend upon you, gentlemen, and the society of which you are
the official representatives, to unroll the drapery so that our knowledge
may be greatly increased.


Again we say, welcome to Pawtucket!


62Addresses were made by Joseph Smith, of Lowell; James
Jeffrey Roche, of Boston; and Thomas B. Lawler, of
Worcester.


On May 15, 1897, Hon. Edward A. Moseley, of Washington,
D. C., was chosen President-General of the society, to fill the
vacancy caused by the death of Admiral Meade.


A committee of three Washington members of the society
was appointed to wait upon Mr. Moseley and officially notify
him of his selection. This committee consisted of Mr. J. D.
O’Connell of the U. S. Treasury Department; Paymaster
Carmody, U. S. N., and Capt. John M. Tobin.


The committee had waited upon Mr. Moseley as instructed,
and Chairman O’Connell thus presented the matter:


Mr. Moseley,—Complying with the directions of the Council of
the American-Irish Historical Society, we have come to announce to
you, in their name, your selection as President-General of the
society.


To be the bearer of such information is generally a pleasant duty;
and it would be a pleasure to us in this instance, were it not for the
bereavement felt so keenly by every member of our society because
of the death of its first President-General, the late Richard W. Meade,
Rear-Admiral of the United States Navy—illustrious in name and
lineage and in the annals of his country.


It is a great honor to you, sir, to have been selected by the
unanimous voice of our council to the highest office in our society,
in immediate succession to such an illustrious man. Nevertheless,
we hope that under your administration the society is destined to
grow with the growth and strengthen with the strength of the
Republic, and that it will eventually achieve the glorious object of
its institution, namely, to prove to the civilized world, and especially
to the “English-speaking peoples,” that there is no distinction of
blood or race among the colonists and their descendants who peopled
this part of the continent from Great Britain and Ireland; that they
and the succeeding and ever-increasing waves of immigration, up to
and long after the Revolutionary War, were all people of the same
mixture of blood—Celtic and Germanic; the Celtic—and in that
the Irish Celtic—then predominant, as it still continues to be in
every region of the globe where the English language is spoken;
predominant also on every ocean where floats our own flag, and the
flag of “our kin beyond the sea,” which bears the insignia of the
“three kingdoms”—a flag we do not now respect, and never shall
while it is the emblem of tyranny in any land or on any sea.







GEN. JAMES R. O’BEIRNE
New York











M. J. HARSON
Rhode Island











GEN. M. C. BUTLER
South Carolina











GEN. ST. CLAIR A. MULHOLLAND
Pennsylvania










VICE-PRESIDENTS







63

 The President-General’s Reply.




President-General Moseley replied as follows:


Gentlemen,—Deeply appreciative as I am of the honor conferred
upon me by your tendering me the position of President-General of the
American-Irish Historical Society, I feel that the compliment is greatly
enhanced by my having been selected to fill the place so recently
made vacant by the death of one of our most illustrious fellow-citizens,
the late Rear-Admiral Richard W. Meade, of the United
States Navy.


Honored by all true patriots for the loyalty, courage, and professional
ability which so eminently distinguished him in his country’s
hour of trial, and throughout his whole career, no more fitting representative
of the Irish people, to whose history our society is devoted,
could have been chosen as its first President-General, than Rear-Admiral
Meade, who bore a name renowned as well in the army as
in the navy of our country.


While fully conscious of my being all too unworthy to occupy a
position which my predecessor so adequately filled, yet, as I am most
earnestly and heartily in sympathy with the objects of the American-Irish
Historical Society, and willing to share in its labors and responsibilities,
I cannot but accede to your wishes, whatever misgivings I
may have as to my ability to fulfill your expectations.


My descent from Irish ancestry, of which I am justly proud, and
also from the English and Welsh, not only enables me to regard
myself as among typical Americans in respect of origin, as well as
aspirations and pride of country, but renders me fondly sympathetic
with the aims and purposes of this American-Irish Society.


The main purpose of the American-Irish Historical Society is to
elucidate the history of the Irish element in our people and the
extent of the contributions to our development and civilization since
the earliest colonial period,—a rich and greatly neglected field for
historical research.


The society intends to demonstrate the fact that this element has
not been given the credit which is its due by the writers of American
history, and to prove by authoritative records that from the earliest
days of the settlement of this country up to the present day, it has
64done its part towards establishing and maintaining this great Republic,
and in developing its greatness in every field of its achievements.


But it is not solely to chronicle the deeds of Irish ancestors, or
their descendants, and our contemporaries that we have organized an
historical society.


Ownership, or the right of possession, as well as pride of descent,
tend to make one a better citizen. We, therefore, desire that as our
young men grow up they may feel that they inherit the right of
ownership in our great country; that their ancestors have done their
part towards the up-building of the grandest nation upon earth—a
part not surpassed by any other element of our people, and therefore
that they should always exercise the right of citizenship as a sacred
trust transmitted to them for the glory and welfare of their country.


Of all those who by immigration have helped to people our
country, the Irish have come imbued with the most intense feeling of
loyalty towards our institutions, and it may be safely asserted that,
since our independence of English rule was proclaimed, every true
Irishman has felt, on landing in America, that the American shore
was not a foreign shore for him. To perpetuate this feeling is the
crowning object for which the society is organized.


Again sincerely thanking the society, through the committee,
for the honor conferred upon him, President-General Moseley
assured them that he would discharge the duties of the office to
the very best of his ability.


In answer to the subjoined call the third meeting was held
Nov. 16, 1897.








Office of the Secretary-General,


Pawtucket, R. I., Nov. 1, 1897.








Dear Sir:—You are hereby notified that the third meeting of the
American-Irish Historical Society will be held at Young’s Hotel,
Boston, Mass., on Tuesday evening, Nov. 16, 1897.


There will be a business session of the society at 6.30 P.M.,
followed, at 7.30 o’clock, by a dinner and post-prandial exercises of
an interesting nature.


The after-dinner features will include:


(1) An address by the presiding officer.


(2) The reading of letters from distinguished members of the
society unable to be present.


65(3) A paper by Mr. Dennis Harvey Sheahan, of Providence,
R. I. (ex-clerk of the Rhode Island House of Representatives),
on “The Need of an Organization such as the A. I. H. S., and
its Scope.”


(4) A congratulatory letter from His Excellency Elisha Dyer,
Governor of Rhode Island.


(5) An address by Mr. John Mackinnon Robertson, of London,
author of The Saxon and the Celt.


(6) A communication to the society from Hon. Joseph T.
Lawless, Secretary of State, Virginia.


(7) A paper on “The O’Briens of Machias, in the Revolution,”
by Mr. H. W. Chaplin, of Boston, Mass., who is a descendant
of the O’Briens.


Invitations to attend the dinner have been extended Rear-Admiral
Belknap, U. S. N.; Dr. John Sullivan, a descendant of Gen. John
Sullivan of the Revolution; and President Andrews, of Brown University.
President Andrews’s work on American history is well
known, and his patriotic address recently, before the Twentieth
Century Club, will not soon be forgotten.


It is earnestly desired that every member of the society who can
possibly be present at the coming meeting will attend and help make
the event the great success it so richly deserves.


Fraternally, and in behalf of the Executive Council of the Society,








Thomas Hamilton Murray,


Secretary-General.








The third general meeting of the American-Irish Historical
Society was held at Young’s Hotel, Boston, on the evening of
November 16, about seventy members being in attendance.
Gen. James R. O’Beirne, Vice-President for New York, presided
at the business session. Secretary-General Thomas
Hamilton Murray made his official report, saying:


The society is steadily growing in membership, and is receiving
an excellent class of active workers. Many of these new accessions
are gentlemen of national reputation. Before the year closes it is
expected that between five and six hundred members will have been
enrolled. Since the founding of the organization last January, three
members have died. They were Postmaster Coveney, of Boston;
Rear-Admiral Meade, who was the first President-General of the
society; and Lawrence J. Smith, of Lowell, Mass.


66Twenty-eight states, the District of Columbia, and two foreign
countries are now represented in the society’s membership. Since
the last gathering of the organization the council of the society
has held a number of meetings, and has materially furthered the
movement.


The organization has enlisted widespread attention, and requests
for genealogical information, historical data and facts relating to
early Irish settlers in this country have been received almost daily.
Several of the society’s members are of Revolutionary stock, and
some are descendants of officers who served under Washington.
Some of the members, too, trace their American ancestry back to a
period anterior to King Philip’s War.


Since the last meeting an excellent article descriptive of the
society and its purposes has been contributed to the Granite State
Monthly, of Concord, N. H., by the Treasurer-General, John C.
Linehan. A committee of Washington members of the society now
has in preparation a diploma of membership and a seal. This
committee will probably be ready to submit its designs at the next
meeting. The members at the national capital have extended the
society a cordial invitation to hold its coming meeting in that city,
and have, in fact, already begun preparations for the event, under
the direction of President-General Moseley. Gen. James R.
O’Beirne, on behalf of the New York members, has also tendered
the organization an invitation to meet in the near future in that city.


The last meeting of the society’s council was held in Pawtucket,
R. I., as the guests of the members in that place and Providence.
The meeting was very profitable to the cause. Several new members
were obtained for the organization; and the entertainers’
hospitality was unbounded. The council has been invited to attend
similar gatherings in Worcester, Lawrence, and other cities. This
indicates the interest aroused. Massachusetts has at present the
largest representation in the society; then follow in order Maine,
New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania.


At the conclusion of Mr. Murray’s report a committee of
three was appointed to take suitable action on the death of
Lawrence J. Smith, of Lowell, Mass. The committee consists
of Joseph Smith, Lowell; Thomas B. Lawler, Worcester; and
Capt. P. S. Curry, Lynn.


William McConway, of Pittsburg, Pa., presented a check for
$50 to the society.


67It was voted to hold the next meeting of the society in New
York City.


The business session then adjourned, and the company proceeded
to dinner.


Hon. Thomas J. Gargan presided; and seated on his right
and left were John Mackinnon Robertson, of London; Admiral
Belknap, U. S. N.; Gen. J. R. O’Beirne, New York;
Hon. P. A. Collins, Boston; Col. John C. Linehan, Concord,
N. H.; Rev. Edward McSweeney, Bangor, Me.; James Jeffrey
Roche, of Boston; Thomas B. Lawler, of Worcester; and
Joseph Smith, of Lowell.


Around the tables were noted: the Revs. William P.
McQuaid, Boston; John Harty, Pawtucket, R. I.; J. H.
Lyons, Boston; Dr. W. D. Collins, Haverhill, Mass.; Dennis
H. Sheahan, Providence, R. I.; Stephen J. Casey, Providence;
Osborne Howes, Boston; Humphrey O’Sullivan, Lowell, Mass.;
J. F. Brennan, Peterboro, N. H.; Representative John Jolly,
Alderman Thomas O’Brien, and Hugh J. Lee, Pawtucket, R. I.;
Daniel Donovan, Timothy Donovan, and P. S. Curry, Lynn,
Mass.; Hon. Joseph H. O’Neil, Dr. William H. Grainger, Dr.
P. J. Timmins, M. A. Toland, Edward A. McLaughlin, M. J.
Jordan, Dr. P. F. Gavin, Charles E. S. MacCorry, Joseph P.
Flatley, Jeremiah W. Fogarty, all of Boston; Edmund Reardon,
Capt. J. F. Murray, and Edward M. Manning, of Cambridge,
Mass.; James Cunningham and Frank W. Cunningham,
of Portland, Me.; and many others.


After dinner a short but stirring speech was made by the
presiding officer, Hon. Thomas J. Gargan, who said in part:


It cannot be otherwise than interesting to analyze the materials
entering into the warp and woof of our democratic fabric. We are a
nation receiving emigrants from almost every country on the face of
the globe. We are endeavoring to amalgamate people of different
races, languages, and religions into a homogeneous mass, eliminating
all that is vicious, and so refining what is good, hoping to evolve the
best type of manhood and womanhood to be found in the coming
century.


Doubtless the descendants of each race making contributions to
68our population will perform their share of the work in tracing their
early settlements and their efforts in up-building the Republic. Our
share of the work is to examine the data and preserve the records of
the Irish and their descendants, and their contributions to the settlement
of the original Colonies, the founding of the nation, the upholding
of the Union, and the maintenance of democratic institutions.


Proud of our ancestry, yet loving the United States and loyal to
our citizenship, we desire a fair share of credit for what they have
accomplished. We respect the Germans, the French, the Italians,
and the genuine Scotchman; but for that masquerading misnomer,
the Scotch-Irishman, who claims no ancestry and no country as his
own, we have only contempt; and he will go down to posterity as he
deserves, “unwept, unhonored, and unsung.”


A distinguished man has said “the Irish have fought successfully
the battles of all countries but their own.” They have also
contributed their full share to the civilization and progress of all
English-speaking people. That they possess brilliant qualities is not
denied; but it is charged that they lack steadiness of purpose.
I think a careful and critical study of the history of this country
will refute this assertion.


To assert that they have imperfections is but to say they are
human. For much of their humanity, I say God bless them. I wish
there was a little more humanity in the world in our day.


We of this society are only asking that they may be spoken of
and written of impartially, truthfully. “Nothing extenuate, nor set
down aught in malice.” We will accept our share of just criticism.
The malice and insolence of ignorance have unfortunately held the
platform too long. It is our duty to endeavor to refute errors with
clear statements of cold facts. For such purposes this society was
organized; and it is very gratifying to be able to announce that in
ten months since its organization we have already a list of nearly
five hundred members coming from almost every state in the Union,
representing some of the most distinguished men and families of the
Republic. I congratulate you, fellow-members, on this signal success.


Mr. Gargan then introduced Mr. John Mackinnon Robertson,
of London, author of many striking books and pamphlets,
but most widely and favorably known to members of the
Society and Irish-Americans generally by his masterly work,
The Saxon and the Celt. Mr. Robertson is a tall, handsome man
of forty, with dark hair, moustache and beard, and a well-modulated
69voice, which without effort reached the furthest part of
the room. He gesticulates very seldom, and uses none of the
tricks of the practiced orator; but he held his audience in
rapt attention throughout his whole discourse, evoking applause
and laughter at frequent intervals. He is a firm believer in
the ultimate and not far distant triumph of Home Rule; and
his advice to the American friends of the cause had the merit
of novelty at least.


 Mr. Robertson’s Address.


Mr. Robertson expressed the satisfaction with which he
found himself at a union of an Irish society whose purpose was
the systematic and dispassionate study of a department of the
history of the race. The new movement was the more hopeful,
seeing that it proceeded on democratic lines. It was said
that war could not be carried on by a committee. If the
military gentlemen present would forgive him, he would confess
that he wished it could not be done in any other way,
either (laughter); but he was sure that historical research
could very well be so carried on. In so far as the Nationalist
movement had of late years lost headway, it could fairly be
said that it was because of an imperfect application of the
spirit of democracy in its ranks. A great man was at once
one of the greatest boons that could befall any cause, and one
of the greatest dangers, because where the great man was all
in all, the powers of the lesser men were undeveloped, and
their faculty of coöperation was in a measure destroyed. The
Nationalist movement had been shattered somewhat as the
party of Cromwell was shattered at his death; but it would
find the cure which, in the old case, had not been forthcoming
(applause). Every development of democratic methods would
make for reconstruction.


Above all, the present movement was full of promise,
because it was essentially scientific in its aim.


Dennis Harvey Sheahan, of Providence, R. I., read the
following paper on “The Need of an Organization such as
the American-Irish Historical Society, and its Scope”:


70The history of a country is dear to the heart of the lover of that
country. By the aid of historical study we learn of the origin,
growth, and development of a race of people; their customs, religions,
laws, governments; their accomplishments and what they have contributed
to the economy of the world. The historian points out the
past to the present and future. He puts aside the veil that has
gathered about the dim past, opens up to the gaze of the bright
present the panorama of human achievement, and blazes the way for
his successor in the rosy future.


What the clergyman learns from the theological disputations of the
past, the poring monk has gathered together; what the physician
now acquires with comparative ease is furnished him by the knowledge
garnered from the experience of his brethren from the time
when man learned that pain and aches affected his being; what the
lawyer gains from precedents is a guiding light which sheds its rays
upon problems of jurisprudence that the legal lore of the past generations
has taken from the leaves of experience; what formulæ the
scientist is able to demonstrate he owes to the observations of men
who, through the ages, have chronicled the phenomena of nature;
the statesman is able to meet the crises of the present by being
informed as to other crises in governmental affairs.


The citizen of a republic who neglects to learn the fundamental
principles upon which rest the laws of the land, who does not know
how the country was developed and maintained, is as a blind man,
and is not able to bring to the exercise of his suffrage the amount of
intelligence that the country has a right to require from him.


This obligation comes to us in a twofold capacity. We, as citizens
of this great Republic, should study the history of our country from
a patriotic standpoint, while as Irishmen, or descendants of that
race, it should be not only a duty but a pleasure to learn of the
deeds of Irishmen in America.


Therefore, an organization such as the American-Irish Historical
Society, if it had no other raison d’être, would accomplish a patriotic
purpose if it served only as an incentive to the study of the deeds
of Irishmen in America.


It has become almost a maxim in historical matters that the history
of events cannot be accepted as facts until the generation which
lived at the time said events occurred has passed away.


The passions, influences, and conditions which generate, shape,
and control events lend a coloring to their recital which, deep-lined
or faint as painted by the writer at the time, are toned down or made
71stronger by the historian of a future generation who, unmindful of
passions, influences, or conditions, and with an eye single to the
preservation of history by means of the truth, makes past occurrences
stand out in their true light.


Deeds that have received but a passing mention from writers
whose minds were biased are rescued from an unmerited insignificance
and placed high in the Temple of Fame, while highly extolled
acts, given an undue prominence by a partisan writer, are consigned
to a merited oblivion by the historian of a later but more impartial
epoch.


It is not often true of history that the stone which was rejected by
the builder becomes the corner stone of the edifice.


A member of the Society of Friends who desires to familiarize
himself with the history of his sect in New England would find but
little of the truth in the writings which have come from such intellectual
dyspeptics as Cotton Mather and his disciples. But in the
unwritten history of Quaker persecutions that have become legendary,
by the purity of their lives, by their nobility of character and their
Christianizing influences, the pioneers of that faith stand out in bold
relief in the religious history of Puritan New England, with its dark
background of scourging, mutilation, banishments, and hangings.


By analogy, how can the Irish-American race expect that the history
of Irishmen in New England can be presented in just proportion
to the true merits of the case?


In fact, who has heard much of Irishmen in New England until
the present generation? As in New England, so throughout the
Colonies. The Virginia Cavalier was not less hostile to the Irish than
the Massachusetts Puritan.


Should the American-Irish Historical Society go out of existence
to-night, it would have already accomplished a grand mission in this:
that it has brought forth from obscure records the deeds of Irishmen
in America, and has laid the foundation for the erection of an historical
monument to Irishmen that, with its base laid in colonial
times, and still being constructed, challenges the respect and admiration
of all lovers of American history.


The work of this society has been thus far practically confined to
research of New England records. This research has been fruitful
of good results.


Among other things we learn of the Irish as brickmakers of
Rehoboth and settlers in Salem and Lynn in early colonial
times.


72Again, we learn that the Irish in the Granite State had become so
numerous in colonial times that the General Court of Massachusetts
passed a law prohibiting the “wild Irishmen of New Hampshire”
from coming across the state line, lest they should drive out the
people of the older colony. As long as that state shall last the glory
and the fame of the Sullivans and their contemporaries of the Irish
race will remain illustrious.


The history of Irishmen in Maine will be dwelt upon in the
address of one of the gentlemen who is to follow on the program.


This research has extracted from the records of Rhode Island the
influence of the Irish schoolmaster, McSparren, in moulding the
intellectual development of that colony; it has called attention to
the work of Bishop Berkely in the promotion of education there,
and what is to me, personally, exceedingly pleasant information,
that Brown University, my beloved Alma Mater, in its infancy was
succored by the contributions of worthy people residing in Ireland.


The work of presenting to the world the achievements of Irishmen
in America, in its just proportion to the achievements of men
of other races in the colonization, struggle for independence, and the
creation of a republic, the development of that republic from a
theory into a concrete nation, and the perpetuation of that nation,
is a duty not only to the men whose deeds are to be chronicled, but
also a debt which we owe to ourselves, which we should cheerfully
assume.


The labor involved in this from its very nature is such as can only
be performed by an organization such as the American-Irish Historical
Society.


The true status of the Irish in America, notwithstanding the fact
that their brain and brawn have been interwoven in the woof and
web of our nation’s fabric, has never been fully appreciated, by
reason of the prejudices which have been associated with anything
that bore an Irish name. This prejudice, in no small part, arose
from misconception and misunderstanding of the Irish nature, temperament,
and characteristics. There is a brand of bigotry that is
sometimes designated as inborn. In the case of a bigot whose
bigotry is congenital, it is well to follow the scriptural injunction to
reason not with a fool lest he grow wise. But in the case of those
persons who, by reason of misconception or want of acquaintance
with Irishmen, cannot properly estimate our race, yet whose minds
are broad enough to cherish the worth of a man when demonstrated,
and whose patriotism counts every man a friend who has contributed
73to the glory of his country, an impartial history of the deeds of
Irishmen in America would effectively serve to displace any prejudice.


What lover of the human race, animated by that noble sentiment
of Terence, “I am a man, and I think nothing human foreign to
me,” can fail to appreciate the sturdy virtues of the Irish people in
America, their patient industry, their obedience to constituted
authority, their domestic constancy, their desire to provide homes for
their families and education for their children?


What patriotic American can fail to be moved by emotions of
gratitude when he learns among other facts that the Irish in Ireland
assisted with food and provisions the struggling settlers of Boston in
a time of dire distress; that Irishmen of Philadelphia contributed
large sums of money to the famished Revolutionary heroes at Valley
Forge; that George Washington considered himself honored in being
elected a member of an Irish society; that nine of the signers of the
Declaration of Independence were men of Irish blood; that on the
field of war, and in the council chamber of the nation, as well as in
the administration of national, state, and municipal affairs, from the
time of our earliest history to the present time, men of that race
have given their lives and property to the nation’s cause? The work
of this society thus far in this direction gives promise of either
destroying the prejudices that have hitherto existed against the Irish
people, or removing the venom from the fangs of bigotry.


To my mind the most urgent need of a society of this nature is
the means it affords of preserving Irish history in America. It
would be a great misfortune if the history of the Irish people in
America, at present fragmentary at best, yet gathered together under
favorable conditions and after the most careful and painstaking
labor, could not find some secure lodgment.


What more suitable abiding place than the cabinet of the American-Irish
Historical Society, from whence it could find its way into the
private and public libraries, not only of our own country, but of the
civilized world?


This society in the short time it has been in existence has accomplished
so much in its chosen field as already to have demonstrated
quite clearly its scope. From the publications issued by its members,
notably the work of our Secretary-General in Massachusetts and
Rhode Island, General Linehan in New Hampshire, Senator Walsh
in Georgia, Hon. Joseph T. Lawless in Virginia, and others, our society
has already contributed a fund of rich historical value to the history
of this country. It would suffice to cite this labor to show the scope.


74The thought has occurred to me that it might be well, however, to
suggest a specialization of this work and to provide avenues for its
dissemination. The society should pursue the line of procedure
already mapped out by extending its membership to every state in
the country. Membership should be selected from men of scholarly
attainments devoted to historical research. This membership should
be so catholic as to include men of all religious denominations and
nationalities.


Apropos of this I beg leave to call attention to the great work
done and being done by German scholars in the study of Celtic, to
illustrate the probable value of assistance that might be rendered to
us by men of other nationalities. The society should coöperate with
the movements in the other states, looking to the establishment of
record commissions, and in states where such movements have not
been set on foot, to labor to create such movements. In addition to
this the products of the research of the society should be edited, and
when preserved in book form copies of these should be distributed
to other historical societies and placed in public and private libraries.
Volumes could be printed from time to time, a number of which
could be placed on the market for sale, thereby defraying the
expenses of publishing the same.


With such an inviting field of labor spread out before us, this
society not only supplies a long-felt want, but also a means of inspiration.
Each member can contribute to the common fund of historical
data, and the sum total of these contributions will go to make up a
work of great value.


The need of such an organization as the American-Irish Historical
Society being demonstrated, and its scope clearly defined, all that
remains to be done to perpetuate its success is to continue in the
work already so auspiciously undertaken.


The following letter was read from President Andrews of
Brown University:








President’s Room, Brown University,


Providence, R. I., Nov. 10, 1897.








My Dear Mr. Murray:—Your American-Irish Historical Society
meeting is sure to be a most interesting one, and but for the condition
of my health and the numerous engagements for this month to
which I am already pledged, I should certainly attend. As it is, I
can only send you this testimonial of my interest in your organization
75and in the important phase of our American history which it is
designed to investigate and expound.


The society can, and no doubt will, perform a most valuable work.
The researches concerning the men whom I call the Irish Pilgrim
fathers—the earliest representatives of the Irish race in New England—which
you, yourself, sir, have so well begun, ought to be
carried to the utmost attainable completion.


In early southern history Irishmen were a factor of the utmost
importance. The Irish settlers and settlements in North Carolina
and early Kentucky furnish an attractive subject for historical study,
which, I believe, has never yet been adequately dealt with.


The American-Irish Historical Society will certainly prompt some
of the numerous and brilliant youth of Irish descent, now coming
forth from American colleges in such numbers, to turn their studies
in the direction named.








Yours with sincere esteem,


E. Benj. Andrews.








The Friendly Sons of St. Patrick, who were in session in
New York on the previous evening, sent the following:


New York, Nov. 15, 1897.








To the American-Irish Historical Society.








Gentlemen:—The Friendly Sons of St. Patrick of New York, an
association of Irishmen and Irish-Americans coeval with the founding
of this government, sends to you its heartiest fraternal greeting through
your representative, Mr. Lawler. We fully appreciate the great value
of the work you have undertaken—a work that involves the preservation
of the record and achievements of men of Irish blood in the
building and preservation of the American Republic.


The record of our race on this continent is glorious with patriotism
and self-sacrifice; it is a record of honest toil, of love of freedom
and religion, of devotion to God and country.


In preserving an authentic account of these achievements, the
American-Irish Historical Society is performing a work of justice to
the Irish race and an invaluable service to American history.


With every wish for your success, we remain fraternally yours,








Morgan J. O’Brien,


President, Friendly Sons St. Patrick, by John J. Rooney.








76Hon. P. A. Collins and Gen. J. R. O’Beirne dissented,
courteously but firmly, from the proposition that justice is to
be won from England by patience and a campaign of education.
Recalling Parnell’s first visit to Boston, General Collins told with
impressiveness how Wendell Phillips attended the great meeting,
in order, as he said, “to look upon the man who had made
John Bull listen.” We must make John Bull listen, was the
theme of General Collins’s eloquent address. Though he had
come unprepared to speak, he was in excellent form and showed
no diminution of his old-time vigor and clearness of expression.


General O’Beirne, whose erect, soldierly figure and noble countenance
“showed him no carpet-knight so trim, but in close
fight a warrior grim,” spoke with burning words of the cause
that is defeated but not lost, and never can be lost while Irishmen
preserve their racial character. History for seven hundred
years has shown their undying fortitude, and he predicted that
it would record the same through all the years to come, whether
Freedom come soon or late.


Admiral Belknap, U. S. N., Rev. Edward McSweeney, of
Bangor, Me., and other gentlemen made brief impromptu
remarks, and the meeting adjourned after passing a vote of
thanks to Mr. Robertson for his entertaining discourse.


 New Members Admitted.


The following new members were admitted: His Excellency
Elisha Dyer, Governor of Rhode Island; Hon. Joseph T.
Lawless, Secretary of State, Virginia; Hon. Elisha W. Bucklin,
ex-State Auditor, Pawtucket, R. I.; Hon. Wauhope Lynn,
New York City; Recorder Goff, New York City; Hon. W.
F. Reddy, Richmond, Va.; Col. James Armstrong, Charleston,
S. C.; Col. C. C. Sanders, Gainesville, Ga.; Mr. Edward Fitzpatrick,
staff of the Courier-Journal, Louisville, Ky.; Hon.
John F. Finerty, editor the Citizen, Chicago, Ill.; Mr. M. J.
Dowling, secretary National Republican League, Renville,
Minn.; Mr. Michael Walsh, LL.D., Ph.D., editor Sunday
Democrat, New York City; Mr. James D. Power, Washington,
77D. C.; Capt. John Flannery, Savannah, Ga.; Hon. Matthew
O’Doherty, Louisville, Ky.; Mr. Edward L. Hearn, South
Framingham, Mass.; Capt. John J. Coffey, Neponset, Mass.;
Mr. Stephen J. Casey, Providence, R. I.; Mr. John B. Kehoe,
Portland, Me.; Mr. Anthony J. Philpott, Boston, Mass.; Mr.
William Lyman, New York City; Dr. Daniel I. O’Keefe,
Jamaica Plain, Mass.; Dr. Thomas J. Dillon, Roxbury, Mass.;
Dr. James E. Keating, Portland, Me.; the Rev. J. Phelan,
Rock Valley, Ia.; Capt. Thomas J. Hogan, Portland, Me.; Mr.
Thomas J. Lane, East Boston, Mass.; Mr. John Ahern, Concord,
N. H.; Dr. Edward J. McDonough, Portland, Me.; Mr.
Hugh J. Lee, Pawtucket, R. I.


Mr. Thomas B. Lawler, of Worcester, presented the following
New York gentlemen as candidates for the society, and
they were all admitted:


Hon. Joseph F. Daly, Hon. Morgan J. O’Brien, Hon. Frederick
Smyth, Hon. E. F. O’Dwyer, Hon. Thomas S. Brennan, Col.
William L. Brown, Dr. Charles J. Perry, Dr. Constantine
Macguire, Maj. John Byrne, F. C. Travers, M. A. O’Byrne,
John Crane, J. M. Fitzpatrick, D. P. Murphy, Jr., Robert E.
Danvers, Stephen J. Geoghegan, James P. Campbell, Daniel
O’Day, John J. Rooney, Laurence Winters, William Cranitch,
James G. Johnson, William F. Clare, Edward J. McGuire,
Daniel F. Colahan, Edward D. Farrell, William M. Penney.


On Feb. 1, 1898, the following invitation was issued to the
members:


Dear Sir:—You are hereby notified that the annual meeting of
the American-Irish Historical Society will be held at the Hotel San
Remo, New York City, Thursday evening, Feb. 17, 1898.


The San Remo is owned by a member of our society (Mr. Michael
Brennan) and is located at Central Park West, Seventy-fourth and
Seventy-fifth Streets. It is easy of access and excellently adapted to
a gathering such as we have in view.


There will be a business session of the society at 7 P.M., at which
the annual election of officers will take place. At 8 o’clock the
society and guests will proceed to dinner.


Gen. James R. O’Beirne, Vice-President of our society for New
York State, will preside.


78The delegation from the New England states will include the Hon.
John C. Linehan, State Insurance Commissioner of New Hampshire;
the Hon. Thomas J. Gargan, Boston, ex-President of the Charitable
Irish Society (founded 1737); James Jeffrey Roche, LL.D., editor
of the Boston Pilot, and other prominent gentlemen.


At the business session an amendment to Article XII of the
Constitution will be offered. This article at present provides that
the executive council of the society shall consist of ten members (in
addition to the general officers). The proposed amendment, if passed,
would change the language to read “not less than ten, nor more than
twenty.”


During the post-prandial exercises Mr. Joseph Smith, secretary of
the Police Commission, Lowell, Mass., will read a paper on “American
History as it is Falsified.”








Fraternally,


Edward A. Moseley,


President-General.














Thomas Hamilton Murray,


Secretary-General.








The annual meeting of the American-Irish Historical Society
was held on Thursday evening, 17th inst., at the Hotel San
Remo, New York City. A large and representative gathering
was present. Six states,—New Hampshire, Massachusetts,
Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey,—sent
delegations. Fifteen states were represented by letters expressing
congratulations and good wishes.


President-General Moseley, of Washington, D. C., was unable
to be present owing to a press of duties as secretary of the
Interstate Commerce Commission, but his annual address was
read to the society by Gen. James R. O’Beirne, Vice-President
for New York. It was an eloquent production.


The society made its headquarters for the occasion at the
San Remo, a magnificent house, owned by a member of the
organization, Mr. Michael Brennan. It is situated at Central
Park West and Seventy-Fifth Street, and is one of the finest
hotels in the world. The banquet hall where the annual dinner
of the society took place is located on the tenth floor and was
lighted by over a thousand incandescent electric lamps. The
scene was one of great brilliancy.







T. E. A. WEADOCK
Michigan











IGNATIUS DONNELLY
Minnesota











JAMES E. LOWERY
Colorado











JAMES CUNNINGHAM
Maine










VICE-PRESIDENTS






79Among the early arrivals were: Hon. John C. Linehan,
Concord, N. H.; Hon. Thomas J. Gargan, Boston, Mass.;
Mr. James Jeffrey Roche, editor of The Pilot; Mr. T. B.
Fitzpatrick, of Brown, Durrell & Co., Boston; Mr. Joseph P.
Flatley, Boston; Mr. Joseph F. Swords, Hartford, Conn.;
Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet, grandnephew of the Irish patriot,
Robert Emmet; Mr. Thomas B. Lawler, Worcester, Mass.;
Hon. John D. Crimmins, New York; Mr. Frank C. Travers,
New York; Capt. E. O’Meagher Condon, Washington, D. C.;
Mr. Stephen J. Geoghegan, New York; Thomas Dunn English,
Newark; and many others.


The business meeting and annual election took place at 7.30
P.M., and was held in the grand ballroom of the San Remo,
which was comfortably filled.


General O’Beirne called the assemblage to order. Secretary-General
Murray read the records of the previous meeting held
by the society in Boston, and the same were approved.


It was announced that since that meeting three members of
the society had died. They were: Hon. Owen A. Galvin,
Boston; Hon. Charles B. Gafney, Rochester, N. H.; and
Hon. John Cochran, New York City.


Committees were appointed to take suitable action on the
deceased members.


The committee on audit, appointed to examine the books
of the Treasurer-General, consisted of Judge Wauhope Lynn,
New York; Mr. T. B. Lawler, Worcester, Mass.; and Mr.
Michael Brennan, New York. The committee reported the
books as displaying excellent system and arrangement, and the
accounts of receipts and expenditures as being in an eminently
satisfactory condition. The report was unanimously approved
and adopted.


The society then proceeded to the election of new members,
and some thirty were admitted from New York, Virginia, Texas,
and other states. Among these new members is the Rev. Dr.
McComb, a Presbyterian minister of New York City.


The proposed amendment to Article XII of the Constitution
was adopted. It provided for an increase of ten in the make-up
80of the council of the society. The new members elected to
the council under this provision comprise: Hon. Morgan J.
O’Brien, a Justice of the New York Supreme Court; Hon.
John D. Crimmins; Mr. Joseph F. Swords, Hartford, Conn.;
Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet, New York; Mr. Stephen J.
Geoghegan, Mr. Francis Higgins, Hon. James S. Coleman,
and F. C. Travers, New York City.


In addition to the foregoing, the annual election resulted as
follows: President-General, Edward A. Moseley, Washington,
D. C.; Secretary-General, Thomas Hamilton Murray, Pawtucket,
R. I.; Treasurer-General, Hon. John C. Linehan,
Concord, N. H.; Librarian and Archivist, Thomas B. Lawler,
Worcester, Mass. These are all reëlections.


After the transactions of some routine matters the business
meeting adjourned.


A short time later the line was formed and marched to the
banquet hall, which was handsomely decorated. In the rear of
the presiding officer’s chair was a glory of flags in which the
star-spangled banner and the Irish tricolor predominated.
American and Irish flags of small size were also distributed
adown the tables, mingled with flowers and potted plants.
Overhead the effulgence of a thousand electric lights served
to add further brilliancy to the scene.


In a bower composed of huge palms and smaller plants was
stationed an orchestra which discoursed sweet music during the
repast. The company around the board represented, without
exaggeration, several million dollars. Catholics and Protestants
were there, Democrats, Republicans, and Independents. It
was a remarkable gathering in many ways, and was indicative
of the strength and representative character already attained
by the society.


General O’Beirne presided, and seated on his right and left
were Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet, Hon. Thomas Dunn English,
Hon. John D. Crimmins, Hon. Thomas J. Gargan, James
Jeffrey Roche, Joseph Smith, Judge Wauhope Lynn, Hon.
John C. Linehan, F. C. Travers, V. P. Travers, John Crane,
and T. B. Lawler.


81Also present were noted: Commissioner Coleman, New
York; Capt. E. T. McCrystal, of the Sixty-Ninth Regiment,
New York; Dr. T. F. Harrington and Dr. George Leahey,
Lowell, Mass.; Commissioner McSweeney, New York; W. F.
Foley, Houston, Texas; John J. Rooney; and about one
hundred others.


The menu card was especially designed for the occasion and
elicited much favorable comment. During the evening a copy
of the first Yearbook of the society was presented to each
member present.


A feature of the evening was the rendition by the orchestra
of “Ben Bolt,” out of compliment to the author, Dr. Thomas
Dunn English, who was present. He is now about eighty
years of age, and tears glistened in the old man’s eyes at this
thoughtful tribute. The post-prandial exercises were opened
by General O’Beirne who, after a stirring address on the objects
of the society, read the annual address of the President-General,
which was frequently applauded. He then successively
introduced the speakers of the evening, who were Dr.
Emmet, Dr. English, Mr. Gargan, Colonel Linehan, Captain
Condon, Judge Lynn, and a number of others.


A great feature of this part of the program was an able
paper by Mr. Joseph Smith, on “American History as it is
Falsified.” He said:






Some Ways in which History is Falsified.






When the American-Irish Historical Society was organized a year
ago in Boston, it declared its purpose to be the investigation into, and
the recording of, the influence of the Irish element in the up-building
of the American nation. We said then that the work and contributions
of the Irish race on this soil had received scant recognition
from the writers of American history; and we announced that
whether that omission sprang from carelessness, ignorance, indifference,
or design was not so important as the imperative necessity of
remedying such a state of affairs in the interest of historical accuracy
and racial fair play. For the past year our society has been in its
formative stages; in the coming years I have ample faith that numbers,
82funds, earnestness, and enthusiasm will enable us to do our
work effectively.


American history is being rewritten; the legendary and sentimental
method of writing it is growing in disfavor; a scientific age demands
the truth, and under its insistence new data are coming to light and
old myths are passing away. It is beginning to dawn on American
minds that this republic is the child of Europe and not of England;
that old man of buckram—the Anglo-Saxon—is having a hard
time with that new man of straw—the Scotch-Irishman; and when
science gets the latter on the dissecting table there won’t be much
left of him but rags and papier-maché.


To-night I will try to direct your attention to “Some Ways in which
American History is Falsified”; and by falsification I do not mean so
much the deliberate perversion of facts as I do the false effects produced
by evasion, distortion, wrong point of view, and the physical
and mental limitations and defects of writers, which in their results
are quite as mischievous as those produced by perversion and
design.


I will for my purposes group my object lessons under four heads,
illustrating each with a writer passing current as an historian.


1. Mental Invalidism. The disease of certain literary doctrinaires
whose natural defects have been aggravated by education and fixed
by training. Prof. John W. Burgess, of Columbia University, is a
fine type of this arrogant school of dogmatism.


2. Legend and Sentiment. The exploitation of legends, inherited
ideas, race and family myths, made current and passing into literature
by the efforts of those whose faith in folklore as historical data is
profound, and to whom facts and documentary evidence are unimportant.
Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, an amateur historian, is the
high priest of this cult; he is the custodian and incense swinger of
the deified Puritan, the marvel and fountain of the graces of the
modern age.


3. Imagination. The school of writers who add to the gayety of
nations, who make history from their own inner consciousness, and
who record it as they imagine it ought to be, not as it is. Under
this head comes that humorless horde of scribblers, the Scotch-Irish
littérateurs, and the intellectual giant of Tennessee, Judge Temple,
author of Covenanter, Cavalier, Puritan.


4. Carelessness and Credulity. Writers who accept any evidence
stated with solemnity and the air of authority, but who subject it to
no tests to ascertain its verity and genuineness. Under this head I
83take exceptions to the statements made by Prof. John Fiske in a
recent work, a writer hitherto regarded as safe and reliable.


I will now devote a few minutes to a work entitled Political Science
and Constitutional Law, written by Prof. John W. Burgess, of Columbia
University, and designed to be a text-book for that and other
educational institutions.


Mr. Burgess is a rampant type of what a coldly critical and
remorselessly correct writer, John M. Robertson, of London, calls a
Celtophobe—a Celt hater. The learned Professor asserts dogmatically
that the Celt never has, never can, and never will amount to
anything nationally or politically; and that all law, order, and scientific
government have sprung from and are due to what he calls the
Teutonic races. Professor Burgess is a product of German training
and education, and his views have received the cordial endorsement
of such a calm and dispassionate authority as the London Times.
The careful writer in stating his theory will fortify it with facts and
figures and marshal his authorities before proceeding to erect a
fabric on it; but Professor Burgess isn’t that kind of a man. He
states his theory with an air of profound conviction and authority
and goes ahead. His theory, like a good many other fabrics “made
in Germany,” looks well, is calculated to deceive the unwary and
unthinking, but under very ordinary scrutiny proves to be very commonplace,
shoddy.


Let me show you a few of the gems from his treasury:


“Only the Teutonic races have produced national states....
The National State is thus the most modern and most complete solution
of the whole problem of political organization which the world
has as yet produced; and the fact that it is the creation of the
Teutonic political genius stamps the Teutonic races as the political
nations par excellence, and authorizes them in the economy of the
world to assume the leadership in the establishment and administration
of states.”


This brilliant outburst winds up a series of equally impressive
statements. Just what the Professor means by National States and
political nations I do not know, nor am I sure he knows himself.
At any rate, he appears to lay down a doctrine very delightful to
these governments which bully nations and steal territories, if not
quite so agreeable to those bullied and plundered.


Now listen to his views on the unfortunate Celt; they have the
old familiar ring of anti-Irish hysteria, for which familiarity has bred
Irish contempt.


84“Personal attachment in small bodies to a chosen Chief is the
peculiar political trait of the Celtic nations.... The effect of
such a political character has always been the organization of the
Celtic nations into numberless petty military States, in each of
which individual rights have been ignored; between all of which
civil war has been the permanent status; and against which foreign
force has been continually successful.... Violence and Corruption
have always marked the politics of Celtic nations.”


Let us stop for a moment to analyze this tremendous blast from
Columbia University, remembering that Germany and England are
Professor Burgess’s ideal Teutonic nations.


From the time of the Roman retrocession from England until the
landing of William the Norman at Hastings, that unfortunate land
was in the hands of one of the dullest, most unimaginative, worst-governed,
and worst-governing races history mentions—the Saxons—for
six hundred years; it had become a congeries of warring, military
chieftainship, in which civilization was almost obliterated, learning
had disappeared, religion was at its lowest ebb, life and property
had no safety, the people were enslaved, and the coast harried by
foreign and victorious foes. The advent of a strong conqueror—a
mixed Celt and Norseman—changed all this, hammered England into
a strong military kingdom, connected her with the civilization that has
made the world what it is—the Latin—and did in six years what
the pure Teutonic race had signally failed to do in as many centuries.


Prior to the historic event known as the Reformation, Germany
had as much peace as her neighbors—which wasn’t much—and all
she had she owed to her intercourse with the Latin South, to her
touch with the civilization and religion of Rome. After that event
Germany was torn into factions, military chiefs sprang up, petty military
states were made, violence and corruption were the rule, civilization
retrogressed, the people were degraded and the land devastated.
Germany was without unity; her mercenaries were for sale to the
highest bidder; she was terrible only to her children, the prey of
foreign forces, with civil war a permanent status. The advent
of Napoleon was a blessing; he hammered a lot of petty principalities
out of existence and formed two or three monarchies out of the
bewildering many. The fall of Napoleon saw Germany a confederation,
much after the fashion of pre-Reformation days, with Austria
on top. Again came wars and dissensions, and finally the strong
conqueror who united Germany against a common foe and made her
what she is to-day.
85Germany, I take it, is the highest political expression of the Teutonic
race, according to the dictum of Professor Burgess. What
is it?


A military despotism of the most mediæval type, governed by an
autocrat of doubtful sanity, whose person is more sacred apparently
than that of the Deity; a land whence the people fly to seek safety,
peace, liberty; a government that is a constant threat to the peace
and civilization of the earth and that embodies all the reactionary
principles a free people hate.


One does not expect the German professor, his disciple, or the
mole in the earth to see what is going on in the sunlight.


If we turn to Ireland we see nothing but violence, corruption, and
plunder in the methods of the Teutonic race ruling there; and we
observe improvement in Irish affairs only with the decrease of English
influences and the increase of Irishmen in Irish affairs.


It is a favorite axiom of the Teutonic writer of the Burgess type,
wherever English and German rule is a failure, that the people ruled
are unfit for government. Did it ever occur to them that the shoe is
on the other foot—they are unfit to govern?


The unfitness of the English to govern Ireland is historic; it was
exhibited in America, as some may recall; it is notorious in India
and round the earth. The best-governed possessions of England
are the lands where Englishmen are least in evidence. Germany
in Africa is producing the usual harvest of Teutonic “genius”—depopulation
and devastation.


But Mr. Burgess has a theory, and he does not propose to hamper
it with facts. He asserts that the government—the political organization—of
Spain, Italy, and Portugal are the results of Teutonic
genius. This will probably be news to the world; but if the debility,
decay, and general rottenness of those kingdoms are the result of
Teutonic genius, the sooner they try the genius of the negro and the
Chinaman the better for them. He covers whatever political good
may exist in Greece, Bulgaria, and Roumania by attributing it to the
impecunious German princes now adorning the rickety thrones in
those lands. The idea is original, but not impressive. Why not
attribute the political condition of Scandinavia to the presence on its
throne for ninety years of Bernadotte, the French (Celtic) military
adventurer, and his wife, the daughter of the Irish merchant Cleary,
and their children? The logic is as good, or as bad, in one case as
the other.


But why go on with this tissue of professional rubbish?


86Nations are made what they are by climate, environment, peace,
war, and economic and industrial conditions. Groups of men learn
as does the individual, in the school of experience. Nations have
no genius for anything; the botch work we call government to-day
at its best is hardly a manifestation of genius. Nations may have
temperaments, the product of experience, but only the individual has
character.


Professor Burgess is merely a mental invalid, an hysterical Celtophobe.
He either forgets the existence of Rome and Greece, or he
fails to understand the value of civilization and human experience;
he is a kind of literary phonograph, repeating the slanders and
absurdities which a school of race egotists have raised to a cult. He
is a decidedly unsafe man to educate a coming generation of Americans,
for the writer of solemn and dogmatic nonsense is unfit to
train the American youth. Certainly no self-respecting man of
Irish-Celtic blood should permit his children to attend a university
where they are taught that the perpetrators of ages of outrage and
wrong are divinely selected beings, chosen “to assume leadership in
the establishment and administration of States.”


If we desire that sort of rubbish taught, it is just as easy to secure
professors at Bloomingdale as it is at Columbia.


The legendary and sentimental makers of history seem to thrive
best in New England; and a fine type of the cult is the so-called
“scholar in politics,” Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, of Massachusetts
and Nahant. There is in China a religion whose principal tenet is
the worship of ancestors, the placation of ancestral manes. This
religion is called Tavism; and possibly the purest type of Tavist,
outside of China, is the junior senator from Massachusetts.


Mr. Lodge is firmly convinced that the Puritan represents the
perfect type of man; that the history of the world began in 1620;
that the Puritan derived most of his excellence from being of English
blood; and that, while Puritans were Dutch, French, Scotch, and
even Irish, the lack of English blood somehow made them incomplete.
While the ordinary English Puritan was a wonderful personage,
the one who landed in Massachusetts was a genuine marvel,
but when he settled around Boston and Nahant, he began to
ooze genius and take on wings and halo. To this legend is added,
sometimes by direct statement and sometimes by implication, the
intelligence that all the great and good things that make this republic
different from and superior to other lands are due to the miraculous
powers of the Puritan. He is the creator of human freedom, the
87father of religion, liberty, and tolerance, the founder and originator of
free schools, and the reputed author of so many ideas totally at variance
with his narrow creed that were he to rise from his bed of clay in New
England into the sunlight of to-day, he wouldn’t know himself.


This is the school of historical incubation of which Mr. Lodge is
the high priest. Mr. Lodge has many admirable qualities; but his
mental vision is defective, strabismal, and his ancestral credulity
amazing. I am satisfied that Mr. Lodge would not knowingly do an
unjust, intolerable, or dishonorable thing; but he is so en-webbed in
tradition and so steeped in myth and legend that his rôle of historian
is a decided misfit. How else can we account for the absurd theories
he has exploited and the conception of historic events he has fathered
in literature?


Anybody who has even read his history of the Thirteen Colonies
will learn that the success achieved in building them up was due to
the Puritans; and one is convinced that had some wandering vagabond
from Massachusetts been cast away on the coast of Spanish-America,
the Latin Republics south of us would now be the model
governments of the earth and probably be called “Anglo-Saxon”
nations. Everything that makes for success he attributes to the
Puritan; and he does it with such a solemn, awe-stricken lack of
humor that the irreverent are moved to Homeric mirth.


Now, as a matter of fact, the Puritan was a hard and fast bigot,
who hated and persecuted everybody who differed from him religiously,
and tolerated nobody; he was as priest-ridden as a Scotch Presbyterian,
and he set up a system of Church and State that amounted
almost to a theocracy. The climate and soil of New England made
him a hard worker; his environment and neighbors, a stout fighter;
but if his laws and records tell us any story, they say his morals and
practices were no better than they ought to have been.


New England in colonial days produced some shrewd and levelheaded
men, but if she ever produced a great one, I have failed to
catch his name. When the hour of her struggle came the same
phenomenon was exhibited in New England as elsewhere in the
Colonies; her natural leaders, the people of education and wealth,
followed the fortunes of the oppressor, and the common people took
up the cause of freedom. New England in the Revolution did her
whole duty, but the other Colonies did not shirk, and furnished not
only men and money, but the theater of war.


Mr. Lodge is now furnishing “The Story of the Revolution” for
Scribner’s Magazine, and already we can see his peculiar defects of
88historical vision in what he has written. Here is a hint of his ideas:
“He [Washington] entered on the war with an army composed
wholly of New England men. He ended the Revolution with an
army, after seven years’ fighting, largely made up from the same New
England people.” He does not say so in so many words, but he
leads us to infer that the army between those two periods was made
up of New England men. This sort of writing is as absurd as it
would be to say New England did nothing. Has Mr. Lodge never
heard of the 40,000 men on the Revolutionary rolls of New York?
Has it ever occurred to him that Pennsylvania, Virginia, and other
Colonies furnished some men, money, and leaders? Have his historical
researches ever led him far enough to learn that Yorktown
might have been a waste of blood but for the armies and navies of
France? Does he know that the soldiers of America’s ally were the
regiments of a brigade immortalized on every battlefield of Europe,—the
Irish Brigade?


It is very doubtful. I sometimes wonder if Mr. Lodge knew what
an Irishman was before he went into politics.


In his account of Bunker Hill he hasn’t a word to say of Sullivan,
whose capture of Fort William and Mary with its supplies of
precious gunpowder made Bunker Hill possible; yet he has much to
say of the lack of powder during the siege of Boston.


He says the American soldiers engaged at Bunker Hill were “of
almost pure English blood, with a slight mingling of Scotch-Irish
from Londonderry.” I note among the dead killed there the following
“Scotch-Irish” names: Broderick, Collins, Dalton, Dillon, Doyle,
French, Haggett, McGrath; and Washington, desirous of recognizing
this “Scotch” element in his army made St. Patrick the countersign
on a certain evening during the siege. I recall that it was this same
class of Irishmen with the Scotch prefix, from the New Hampshire
town of Londonderry, called after an Irish town of that name, and
which was originally planted by English and Irish, who insisted
upon double rations of whiskey to celebrate St. Patrick’s day before
Ticonderoga.


Mr. Lodge should learn to call a spade a spade, an Irishman an
Irishman, for we will. The desire of a certain class of people to call
themselves “Scotch-Irish” may be passed by with a smile; ignorance
and weakness deserve pity rather than censure; but we must
insist that the dead of our race shall be neither miscalled nor misrepresented,
and that their laurels shall not be filched nor their
glory stolen by those who have neither pride nor scruples.


89Whatever Irish came from New Hampshire—and the hills were
full of them—it would be a grave mistake to imagine that Massachusetts,
so English and so Puritan, did not have her share. The
Puritan Alva—Cromwell—and his villainous understrappers sent
many a thousand Irish victims to Massachusetts Bay as bondmen and
women; and voluntary immigration brought thousands of others.
The town records show this; and whole districts in western Massachusetts
were settled by them; and yet we are asked to believe that
when men cease to be Catholic Irishmen they become Scotch-Irishmen.
I can find no other excuse for the absurd title. Here are a
few of the “Scotch-Irish” names on the rolls of the minute men
of the day:








Joseph Burke,


Richard Burke,


Daniel Carey,


Joseph Carey,


Peter Carey,


Patrick Carroll,


Joseph Carroll,


Cornelius Cockran,


Daniel Connors,


William Connors,


James Dempsey,


Philip Donahue,


Joseph Donnell,


John Donnelly,


Andrew Dunnigan,


John Farley,


Michael Farley,


John Flood,


William Flood,


John Foley,


Matthew Gilligen,


Richard Gilpatrick,


James Gleason,


Daniel Griffin,


Joseph Griffin,


John Hacket,


Joseph Hacket,


John Haley,


John Kelly,


Patrick Kelly,


Peter Kelly,


Richard Kelly,


Stephen Kelly,


Daniel Lary,


Michael McDonnell,


Henry McGonegal,


John McGrah,


Daniel McGuire,


Patrick McKeen,


John McMullen,


John Mullin,


John Madden,


Daniel Mahon,


James Mallone,


John Mahoney,


John Murphy,


Patrick Newjent,


Patrick O’Brien,


Richard O’Brien,


Daniel Shay,


John Shea,


John Walsh,


Joseph Walsh.








It is well to note that the English parliament of that day was looking
keenly at the causes that cost England her mighty empire on this
continent; and apparently they underrated the influence of Mr.
Lodge’s Puritan in that struggle, and bitterly blamed the plain Irish
without any Scotchery.


Mr. Lodge means well; but folklore and history are two distinct
affairs.


The imaginative school of history finds its best exemplar in a
gentleman from Tennessee, the home of the Cardiff giant, the Giascutus,
and the Scotch-Irishman. He is known as Judge Temple, and
90has written a volume called Covenanter, Cavalier, Puritan,—a work
which has shaken the earth and spoiled the apple crop. The Judge
is original; he honors the Scotch-Irishman as he does all ghost
dancers, but he has discovered that all the might of the republic
sprang from the Covenanter. I know what a Covenanter used to
be, but I can’t solve this covenanter of Judge Temple. I can
explain him as he appears in this literary offspring of this intellectual
Cardiff giant. If an Irishman a few years ago did anything extraordinary,
wonderful, or notorious, he would have been a Scotch-Irishman;
in the Temple history he is a Covenanter; if he breaks a
bank, or a man’s head, or the Decalogue, he is merely an Irishman.
Apply that rule to all men and you have history as it is hatched out
in Tennessee. The Covenanter germ was born in Scotland and
spread over America, creating miracles. As the natives of North
Britain are not remarkable for national modesty and self-effacement,
I am puzzled to learn how this conversion of the world to freedom
and civilization has escaped the shrinking writers of Scotland. If
Judge Temple is not restrained by an injunction at an early date,
Professor Burgess and Senator Lodge will be compelled sorrowfully
to march on Washington, there to deposit in the National Museum
the Teutonic Genius and the Puritan Marvel; or they might be
turned over to some of the Yellow Sundays which specialize the
exploitation of freaks.


Meantime we should keep our eye on Judge Temple, the young
Lochinvar of history, who has come out of the South.


In Old Virginia and her Neighbors, Vol. II, p. 391, Prof. John
Fiske says: “Until recent years little has been written of the coming
of the so-called Scotch-Irish to America, and yet it is an event
of scarcely less importance than the exodus of English Puritans
to New England and that of English Cavaliers to Virginia. It is
impossible to understand the drift which American history, social and
political, has taken since the time of Andrew Jackson, without studying
the early life of the Scotch-Irish population of the Alleghany
region, the pioneers of the American backwoods. I do not mean to
be understood as saying that the whole of that population at the time
of the Revolution was Scotch-Irish, for there was a considerable
German element in it, besides an infusion of English moving inward
from the coast. But the Scotch-Irish element was more numerous
and far more important than all the rest.


“Who were the people called by this rather awkward compound
name Scotch-Irish? The answer carries us back to the year 1611,
91when James First began peopling Ulster with Colonists from Scotland
and the North of England. The plan was to put into Ireland a
Protestant population that might ultimately outnumber the Catholics
and become the controlling element in the country. The settlers were
picked men and women of the most excellent sort. By the middle of the
seventeenth century there were 300,000 of them in Ulster.


“That province had been the most neglected part of the island, a
wilderness of bogs and fens; they transformed it into a garden.
They also established manufactures of woolen and linens which have
since been famous throughout the world. By the beginning of the
eighteenth century their numbers had risen to nearly a million.
Their social condition was not that of peasants; they were intelligent
yeomanry and artisans. In a document, signed in 1718 by a
miscellaneous group of 319 men, only thirteen made their mark,
while 306 wrote their names in full. Nothing like that could have
happened at that time in any other part of the British empire, hardly
even in New England.


“When these people began coming to America, those families that
had been longest in Ireland had dwelt there but for three generations,
and confusion of mind seems to lurk in any nomenclature
which couples them with the true Irish. The antipathy between the
Scotch-Irish as a group and the true Irish as a group is, perhaps,
unsurpassed for bitterness and intensity. On the other hand, since
love laughs at feuds and schisms, intermarriages between the Colonists
of Ulster and the native Irish were by no means unusual, and
instances occur of Murphys and McManuses of the Presbyterian
faith. It was common in Ulster to allude to Presbyterians as
‘Scotch,’ to Roman Catholics as ‘Irish,’ and to members of the
English Church as ‘Protestants,’ without much reference to pedigree.
From this point of view the term ‘Scotch’ may be defensible,
provided we do not let it conceal the fact that the people to whom it
applied are for the most part Lowland-Scotch Presbyterians, very
slightly hibernicized in blood.”


Again, “By 1719 this hope was torn away, and from that year until
the passage of the Toleration Act for Ireland in 1782, the people of
Ulster kept flocking to America. Of all the migrations to America
previous to the days of steamships this was far the largest in volume.
One week of 1727 landed six ship loads at Philadelphia. In the
two years 1773 and 1774 more than 30,000 came. In 1770 one-third
of the population of Pennsylvania was Scotch-Irish. Altogether
between 1730 and 1770, I think it probable that at least half a
92million of souls were transferred from Ulster to the American Colonies,
making not less than one-sixth of our population at the time of
the Revolution.”


The merest examination of this will show that the writer is on
uncertain ground; he is begging the question; his own training and
education convince him that there is a false ring to the term “Scotch-Irish”;
the statements he makes, or quotes, show the earmarks of
that organized humbug the Scotch-Irish Society; and he is reluctant
to face the question squarely, and, by reversing the conventional concealments,
evasions, and falsifications which have marked the writing of
American history in the interest of the English element, acknowledge
the splendid work done by the Irish in America.


Let us examine his statements in detail.


Relative to Ulster settlement he says: “The settlers were picked
men and women of the most excellent sort. By the middle of the
seventeenth century there were 300,000 of them in Ulster. The province
was a wilderness of bogs and fens; they transformed it into a
garden. They also established manufactures of woolens and linens;
... they were intelligent yeomanry and artisans.”


These extracts are the amusing myths of the Scotch-Irish Society.
We have an emigration from Scotland by, say 1650, of 300,000,
with no account of the English, French, Walloon, and German
emigrants who were introduced, and nothing said about the original
settlers of Ulster, the Irish. In 1659 Sir W. Petty, a government
official in Ulster, estimated the population as follows: Irish, 63,350;
English, Scotch, and other aliens, 40,571; a total of 103,921. It
is very possible that Sir W. Petty’s estimate was correct; that he
would find it very difficult to arrive at a correct estimate of the Irish;
and much more easy to get at the numbers of those who were naturally
the English supporters. It is well to recall that at the date of
this estimate Ireland had gone through the horrors of twelve years of
Civil War, marked by cruelty of the most ferocious kind; that the
Cromwellians had added deportation and slavery in the Americas
to their other crimes and abominations; that Cromwell had settled his
own soldiers on confiscated lands; and that he was not particularly
partial to the Scotch, whom he had fought and defeated, and whose
immigration he was not likely to encourage at a time when they were
parleying with the exiled Charles and plotting the downfall of the
Commonwealth.


Professor Fiske’s 300,000 seem to vanish in smoke.


The character of the population introduced into a country where
93the natives are treated as outlaws and wild beasts by the government,
is not hard to guess. It is not at all likely that it is going to consist
of model farmers, expert artisans, pious, educated, peaceful men and
women; that kind of people usually remain at home. The adventurer,
the ne’er-do-well, the poor, the desperate, the homeless; those
are the kind willing to face the hazards of war and fortune in a land
where the natives are hard fighters and haters of the government,
even though exhausted by war.


The Rev. Andrew Stewart, Presbyterian pastor of Donaghadee
from 1645 to 1671, who was born and raised in Ulster, leaves this
record of Professor Fiske’s selected yeomanry and artisans:


“From Scotland came many, and from England not a few; yet all
of them generally the scum of both nations, who for debt, or breaking,
or fleeing from justice, or seeking shelter, came hither, hoping
to be without fear of man’s justice in a land where there was nothing,
or but little as yet, of the fear of God.”


Such were the selected yeomanry; selected evidently by the
king’s writ, by the beggarly planters who received the stolen lands
from a beggarly king, and by the London guides whose gold went
into the king’s pocket.


The reverend gentleman gives us a further hint of the people who
came thus running from the sheriff and the heavy hand of the law.
He says: “In a few years there flocked such a multitude of people
from Scotland that the Counties of Down, Antrim, Londonderry,
etc., were in a good measure planted; yet most of the people made
up a body—and it is strange—of different names, nations, dialects,
tempers, and breeding, all void of Godliness, who seemed rather to
flee God in this enterprise, than to follow their mercy; albeit at first
it must be remembered that they cared little for any church.”


People of many nations and dialects coming out of Scotland needs
an explanation. Mr. Motley, in his history of the Dutch Republic,
throws a great light on this subject. He says in effect that the
religious wars of Protestant and Catholic, and the persecutions growing
out of them of the ever-increasing sectaries, drove shoals of
artisans from Germany, Holland, and France to England. Elizabeth
of England had troubles of her own; and while she quarreled with
the Pope and disputed his headship, she was jealously insistent of
her own leadership of her state church and had no use for the pugnacious
sectaries from across the Channel. In time, owing to the
English jealousy of foreigners and rival manufacturers and the
Queen’s abhorrence of rebels against divinely selected kings, Elizabeth
94shut down on the refugees and refused them asylum. In those
days it was a much graver offense to insult the majesty of earth
than heaven. Scotland, then in the throes of religious squabbles
and the game of church plundering and under the practical guidance
of the amiable John Knox, gave them a welcome as kindred spirits.
When other days came, when Mary’s head had rolled from the block
at Fotheringay, when her wretched son was enthroned, the foreign
element found Scotland a poor land to live in. The settlement of
Ulster gave them their chance, and they flocked there with Scotchmen
and Englishmen, to settle down and intermarry and become—as
all before them had become at that Irish crucible—Irish.


The forms of religious dissent driven out of Europe to Great
Britain, like Presbyterianism, had a common basis of agreement in
their common Calvinism, and the foreigners naturally drifted into
that form of ecclesiastical organization. Few went into the Anglican
State Church, and many of that faith drifted away from it to Catholicity
and Presbyterianism; and it was a special subject of reproach
later that the state-beneficed clergy caused such a state of affairs by
their indifference and greed.


But it remains for American historians to find the terms race and
religion synonymous, and to advise an astonished world that when
an Irishman, Frenchman, Englishman, Dutchman, or Walloon, adopts
Presbyterianism as his religious faith, he is at once transformed into
that hyphenated hybrid, a Scotch-Irishman.


This is one of the marvels of this inventive age.


Before Professor Fiske—for whose talent and industry I have a
very great respect—gives us his promised views on the Scotch-Irishman
in his forthcoming work, The Dutch and Quaker Settlements
in America, let me propound a question or two to him.


If, as is pretended, a certain number of Lowland Scotchmen of
the Presbyterian religion accomplished so much in Ulster and
America, why have not the great majority of the same people
accomplished as much in their own land and elsewhere, when all the
conditions were in their favor? And again, if so much was accomplished
by an Irish environment and an Irish racial admixture, and so
little achieved by the pure Scot under more favorable circumstances,
is it not a reasonable deduction that the Irish element was the
responsible factor in the achievement? If not, why not?







GEN. A. G. MALLOY
Texas











TIMOTHY P. SULLIVAN
New Hampshire










VICE-PRESIDENTS











ANDREW ATHY
Worcester, Mass.











CAPT. JOHN DRUM, U. S. A.






95That invader and invaded should hate each other bitterly is not
of any particular importance as bearing on nationality; it is the experience
of all lands and races. Presbyterian Murphys and McManuses
are no argument for Scotch Murphys and McManuses; it may indicate
intermarriage and change of religious faith; it can’t indicate a change
of blood. The transformation of bogs and fens into gardens is merely
a fairy story; the bogs and fens are in Ulster to-day. The fertile
valleys of Ulster, ready to be entered on, were the bait to catch
settlers, for the defeated and disheartened native Irish had been
driven to the barren hills and bogs. Men as a rule don’t risk life
and fortune for the privilege of transforming bogs into gardens in a
hostile country; and, moreover, Motley says England and Scotland in
that age had the rudest system of agriculture in Europe. The higher
system of agriculture, as well as the woolen and linen industries,
came with the skilled exiles from Holland and France; and even as
great a plunderer as Wentworth was wise enough to foster them.
And I might ask, why didn’t these marvelous Scots make their own
country famous for woolen and linen industries, when they made
their own laws and could snap their fingers at English jealousy?


Finally, if these people were Scotch “slightly hibernicized,” why
did they on their arrival in America organize “Irish societies”?
Why did they name towns and rivers with Irish names? Why did
they celebrate St. Patrick’s day rather than St. Andrew’s?


It will pay Professor Fiske to examine into the Irish emigration of
the eighteenth century and learn, as less erudite people have done,
that as much of this stream flowed from Limerick, Cork, Waterford,
Dublin, and English Bristol as from Ulster; and that Leinster and
Munster poured in nearly as many Irish to Colonial America as did
the northern provinces. What he is unwittingly doing is settling up
the abhorrent dividing lines of religion and marking off our race into
“Irish-Irish” and “Scotch-Irish” upon the lines of Catholicity and
Protestantism. I as one of the Protestant Irish most strenuously
object; the name Irish was good enough for my fathers; their son is
proud to wear it as they did; and we must all insist that the Irish,
without prefixes, without hyphens, without any qualification, all
children of a common and well-loved motherland, shall be given
their full measure of credit for the splendid work done by the race in
America.


If Professor Fiske is true to himself and the principles and canons
of his calling, he will find the truth and tell it, and waste no valuable
time chasing myths and will-o’-the-wisps.


As an indication of the great interest of the occasion it may
be remarked that the exercises were not brought to a close
96until 2.30 o’clock the next morning. Before adjourning, resolutions
of condolence on the loss of the U. S. S. Maine were
adopted by a standing vote, and the Secretary-General was
instructed to transmit a copy of the resolutions to the President
of the United States and to the Secretary of the Navy.


On Friday afternoon the members of the society were given
a reception by Hon. John D. Crimmins, at his home, 40 East
68th Street. It was a most charming occasion. About
forty gentlemen attended, including Dr. Emmet and his son;
General O’Beirne and Captain McCrystal, of New York; and
P. J. Flatley, of Boston; Thomas Hamilton Murray, of Rhode
Island; J. F. Swords, of Hartford; O’Meagher Condon, of
Washington, D. C.; Joseph Smith, of Lowell, Mass.; James
Jeffrey Roche, Thomas B. Lawler, Michael Brennan, and many
others.


The company first inspected Mr. Crimmins’s fine library and
were shown many books and manuscripts, some of them of
great rarity and value. A lunch was then served, after which
the visitors were shown the magnificent collection of paintings
for which Mr. Crimmins is so well known among lovers of art.


THE AMERICAN-IRISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY.


 When and where Founded.


The American-Irish Historical Society was founded on the evening
of Jan. 20, 1897, at a meeting called for that purpose, and
held in the Revere House, Boston, Mass. Over forty gentlemen
were present. The Hon. Thomas J. Gargan, of Boston, presided.
Thomas Hamilton Murray, then editor of the Daily Sun, Lawrence,
Mass., was secretary of the meeting. The provisional committee
that had attended to the preliminary work included Mr. Murray, just
mentioned; Mr. James Jeffrey Roche, editor of the Boston Pilot;
Mr. Joseph Smith, Secretary of the Police Commission, Lowell, Mass.;
Mr. Thomas B. Lawler, of the publishing house, Ginn & Company,
Boston, Mass.; and Hon. John C. Linehan, State Insurance Commissioner,
Concord, N. H. Four states—Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts,
97and Rhode Island—were represented among those in
attendance. Letters conveying good wishes were received from
Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia,
South Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and the District
of Columbia.


 Objects and Purposes.


The society is organized for the special study of the Irish element
in the composition of the American people; to investigate and record
the influence of this element in the up-building of the nation, and to
collect and publish facts relating to and illustrating that influence.
People of Irish blood have been coming to this continent, voluntarily
and otherwise, since the date of its earliest settlements. While they
have been a valuable addition to colony and republic in all departments
of human activity, their work and contributions have received
but scant recognition from chroniclers of American history. Whether
this omission springs from carelessness, ignorance, indifference, or
design is now of little moment. The fact that such a condition does
exist makes it imperative that it should be remedied. The society
purposes to remedy it.


 More in Detail.


Speaking more in detail, it may be stated that the objects and
purposes of the society are: The study of American history generally;
to investigate, specially, the Irish immigration to this country,
determine its numbers, examine the sources, learn the places of its
settlement, and estimate its influence on contemporary events in war,
legislation, religion, education, and other departments of activity;
to examine records of every character, wherever found, calculated to
throw light on the work of the Irish element in this broad land; to
endeavor to correct erroneous, distorted, and false views of history,
where they are known, and to substitute therefor the truth of history,
based on documentary evidence and the best and most reasonable
tradition in relation to the Irish in America; to place the result of
its historical investigations and researches in acceptable literary form;
to print, publish, and distribute its documents to libraries, institutions
of learning, and among its members, in order that the widest dissemination
of historical truth may be obtained; to do its work without
passion or prejudice; to view accomplished facts in the true scientific
historical spirit, and having reached the truth to give it to the
world.



98

 Membership Requirements.




Any person of good moral character who is interested in the special
work of the society shall be deemed eligible for membership in
the same. No tests other than that of character and devotion to the
society’s objects shall be applied to membership. The society comprises
life members and annual members and may also elect honorary
and corresponding members.


 The Mode of Admission.


The society believes that for the present as little red tape as possible
should prevail in the admission of applicants. A large membership
is desired. Consequently, a request to be enrolled, addressed
to the Secretary-General, to any of the members of the Executive
Council, or to a member of the society who is located in the neighborhood
of the applicant, will generally be sufficient to effect the
desired result.


 Non-Sectarian and Non-Political.


The society is constructed on a broad and liberal basis. It is
non-sectarian and non-political. Being an American organization in
spirit and principle, it greets and welcomes to its ranks Americans
of whatever race descent and of whatever creed who take an interest
in the special line of work for which the society is organized. It at
present includes Roman Catholics, Protestant Episcopalians, Methodists,
Presbyterians, Unitarians, and members of other denominations.
Catholic priests and Protestant ministers are on its roll. Republicans,
Democrats, and men of no political party affiliations are numbered
among its members.


 The Fees of Members.


Life members pay fifty dollars in advance at one time; they are
exempt from further membership dues. Annual members pay three
dollars per year each. For the present no initiation fee is required.
Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia are
already represented in the list of life members. The membership
roll also contains the names of gentlemen of the seventh, eighth, and
ninth American generations.



99

 The Society’s Officers.




The officers comprise a President-General, a Secretary-General, a
Treasurer-General, a Librarian and Archivist, an Historiographer
(not yet elected), and an Executive Council. The constitution also
provides for a Vice-President for each state and territory and for the
District of Columbia. It is proposed to eventually organize state
and city chapters of the society. A list of the present officers will
be found contained herein.


 The First President-General.


The first President-General of the society was Richard Worsam
Meade, 3d, Rear-Admiral, U. S. N. (retired). He was born in New
York City, Oct. 9, 1837, at the home of his maternal grandfather,
Judge Henry Meigs, which family has given many officers to the
United States Navy. He was the oldest son of the late Capt.
Richard Worsam Meade, 2d, U. S. N., and was a nephew of the late
Gen. George Gordon Meade, who for two years commanded the
Army of the Potomac. President-General Meade died in Washington,
D. C., May 4, 1897. His obsequies took place in that city. The
Society contributed a floral harp. Among the mourners there were
present from the society: Messrs. Edward A. Moseley, J. R. Carmody,
J. D. O’Connell, and Capt. John M. Tobin. The honorary bearers
were: Rear-Admiral John G. Walker, Commodore Charles S. Norton,
Admiral George Dewey, Commodore Norman H. Farquhar, Commodore
Winfield S. Schley, Capt. A. S. Crowinshield, Capt. Charles O’Neil,
U. S. N., and Col. Charles Heywood, United States Marine Corps.
Eight stalwart seamen bore the body. A battalion of marines from
the Washington barracks, under command of Capt. E. B. Robinson,
and a delegation from Lafayette Post of New York City, escorted
the body to Arlington, preceded by the United States Marine Band.


 Meetings and Field Day.


Provision is made for quarterly meetings of the society and
monthly meetings of the Executive Council. As far as possible,
each meeting, especially those of the Council, is held in a city or
state different from the one where the preceding meeting was held.
This prevents the society from becoming merely local to any one
state or city, and makes it what its founders intended it to be—a
100national body. A general field day of the organization is held annually
in the summer or fall. The annual meeting for the election of
officers is held in January.


 Diploma of Membership.


Each member will be entitled to a diploma of membership, bearing
the name of the society, the date of his admission, and such other
appropriate matter as may be decided upon. These certificates will
be signed by the President-General, the Secretary-General, the Treasurer-General,
and one or two other officers, and will be suitable for
display in office, library, or study.


 The Society’s Publications.


The publications of the society consist of two classes—regular
and special. A copy of every regular publication will be supplied
free to each member. Special publications will be supplied at the
actual cost price. Both classes of publications will contain a record
of the society’s proceedings, papers contributed by the members as
the result of original research, extracts from old documents bearing
upon the Irish in this country, or similar matter of interest, much of
it, indeed, of priceless value for preservation and reference. These
publications will be thoroughly indexed.



101

THE SOCIETY’S OFFICERS.








President-General,


Edward A. Moseley,


Interstate Commerce Commission, Washington, D. C.


Secretary-General,


Thomas Hamilton Murray,


Editor, 1 Beechwood Avenue, Pawtucket, R. I.


Treasurer-General,


John C. Linehan,


State Insurance Commissioner, Concord, N. H.


Librarian and Archivist,


Thomas B. Lawler, Worcester, Mass.


(With Ginn & Company, Publishers, Boston, New York, Chicago, London.)






EXECUTIVE COUNCIL.






The foregoing and












James Jeffrey Roche, Editor The Pilot, Boston, Mass.


Maurice F. Egan, Catholic University, Washington, D. C.


Hon. Morgan J. O’Brien, New York City.


Hon. John D. Crimmins, New York City.


Thomas J. Gargan, of the law firm, Gargan & Keating, Boston, Mass.


Joseph Smith, Secretary of the Board of Police, Lowell, Mass.


Hon. James S. Coleman, New York City.


Robert Ellis Thompson, President Central High School, Philadelphia, Pa.


Frank C. Travers, New York City.


102Hon. Thomas Dunn English, Newark, N. J.


Stephen J. Geoghegan, New York City.


T. Russell Sullivan, a descendant of Gov. James Sullivan of Massachusetts, Boston.


Francis Higgins, New York City.


Augustus St. Gaudens, New York City.


Joseph F. Swords, Hartford, Ct.








STATE VICE-PRESIDENTS.








Maine—James Cunningham, Portland.


New Hampshire—Timothy P. Sullivan, Concord.


Vermont—T. W. Moloney, Rutland.


Massachusetts—Osborne Howes, Boston.


Rhode Island—M. Joseph Harson, Providence.


Connecticut—Hon. Thomas M. Waller, former Governor of Connecticut.


New York—Gen. James R. O’Beirne, New York City.


New Jersey—Hon. William McAdoo, Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President Cleveland, Washington, D. C.


Pennsylvania—Gen. St. Clair A. Mulholland, Philadelphia.


Virginia—Hon. Joseph T. Lawless, Richmond.


West Virginia—O’Brien Moore, Charleston.


South Carolina—Ex-U. S. Senator M. C. Butler, Edgefield.


Georgia—Ex-U. S. Senator Patrick Walsh, Augusta.


Ohio—Rev. George W. Pepper, Cleveland.


Indiana—Very Rev. Andrew Morrissey, Notre Dame.


Missouri—Julius L. Foy, Esq.


Michigan—Hon. T. A. E. Weadock, Detroit.


Colorado—Dr. James E. Lowery, Sopris.


Utah—Joseph Geoghegan, Salt Lake City.


Texas—Gen. A. G. Malloy, El Paso.


District of Columbia—J. D. O’Connell, Washington.









103

MEMBERSHIP ROLL,
 AMERICAN-IRISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY.




Abbott, F. J., 8 I Street, South Boston, Mass.


Ackland, Thomas J., editorial department, The Pilot, 630 Washington
Street, Boston, Mass.


Ahern, John, 5 Highland Street, Concord, N. H.


Ahern, William J., 64 Franklin Street, Concord, N. H.; has served as a
member of the Legislature of New Hampshire.


Alley, John R. (life member of the society), 123 Heath Street, Roxbury
(Boston), Mass.


Armstrong, Col. James, Charleston, S. C.; Board of Harbor Commissioners.


Arundel, Edward L., ex-member City Council, Lawrence, Mass.


Aspell, Dr. John, 357 West 56th Street, New York City.


Aylward, James F., 347 Tremont Building, Boston, Mass.


Barnes, James, Players’ Club, New York City; grandnephew of Commodore
Jack Barry.


Barrett, David L., Englewood, N. J.


Barrett, Dr. Thomas J., 41 Wellington Street, Worcester, Mass.; member
State Board of Dental Registration.


Barry, H. Nason, The Pilot Office, 630 Washington Street, Boston, Mass.


Barry, Very Rev. John E., Vicar-General Roman Catholic Diocese of
Manchester, N. H.; residence, Concord, N. H.


Bennett, Joseph M. (M. D.), 186 Broad Street, Providence, R. I.; a
brother of Secretary of State Bennett of Rhode Island.


Betts, Rev. George C., Rector St. James’s Protestant Episcopal Church,
Goshen, N. Y.


Birmingham, Robert M. (M. D.), South Lawrence, Mass.


Bodfish, Rev. Joshua P., Rector St. John’s Roman Catholic Church, Canton,
Mass.


Boland, Michael J., Biddeford, Me.


Bolton, Rev. J. Gray (D. D.) (Presbyterian), 1906 Pine Street, Philadelphia,
Pa.


Boyle, Hon. Patrick J., Mayor of Newport, R. I.


Boyle, Thomas H., 25 Merrimack Street, Lowell, Mass.


Bradley, Richard E., 122 Monument Street, Portland, Me.


Bradley, William J., lawyer, Central Building, Lawrence, Mass.


104Brady, Col. James D., Kellogg Building, Washington, D. C.; ex-Member
of Congress from Virginia; during the war joined the 37th N. Y.
Volunteers (Irish Rifles), of which he was adjutant; transferred to
the 69th N. Y. Volunteers (of the Irish Brigade), which he subsequently
commanded.


Brady, Rev. Cyrus Townsend, Protestant Episcopal Archdeacon of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, Pa.


Brandon, Edward J., City Clerk, Cambridge, Mass.


Brannigan, Felix, Assistant Attorney-General, Department of Justice,
Washington, D. C.


Bree, Jr., James P., 820 Chapel Street, New Haven, Ct.


Breen, Hon. John, Lawrence, Mass.; vice-chairman of the School Board;
served three terms as Mayor of Lawrence.


Brennan, James F., attorney and counsellor-at-law, Peterborough, N. H.;
delivered an address on the early Irish settlers at the 150th anniversary
of Peterborough.


Brennan, Michael, 2 West 75th Street, New York City; proprietor of the
Hotel San Remo, 74th and 75th Streets and Central Park West.


Brennan, Thomas S., 353 West 56th Street, New York City.


Broderick, James A., Opera Block, Manchester, N. H.


Broderick, Rev. Thos. W., Hartford, Ct.


Broe, James A., 478 Congress Street, Portland, Me.


Brophy, John P. (Ph.D., LL.D.), 321 West 137th Street, New York City.


Brosnahan, Rev. Timothy, Rector St. Mary’s Church, Waltham, Mass.


Brown, Col. William L., Daily News, New York City.


Bryson, John, 677 Elm Street, Manchester, N. H.


Buckley, Dennis T., 19 Bacon Street, Biddeford, Me.


Bucklin, Hon. Elisha W., Pawtucket, R. I.; ex-State Auditor of Rhode
Island.


Butler, Hon. Matthew C., ex-United States Senator, Edgefield, S. C.


Butler, Rev. Thomas F., Lewiston, Me.


Burke, J. E., Superintendent of Public Schools, Lawrence, Mass.


Burke, Robert E., recently City Solicitor, Newburyport, Mass.


Burke, Tobias A., Argus Office, Portland, Me.


Byrne, John, 45 Wall Street, New York City.


Cahill, M. J., dry-goods merchant, Essex Street, Lawrence, Mass.


Callaghan, Lawrence, manufacturer, 95 Locke Street, Haverhill, Mass.


Callahan, John A., School Principal, 79 Lincoln Street, Holyoke, Mass.


Callahan, John F., 202–206 Lincoln Street, Boston, Mass.


Callanan, E. J., of Marlier, Callanan & Co., 172 Tremont Street, Boston,
Mass.


Calnin, James, 101–107 Lakeview Avenue, Lowell, Mass.


Campbell, James P., lawyer, 20 West 70th Street, New York City.


Cannon, James N., 240 Hamilton Street, New Haven, Ct.


Cantwell, John J., Brookline, Mass.


105Canty, T. W., Chicopee, Mass.


Carey, Jeremiah J., office the Sunday Star, Lawrence, Mass.


Carmichael, James H., Lowell, Mass.


Carmody, John R., Paymaster U. S. N.; Washington Loan and Trust
Co., 1220 Sixteenth Street, Washington, D. C.


Carney, Matthew J., of M. Carney & Co., Lawrence, Mass.


Carney, Michael, of M. Carney & Co., Lawrence, Mass.


Carroll, Edward, Cashier Leavenworth National Bank, Leavenworth,
Kansas.


Carroll, Hon. Hugh J., Pawtucket, R. I., ex-Member of the Rhode Island
General Assembly; ex-Mayor of Pawtucket.


Carroll, James B., lawyer, 50 Temple Street, Springfield, Mass.


Carroll, Thomas, director of the Public Library, Peabody, Mass.


Carter, Richard A., proprietor of the Central House, Lawrence, Mass.


Casey, Stephen J., lawyer, Providence, R. I.


Casey, William J., Palm Street, Bangor, Me.


Cashman, John, 30 Church Street, Manchester, N. H.


Casman, John P., 34 Howard Street, Springfield, Mass.


Cavanagh, Michael, 1159 Fourth Street, N. E., Washington, D. C.


Cavanaugh, John B., 924 Elm Street, Manchester, N. H.


Cavanaugh, Thomas Jeffrey, 54 Stark Corporation, Manchester, N. H.


Chaplin, Heman W., a descendant of the Revolutionary O’Briens of
Machias, Me.; attorney-at-law, 53 State Street, Boston, Mass.


Clare, William F., 39 Cortlandt Street, New York City.


Clark, Joseph H., 13 Adam Street, Lowell, Mass.


Clark, Rev. James F., New Bedford, Mass.


Clarke, Rev. Michael, Rector Church of the Sacred Heart, East Boston,
Mass.


Clary, Charles H., Hallowell, Me.; a descendant of “John Clary of Newcastle,
province of New Hampshire, who was published to Jane
Mahoney of Georgetown, Me., 1750.” John settled in Georgetown,
presumably about the time of his marriage. Four children were born
before 1760.


Clifford, James, El Paso, Texas.


Clune, John H., Postmaster, Springfield, Mass.


Coakley, Daniel H., 77 Arlington Street, Brighton (Boston), Mass.; Member
of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1892–94; has
a law office in Pemberton Square, Boston.


Coffey, John J., Neponset, Mass.


Cogan, D. S., 320 Congress Street, Portland, Me.


Cohalan, Daniel F., lawyer, 271 Broadway, New York City.


Coleman, Cornelius F., 162–164 Middle Street, Portland, Me.


Coleman, James S., 38 East 69th Street, New York City.


Collins, Hon. Patrick A., ex-Member of Congress; late United States
Consul-General to London, England; Tremont Building, Boston, Mass.


106Collins, James M., 6 Sexton Avenue, South Main Street, Concord, N. H.


Collins, Rev. Charles W., the Cathedral, Portland, Me.


Collins, Stephen J., 212 Main Street, Springfield, Mass.


Collins, William D. (M. D.), 170 Winter Street, Haverhill, Mass.


Collison, Harvey N., member Massachusetts Legislature, 1887–88; has also
served on Boston School Board and Metropolitan Sewerage Commission;
lawyer, 5 Tremont Street, Boston, Mass.


Conaty, Rt. Rev. Thomas J. (D. D.), Rector of the Catholic University,
Washington, D. C.


Concannon, John S., 19 Crystal Cove Avenue, Winthrop, Mass., or City
Hall, Boston, Mass.


Condon, Edward O’Meagher, office U. S. Supervising Architect, Washington, D. C.


Coney, Patrick H., attorney-at-law, Topeka, Kansas.


Conley, Henry, 7 Winthrop Street, Portland, Me.


Conley, John E., 87 Weybosset Street, Providence, R. I.; ex-Clerk of the
Rhode Island House of Representatives.


Conlin, Michael, 59 South Broadway, Lawrence, Mass.


Conlon, Michael, 15 Pool Street, Biddeford, Me.


Connellan, James A., 98 Exchange Street, Portland, Me.


Conner, John E., City Marshal, Chicopee, Mass.


Conners, Edward, 31 Hammond Street, Bangor, Me.; has been a member
of the Board of Aldermen, of the Police Examining Board, and has
filled other municipal offices.


Connery, William P., Pleasant Street, Lynn, Mass.


Connolly, James, Coronado, Cal.


Connolly, Michael J., Trustee of the Public Library, Waltham, Mass.


Connolly, Rev. Arthur T., Rector Church of the Blessed Sacrament, Center
and Creighton Streets, Roxbury (Boston), Mass.


Connolly, Richard, 132 Boston Street, Salem, Mass.


Connolly, Thomas G., 147 L Street, South Boston, Mass.


Connor, J. F., of Connor & Tracy, Peabody, Mass.


Connor, John J., Sunday Register Office, Essex Street, Lawrence, Mass.


Connor, John W., 93 Main Street, Nashua, N. H.


Connor, Michael, 509 Beach Street, Manchester, N. H.


Conroy, Philip F., Newport Gaslight Co., Newport, R. I.


Corcoran, C. J., City Clerk, Lawrence, Mass.


Corcoran, Dr. Luke, Springfield, Mass.


Corcoran, Hon. John W., recently a Judge of the Superior Court; Tremont
Building, Boston, Mass.


Corr, Bernard, Chamber of Commerce Building, Boston, Mass.


Corrigan, J. P. (M. D.), Benedict House, Pawtucket, R. I.


Costello, Frederick H., Bangor, Me.; a native of that city and great-grandson
of an Irishman.


Costello, J. C., Washington and Warren Streets, Newark, N. J.


107Costello, John H., 40 East Brookline Street, Boston, Mass.


Coughlin, J. A., Manager, Essex Street, Lawrence, Mass.


Coughlin, John, 177 Water Street, Augusta, Me.


Coyle, Rev. James, Taunton, Mass.


Crane, Hon. M. W., Attorney-General, Austin, Texas.


Crane, John, 307 West 103d Street, New York City.


Cranitch, William, 841 West End Avenue, New York City.


Crimmins, John D., capitalist (life member), 50 East 59th Street, New
York City.


Cronin, Capt. William, Rutland, Vt.


Cronin, John H., druggist, 317 Broadway, Lawrence, Mass.


Cronin, William J., 87 Weybosset Street, Providence, R. I.; member of
the Pawtucket School Board.


Croston, Dr. J. F., Emerson Street, Haverhill, Mass.


Crowe, Edward J., Lamoille, Winona County, Minn.


Crowell, Hon. Henry G., South Yarmouth, Mass.; a descendant of David
O’Killia (O’Kelly), who settled on Cape Cod as early as 1657, and who
is mentioned in the old Yarmouth, Mass., records as “the Irishman.”
The records show that at the close of King Philip’s War, O’Killia was
assessed his proportionate part towards defraying the expenses of that
struggle.


Crowley, Bartholomew, manufacturer, Haverhill, Mass.


Crowley, Jeremiah, of the law firm, Crowley & O’Hearn, Lowell, Mass.


Crowley, John F., Standard Clothing Co., Bangor, Me.


Culhane, Thomas A., Marietta, Lane County, Penn.


Cummings, Dr. W. F., Rutland, Vt.


Cummings, Matthew J., Overseer of the Poor, Providence, R. I.


Cummins, Rev. John F., Roslindale, Mass.


Cunningham, Christopher D., 178 Congress Street, Portland, Me.


Cunningham, Francis W., 167 Congress Street, Portland, Me.


Cunningham, James, 277 Congress Street, Portland, Me.


Cunningham, John E., Gardiner, Me.


Curran, Bartley J., 72 Exchange Street, Portland, Me.


Curran, James, president the James Curran Mfg. Co., 512–514 West 36th
Street, New York City.


Curran, Maurice J., of the Curran & Joyce Co., Lawrence, Mass.


Curran, William F., 38 Fern Street, Bangor, Me.; has served three terms
on the Board of Aldermen.


Curry, Capt. P. S., 1 Box Place, Lynn, Mass.; superintendent of construction
for the new Federal Building in that city.


Curtin, Jeremiah, Bristol, Vt.; author of Hero Tales of Ireland, Myths
and Folk-Lore of Ireland, Myths and Folk Tales of the Russians,
Western Slavs and Magyars; translator of works of Henryk Sienkiewicz.


Cusack, Peter, 38 Washington Street, Newburyport, Mass.


108Cushnahan, Rev. P. M., Rector of St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church,
Ogden City, Utah.


Dailey, Peter, real estate, etc., 209 Washington Street, Boston, Mass.


Daly, Hon. Joseph F., Court House, Chambers Street, New York City;
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.


Daly, John, South Broadway, Lawrence, Mass.


Daly, John J., Salt Lake City, Utah; one of the heaviest mine owners in
the state.


Daly, Rev. Patrick J., Rector Church of St. Francis de Sales, Vernon
Street, Roxbury (Boston), Mass.


Danvers, Robert E., 17 West 65th Street, New York City.


Dasey, Charles V., 7 Broad Street, Boston, Mass.


Davidson, John A., Adjutant, 69th Regt. N. Y. V., 246 West 45th Street,
New York City.


Davis, Dr. F. L., 253 Main Street, Biddeford, Me., City Physician.


Davis, Hon. Robert T., Fall River, Mass.; ex-Mayor, ex-Member of Congress.


Davis, John J., Greenville, Pa.


Day, Hon. William A., Washington, D. C.; recently second auditor of the
U. S. Treasury.


DeCourcy, Charles A., of DeCourcy & Coulson, lawyers, Essex Street,
Lawrence, Mass.


Dempsey, George C., Lowell, Mass.


Dempsey, Henry L., Stillwater, R. I.; Postmaster; member Smithfield
Town Council.


Dempsey, Patrick, Market Street, Lowell, Mass.


Dennison, Joseph A., of law firm, Coakley & Dennison, Pemberton Square,
Boston, Mass.


Desmond, J. J., druggist, 565 Broadway, Lawrence, Mass.


Desmond, John F., civil engineer, 83 Merrimac Street, Haverhill, Mass.


Devine, P. A., 100 Central Street, Manchester, N. H.


Dignam, M. A. (D. D. S.), 295 Essex Street, Lawrence, Mass.


Dillon, Capt. Moses, El Paso, Texas.


Dillon, Thomas J. (M. D.), 121 Vernon Street, Roxbury (Boston), Mass.


Doherty, James L., 131 Bowdoin Street, Springfield, Mass.


Doherty, Philip J., 23 Court Street, Boston, Mass.; lawyer; has served
several terms in the Massachusetts Legislature; in 1886 was nominee
for Speaker of the House; in 1889 was appointed member of the
Boston Water Board.


Dolan, Patrick J., 901 Garfield Building, Cleveland, O.


Donahoe, D. J., of Donahoe Brothers, manufacturers, Lynn, Mass.


Donahoe, Dan A., 285 Essex Street, Lawrence, Mass.


Donahoe, Dr. Florence, 1134 Eighth Street, N. W., Washington, D. C.


Donahoe, John P., Wilmington, Del.; National Commander, Union Veteran
Legion; a member of the recent Constitutional Convention of the state.


109Donahoe, Patrick, publisher of The Pilot, Boston, Mass.


Donahue, Frank P., 9 Pynchon Street, Springfield, Mass.


Donahue, Hugh (M. D.), 200 Winter Street, Haverhill, Mass.


Donahue, John J., Keene, N. H.


Donigan, Bernard E., of Donigan & O’Brien, clothiers, 322 Essex Street,
Lawrence, Mass.; formerly Postmaster at Orono, Me.


Donnellan, Col. John W., banker, Salt Lake City, Utah.


Donnelly, B. J., of Shea & Donnelly, granite workers and contractors,
Lynn, Mass.


Donnelly, Hon. Ignatius, Nininger, Minn.; upholder of the Baconian
theory regarding Shakespeare’s works; twice elected Lieutenant-Governor
of Minnesota; has been a Member of Congress.


Donnelly, Hugh J., 100 Central Street, Springfield, Mass.


Donoghoe, Dr. D. F., 240 Maple Street, Holyoke, member School Board.


Donovan, Col. Henry F., Chicago, Ill.; late Inspector-General Illinois
National Guard; served five terms as President of the County Board
of Education; proprietor of the Chicago Eagle.


Donovan, Daniel, 21 High Rock Street, Lynn, Mass.; an authority on
heraldry, armorial bearings, etc., particularly as the same relate to
Ireland.


Donovan, Daniel A., of D. A. Donovan & Co., manufacturers, 47–51
Willow Street, Lynn, Mass.


Donovan, Dr. James A., Lewiston, Me.


Donovan, John J., lawyer, Essex Street, Lawrence, Mass.


Donovan, Joseph, lawyer, Central Building, Lawrence, Mass.


Donovan, M. F., of D. A. Donovan & Co., 47–51 Willow Street, Lynn,
Mass.


Donovan, Michael R. (M. D.), 128 South Common Street, Lynn, Mass.


Donovan, Timothy, of D. A. Donovan & Co., 47–51 Willow Street, Lynn,
Mass.


Donovan, William H., Lawrence, Mass.


Doogue, William, Superintendent of public grounds, Boston, Mass.


Doolittle, James G., Salt Lake City, Utah.


Doran, John, of the law firm, McGuinness & Doran, Weybosset Street,
Providence, R. I.


Doran, Patrick L., Salt Lake City, Utah.


Dowd, Frederick C., Tremont Building, Boston, Mass.


Dowd, Michael, Tacoma, Wash.


Dowd, Michael J., 31–39 Merrimack Street, Lowell, Mass.


Dowd, Peter A., 95 Milk Street, Boston, Mass.


Dowling, M. J., Renville, Minn.; Secretary of the National Republican
League.


Dowling, Rev. Austin, Editor The Visitor, Providence, R. I.


Downey, Daniel, 50 Piedmont Street, Worcester, Mass.


Doyle, John F., 45 William Street, New York City.


110Driscoll, C. F., attorney-at-law, 157 Church Street, New Haven, Conn.


Driscoll, Florence F., 56 Adams Street, Portland, Me.


Drummond, Michael J., 148 West 76th Street, New York City.


Duff, Dr. John, 5 Dexter Row, Charlestown (Boston), Mass.


Duff, John, 35 Purchase Street, New Bedford, Mass.


Duffy, Arthur E., 39 Ash Street, New Bedford, Mass.


Duggan, John T. (M. D., A. M.), President Visiting Staff, St. Vincent’s
Hospital, Worcester, Mass.


Dunn, Edward P., 12 Lincoln Street, Augusta, Me.


Dunne, F. L., 328 Washington Street, Boston, Mass.


Dunnigan, D. G., publisher, New Bedford, Mass.


Dwyer, Anthony, Biddeford, Me.


Dwyer, M. J., Superintendent Marcella Street Home, Boston, Mass.


Dyer, Dr. William H., Dover, N. H.


Dyer, Hon. Elisha, Governor of Rhode Island.


Early, James, Deputy Sheriff, Worcester, Mass.


Egan, James T., of the law firm, Gorman & Egan, Banigan Building,
Providence, R. I.


Egan, Maurice F. (LL.D.), Catholic University, Washington, D. C.


Egan, Rev. M. H., Rector Church of the Sacred Heart, Lebanon, N. H.


Ellard, George W., 180 Lisbon Street, Lewiston, Me.


Emmet, Dr. Thomas Addis, New York City; grandnephew of Robert
Emmet, the Irish patriot.


English, Hon. Thomas Dunn (LL.D.), 57 State Street, Newark, N. J.;
ex-Member of Congress; a well-known and entertaining writer.


Fagan, Thomas J., Sergeant of Police, Chicago, Ill.


Fahey, M. J., P. O. box 893, New Haven, Conn.


Fahey, Rev. John T., 15 Thomas Street, Fall River, Mass.


Fallon, Hon. Joseph D., 789 Broadway, South Boston, Mass.


Fallon, Michael F. (M. D.), 9 Portland Street, Worcester, Mass.


Farrell, Edward D., 329 West 50th Street, New York City.


Farrell, Henry W. (M. D.), 1913 Westminster Street, Providence, R. I.


Farrell, J. T. (M. D.), 1913 Westminster Street, Providence, R. I.


Farrell, John P., New Haven, Conn.


Farrell, William, Carnation Street, Pawtucket, R. I.


Farrelly, Frank T., 424 Main Street, Springfield, Mass.


Fay, Joseph H. (M. D.), 1283 Pleasant Street, Fall River, Mass.


Feehan, Rev. Daniel F., Fitchburg, Mass.


Feeley, William J., treasurer of The W. J. Feeley Co., silversmiths and
manufacturing jewelers, 185 Eddy Street, Providence, R. I.


Feenan, Bernard, 85 Harbor Street, Salem, Mass.


Field, John H., 27 High Street, Nashua, N. H.


Finerty, Hon. John F., 69 Dearborn Street, Chicago, Ill.; Editor of The
Citizen; ex-Member of Congress.


Finn, Rev. Thomas J., St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, Derby, Conn.


111Finnigan, James C., 139 Broad Street, Bangor, Me.; proprietor of the
largest cracker manufactory in the state.


Finnigan, Patrick J. (M. D.), 361 Cambridge Street, East Cambridge,
Mass.


Finnigan, Thomas J., 121 Somerset Street, Bangor, Me.; member of the
Park Commission.


Fitzgerald, David E., 179 Church Street, New Haven, Conn.


Fitzgerald, Patrick J., manufacturer, 44 Nichols Street, Haverhill, Mass.


Fitzgerald, Rev. E. J., Chicopee, Mass.


Fitzgerald, William T., High Street, Nashua, N. H.


Fitzmaurice, Charles R., Rossland, British Columbia.


Fitzpatrick, Edward, editorial department of The Times, Louisville, Ky.


Fitzpatrick, J. M., 120 West 59th Street, New York City.


Fitzpatrick, John B., real estate, etc., 23 Court Street, Boston, Mass.; has
been deputy sheriff of Suffolk County, Mass.; was for several years
an officer of the Supreme Court.


Fitzpatrick, Thomas B., of the wholesale dry goods firm of Brown, Durrell
& Co., Boston, Mass.


Fitzsimons, Hon. James M., Chief Justice of the City Court, New York.


Flaherty, Thomas H., 62 Gray Street, Portland, Me.


Flanagan, Dr. Andrew J., 29 George Street, Springfield, Mass.


Flannery, Capt. John, Savannah, Ga.; of John Flannery & Co., cotton
factors and commission merchants.


Flatley, Joseph P., 916 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass.


Flatley, P. J., lawyer, Tremont Building, Boston, Mass.


Flatley, Rev. John, Rector St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church, Cambridge,
Mass.


Flynn, Hon. Joseph J., Opera House, Lawrence, Mass.; a State Senator.


Flynn, John C., The Pilot Office, 630 Washington Street, Boston, Mass.


Flynn, Rev. James A., Biddeford, Me.


Flynn, Thomas J., 18–20 Essex Street, Boston, Mass.


Fogarty, James A., New Haven, Conn., Police Commissioner.


Fogarty, Jeremiah W., assessors’ department, City Hall, Boston, Mass.;
Secretary of the Charitable Irish Society (founded 1737).


Foley, Bernard, 39 Edgewood Street, Roxbury (Boston), Mass.


Foley, Frank W., 284 Grand Avenue, New Haven, Conn.


Foy, Julius L., lawyer, 408–409 Continental Bank Building, St. Louis, Mo.


Frawley, John P., 73 Main Street, Bangor, Me.


Furlong, Joseph D., 75 Westminster Street, Providence, R. I.


Gallagher, Cornelius J., 271 State Street, Bangor, Me.


Gallagher, Hugh T., 11 Birch Street, Bangor, Me.


Gallagher, Thomas F., Judge of the City Court, Fitchburg, Mass.


Galligan, Edward F. (M. D.), 63 Washington Street, Taunton, Mass.


Gallivan, Maurice, 58 Dracut Street, Dorchester, Mass.


Galvin, John E., 14 Bailey Street, Dorchester, Mass.


112Galvin, Rev. John B., Rector St. Ann’s Church, Somerville, Mass.


Gargan, Thomas J., ex-President Boston Charitable Irish Society (founded
1737); delivered the oration for the city, July 4, 1885; served several
terms in the Massachusetts Legislature; is a member of the law
firm, Gargan & Keating, Pemberton Square, Boston, Mass.; member
Subway Commission.


Garrigan, Rev. Philip J., Catholic University, Washington, D. C.


Garvan, Hon. Patrick, President Park Commission, Hartford, Conn.


Garvey, Patrick J., lawyer, Holyoke, Mass.


Gavin, Michael, of M. Gavin & Co., wholesale grocers and cotton factors,
232–234 Front Street, Memphis, Tenn.


Geoghegan, Joseph, Salt Lake City, Utah.


Geoghegan, Stephen J., 20 East 73d Street, New York City.


Gibbons, T. F., with Theodore M. Roche & Co., 203 Broadway, New York
City.


Gilbride, Patrick, of O’Donnell & Gilbride, Lowell, Mass.


Gillrain, James M., Banigan Building, Providence, R. I.


Gilmartin, Denis, Lawrence, Mass.


Glynn, John W., Manager the Mansion House, Springfield, Mass.


Glynn, Thomas H., Water and Federal Streets, Newburyport, Mass.


Goggin, John F., 57 Locust Street, New Bedford, Mass.


Goodwin, John (life member), 70–72 West 23d Street, New York City.


Gorman, Hon. Charles E., Banigan Building, Providence, R. I.; ex-Speaker
of the Rhode Island House of Representatives; ex-U. S. District
Attorney; member of the recent Commission to Revise the State Constitution
of Rhode Island.


Gorman, James J., 406 Spring Street, Fall River, Mass.


Grace, Rev. Philip (D. D.), Newport, R. I.


Graham, Andrew M., 27 Middle Street, Newburyport, Mass.


Graham, Rev. John J., St. James’s Roman Catholic Church, Haverhill, Mass.


Grainger, William H. (M. D.), 408 Meridian Street, East Boston, Mass.


Gregg, Matthew C., 213 Water Street, Lawrence, Mass.


Griffin, John, 110 State Street, Portsmouth, N. H.


Griffin, Rt. Rev. Mgr. (D. D.), St. John’s Church, Worcester, Mass.


Griffis, Rev. William Elliot (D. D.), Ithaca, N. Y.; formerly pastor of
the First Reformed Church, Schenectady, N. Y., and subsequently
of the Shawmut Congregational Church, Boston, Mass.; some years
ago went to Japan to organize schools on the American plan; held
chair of physics in the Imperial University at Tokio; an able writer
and author of note.


Grimes, Robert W., Pawtucket, R. I.


Grimes, Thomas, of Grimes Bros., Providence, R. I.


Guiney, John, 9 Harvey Street, Biddeford, Me.


Hall, Edward A., member of the Connecticut Valley Historical Society,
66 Spring Street, Springfield, Mass.


113Halley, William, publisher of The Vindicator, Austin, Ill.


Halpine, Lieut. N. J. F. (U. S. N.), West Roxbury, Mass.


Haltigan, Patrick J., Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C.


Hanley, Frank L., Olneyville, R. I.


Hanrahan, Dr. John D., Rutland, Vt., Surgeon in U. S. Navy during Civil
War; ex-Postmaster of Rutland; first President Rutland County
Medical and Surgical Society.


Hanrahan, William J., 200 Essex Street, Lawrence, Mass.


Harney, Hubert J., of the manufacturing firm Harney Bros., 103 Washington
Street, Lynn, Mass.


Harney, Patrick J., of Harney Bros., 103 Washington Street, Lynn, Mass.


Harney, Thomas F., of Harney Bros., 103 Washington Street, Lynn, Mass.


Harper, William, Jr., People’s Institute, Roxbury (Boston), Mass.


Harrington, Rev. J. C., Rector of St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church,
Lynn, Mass.


Harrington, Rev. John M., Lewiston, Me.


Harrington, Thomas F. (M. D.), Lowell, Mass.


Harrington, Timothy, Water Street, Newburyport, Mass.


Harson, M. Joseph, 126 Waterman Street, Providence, R. I.; a founder of
Phi Kappa Sigma Fraternity; member of the Rhode Island Historical
Society.


Harty, Rev. John, Rector of the Church of the Sacred Heart, Pawtucket,
R. I.


Hastings, Hon. Daniel H., Governor of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg, Pa.


Hayes, Dr. S. W., New Bedford, Mass.


Hayes, Hon. John J., 8 Oliver Street, Boston, Mass.; commission merchant;
has been a member of the Boston School Board and a State
Senator.


Hayes, John, Concord Street, Manchester, N. H.


Heagney, Michael J., 2 Hancock Street, Linden district, Malden, Mass.


Healey, Col. D. F., Manchester, N. H.; served on the Staff of Governor
Goodell of New Hampshire; was high sheriff of Hillsborough County,
N. H., for over twelve years.


Healey, Jere, President of the Board of Aldermen, Newburyport, Mass.


Healey, John W., 128 Washington Street, Lynn, Mass.


Healy, Col. John G., 117 Sherman Avenue, New Haven, Conn.; served in
Ninth Connecticut Regiment during Civil War; has been first Vice-President
of the Nineteenth Army Corps Association.


Healy, John A., 85 West Hollis Street, Nashua, N. H.


Healy, Richard, President Bay State Savings Bank, Worcester, Mass.


Hearn, Edward L., State Deputy Knights of Columbus, South Framingham, Mass.


Heery, Col. Luke, 99 Fairmount Street, Lowell, Mass.; recently on the
Staff of Governor Waller of Connecticut.


Heery, James, 99 Fairmount Street, Lowell, Mass.


114Heffern, Peter J. (D. D. S.), 255 Main Street, Pawtucket, R. I.; member of
the State Board of Registration in Dentistry.


Hegerty, Stephen J., Hallowell, Me.


Hennessy, Daniel (M. D.), 5 High Street, Bangor, Me.


Hickey, James G. (life member), Manager U. S. Hotel, Boston, Mass.


Hickey, Michael J., manufacturer, 80 Emerson Street, Haverhill, Mass.


Hicks, Michael, 147 West 121st Street, New York City.


Hogan, Capt. Thomas J., 225 Middle Street, Portland, Me.


Hogan, Daniel W., 40 Cushing Street, Medford, Mass.


Hogan, John W., 4 Weybosset Street, Providence, R. I.


Hogan, Very Rev. John B. (S. S., D. D.), President of St. John’s Ecclesiastical
Seminary, Brighton (Boston), Mass.


Holland, D. A., Opera Block, Manchester, N. H.


Holland, Dennis J., Industrial Trust Building, Providence, R. I.


Holland, John P., 141 Broadway, New York City; inventor of the submarine
torpedo boat.


Hopkins, William, Assistant Day Editor Boston Globe; the talented “Bud
Brier.”


Horigan, Cornelius, Biddeford, Me.; ex-Member Maine Legislature.


Howard, Rev. J. J., St. Peter’s Roman Catholic Church, Worcester,
Mass.


Howard, T. J., lawyer, Manchester, N. H.


Howes, Osborne, Secretary of the Board of Fire Underwriters, 55 Kilby
Street, Boston, Mass.; a descendant of David O’Killia (O’Kelly), who
is heard from on Cape Cod, Mass., as early as 1657, and who was a
participant in King Philip’s War; Mr. Howes is of the seventh American
generation on the O’Killia side and of the eighth on another.


Howley, Edward B., El Paso, Texas.


Hoye, John A., 40 Third Street, Dover, N. H.


Hughes, Rev. Christopher, Fall River, Mass.


Hurley, Rev. E. F., Rector of St. Dominic’s Roman Catholic Church,
Portland, Me.


Hyde, William A., 61 Murdock Street, Brighton (Boston), Mass.


Jackson, Joseph, of the Curran & Joyce Co., Lawrence, Mass.


Johnson, James G., 301 West End Avenue, New York City.


Jordan, M. J., lawyer, 42 Court Street, Boston, Mass.


Kane, John P., lawyer, Central Building, Lawrence, Mass.


Keating, James E. (M. D.), 143 Pine Street, Portland, Me.


Keating, Patrick M., of the law firm, Gargan & Keating, Pemberton
Square, Boston, Mass.


Keating, William H., 15 Vaughn Street, Portland, Me.


Keefe, Dennis F. (D. D. S.), Butler Exchange, Providence, R. I.


Keefe, Patrick H. (M. D.), 257 Benefit Street, Providence, R. I.


Keely, George, 270 Brackett Street, Portland, Me.


Kehoe, John B., Portland, Me.


115Keleher, T. D., Disbursing Clerk for office of auditor to the Post Office
      Department, Washington, D. C.


Kelley, Daniel B., 21 Windsor Street, Haverhill, Mass.


Kelley, J. D. Jerrold, Lieutenant-Commander U. S. N.; was recently
      attached to the battleship Texas; address, care Navy Department,
      Washington, D. C.


Kelley, John W., City Solicitor, Portsmouth, N. H.


Kelley, Joseph J., 98 Otis Street, East Cambridge, Mass.


Kelley, Patrick, 19 Davidson Street, Lowell, Mass.


Kelliher, Michael W. (M. D.), Pawtucket, R. I.


Kelly, James, 13 Greenleaf Street, Portland, Me.


Kelly, James E., Postmaster, Ogdensburg, N. Y.


Kelly, John P. (D. D. S), 12 Essex Street, Newburyport, Mass.


Kelly, Michael (M. D.), Fall River, Mass.


Kelly, William J., 9 Dover Street, Newburyport, Mass.


Kelly, William J., Kittery, Me.


Kendricken, Hon. Paul H., 75 Maple Street, Roxbury (Boston), Mass.;
      ex-State Senator; member of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion.


Kenefick, Owen A., photographer, Essex Street, Lawrence, Mass.


Kennedy, Charles F., Brewer, Me.


Kennedy, Dr. Francis M., 446 County Street, New Bedford, Mass.; Trustee
      of Public Library.


Kennedy, Hon. P. J., 165 Webster Street, East Boston, Mass.; has been a
      Senator.


Kennedy, John, 1129 Bedford Street, Fall River, Mass.


Kennedy, Joseph P., 311 South Water Street, New Bedford, Mass.


Kennedy, P. J., 322 and 324 Nicollet Avenue, Minneapolis, Minn.; of
Kennedy Bros., dealers in firearms, ammunition, etc.


Kenney, James W., Treasurer Union Brewing Co., Roxbury (Boston), Mass.


Kenney, William F., Day Editor-in-Chief, The Globe, Boston, Mass.


Kent, Pierce, 356 East 57th Street, New York City; a Lieutenant in the
      69th Regiment.


Kerr, Dr. James, 1711 H Street, N. W., Washington, D. C.


Kiernan, Rev. Owen, Rector Church of the Immaculate Conception, Fall
      River, Mass.


Kiley, Daniel F., Essex Street, Lawrence, Mass.; of Kiley Bros., dry-goods
      merchants.


Killoren, Hon. Andrew, Dover, N. H.; ex-State Senator.


Kilroy, Patrick, lawyer, 475 Main Street, Springfield, Mass.


Kilroy, Philip (M. D.), Glen-Rath; Visiting Physician Springfield Hospital,
      Springfield, Mass.


King, Thomas E., 104 Howard Street, Springfield, Mass.


Kinsela, John L., 509 Gorham Street, Lowell, Mass.


Kirby, John P., Chicopee, Mass.


Kirmes, Victor C., Melrose, Mass.


116Kivel, Hon. John, Dover, N. H.


Lalor, John J., Mint Bureau, U. S. Treasury Department, Washington,
      D. C.; author of the well-known Cyclopædia of Political Science,
      Political Economy, and of the Political History of the United States.


Lamb, Matthew B., 516 Main Street, Worcester, Mass.


Lamson, Col. Daniel S., Weston, Mass.; Lieutenant-Colonel commanding
      6th Regiment (Mass.), 1861; A. A. G., Norfolk, 1862; served on
      staff of General Hooker; is a member of the Society of Colonial
      Wars, Sons of the American Revolution, and Military Order of the
      Loyal Legion; one of his ancestors landed at Ipswich, Mass., in 1632
      and received a grant of 350 acres, which still remains in the family;
      another ancestor, Samuel, of Reading, Mass., participated in King
      Philip’s War and had a son in the expedition of 1711. Another member
      of the family, Samuel, of Weston, commanded a company at Concord,
      Mass., April 19, 1775, and was Major and Colonel of the 3d
      Middlesex Regiment for many years, dying in 1795.


Lane, Rev. Florence A., Chicopee, Mass.


Lane, Thomas J., 120 Havre Street, East Boston, Mass.


Lannan, P. H., The Tribune Office, Salt Lake City, Utah.


Lappin, J. J., 7 Grant Street, Portland, Me.


Larkin, James E., 17 Linden Street, Everett, Mass.; was Lieutenant-Colonel
      of the 5th Regiment, New Hampshire Volunteers.


Larkin, Very Rev. Thomas J. (S. M.), President of All Hallows’s College,
      Salt Lake City, Utah.


Lawler, Thomas B., 39 May Street, Worcester, Mass.; with Ginn & Company,
      publishers, Tremont Place, Boston, Mass.; Librarian and
      Archivist of the society; member American Oriental Society and
      Archaeological Institute of America.


Lawless, Hon. Joseph T., Secretary of State, Richmond, Va.


Leahey, Dr. George A., Lowell, Mass.


Leahy, John P., lawyer, U. S. Trust Company Building, 30 Court Street.
      Boston, Mass.


Leary, Daniel E., lawyer, Court Square, Theatre Building, Springfield,
      Mass.


Leary, Denis F., 254 Central Street, Springfield, Mass.


Lee, Hugh J., on staff of The Times, Pawtucket, R. I.


Lee, Rev. Robert F., 156 Danforth Street, Portland, Me.


Lee, Thomas C., 277 Central Street, Lowell, Mass.


Lenihan, M. C., Marshalltown, Iowa.


Lennox, George W., manufacturer, Duncan Street, Haverhill, Mass.


Leonard, James F., clothier, Essex Street, Lawrence, Mass.; recently candidate
      for Mayor.


Leonard, Thomas F., musical director, Essex Street, Lawrence. Mass.


Linehan, Hon. John C., State Insurance Commissioner, Concord, N. H.; ex-Member
      of the Governor’s Council: Commander of Brown Post No. 31,
117      G. A. R., for three years; Commander of the G. A. R., Department
      of New Hampshire, two years; President of the N. H. Veteran
      Association, two years; Junior Vice Commander-in-Chief; member of
      Pension Committee of the National Encampment; Director of the
      Gettysburg Battlefield Association, ten years; recently a leading candidate
      at Buffalo, N. Y., for National Commander-in-Chief; President
      Board of Trustees of New Hampshire State Industrial School; recipient
      of an honorary degree from Dartmouth College. Colonel Linehan is
      an authority on the early history of the Irish in New England, and has
      written many articles on the subject. He is the Society’s Treasurer-General;
      resides in Penacook, N. H.


Linehan, James C., 18 Foster Street, Peabody, Mass.


Linehan, John J., Springfield, Mass.; a director in the Bay State Corset
      Company.


Linehan, Rev. Timothy P., Rector of St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church,
      Biddeford, Me.; was for ten years Rector of the Cathedral, Portland,
      Me.


Linehan, Timothy P., Wolfe Tavern, Newburyport, Mass.


Littleton, Stephen F., 10 Riverside Street, Worcester, Mass.


Lovell, David B. (M. D.), 32 Pearl Street, Worcester, Mass.; member New
      England Opthalmological Society.


Lowery, Dr. James E., Sopris, Las Animas County, Colorado.


Lowery, William H., 86 Adams Street, Portland, Me.


Lyman, William, 51 East 122d Street, New York City.


Lynch, Charles E., 367 Main Street, Springfield, Mass.


Lynch, Cornelius J., 331 Pine Street, Bangor, Me.


Lynch, Dr. M. H., Chicopee Falls, Mass., City Physician.


Lynch, Gen. John J., 145 Spring Street, Portland, Me.


Lynch, John E., Principal Thomas Street School, Director Free Public
      Library, Worcester, Mass.


Lynch, Thomas J., Augusta, Me.; Treasurer Augusta Board of Trade.


Lynn, Hon. Wauhope, 32 Chambers Street, New York City; Justice of the
      First Judicial District.


Lyons, Dr. W. H. A., Portsmouth, N. H.


Lyons, Michael R., 243 Main Street, Fitchburg, Mass.


Lyons, Rev. John J., Manchester, N. H.


Macguire, Constantine J. (M. D.), 120 East 60th Street, New York City.


Magee, John A. (M. D.), 203 Haverhill Street, Lawrence, Mass.


Magenis, James P., Law Department of Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y.;
      recently Deputy Collector of Internal Revenue, Boston, Mass.


Magner, Thomas, Superintendent Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., Rutland,
      Vt.


Magrane, P. B., dry-goods merchant, Lynn, Mass.


Maguire, John, Butte City, Montana.


Maguire, John E., of Thayer & Maguire, manufacturers, Haverhill, Mass.


118Maher, Dr. Stephen J., 212 Orange Street, New Haven, Conn.


Maher, James J., Augusta, Me.


Mahoney, Daniel D., of D. D. Mahoney & Son, Essex Street, Lawrence,
      Mass.


Mahoney, James, University Club, 270 Beacon Street, Boston, Mass.


Mahoney, James V., Commissioner of the Commercial Association, Sioux
      City, Iowa.


Mahoney, John P. S., lawyer, Central Building, Lawrence, Mass.; recently
      President of the Common Council.


Mahoney, M. J., Hampshire and Bradford Streets, Lawrence, Mass.


Malloy, Gen. A. G., El Paso, Texas; a veteran of the Mexican and Civil
      Wars; during the latter conflict he was successively Major, Colonel,
      and Brigadier-General; has been Collector of the Port of Galveston.


Malone, John, Actors’ Society of America, 1432 Broadway, New York City.


Maloney, Dr. Thomas E., 278 Franklin Street, Fall River, Mass.


Mangan, John J. (M. D.), 55 North Common Street, Lynn, Mass.


Mannix, Cornelius A., 40 Sheridan Street, Portland, Me.


Marshall, Rev. George F., Rector of St. Paul’s Roman Catholic Church,
      Milford, N. H.


May, Henry A., 47 Florence Street, Roslindale, Mass.; a descendant
      through his mother, Roxana Butler, of Pelham, N. H., from James
      Butler, the planter of Lancaster, Mass. (1653), who came from Ireland,
      and was the largest landowner in what is now Worcester County. He
      owned land in Dunstable, Woburn, and Billerica, where he died in
      1681. His son, Deacon John Butler, was the first child of Irish parentage
      born in Woburn, Mass., and John was the first settler of what is
      now Pelham, N. H., and lies buried there. A monument was erected
      to his memory on “Pelham Green,” in the center of the town of Pelham,
      in 1886, by his descendants, some 1200 being present at the dedication
      in June of that year.
      McAdoo, Hon. William, Assistant Secretary of the Navy (under Cleveland),
      Washington, D. C.
McAleer, George, Treasurer, Bay State Savings Bank, Worcester, Mass.


McAlevy, John F., 26–50 North Main Street, Pawtucket, R. I.


McAloon, Vincent J., 213 Pleasant Street, Pawtucket, R. I.


McAuliffe, John F., with the Livermore & Knight Co., Westminster Street,
      Providence, R. I.


McCaffrey, Hugh, (life member), Fifth and Berks Streets, Philadelphia, Pa.


McCann, Daniel E., 37 Preble Street, Portland, Me.


McCarthy, Charles, Jr., Portland, Me.


McCarthy, Eugene T., lawyer, 343 Union Street, Lynn, Mass.


McCarthy, John T., 84 Lisbon Street, Lewiston, Me.


McCarthy, Joseph, Editorial Department Daily Globe, Boston, Mass.


McCarthy, Patrick J., Industrial Trust Building, Providence, R. I.


McCarthy, T. A. (D. D. S.), Main Street, Nashua, N. H.


119McCaughey, Bernard, 93–105 North Main Street, Pawtucket, R. I.


McClallen, Edward C., Rutland, Vt.; of the fifth American generation.


McClure, Rev. Edward L., Rector St. Patrick’s Church, Brockton, Mass.


McCluskey, James J., 34 School Street, Boston, Mass.


McConnell, James E., lawyer, Fitchburg, Mass.; candidate for Lieutenant-Governor
of Massachusetts, 1896.


McConway, William (life member), manufacturer, Pittsburg, Pa.


McCoy, Rev. John J., Permanent Rector of the Church of the Holy Name,
Chicopee, Mass.


McCrystal, Capt. Edward T., 69th Regiment Infantry, N. G. N. Y., New
York City.


McCullough, Edward (M. D.), 123 Union Street, Bangor, Me.


McCullough, John, 55 Maxfield Street, New Bedford, Mass.


McCusker, John F. (M. D.), 96 Broad Street, Providence, R. I.


McDermott, Rev. William A., Redwood, N. Y.; under the nom-de-plume
“Walter Lecky” he has produced much literary work.


McDermott, Thomas J., Biddeford, Me.; proprietor of Biddeford Iron and
Brass Works.


McDonald, Mitchell, Paymaster, U. S. N.; recently attached to the battleship
Texas; address, care Navy Department, Washington, D. C.


McDonnell, Thomas F. I., 17 Custom House Street, Providence, R. I.


McDonough, Edward J. (M. D.), 333 Congress Street, Portland, Me.


McDonough, Rev. M. C., Rector of the Cathedral, Portland, Me.


McEleney, William, 45 Cedar Street, Portland, Me.


McElroy, Rev. Charles J., Rector St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church,
Derby, Conn.


McEvoy, John W., lawyer, 137 Central Street, Lowell, Mass.


McGauran, Michael S. (M. D.), Lawrence, Mass.


McGillicuddy, Hon. D. J., Lewiston, Me.; Mayor 1887–90.


McGinnis, Lieut.-Col. John R., Kennebec Arsenal, Augusta, Me.


McGinnis, Rev. John J., Sandford, Me.


McGlinchy, J. H., 128 Danforth Street, Portland, Me.


McGoey, J., 78 Worth Street, New York City.


McGovern, Joseph P., 193 Green Street, New York City.


McGowan, Joseph A., 263 Congress Street, Portland, Me.


McGowan, T. P., 418 Congress Street, Portland, Me.


McGrath, Rev. Christopher, 264 Washington Street. Somerville, Mass.;
Rector St. Joseph’s Church.


McGuinness, Bernard, 32 Westminster Street, Providence, R. I.


McGuinness, Hon. Edwin D., Providence, R. I.; has served two terms as
Mayor of Providence, and two as Secretary of State of Rhode Island.


McGuire, Edward J., lawyer, 56 Pine Street, New York City.


McGurk, Charles J., City Auditor, New Bedford, Mass.


McGurrin, Frank E., Salt Lake City, Utah.


McIntyre, John F., lawyer, 220 Broadway, New York City.


120McKechnie, William G., lawyer, 366 Walnut Street, Springfield, Mass.


McKellegett, George F., 27 Tremont Row, Boston, Mass.


McKeon, Francis P., Millbury Street School, Worcester, Mass.


McLaughlin, Edward A., lawyer, 16 Pemberton Square, Boston, Mass.; was
for several years clerk of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.


McLaughlin, Henry V. (M. D.), 29 Kent Street, Brookline, Mass.


McLaughlin, James M., 56 Bowdoin Street, Dorchester, Mass.; Supervisor
of Music in Boston Public Schools; author of The Educational
Music System.


McLaughlin, Thomas, Hallowell, Me.


McLaughlin, William H., 24 C Street, Knightville, Portland, Me.


McLaughlin, William I., State Mutual Building, Worcester, Mass.; a
member of the State Legislature.


McMahon, James H., 17 Main Street, Fitchburg, Mass.


McMahon, Rev. John W. (D. D.), Rector St. Mary’s Church, Charlestown
(Boston), Mass.


McManus, Col. John, 145–147 Westminster Street, Providence, R. I.;
served on the staff of Governor Davis of Rhode Island.


McManus, Gen. Thomas, 333 Main Street, Hartford, Conn.; City Recorder.


McManus, Michael, of McManus & Co., clothiers, 670 Washington Street,
Boston, Mass.


McManus, Rev. Michael T., Rector St. Patrick’s Church, Lawrence, Mass.


McNamee, John H. H., 51 Frost Street, North Cambridge, Mass.


McNeely, Richard, 309 East 42d Street, New York City.


McNeirny, Michael J., Gloucester, Mass.


McNulty, Rev. John J., 92 West 6th Street, South Boston, Mass.


McQuade, E. A., 75–77 Market Street, Lowell, Mass.


McQuaid, Rev. William P., Rector St. James’s Church, Harrison Avenue,
Boston, Mass.


McQueeney, Henry J., of the Post-Office staff, Lawrence, Mass.


McSweeney Edward F., Assistant U. S. Commissioner of Immigration,
Ellis Island, N. Y.


McSweeny, Rev. Edward, Rector St. John’s Roman Catholic Church,
Bangor, Me.


McVey, Edward D., 519 Westford Street, Lowell, Mass.


McVicar, P. A., Auburndale, Mass.


McWilliams, Daniel A., 16 Hamilton Street, New Haven, Conn.


Mahoney, Michael P., 63 East Street, Providence, R. I.


Manning, Timothy T., Springfield, Mass.


Meany, Thomas J., New Bedford, Mass.


Mehegan, Daniel J. (M. D.), 31 Broadway, Taunton, Mass.


Melden, P. M., Rutland, Vt.


Mellen, Hon. W. M. E., ex-Mayor, Chicopee, Mass.


Middleton, Very Rev. Thomas C. (D. D., O. S. A.), Villanova College,
Villanova, Pa.


121Miskella, James, 10 Chase Street, Lowell, Mass.


Molloy, Hugh J., State Normal School, Lowell, Mass.


Moloney, T. W., of Butler & Moloney, counsellors-at-law, Mead Building,
Rutland, Vt.


Mooney, J. G., 154 Exchange Street, Bangor, Me.


Mooney, John A., 353 West 27th Street, New York City.


Moore, Dr. James A., 223 Grand Avenue, New Haven, Conn.


Moore, O’Brien (life member), recently of the Washington (D. C.) bureau
of the St. Louis Republic; publisher of the Daily Gazette, Charleston,
W. Va.


Moran, Col. James, Providence, R. I., commanding the 2d Regiment,
R. I. M.


Moran, Thomas, Jr., Biddeford, Me.


Moran, William, Biddeford, Me.


Morrissey, William T., Portsmouth, N. H.


Morrissey, Very Rev. Andrew (C. S. C.), president of the University of
Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Ind.


Morrison, Francis M., 492 Main Street, Worcester, Mass.


Moseley, Edward A. (President-General of the Society), Secretary of the
Interstate Commerce Commission, Washington, D. C.; born in 1846,
at Newburyport, Mass. He is a member of the Society of Colonial
Wars, a member of the Society of the Sons of the American Revolution,
a member of the Society of the Sons of the Revolution, a
member of the Bunker Hill Monument Society, where his great-grandfather
fought as captain in General Putnam’s Brigade from
Connecticut; has received the thanks of the Commonwealth of
Massachusetts “for distinguished services in the cause of humanity”;
is the great-great-grandson of Col. Jonathan Buck; great-grandson
of Col. Ebenezer Buck; also claims descent from Col. William
Gilmore, of New Hampshire, formerly of Coleraine, Ireland—all
Revolutionary heroes. His father, Edward S. Moseley, of Newburyport,
Mass., is a member of the executive committee of the Massachusetts
Society of the Cincinnati.


Moses, George H., editor The Monitor, Concord, N. H. (U. S. Senator
Chandler’s paper).


Moynihan, Michael A., Portsmouth, N. H.; U. S. Internal Revenue Office.


Mulholland, Gen. St. Clair A., U. S. Pension Agent, Philadelphia, Pa.;
Major, Lieutenant-Colonel, and Colonel, 116th Regiment, Pennsylvania
Volunteers; Brevet Brigadier-General for gallant conduct in
Wilderness campaign; Brevet Major-General for capturing a fort in
front of Petersburg, Va.; Congress medal of honor for services at
battle of Chancellorsville; wounded at Fredericksburg, at the Wilderness,
at Po River, and near Cold Harbor; served two years in
Meagher’s Irish Brigade, and in the last year of the war commanded
the Fourth Brigade, First Division, Second Corps (Hancock’s).


122Mullaney, Rev. John F., Rector Church of St. John the Baptist, Syracuse,
N. Y.


Mullen, Hugh, of Brown, Durrell & Co., Boston, Mass.


Mulligan, B. J., 37 Warren Street, Salem, Mass.


Mundy, Rev. John F., 55 Norfolk Street, Cambridgeport, Mass.


Murphy, Chas. B., Augusta, Me.


Murphy, D. P., Jr., 31 Barclay Street, New York City.


Murphy, Daniel D. (M. D.), Amesbury, Mass.


Murphy, David E., 8 Perley Street, Concord, N. H.


Murphy, Edward J., 327 Main Street, Springfield, Mass.


Murphy, Frank J., lock box 161, Olean, N. Y.


Murphy, Hon. John R., water commissioner, Boston, Mass.; ex-Senator
of Massachusetts.


Murphy, James, real estate and insurance, Essex Street, Lawrence, Mass.


Murphy, James, 42 Westminster Street, Providence, R. I.


Murphy, James R., lawyer, 27 School Street, Boston, Mass.


Murphy, John A., 276 Union Street, Springfield, Mass.; Taylor, Nichols
Company.


Murphy, Thomas, 144 Elm Street, Biddeford, Me.


Murray, Capt. John F., police department, Cambridge, Mass.; residence, 9
Avon Street.


Murray, Frank E., 47 Park Street, Worcester, Mass.


Murray, Joseph T., 131 Pearl Street, Manchester, N. H.


Murray, Michael J., attorney-at-law, 27 School Street, Boston, Mass.


Murray, Thomas Hamilton, Secretary-General of the Society, 1 Beechwood
Avenue, Pawtucket, R. I.; an editor of many years’ experience
on leading daily papers; is the author of numerous articles relating to
early Irish settlers in this country.


Naphen, Hon. Henry F., lawyer, 42 Court Street, Boston, Mass.; has
served as a member of the Boston School Board and as bail commissioner;
was a member of the State Senate 1885–87.


Neagle, Rev. Richard, Malden, Mass.


Neagle, Thomas J., 66 Franklin Street, Haverhill, Mass.


Neilon, John F., Saco, Me.


Nelligan, Rev. John P., Hallowell, Me.


Nicholson, George, 40 Oak Street, Lynn, Mass.


Nolan, Frank F., 224 Thames Street, Newport, R. I.


O’Beirne, Gen. James R., 357 West 117th Street, New York City; in
military life has held every commissioned rank up to Brevet Brigadier-General
of Volunteers; has also been Provost Marshal, D. C.;
Deputy U. S. Marshal, D. C.; Register of Wills, D. C.; editor Sunday
Gazette, Washington, D. C.; Special Agent U. S. Indian affairs; Special
Agent U. S. Treasury Department; Assistant U. S. Commissioner of
Immigration at New York City; is now Commissioner of Charities,
New York City; Past Commander U. S. Medal of Honor Legion.


123O’Brien, Capt. Lawrence, New Haven, Conn.


O’Brien, Charles J., 670 Washington Street, Boston, Mass.


O’Brien, Frank J., of Donigan & O’Brien, clothiers, 322 Essex Street,
Lawrence, Mass.; late a member of the City Council.


O’Brien, Hon. C. D., of the law firm C. D. & Thomas D. O’Brien, 212
Globe Building, St Paul, Minn.; ex-Mayor of St. Paul.


O’Brien, Hon. Morgan J., 42 West 44th Street, New York City; a Justice
of the Supreme Court.


O’Brien, James W., lawyer, 23 Court Street Boston, Mass.


O’Brien, John Boyle, 1 Beacon Street Boston, Mass.


O’Brien, John D., Bank of Minnesota Building, St. Paul, Minn.; of the
law firm Stevens, O’Brien, Cole & Albrecht.


O’Brien, Patrick, 399 South Broadway, Lawrence, Mass.; a member of
the Board of Aldermen.


O’Brien, Rev. James J., Somerville, Mass.; a son of the late Hon. Hugh
O’Brien, Mayor of Boston.


O’Brien, Rev. Michael (life member), Rector St. Patrick’s Church, Lowell,
Mass.


O’Brien, T. Carl, Chamber of Commerce Building, Boston, Mass.


O’Brien, Thomas, Pawtucket R. I.; a member of the Board of Aldermen.


O’Brien, Very Rev. Michael C., 30 Cedar Street Bangor, Me.; Vicar-General
of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland.


O’Byrne, M. A., 370 West 118th Street New York City.


O’Callaghan, John, editorial department Daily Globe, Boston, Mass.


O’Callaghan, P. J., Lawrence, Mass.


O’Callaghan, Rev. Denis, Rector St. Augustine’s Roman Catholic Church,
South Boston, Mass.


O’Connell, Dr. J. C., U. S. Pension Office, Washington, D. C.


O’Connell, J. D., Bureau of Statistics, U. S. Treasury Department, Washington,
D. C.


O’Connell, Timothy, 140 State Street Newburyport, Mass.


O’Connor, Charles A., 135 Lawrence Street, Manchester, N. H.; Member
State Constitutional Convention; two terms State Legislature; ex-Consul
to Yarmouth, N. S.


O’Connor, Charles J., 4 Weybosset Street, Providence, R. I.


O’Connor, D. F., lawyer, 341 Central Street Manchester, N. H.


O’Connor, Dr. Joseph M., 204 Main Street, Biddeford, Me.


O’Connor, Edward DeV., 4 Weybosset Street, Providence, R. I.


O’Connor, Francis, Principal of Commercial College, Kansas City, Kan.


O’Connor, Francis, 531 Washington Street, Boston, Mass.


O’Connor, James, 37 Prospect Street Biddeford, Me.


O’Connor, John D., The Washington Press, 18 Essex Street, Boston, Mass.


O’Connor, Patrick, 99 Mill Street New Haven, Conn.


O’Conor, P. H., Washington Street, Peabody, Mass.


O’Day, Daniel, 128 West 72d Street, New York City.


124O’Doherty, Hon. Matthew, Louisville, Ky.


O’Doherty, John D. (M. D.), 11 Bennett Street, Brighton (Boston), Mass.


O’Doherty, Rev. James, Rector St James’s Roman Catholic Church, Haverhill,
Mass.


O’Donnell, Rev. Philip J., 887 Shawmut Avenue, Boston, Mass.


O’Donoghue, Col. D. O’C., 75 Emery Street Portland, Me.


O’Dowd, Michael, 922 Elm Street, Manchester, N. H.


O’Driscoll, Daniel M., Western Union Telegraph Co., Charleston, S. C.


O’Dwyer, Hon. E. F., 37 West 76th Street, New York City.


O’Farrell, Charles, Province Court, Boston, Mass.


O’Farrell, Col. P. A., Spokane, Wash.


O’Farrell, Patrick, of O’Farrell & Son, lawyers, Solicitors of American and
Foreign Patents, 1425 New York Avenue, Washington, D. C.


O’Farrell, Rev. Denis J., 7 North Square, Boston, Mass.; Rector St.
Stephen’s Church.


O’Flaherty, John (M. D.), Hartford, Conn.; served during the Civil War
in Corcoran’s Legion as a member of the 170th Regiment, N. Y.
Volunteers.


O’Flynn, Thomas F., 25 Grosvenor Street, Worcester, Mass.


O’Hart, John, 1 Woodside, Vernon Avenue, Clontarf, Ireland; author of
O’Hart’s Irish Pedigrees, The Last Princes of Tara, etc.


O’Hearn, William H. (M. D.), 283 Essex Street, Lawrence, Mass.


O’Keefe, Daniel T. (M. D.), 183 Green Street, Jamaica Plain (Boston),
Mass.


O’Keefe, Edmund, Inspector Buildings, New Bedford, Mass.


O’Keefe, John A., lawyer, 25 Exchange Street, Lynn, Mass.; formerly
Principal of the High School, that city; recently candidate for
Attorney-General of Massachusetts.


O’Kennedy, J. J. Karbry (LL.D.), 111 Broadway, New York City.


O’Loughlin, Patrick, lawyer, 23 Court Street, Boston, Mass.


O’Mahoney, Daniel J., Essex Street, Lawrence, Mass.; ex-Superintendent
of Streets.


O’Mahoney, Michael, of Moulton & O’Mahoney, contractors, Lawrence,
Mass.


O’Malley, Rev. John, Chicopee Falls, Mass.


O’Neal, Hon. Emmet, U. S. District Attorney, Florence, Ala.


O’Neil, Hon. Joseph H., Sub-Treasurer of the United States, Boston, Mass.


O’Neil, James, 521 7th Street, N. W., Washington, D. C.


O’Neil, James, Hampshire and Common Streets, Lawrence, Mass.


O’Neil, Rev. J. L. (O. P.), 871 Lexington Avenue, New York City. This
is a life membership standing to the credit of “The Editor of The
Rosary Magazine.” It is so arranged in order that successive editors
of the publication may enjoy the rights and privileges of the society.
Father O’Neil was the first to represent the magazine in the organization.


125O’Neill, Eugene C., 51 Lee Avenue, Newport, R. I.


O’Neill, James L., Franklin Street, Elizabeth, N. J.


O’Neill, John E., 53 Lee Avenue, Newport, R. I.; member of the Board
of Aldermen; cashier New York and Boston Despatch Express
Company.


O’Neill, William F., Chicopee Falls, Mass.


O’Reilly, Luke F., 825 7th Street, N. W., Washington, D. C.


O’Reilly, Rev. James T. (O. S. A.), Rector St. Mary’s Church, Lawrence,
Mass.


O’Reilly, Thomas B., Salt Lake City, Utah.


O’Shea, Dennis, of O’Shea Bros., Laconia, N. H.; Proprietors Laconia
Knitting Company.


O’Shea, J. F. (M. D), 116 Union Street, Lynn, Mass.


O’Sullivan, Hon. Edward F., City Engineer’s Office, Lawrence, Mass.; an
ex-Senator.


O’Sullivan, Humphrey, 105 Butterfield Street, Lowell, Mass.


O’Sullivan, James, of O’Sullivan Bros., Merrimack Street, Lowell, Mass.


O’Sullivan, James T., real estate and insurance, Lawrence, Mass.; ex-City
Marshal.


Palmer, Rev. Edmund B., 4 Peter Parley Street, Jamaica Plain (Boston),
Mass.; great-grandson of Barnabas Palmer, of Rochester, N. H., who
was born in Cork or Limerick, 1725, and who emigrated from there
with two brothers, and enlisted under Sir William Pepperill. Barnabas
sailed from Portsmouth, N. H., one of the force of 3000 men, 1745;
and on the Isle of Cape Breton, under Fort Louisburg, left his right
arm. Subsequently he settled in Rochester, N. H., married, had
fourteen children, and was a member of the General Court of New
Hampshire that ratified the Constitution of the United States.


Patterson, Rev. Geo. J., Rector St Vincent’s Church, South Boston, Mass.


Penney, William M., 34 West 26th Street, New York City.


Pepper, Rev. George W. (Methodist), 1021 East Madison Avenue, Cleveland,
Ohio; ex-U. S. Consul to Milan.


Perry, Dr. Charles, P. O. Box 2977, New York City.


Phalen, Rev. Frank L., pastor Unitarian Church, Concord, N. H.; chaplain
of the First N. H. Regiment, U. S. Volunteers (war with Spain).


Phelan, Edmund, 32 Adams Street, Roxbury (Boston), Mass.


Phelan, Hon. John J., recently Connecticut’s Secretary of State, Bridgeport,
Conn.


Phelan, Rev. J., Rector St. Mary’s Roman Catholic Church, Rock Valley,
Iowa; recently editor of the Northwestern Catholic.


Philpott, Anthony J., editorial department of the Daily Globe, Boston,
Mass.


Piggott, Michael, lawyer, 1634 Vermont Street, Quincy, Ill.


Pigott, Hon. James P., 179 Church Street, New Haven, Conn.; ex-Member
of Congress.


126Plunkett, Thomas, 257 6th Street, East Liverpool, Ohio.


Power, James D., 2007 G Street, N. W., Washington, D. C.


Pulleyn, John J., Treasurer Catholic Club, 171 West 94th Street, New
York City.


Quinlan, Prof. Francis J. (M. D., LL.D.), 33 West 38th Street, New
York City; President New York Celtic Medical Society; late surgeon
in the U. S. Indian service.


Quinn, Hon. John, 66 Broadway, New York City.


Quinn, William H., Hallowell, Me.


Quinton, Capt. William, 7th U. S. Infantry, 35 Kneeland Street, Boston,
Mass.


Radikin, Edward F., of Radikin, Cooney & McNulty, dry-goods merchants,
Pawtucket, R. I.


Rafferty, Dr. James J., Worcester, Mass.


Ratigan, John B., lawyer, Walker Building, Worcester, Mass.


Reardon, Edmund, 24 Commerce Street, Boston, Mass.


Reardon, J. P. (D. D. S.), Central Building, Lawrence, Mass.


Reddy, Hon. W. F., 23 Schafer Building, Richmond, Va.; a member of
the State Legislature.


Reed, Henry E., 162 2d Street, Portland, Ore.; manager Catholic Sentinel.


Regan, W. P., architect, Lawrence, Mass.


Reilly, James C., Clement Building, Rutland, Vt.


Reilly, John M., Box 122, Columbus, Ind.


Reilly, W. F. B. (D. D. S.), 72 Merrimack Street, Haverhill, Mass.


Rice, James D., 39 Hammond Street, Bangor, Me.


Rice, John H., Eastern Trust and Banking Co., Bangor, Me.


Riordan, John H., 136 Fort Hill Avenue, Lowell, Mass.


Robinson, Thomas W., Main Street, Pawtucket, R. I.


Roche, James Jeffrey (LL.D.), editor of The Pilot, 630 Washington Street,
Boston, Mass.; author of a Story of the Filibusters, Life of John
Boyle O’Reilly, Songs and Satires, Ballads of Blue Water, and
other works.


Rock, Thomas H., Main Street, Pawtucket, R. I.


Rodwaye, Alfred J., 44 Kingston Street, Boston, Mass.; a member of
the Jacobite Order of the White Rose; Fellow of the Royal Historical
Society, England; Fellow of the Royal Society of Northern Antiquarians,
Denmark; member of the Royal Italian Heraldic Academy.


Ronayne, Thomas H., lawyer, 5 Beekman Street, New York City.


Rooney, John J., of Rooney & Spence, customs brokers, 66, 68, and 70
Beaver Street, New York City.


Roosevelt, Hon. Theodore, recently Assistant Secretary of the Navy,
Washington, D. C.


Ruggles, Henry Stoddard (ninth American generation), Wakefield, Mass.;
a member of the Sons of the Revolution and of the Sons of the
American Revolution.


127Rush, John, 16th and Farnham Streets, Omaha, Neb.


Ryan, Felix L., 47 Main Street, Bangor, Me.


Ryan, John, 789 Westfield Street, Lowell, Mass.


Ryan, John J., lawyer, 204 Merrimack Street, Haverhill, Mass.


Ryan, John J., 59 South Broadway, Lawrence, Mass.


Ryan, Patrick H., 789 Westfield Street, Lowell, Mass.


Ryan, Philip, 79 Portland Street, Worcester, Mass.


Ryan, Richard, Rutland Vt.


Ryan, Sylvester A., 565 Chestnut Street, Springfield, Mass.


Sanders, Col. C. C., Gainesville, Ga.; President of the State Banking Co.;
commanded the 24th Georgia Regiment in the Civil War; grandson
of an Irishman; his regiment received the famous charges of
Meagher’s Irish Brigade at Fredericksburg.


Scanlan, John F., 4333 Indiana Avenue, Chicago, Ill.


Sexton, Sergt. Patrick G., Augusta, Me.


Shahan, Rev. Thomas H., Malden, Mass.


Shahan, Rev. Thomas J. (D. D.), Catholic University, Washington, D. C.


Shanahan, Rev. Edmund T. (Ph.D., D. D.), Catholic University, Washington,
D. C.


Shea, C. J., of Shea & Donnelly, Lynn, Mass.


Shea, John T., 119 3d Street, East Cambridge, Mass.; member of the
Board of Aldermen.


Shea, M. J., Piedmont Street, Canton, Ohio.


Shea, Richard J., City Hall, Lawrence, Mass.; clerk of the Council; City
Auditor.


Sheahan, Dennis H., lawyer, Providence, R. I.; ex-clerk of the Rhode
Island House of Representatives.


Sheehan, John A., Pickering Building, Manchester, N. H.


Sheran, Hugh F., 46 Charter Street, Boston, Mass.; formerly of the City
Assessors’ Department.


Sheridan, Bernard H., principal of the Oliver School, Lawrence, Mass.


Shortell, Joseph P., 28 Cabot Street, Salem, Mass.


Slattery, James A., Pawtucket, R. I.; member of the School Committee.


Slattery, William, Holyoke, Mass.


Sloane, Prof. William M., Columbia College, New York City; author of
Life of Napoleon.


Smith, Dr. Thomas B., Wyman’s Exchange, Lowell, Mass.


Smith, Joseph, Secretary of the Police Commission, Lowell, Mass.; a
clear, vigorous writer and author of many articles of an ethnological
and historical nature.


Smith, Rev. Thomas M., East Liverpool, Ohio.


Smith, William H., 18 Oak Street, Hartford, Conn.


Smyth, Eneas, Brookline, Mass.


Smyth, Rev. Hugh J., New Bedford, Mass.


Smyth, Rev. Hugh P., Rector St. Joseph’s Church, Roxbury (Boston), Mass.


128Somers, James F., 83 West 132d Street, New York City.


Somers, P. E., manufacturer, 17 Hermon Street, Worcester, Mass.


Somers, Philip M., 349 Broadway, New York City.


Somers, Thomas F., 349 Broadway, New York City.


Spillane, Jere B., associate editor The Music Trade Review; editor The
Keynote; 3 East 14th Street, New York City.


St. Clair, Sam C., civil engineer, 519 Court Street, Reading, Pa.


St. Gaudens, Augustus, sculptor, New York City.


Steele, N. C. (M. D.), Chattanooga, Tenn.; four generations removed from
Ireland.


Stevens, Walter F., druggist, 176 Winter Street, Haverhill, Mass.


Sullivan, Eugene M., Chicopee, Mass.


Sullivan, Hon. John H., President of the Columbian Trust Company, 20
Meridian Street, East Boston, Mass.; a Massachusetts Senator, 1888;
a member of the Governor’s Council, 1895, 1896, 1898.


Sullivan, Hon. M. B., Dover, N. H., ex-State Senator.


Sullivan, James O., 245 Main Street, Biddeford, Me.


Sullivan, Jeremiah O., 431 Purchase Street, New Bedford, Mass.


Sullivan, John D., 113 Palm Street, Nashua, N. H.


Sullivan, John J., 140 Chestnut Street, Nashua, N. H.


Sullivan, H. F. (M. D.), Oak Street, Lawrence, Mass.


Sullivan, M. J., of Buckley, McCormack & Sullivan, furniture salesrooms,
Lawrence, Mass.


Sullivan, Patrick F., of Sullivan Bros., 9 School Street, Boston, Mass.


Sullivan, Patrick H., Opera Block, Manchester, N. H.


Sullivan, Roger G., 803 Elm Street, Manchester, N. H.


Sullivan, T. Russell, 10 Charles Street, Boston, Mass.; a descendant of
Gov. James Sullivan of Massachusetts.


Sullivan, Timothy P., Concord, N. H.; furnished granite from his New
Hampshire quarries for the new National Library Building, Washington,
D. C.


Sullivan, William J. (M. D.), Lawrence, Mass.


Supple, Rev. James N., Rector St Francis de Sales’s Church, Charlestown
(Boston), Mass.


Swords, Col. Henry Leonard, The Florence, 4th Avenue and 18th Street,
New York City.


Swords, Joseph Forsyth, 250 Main Street, Hartford, Conn.; a descendant
of Cornet George Swords, one of the A. D. 1649 officers in the service
of Kings Charles I and Charles II in Ireland. Joseph F. Swords is a
member of the Sons of the American Revolution and a life member
of the Connecticut Historical Society. He is of the fourth American
generation from Francis Dawson Swords, graduate of Trinity College,
Dublin, 1750, who was exiled from Ireland, 1760, and who served in
the Patriot Army throughout the war of the Revolution.


Tally, Philip, 353 Westminster Street, Providence, R. I.


129Teeling, Rev. Arthur J., Permanent Rector St. Mary’s Roman Catholic
Church, Lynn, Mass.


Tennian, Rev. John C., Rector Church of the Assumption, Potter’s Avenue,
Providence, R. I.


Thomas, Robert J., Water Department, Lowell, Mass.


Thompson, Robert Ellis (Ph.D., S. T. D.), President Central High School,
Philadelphia, Pa.; recently a professor in the University of Pennsylvania.


Tigh, Frederick (M. D.), 132 High Street, Newburyport, Mass.


Timmins, Patrick J. (M. D.), 487 Broadway, South Boston, Mass.


Tobin, Capt. John M., Box 524, Washington, D. C.; a commissioned
officer during the war in the Ninth Massachusetts Regiment (The
“Irish Ninth.”)


Toland, M. A., The Pilot Office, 630 Washington Street, Boston, Mass.


Toomey, Daniel J., manager Donahoe’s Magazine, Washington Street,
Boston, Mass.


Toomey, R. A., with Forbes & Wallace, Springfield, Mass.


Travers, Frank C., President of Travers Brothers Co., 107 Duane Street,
New York City, cordage manufacturers.


Treanor, J. 0., 211 Union Street, Nashville, Tenn.


Tuckey, James F., 26 Grove Street, New Haven, Conn.


Vail, Roger, associate editor of The Irish Standard, Minneapolis, Minn.


Vance, Thomas F., Main Street, Pawtucket, R. I.; attorney-at-law.


Waldron, Thomas F., 74 Washington Street, Haverhill, Mass.


Wallace, Rev. T. H., Lewiston, Me.


Waller, Hon. Thomas M., ex-Governor of Connecticut; member of the
law firm of Waller & Wagner, 15 Wall Street, New York City.


Walsh, Hon. Patrick, publisher of The Chronicle, Augusta, Ga.; Mayor of
Augusta; recently United States Senator.


Walsh, James A., Lewiston, Me.; agent Lewiston Bleachery.


Walsh, Michael (LL.D., Ph.D.), editor of The Sunday Democrat, 32
Park Row, New York City.


Walsh, William P., 247 Water Street, Augusta, Me.


Ward, Edward, Kennebunk, Me.


Ward, John, Kennebunk, Me.


Ward, Michael J., Hotel Ilkley, Huntington Avenue, Boston, Mass.


Ward, Patrick, 13 Casco Street, Portland, Me.


Weadock, Hon. Thomas A. E., lawyer, Detroit, Mich.; member of the 52d
and of the 53d Congress.


Welsh, John P., Congress Square Hotel, Portland, Me.


Whalen, Maurice H., 8 Vetronile Street, Biddeford, Me.


Whalen, Nicholas J., 97 Merrimack Street, Manchester, N. H.


Willis, John R., 1164 Elm Street, Manchester, N. H.


Wilson, William Power, lawyer, Exchange Building, 53 State Street, Boston,
Mass.


Winters, Lawrence, 350 West 120th Street, New York City.


130Woods, John J., 54 Federal Street, Newburyport, Mass.


Woods, Robert J., treasurer University Settlement, 6 Rollins Street, Boston,
Mass.


Woods, William S., City Solicitor, Taunton, Mass.


Wright, John B., editor of The Gazette, Haverhill, Mass.


Wynne, Peter, 301 East 105th Street, New York City.




NECROLOGY.




Jeremiah W. Coveney.


Born in Cambridge, Mass., 1840; during Civil War enlisted in 28th
Massachusetts Regiment; was successively commissioned Lieutenant, Captain,
Major, and Lieutenant-Colonel; seriously wounded in 1864, while
Brigade Inspector of the Second Brigade, First Division, Second Corps;
member of the Massachusetts Legislature; surveyor of the port of Boston;
private secretary to Governor Russell; postmaster of Boston; admitted to
the society March 29, 1897; died in Cambridge, Mass., April 29, 1897.


Richard Worsam Meade, 3d.


Born in New York City, 1837; appointed Midshipman Oct 2, 1850;
first sea service in sloop-of-war Preble, 1851; warrant as Master and commission
as Lieutenant, 1858; Lieutenant-Commander, 1862; was a Commander
in 1870; commissioned Captain in 1880; became a Commodore
in 1892, and Rear-Admiral in 1894; admitted to the society at its organization,
Jan. 20, 1897, and chosen President-General of the same, being
the first to hold the office; died in Washington, D. C., May 4, 1897.


Laurence J. Smith.


Born in County Meath, Ireland, 1850; member of City Council, Lowell,
Mass., 1881–86; member Lowell Public Library Board; was made
a License Commissioner of Lowell, 1894; Police Commissioner, 1895;
attained the highest rank in the Foresters of America, having been Supreme
Chief Ranger of the United States; admitted to the society Feb. 27,
1897; died in Lowell, Mass., Oct. 23, 1897.



131

Owen A. Galvin.




Born in Boston, Mass., 1852; admitted to the bar, 1876; elected to
the Massachusetts House of Representatives, 1881; a State Senator from
Boston during 1882, 1883, and 1884; candidate for President of the Senate,
1884; candidate for Mayor of Boston, 1889; was U. S. District
Attorney, 1887–89; admitted to the society July 15, 1897; died in Boston,
Mass., Dec. 18, 1897.


Charles B. Gafney.


Born in Ossipee, N. H., Sept. 17, 1843; enlisted Sept 27, 1862, as
Second Lieutenant of Co. B, 13th New Hampshire Volunteers; promoted
to the rank of First Lieutenant June 1, 1863, and to that of Captain, May
30, 1865; severely wounded in the thigh at Petersburg, June 13, 1864;
served as aid to General Ripley, General McCullom, and General Roulston;
was graduated from the law school at Columbia University, Washington,
D. C., in 1868; was Clerk to the National Senate Committee on Naval
Affairs for eight years; went to Rochester, N. H., in 1871 and formed a
law partnership with Joseph H. Worcester, which firm became Worcester,
Gafney & Snow. Mr. Gafney was private secretary to Hon. Frank Jones
during the latter’s presidency of the Boston & Maine Railroad; in April,
1896, Mr. Gafney was appointed Judge of Probate for Strafford County by
Governor Busiel, to succeed Judge Young; admitted to the society Feb. 9,
1897; died in Rochester, N. H., Jan. 25, 1898.


Hon. John Cochrane.


Descendant of an officer who served under Washington; President
of the N. Y. Society of the Cincinnati, 7 East 62d Street, New York City;
from 1857 to 1861 was a Congressman from New York City; was commissioned
Colonel of the First U. S. Chasseurs, June 11, 1861; Brigadier-General
of Volunteers, July 17, 1862; in 1864 was nominated at Cleveland,
O., for Vice-President of the United States; had previously been Attorney-General
of New York State; admitted to the society on its organization,
Jan. 20, 1897; died in New York City, Oct. 7, 1897.


Andrew Athy.


Born Jan. 1, 1832, in County Galway, Ireland, and came to this country
at the age of sixteen years; located in Worcester, Mass., about 1850;
filled public offices of trust and responsibility in Worcester almost continuously
during more than thirty years. He was first elected to the Common
Council in 1865, and served thirteen years. He represented his city in
132the Legislature of 1874 and 1875. He was a member of the Board of Aldermen
from 1881 to 1886, and was a member of the commission to build the new
City Hall, having been elected by the City Council. He ran for mayor in
1886 as a Democratic candidate, and polled a surprisingly large vote, and
in 1891, 1892, and 1893 he was chairman of the Democratic City Committee.
He was a member of the old Jackson Guards at the time of disbandment,
during the Know-Nothing administration of Governor Gardner;
admitted to the society as a life member, March 5, 1898; died in Worcester,
Mass., May 15, 1898.


Capt. John Drum,


the hero of Santiago, was born in Ireland, May 1, 1840. Coming to
this country at an early age, he went to California, and at the outbreak of
the Civil War entered the armies of the Union. At the close of hostilities
he obtained a commission as Lieutenant in the regular army. He did
gallant service in the various Indian wars, especially in the southwest. In
1894 he was appointed Military Instructor in St. Francis Xavier’s College,
New York City. At the close of the detail he seriously considered the
advisability of retiring from the service, but the destruction of the battleship
Maine put an end to the idea. He immediately joined his regiment at Fort
Sill and subsequently landed on Cuban soil, where he fell in the gallant
charge at Santiago. Captain Drum has been a member of this society since
its inauguration and took a deep interest in Irish historical matters. He
was buried with military honors in Boston, Sept 3, 1898.



133

PAPERS READ BEFORE THE SOCIETY.




Since its organization the society has been favored with the following
original papers:—


Thomas Hamilton Murray, editor Daily Sun, Lawrence, Mass.:—“The
Irish Bacons who Settled at Dedham, Mass., in 1640,” one of whose
descendants, John Bacon, was killed April 19, 1775, in the fight at West
Cambridge (battle of Lexington).


Hon. John C. Linehan, State Insurance Commissioner, Concord, N. H.,
on “The Seizure of the Powder at Fort William and Mary,” by Maj. John
Sullivan and his associates, some of which powder was later dealt out to
the patriots at Bunker Hill.


Edward J. Brandon, City Clerk, Cambridge, Mass., a paper on the
“Battle of Lexington, Concord, and Cambridge,” during which he read a
list of Irish names borne by Minute-Men or militia in the battle of the
nineteenth of April, 1775.


Joseph Smith, Secretary of the Police Commission, Lowell, Mass., on
“The Irishman, Ethnologically Considered.”


Dennis Harvey Sheahan, Providence, R. I., ex-Clerk of the Rhode
Island House of Representatives:—“The Need of an Organization such
as the A. I. H. S., and its Scope.”


Thomas Hamilton Murray:—“Matthew Watson, an Irish Settler of
Barrington, R. I., 1722.”




ADDRESSES DELIVERED.




Addresses have been delivered before the society, or at meetings
held under its auspices, by the following:—








Hon. Thomas J. Gargan, Boston, Mass.


Hon. Hugh J. Carroll, Pawtucket, R. I.


Hon. John C. Linehan, Concord, N. H.


Charles A. De Courcey, Lawrence, Mass.


Paul B. Du Chaillu, the traveler and author.


Osborne Howes, Boston, Mass.


James Cunningham, Portland, Me.


Robert A. Woods, Boston, Mass.


Gen. James R. O’Beirne, New York City.


134John Mackinnon Robertson, London, England.


P. J. Flatley, Boston, Mass.


Rev. John J. McCoy, Chicopee, Mass.


Rev. Edward McSweeney, Bangor, Me.


Rev. P. Farrelly, Central Falls, R. I.


James Jeffrey Roche, Boston, Mass.


Thomas B. Lawler, Worcester, Mass.


M. J. Harson, Providence, R. I.


Joseph Smith, Lowell, Mass.


Dennis H. Sheahan, Providence, R. I.


Rear-Admiral Belknap, U. S. N. (retired), Boston, Mass.


Hon. Patrick A. Collins, ex-U. S. Consul-General to London.


Judge Wauhope Lynn, New York City.


Capt. Edward O’Meagher Condon, Washington, D. C.


Hon. Thomas Dunn English, Newark, N. J.


Dr. Thomas Addis Emmet, New York City.


E. Benj. Andrews, president of Brown University.


Prof. Alonzo Williams, Brown University, Providence, R. I.


Rev. Arthur J. Teeling, Lynn, Mass.


Rev. T. P. Linehan, Biddeford, Me.


Mayor Tilton, Portsmouth, N. H.


C. H. Clary, Hallowell, Me.


John Griffin, Portsmouth, N. H.


James F. Brennan, Peterborough, N. H.


Rev. James A. Flynn, Biddeford, Me.


Rev. John J. McGinnis, Sanford, Me.


Bernard Corr, Boston, Mass.


Dr. W. D. Collins, Haverhill, Mass.


John F. Doyle, New York City.


W. J. Kelly, Kittery, Me.


Dr. W. H. A. Lyons, Portsmouth, N. H.


James H. McGlinchey, Portland, Me.









135

INDEX.















TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES




    

  1. Silently corrected typographical errors.

    
    2. 

  2. Retained anachronistic and non-standard spellings as printed.
    
    3.