Chapter VII: Part 7

Andrew Lewis served as a major in the regiment commanded by Washington in the Ohio campaign of 1754 and 1755. He served with valor in the French and Indian wars, and was highly regarded by Washington, at whose suggestion he was appointed a brigadier-general in the Continental army. Four of his brothers served in the Revolutionary War, one of them, Col. Charles Lewis, being killed at Point Pleasant. No better evidence of the value which Virginia placed on the services of this Irishman could be wished than the fact that she has deemed his effigy worthy to stand for all time beside the immortal group of Henry, Mason, Marshall, Nelson and Jefferson, which surrounds the heroic equestrian statue of Washington in the Capitol Square at Richmond. This celebrated work of Crawford’s is pronounced by the critics to be one of the finest in the world.

Descendants of John Lewis, the father of Gen. Andrew Lewis, are numerous in the state at this day. Some of them have been very distinguished men: John F. Lewis, who died recently, was lieutenant-governor of Virginia, and a senator of the United States. Lunsford L. Lewis, his half-brother, was president of the supreme court of appeals of Virginia for twelve years, retiring from that office a few years ago. Dr. Lewis Wheat is a well-known practising physician of Richmond. Judge John Lewis Cochran, whose mother was a great-granddaughter of John Lewis, father of Gen. Andrew Lewis, and whose great-grandfather, with his wife, _née_ Susanna Donnelly, came to America about 1742, was a gallant soldier in the Confederate army, and a distinguished lawyer and judge. James C. Cochran, brother to the foregoing, was a colonel of Confederate militia in the late war. Henry King Cochran served as a surgeon in the Confederate service throughout the war. William Lynn Cochran was a major in the Confederate service, and a lawyer by profession. Howard Peyton Cochran was a captain in the same service. It is claimed that there were one hundred and five of the Lewis family in the service of the Confederate states.

Another Irishman who came to Virginia and left his impress was John Daly Burk, of Petersburg, Va. He was born in Ireland, and educated at Trinity college, Dublin. Because of his political opinions and affiliations he was compelled to leave the country (1797) while yet a student at college. He first tried his fortune in Boston, and afterwards in New York. But he received no encouragement. His love for Ireland and his ardent democracy made against his success at the North, and he finally came to Virginia. Here he became the friend of Jefferson and John Randolph, both of whom encouraged the brilliant young refugee.

He was a lawyer, poet, dramatist and historian, and was undoubtedly one of the most accomplished men in the state during his day. His history of Virginia in four volumes was the first comprehensive history of the state written, and is regarded as one of the best ever compiled. He also wrote “A History of the Late War in Ireland,” with an account of the United Irish Association, from the first meeting in Belfast, to the landing of the French at Killala (8 vols., 1779, Philadelphia). Before he completed the fourth volume of the history of Virginia he was killed in a duel with a French gentleman at Campbell’s Bridge, Chesterfield county, Virginia, on the 11th of April, 1808.

The Preston family in Virginia is a distinguished one. Its propositus John Preston was born in Ireland, and came to Virginia in 1735. He married Elizabeth Patton before coming to America. She was a sister of Col. James Patton, also of Irish birth. The latter was killed in Virginia by the Indians in 1753, leaving two daughters, from whom descended John Floyd and John B. Floyd, governors of Virginia; Hon. James D. Breckinridge of Louisville, Ky., and Col. Wm. P. Anderson of the United States army.

John Preston left one son, William, and four daughters, from whom are descended some of the most distinguished men in American history. Dr. R. A. Brock in his “Virginia and Virginians” says, “Scarce another American family has numbered as many prominent and honored representatives as that of the yeoman-founded Preston, with its collateral lines and alliances.” In support of this claim he continues: “It has furnished the National government a vice-president [Hon. John Cabell Breckinridge], has been represented in several of the executive departments and in both branches of congress. It has given Virginia five governors—McDowell, Campbell, Preston and the two Floyds—and to Kentucky, Missouri and California, one each, in Governors Jacobs, B. Gratz Brown and Miller; Thomas Hart Benton, John J. Crittenden, William C. and William Ballard Preston, leading moulders of public sentiment; the Breckinridges, Dr. Robert J. and William L., distinguished theologians of Kentucky; Professors Holmes, Venable and Cabell, of the University of Virginia, besides other distinguished educators.”

Nor is their battle-roll less glorious. It is claimed that more than a thousand of this family and its connections served in the contending armies during the late Civil War. Among the leaders were Generals Wade Hampton, Albert Sydney Johnston, Joseph E. Johnston, John B. Floyd, John C. Breckinridge and John S. and William Preston. When it is stated that besides the names enumerated, the family is connected with those of Baldwin, Blair, Bowyer, Brown, Buchanan, Bruce, Cabell, Carrington, Christian, Cocke, Flournoy, Gamble, Garland, Gilmer, Gibson, Grattan, Hart, Henry, Hughes, Howard, Lee, Lewis, Madison, Marshall, Mason, Massie, Mayo, Parker, Payne, Peyton, Pleasants, Pope, Radford, Read, Redd, Rives, Seddon, Sheffey, Taylor, Thompson, Trigg, Venable, Watkins, Ward, Watts, Winston, Wickliff, among many others, as well-esteemed, some idea may be formed of its mental characteristics and social influence.

Judge Peter Lyons was born in Ireland, and came to Virginia in his early life. He was made a judge of the general court in 1779, becoming also a judge of the first court of appeals. He served as such until his death, July 30, 1809. As a jurist he ranked high. Among his colleagues on the bench were Chancellor Wythe, Edmund Pendleton, St. George Tucker and Spencer Roane. His descendants for several generations were eminent in the professions, and some of them are still living in Virginia. James Lyons, Jr., who was a colonel on the staff of Governor O’Ferrall, is the oldest male descendant in the direct line. He married a daughter of William Wirt Henry, grandson of Patrick Henry, and by her has several children living.

Another judge of the supreme court of appeals was William C. Burks, of whose ancestors little is known except that they were Irish. He died recently, mourned by the profession which he had so signally adorned by the profundity of his juridical learning and the simplicity and spotlessness of his life. His opinions are as highly regarded as those of any man who sat upon the bench of that court within a half century. He was of weak frame and never enjoyed good health—“a creaking door,” was the expression he commonly used to indicate himself—and never held public office other than that mentioned. Yet his capacity for labor was truly remarkable. He was one of the early presidents of the Virginia Bar Association, which he was largely instrumental in organizing; and until the time of his death was one of the editors of the _Virginia Law Register_, the organ of the profession in this state.

Perhaps the ablest Irish lawyer in the state was Thomas J. Michie, whose reputation extended throughout Virginia as a brilliant wit as well as able jurist. Among the judges of the present supreme court of appeals of Virginia is John W. Riely, who was a major in the Confederate service, and whose ancestors were Irish. The speaker of the House of Delegates, session of 1897–8, was John F. Ryan. A late governor of Virginia was Philip W. McKinney, of Irish descent. His successor was Charles T. O’Ferrall, a man of Irish descent. Among the state officers of Irish descent may be mentioned P. H. O’Bannon, public printer; John Bell Bigger, clerk of the House of Delegates; Major B. W. Lynn, superintendent of the penitentiary, and the writer (Secretary of State Lawless), both of whose parents were born in Galway, and came to America after the “black famine.”

Gen. William Mahone was a descendant of an Irish progenitor who settled in Virginia in colonial days. Judge Anthony Kiely is of Irish lineage, and you know his history. After his appointment as minister to Austria by Mr. Cleveland, and the indication on the part of Francis Joseph that he was at Vienna _persona non grata_, Mr. Kiely was made one of the judges of the international court at Cairo, Egypt, and became its president.

Dr. Hunter McGuire, who was medical director of Stonewall Jackson’s corps and the intimate friend of that great soldier, is of Irish lineage. His great-grandfather, Ed. McGuire, left Ordfest, County Kerry, in 1756, and settled in Winchester, Va.

The Dooleys, Pattersons, Glennans, Kevills, Barrys, O’Connors, Fitzgeralds, Keans, Rheas, Kendricks, Kellys, McChesneys, Goolricks, Wards, Higgins, Doyles, Lawlers, Rafters, Ferriters, McKenneys, McCrackens, Youngs, Coles, Macgills, O’Bannons, Irvings, Irwins, Nolans, O’Sullivans, Sullivans, Walshs, O’Neills, Kanes, Murphys, Ryans and a hundred others, came largely during the present century. Perhaps most of these families left Ireland in the great exodus which followed the famine of 1846–’47. Certainly Virginia received about that time the greatest number of immigrants who, unfortunately for themselves and for their race, have preferred for the most part to lead urban lives. But they and their progeny have not failed to leave the impress of their character upon the people among whom their lot was cast.

And it is not too much to say that in the years to come, when, in the expiring hours of the twentieth century, some chronicler pauses to consider the virtues and deeds of Virginians, he will dwell in loving admiration upon the talents and traits of those of Irish blood, who have already made bricks without straw, and won the confidence and esteem of their neighbors.

They are a people whose genius under the ægis of the Constitution enjoys here that freedom of thought and liberty of action which have been denied their fathers for eight hundred years—who love the Republic and its institutions next only to their God, and who read their own happiness and the fulfilment of all their earthly hopes in the increasing and enduring glory thereof.

Capt. Page McCarty, of Richmond, Va., writes: “I learned something of Irish-Americans from the papers of my father, governor of Florida at one time, and member of congress in 1839. The ‘Scotch-Irish’ appear to have established a theory of pre-emption or monopoly, and of that I learned but little. O’Brien, of General Washington’s staff, was from Alexandria, Va. Colonels McClanahan and Andrew Wagoner and Maj. Richard McCarty, of the Revolution, were descendants of a small group of Irishmen who named the little town of Kinsale on the Potomac about 1662. Daniel McCarty, speaker of the Virginia House of Burgesses 1715, was of this set of people, and grandson of McCarty, of Clenclare, though I see that some of his kin are trying to Scotch-Irish him also. The main immigration of Irish was through Philadelphia and Charleston, S. C., and they penetrated to the mountains with the most adventuresome pioneers and met in the valley that extends from the Peaks of Otter to the headwaters of the Tennessee river.”

MR. BERNARD CORR,
BOSTON, MASS.
]

MR. EDMUND REARDON
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
]

HON. PAUL KENDRICKEN,
BOSTON, MASS.
]

POLICE CAPT. JOHN F. MURRAY,
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
]

FOUR MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY.

THE WHISTLERS—A FAMILY ILLUSTRIOUS IN WAR AND PEACE.

BY JOSEPH SMITH, LOWELL, MASS.

The following sketch of the Whistler family appeared originally in the _Illustrated American_ of May 25, 1895, and is reproduced with some few slight emendations, because it is germane to the work of the American-Irish Historical Society. It was the intention of the writer to make a brief sketch of the famous artist, whose birthplace was at that time the subject of much amusing discussion, but he found the antecedents of the artist such interesting personalities and their history so romantic, that he amplified his first sketch into a brief story of the family.

Major Whistler’s connection with the beginnings of Lowell, Mass., led the writer further afield and gave him material that may at some future time be added to the literature of the society. It is sufficient to say here that this splendid seat of American industry—Lowell—was conceived, founded, cradled and fostered by the grandson of an Irishman and the husband of that grandson’s sister, Patrick Tracy Jackson and Francis E. Lowell, from the latter of whom it received its name.

* * * * *

The French savant, Guèrinsen, may or may not have been scientifically correct when he wrote, “Genius is a disease of the nerves;” but certainly the eccentricities of genius point too frequently to neurotic degenerations, to aberrations from the normal, and to symptoms that are “conceived in spleen and born in madness.” Modern instances of this truism are on every hand. There is that in James Abbot McNeill Whistler, for instance, which marks him distinctly as standing among the eccentrics of genius; and which, in his splenetic vagaries, shows him to be hovering on the borderland of madness.

While his affectations in art, his “harmonies,” “symphonies” and “arrangements” in blue and gold, and gray and green, and so on _ad nauseam_, might seem to set him down among the Barnums of art, with the poseurs of the æsthetic, Whistler’s work shows him to be a man of undoubted genius, a most uncomfortable and irritating genius perhaps, but still a genius whose brilliancy is flawed by his aggressive ego-mania. When we have discounted all the theatrical “isms” in which he frames his art, we are compelled to recognize the fact that he is an artist whose work will live. No ordinary man, no merely artistic charlatan, could make the impression on the age that Whistler has done. Whistler is a writer of deliciously clever and disagreeable things; he has a literary quality whose acidity has etched his personality on this decade; he is a brilliant talker, overflowing with quirk and bon mot, satire and repartee, alert and resourceful in the battle of wits, and he is easily the central figure at the social functions he honors, outshining all other lights, out-roaring other lions, a meteor among the stars.

While English in his remote racial root, his forbears lived long enough in Ulster to extract from the soil and atmosphere of Ireland that Celtic wit and pugnacity, that brilliance and originality so characteristic of the man. The transplantation of his immediate ancestors to American soil added to the mental celerity and nervous alertness of his fiber, giving to his personality that Gaelic flavor which the English-speaking races acquire under our skies in sloughing off the heavy heritage of insularity of the land of fogs.

Great talents are seldom transmitted from one generation to another, yet certain characteristics which are physiological rather than psychological, may mark the branches of a common family tree. Whistler owes his intellectual qualities to his racial fiber, to his mixture of blood and the changing environments of his ancestors; they are in fact highly developed racial characteristics, while his artistic instincts—raised in him to the plane of genius—are a family inheritance. His wit, humor and mental dynamics he owes to his Irish fathers; his merciless mockery, his acidulous aggressiveness, his satirical sardonism, are the Calvinism of his Scottish strain run to seed and sprouting in the soil of Bohemia: a sparkling champagne, which has been spoiled with vinegar.

The son of a great father, standing in the glare of a great light, has his own brilliance minimized and is deprived of that natural light and shade so necessary to his artistic proportion. If he be great himself, his contemporaries will institute comparisons that are ever odious, unless their greatness be in different directions. On the other hand, when the son is great his glory only adds to the aureole of the great father.

Whistler’s father was a famous man in his day; but time has done for the father what it has yet to do for the son—it has stilled the voices of contemporary panegyric and detraction, it has estimated his true worth, measured and ascertained his proportion and given him a definite historical verdict.

A glance at Whistler’s antecedents will be of interest to all, for they have added to the glory of the Republic and given it as loyal service as any one family in its history.

The Whistler family is remotely of English origin, and it was Ralph, son of Hugh Whistler of Goring, in Oxfordshire, who founded its Irish branch, removing to Ulster as a tenant of one of those predacious London guilds which exchanged its guineas for the broad acres which that thrifty monarch, James Stuart, had despoiled from the O’Neills and O’Donnells of Ulster.

The first Whistler on American soil was John, a scion of this Ulster settler of the Plantation. While little that is definite is known of this branch, the internal evidence forces us to conclude that it was one of some social and political importance, for it was on terms of intimacy with the landed proprietors of the province. The character of this John indicates that whatever the religious and political opinions of the Irish Whistlers may have been, they had grown on the soil to be Irish of the Irish. John Whistler was a high-strung, bold, brave, devil-may-care blade, who loved adventure and excitement and had the Irishman’s love of a fight and a soldier’s life. While yet a mere boy he ran off from home, enlisted in King George’s army and was hustled off in a transport to America to aid in the work of subduing the rebellious colonies.

He reached Canada in season to march with the luckless Burgoyne and to come to grief and captivity with his superior at Saratoga. He fell in love with his captors and the country, and doubtless registered a vow that he would make his home in America at some future period. In time he was exchanged and sent back to England. He was poor, yet, with that amusing contempt of poverty so characteristic of the Irish gentleman, he aggravated his troubles by falling rapturously in love with the pretty daughter of his father’s friend, Sir Edward Bishop. The maid was as ardent and foolish as her lover, but the father looked askance at the suit of the young soldier of fortune. The lovers solved the problem for themselves in Irish fashion by running away, marrying and taking ship for the rebellious colonies before the elders woke up. The young couple landed at Baltimore with full hearts and empty pockets and settled down at Hagerstown to begin the battle of life.

It is certain that fortune continued as unkind and capricious under American skies as she had been under Irish ones, and we next hear of the young husband bidding adieu to his young wife and child, and marching with a musket on his shoulder, as a soldier of the United States, into the wilderness of the West, under General St. Clair.

Fighting and soldiering in those days were done in rough and ready fashion under conditions that called for courage and endurance, when pluck and dash and personal prowess were the prime essentials of a soldier; and in such a school an Irish daredevil like Whistler easily made his mark. In that disastrous battle on the Miami in 1791, where the forces of St. Clair were surprised and routed by the vengeful tribesmen under Blue Jacket and the renegade, Simon Girty, young Whistler was wounded, but his gallant conduct in the battle and on the retreat earned him his shoulder-straps, and gave him a position that his birth, breeding and education enabled him to fill with honor to himself and credit to the republic. It gave him an assured position in the calling he loved best, and for which his talents and taste fitted him.

As the years rolled by, he served in many a hard-fought campaign against the enemies of his adopted country, earning promotion and fighting the soldiers of King George with as much enthusiasm as in other days he had served that fat-witted monarch. His devoted wife followed his fortune, traveling in the military train, and living at lonely frontier forts with as much content as she would had fortune strewn their paths with brighter flowers. This heroic woman had much to do in forming the character of the children born to their marriage, and her brave and gentle personality made a lasting impression on them. The Whistlers were good fighting stock, and when his sturdy boys were old enough, the fighting old major placed a sword in their hands and gave them to the land he loved, and true, loyal soldiers they were in every emergency. When age, disease and wounds stiffened the old warrior, and rendered him unfit for active service in the field, the government appointed him storekeeper at the military post at Newport, Ky., and later transferred him to Jefferson Barracks, near St. Louis, Mo., where he died in 1829, at the age of seventy-three.

The splendid old soldier had served the land of his adoption bravely, faithfully and loyally, and, dying, he bequeathed to his sons an unsullied reputation, and to the republic children who never failed her in the hour of need.

William Whistler, the major’s first-born, first saw the light of day in 1780 at Hagerstown, Md., and grew up with drums for his music and swords for his toys, and became a lieutenant in the army in 1801. He fought against Indians and British on the frontier with gallantry, and was badly wounded at the battle of Maguaga, Mich., in the year 1812. He passed through the various grades, fought in nearly every war the army was engaged in, and was retired with the rank of colonel of the Fourth United States infantry in 1861. Next to Gen. Winfield Scott, William Whistler was then the oldest soldier in the American army. William’s son, Joseph Nelson Garland Whistler, was, like his father, a soldier. He was graduated from the West Point Military Academy in 1846, served with distinction in the Mexican War and the Rebellion, and was colonel of the Fifteenth United States infantry, when he was placed on the retired list in 1886.

George Washington Whistler, the father of the artist and writer of “the gentle art of making enemies,” was the second son of Maj. John Whistler. He was born on the ragged edge of civilization, in the shabby frontier post of Fort Wayne, in the territory of Indiana, on May 19, 1800. He traveled up and down the rough trails of the Western wilderness with his father’s regiment, receiving what education he could from his mother until he was sent, while yet a boy, to West Point. He had a well-developed talent for draughtsmanship, and was a man of refined and artistic tastes; he was a charming companion, and withal a handsome, soldierly gentleman. One of the brightest men ever turned out of West Point, he was graduated high in his class, and commissioned as a second lieutenant in the United States artillery corps; but his engineering talents were utilized by the government in topographical surveys while in the service, except for the brief period when he was an assistant professor at the academy. One of the burning questions of those days of the early twenties was the frontier between the republic and the British dominions, our government claiming much that is still a fishing and hunting-ground in the province of New Brunswick; John Bull, with unerring instinct, seeking to push his lines south to include the country that has blossomed into the commonwealths of Iowa, Minnesota and the Dakotas.

From 1822 to 1826 the young lieutenant was engaged in tracing and defining the boundary in the terrible wilderness that stretches from Lake Superior west to the Lake of the Woods, enduring cold, hunger and incredible hardships, and laying the seeds of disease that was to cut him off in the prime of manhood and the zenith of his success. When he came back to civilization from these arduous duties, he found the country agog with railroad excitement, caused by the work of the Stephensons in England. American capitalists were eager to build railroads, but they realized that the radically different conditions of the two countries necessitated essentially different systems of construction and operation.

Needing the best engineering skill in the country, they applied to the government, and Whistler was, with others, detailed to survey the routes, report on systems and supervise construction of the roads. He was engaged in this responsible work for years, but, knowing that such talents as his—and he was recognized as one of the ablest engineers in the country—found but slender rewards in the service of the republic, and were better appreciated in civil life, he resigned his commission in December, 1833. His services were secured at once by the railroads, and he was sent with Jonathan Knight, William Gibbs McNeill and Ross Winans to England to examine the system there, and returning he occupied himself with the affairs of the Baltimore & Ohio and Boston & Albany railroads.

It is not too much to say that, practically, George Washington Whistler laid down the lines upon which the American railroad system was built, and along which it has grown to be the most splendid and advanced in the world, the most potent agency in the progress and civilization of the republic.

In 1834 Whistler became the engineer of the proprietors of the Locks and Canals of Lowell, Mass., the corporation whose wisdom and shrewdness have been instrumental in changing the fields and pastures along the slopes of the Merrimack into the foremost and most prosperous manufacturing city devoted to textile industries on this continent. Besides looking keenly after their strictly local interests, he spent months in the corporation’s machine shops, drawing plans, evolving inventions and improvements and supervising the construction and remodeling of a Stephenson locomotive, in order to adapt it to the needs and peculiar requirements of American railroads. Those most familiar with railroads and their history in this country are best equipped to appreciate the work done in that little machine shop by Whistler and to understand its value.

Whistler lived in Lowell from 1834 to 1837, in a modest house on Worthen street, and there his famous son, James Abbot McNeill Whistler, was born, probably in 1834. The parish records of the old Episcopal church of St. Anne state “James Abbot Whistler, son of George W. and Anna M. Whistler,” was baptized there Nov. 9, 1834, by him who was long and reverently known to the people of Lowell as Father Edson. This is the artist who is alleged to have been born in Baltimore and Stonington, and who himself rather oddly claims Moscow in Russia as his birthplace; but this is the record, given under the signature of the present rector, the Rev. A. St. John. Chambre of Lowell.

In 1837, Mr. Whistler left Lowell for Stonington, Conn., where he took charge of the affairs of the Stonington railroad, and three years later he removed to Springfield, Mass., to take up the duties of chief engineer of the Boston & Albany road. His reputation had grown apace with his work and achievements and it was now thoroughly established as that of a wise, prudent, skilful engineer, masterful and resourceful in all emergencies. He had been engaged on the most difficult and puzzling engineering problems of the day and had successfully overcome them. His fame was commensurate with his success; he was patient, industrious, ingenious, bold, sagacious, tenacious and incorruptibly honest; he had the confidence, trust and affection of those with whom he labored, and his manly, scholarly, soldierly and tactful personality brought him a wide and well-earned esteem.

It was at this time that the Emperor Nicholas of Russia sent a commission of officers to the United States to study the American railroad system, with a view of introducing it into the empire if better adapted to its needs than the English system, which they had already investigated. Colonels Menlikoff and Krofft not only reported emphatically in favor of the American system, but spoke in terms of highest admiration of the impression made on them by the ability and courtesy of Whistler. The emperor made up his mind that Whistler was the one man to introduce the railroad system into Russia, and he made a flattering offer for his services, among many other inducements being that of an annual salary of $12,000. Major Whistler accepted the offer of the emperor and sailed for St. Petersburg in 1842, in company with Major Boultattz of the Russian Engineer Corps, who had been sent to escort him to Russia.

An extraordinary task lay before Whistler in Russia, and one that might have made an ordinary man hesitate. The route had to be surveyed for the contemplated road between Moscow and St. Petersburg, the road-bed had to be constructed, the tracks laid, bridges, stations and engine-houses designed and built, gauges considered and decided upon, machine shops constructed, mechanics trained, locomotives and rolling-stock planned and built, and, in fact, every detail of the immense undertaking had to be deliberated over, thought out and carried to completion under this one man’s supervision. It was an herculean task that his marvelous executive capacity was to meet and conquer.

The jealousies of officials, suspicious of a foreigner and imperial favorite, the impediments thrown in his way by a corrupt officialdom, the delays of the bureaus, the greed of contractors, the importunities of inventors and the solicitations of a horde of corrupt harpies that gather round such an enterprise, had to be reckoned with; and these he did with consummate skill and tact, taxing the resources of his urbane but firm diplomacy and exhausting the vitality of his physical being. He overcame all obstacles, he earned the respect, admiration and affection of his Russian associates, he smoothed the friction of bureaus and officials, he made the fortune of his American associate, Winans, and others, he obtained the sincere regard and respect of the autocrat of the empire and was content to remain a poor man and an honest man. His monument was the finest and best-equipped railroad on the continent of Europe. The Emperor Nicholas, anxious to show his admiration and esteem for the American, urged him in vain to accept a high commission in the Russian army, but he refused everything, contenting himself with the decoration of the Order of St. Anne.

But Whistler’s work was nearly done; he had worked too hard and too faithfully. Beside his railroad work he planned many important improvements in the fortifications at Cronstadt, which balked the British under Napier a few years later; he made useful and needed changes in the naval school and docks at St. Petersburg, and planned many other public works. In November, 1848, he had an attack of Asiatic cholera, which precipitated upon his already exhausted system a complication of diseases, and he lingered along until April, 1849, when he died in the Russian capital in his 49th year.

Posthumous honors were paid the distinguished dead by the emperor; Whistler’s family were treated with great kindness and consideration by the government, and it was ordered that no changes of any nature would be permitted in completing the great railroad enterprise he had created.

Major Whistler’s first wife was Mary, daughter of Dr. Foster Smith of the United States army, who fell in love with him as a cadet at the academy where her father was stationed. The son by this marriage, George William Whistler, followed in his father’s footsteps and became a famous railroad engineer. His second wife was Anna Matilda McNeill, a daughter of Dr. C. D. McNeill of Wilmington, N. C., and a sister of William Gibbs McNeill, his friend and associate. She was the mother of the artist, James Abbot McNeill Whistler.

Major Whistler’s body was carried to America and deposited in St. Paul’s church, Boston, but it was subsequently buried at Stonington, the place of all places that this wanderer loved best and which he called home. A beautiful monument stands in Twilight Dell, in Greenwood cemetery, erected to his memory by the Society of American Engineers, which bears upon it this inscription:

“In memory of George Washington Whistler, Civil Engineer. Born at Fort Wayne, Indiana, May, 1800. Died at St. Petersburg, Russia, April, 1849. Educated at the U. S. Military Academy. He retired from the army in 1833 and became associated with William Gibbs McNeill. They were, in their time, acknowledged to be at the head of their profession in this country. He was distinguished for theoretical and practical ability, coupled with sound judgment and great integrity. In 1842 he was invited to Russia by the Emperor Nicholas, and died there while constructing the St. Petersburg & Moscow Railroad. This cenotaph is a memorial of the esteem and affection of his friends and companions.”

It can well be said that Whistler, the artist, has come honestly and honorably by his brilliant gifts, and it can be stated with equal emphasis that the Genesis of a Genius is seldom as great and worthy.

DAVID HAMILTON, A SOLDIER OF THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION.

BY DANIEL M. O’DRISCOLL, CHARLESTON, S. C.

David Hamilton was born in Cork, Ireland, in November, 1749. He came to Charleston, S. C., when quite young. He was well educated, a man of property, and about 1774 wedded Elizabeth Reynolds. She was a daughter of Rev. James Reynolds, an Irish Presbyterian clergyman of James Island, S. C., and of his wife, Mary Ball, a native of that island. James Island was then as now the site of many large plantations.

After a siege of many months, General Lincoln, who with a small number of troops had gallantly defended the city of Charleston, surrendered May 19, 1780. The British had thought that on account of the scattered population and the number of slaves, it would be easier to subjugate the inhabitants of the Southern states than those of the Northern and Middle, whose hardy population inured to labor, especially among the mountains of Vermont and New Hampshire, had successfully resisted all efforts to overcome them. But in this they were mistaken, for although Savannah and Charleston, the chief cities of Georgia and South Carolina, were now in the hands of the enemy, still from every brush and bracken, Marion and Sumter and their scouts would spring at unexpected moments and unlooked for times.

Among those who were taken prisoners at Charleston was David Hamilton, the subject of this sketch. There is a tradition in the family that he held the rank of lieutenant.[15] This point, however, cannot be substantiated now, as the family papers and Bibles, which were in the possession of his daughter, Mrs. Sullivan of Hampton county, S. C., were lost or destroyed during the Civil War.

When the city of Charleston was surrendered to the British commander, David Hamilton, being a member of a regiment taken under arms, became a prisoner of war. He was offered with others a parole if he would promise not to take up arms again against the mother country. This he declined to avail himself of, and Ramsay’s History of the Revolution in South Carolina records his name as among the prisoners confined on board the prison ship _Torbay_ in Charleston harbor in May, 1781.

This vessel conveyed these prisoners to Philadelphia where they remained until the treaty of peace was signed at Paris in 1783. Family records tell that during his detention, receiving permission to go about the city, his wife Elizabeth, at his solicitation, joined him there. The voyage in those days was a long and tedious one, but David Hamilton having vessels of his own, Mrs. Hamilton and her two children were able to perform the journey in one of them.

During her sojourn there a third daughter, Grizelle Agnes Hamilton, was born, who became in womanhood the wife of Capt. Joseph Taylor, U. S. N. After the Revolutionary War, David Hamilton, on his return to Charleston, became the partner in business of his brother-in-law, Christopher Fitz Simons, who, also an Irishman of wealth and culture, is the ancestor of the “Sir Rupert” of South Carolina, Wade Hampton, the third, the brave cavalry leader of the Southern army in Virginia. They carried on an extensive shipping, shipbuilding and wharfage business, Hamilton owning the ships and Fitz Simons the wharves. David Hamilton owned one hundred black men, slaves, with their families.

Mr. Fitz Simons was still wealthier, having $700,000, as his will still on record shows, and when his daughter, Anne Fitz Simons, became the wife of Wade Hampton the second, it was as no dowerless bride, she receiving $100,000 as her portion. The father of Colonel Hampton was the richest planter in the South, claiming to own 3,000 slaves. Christopher Fitz Simons dying a few years before David Hamilton, his will records that he leaves to David Hamilton £50 as a souvenir, according to the old English custom, and that he desired the business to continue under the firm name of Hamilton & Co.

David Hamilton died in Charleston, Nov. 29, 1794, and is buried in St. Philip’s churchyard, the Colonial Episcopal church of that city. In these sacred precincts also rest the ashes of many of his descendants. David Hamilton left five daughters and three sons: Elizabeth, who became Mrs. Pritchard; Anne, Mrs. Harvey; Catherine, Mrs. Pritchard; Grizelle Agnes, Mrs. Taylor; Mary, Mrs. Sullivan; of his three sons, David, John and William, David and William died unmarried. His married son, John, left a son and two daughters, from one of whom (Mary), Mrs. Nesbit, springs the family of the same name, wealthy planters of Georgetown, S. C. Of David Hamilton’s daughters, Mrs. Pritchard’s descendants attained distinction both in peace and war.

William Pritchard, her grandson, whose name is carved on the white marble tablet which stands in the vestibule of St. Philip’s Episcopal church, was a member of the historic Washington Light Infantry of Charleston, and died of country fever during the Civil War. Mrs. Harvey’s daughter, Anne, married Commandant Knight, U. S. N. Commandant Knight died while in service on the coast of Africa, of African fever. His remains still rest there. Mrs. Taylor’s grandson, William Joseph Magill, commanded a regiment of Georgia regulars during the Civil War. He was a graduate of the Military Academy of South Carolina, a man of fine physique and pleasing address. Colonel Magill lost an arm at the battle of Sharpsburg, and died some few years ago in Florida where he had settled after the war.

Another grandson of Mrs. Taylor, Dr. James Ervin Godfrey, was educated in Paris and became a surgeon in the Confederate army, with the rank of major. He married in Madison, Ga., where he still resides, as do also many of his descendants. The youngest daughter, Mary, married Timothy Sullivan (O’Sullivan), a native of County Cork, Ireland, a merchant whose name is mentioned as a broker on Vendue Range, Charleston, more than eighty years ago. Mrs. Sullivan’s eldest daughter married Patrick Cantwell (also an Irishman), an officer of the customs in Charleston. Mr. Cantwell was a first cousin of Lieut. Stephen Cassin, one of the heroes of the battle of Lake Champlain, and also a nephew of Commodore John Cassin, U. S. N., who was commander of the naval forces at Norfolk during the War of 1812, and at Charleston from 1821–’22, where he died the latter year. His remains lie in St. Mary’s churchyard. Mr. Cantwell’s eldest daughter, Mary, married Daniel O’Driscoll, of the O’Driscolls of Baltimore, born at Cork, Ireland. Of their two sons, one is a graduate of the College of Charleston, and has entered the profession of teaching; the other, a student at the Military Academy of South Carolina.

Among the surviving descendants of David Hamilton are the Godfreys of Georgia, the Magills of Florida, the Harveys, Stroheckers, Pritchards, Knoxes, Poppenheims, Milers, O’Driscolls, Langleys, Cantwells, Nesbits and Morrisons of South Carolina, and a family of Prestons in Alabama. A granddaughter, Mary Pritchard, married Dr. Barnard of New Haven, Conn., and her descendants still reside in that city.

THE IRISH CHAPTER IN THE HISTORY OF BROWN UNIVERSITY.[16]

BY THOMAS HAMILTON MURRAY, WOONSOCKET, R. I.

The founding of Brown University marks a pivotal era in the educational history of Rhode Island. It is not the beginning of that history any more than it is the ultimate conclusion thereof. For, before the founding came the pioneers of education, the skirmish line, clearing the underbrush, paving the way, opening the battle for the cause of knowledge.

In the van, then, were the private teachers who received pupils into their homes or taught them at their own firesides. Many of these teachers in early Rhode Island history were talented Irishmen. Indeed, Irish schoolmasters were numerous throughout all the colonies. In reading the lives of the men of the Revolution, we are astonished at the number receiving their education from these Irish teachers.

Of the Irish masters who taught in Rhode Island at an early period may be mentioned Brown, MacSparran, Crocker, Knox, Kelly, Jackson, Phelan, Reilly and others.

Rev. Dr. MacSparran was a leading Irish preacher and teacher whose educational influence without doubt helped pave the way and render desirable the founding of a Rhode Island college. His arrival in these parts dates from about 1718, when he located in Bristol. Later, and for a period of nearly forty years, he was pastor of St. Paul’s church in Narragansett. Dr. MacSparran always had a warm affection for his native land, and loved to speak and read the Irish language. During his long period of service in Narragansett he received many pupils at his home, imparting a knowledge of the Greek and Latin classics and various other branches. Writing in 1752, he says: “Mr. Thomas Clap, president of Yale college, was my scholar when I came first to these parts, and on all occasions gratefully acknowledges his receiving the first rudiments of his learning from me, who, by the way, have not but a modicum to boast of myself.” MacSparran died in 1757.

Rev. Marmaduke Brown, an Irishman, while rector of Trinity church, Newport, opened a school for the instruction of negro children. In 1763 he had provided for teaching thirty pupils, fifteen of each sex. He likewise contributed in many other ways toward creating and perpetuating an educational spirit in the community. This Irishman, Brown, is mentioned in the charter of the university as a member of the first board of Fellows. He also appears as a member of the board in 1770. His wife was an Irish woman of sterling worth and fine intellect. His father, Rev. Arthur Brown, a native of Drogheda, in Ireland, came to Rhode Island about 1729, and was pastor of King’s church in Providence. Marmaduke Brown had a son, Arthur, who became senior Fellow of Trinity college, Dublin, and member of the Irish parliament. It is not known,—at least I do not know,—that these Irish Browns of Newport and Providence were related to the family from whence the university derives its name.

Stephen Jackson of Kilkenny was another Irish teacher. Some of his descendants have been identified with Brown university. Stephen came to this country in 1724. He was a resident of Providence in 1745 and is mentioned as a “schoolmaster.” In 1762 he was living on Benefit street. One of his sons married Susan Waterman. A grandson of this Kilkenny teacher was town clerk of Providence for many years, another was cashier of the Exchange bank, a third was president of the Washington Insurance company, while a great-grandson of the Irish immigrant became governor of Rhode Island and was always a warm friend of the university.

Another Irish teacher who must have settled here before Rhode Island college was instituted, and who thus helped create the educational atmosphere which so eventuated, was “Old Master” Kelly. He lived and labored at Tower Hill, in South Kingstown, R. I., and vicinity. In the Narragansett Historical Register (Vol. 1) it is stated that “Master Kelly was an Irishman and noted for his love of a good joke, a good dinner and his courtesy of manner.” When Commodore O. H. Perry was a boy Kelly was his teacher, having already taught three generations of the youth of that neighborhood. Anecdote and reminiscence of Kelly are still numerous among the old families of that part of the state. “It is recorded of the worthy pedagogue, that during the whole of his long servitude at Tower Hill, he had never once been known to lose his temper, but ever preserved a blessed equanimity, to be envied by all of his arduous and important calling.”

Cole’s History of Washington and Kent Counties, R. I., states that “Before 1800, Masters Knox and Crocker, natives of Ireland, taught school at Bowen’s hill [in Coventry] and the neighborhood.” The name Knox is found in Coventry in 1766. Perhaps the schoolmaster was there as early as that period or about the time of the founding of Rhode Island college.

Terence Reilly was a schoolmaster in Providence at the period of the Revolution and, it may be, for some years previous thereto. I am told that representatives of old Providence families still have in their possession receipts for tuition fees paid Master Reilly by their grandfathers or great-grandfathers.

John Phelan was one other old time schoolmaster in Providence. His quarters in 1792 were on the west side of the “Great Bridge,” where he conducted a day and evening school. But Reilly and Phelan came after the establishment of Brown and so had no bearing on that fact. I merely mention them here in order that their names may be perpetuated for future treatment.

It is a remarkable fact that one of the earliest suggestions of which we have record, for the establishment of a college in Rhode Island, came from an Irishman—the peerless and immortal Berkeley. No name in the intellectual life of the colony and the state is more cherished than his. He was a native of Kilkenny and one of the most illustrious Irishmen of his day. Born in 1648, he entered the ecclesiastical calling, and in 1724 was made dean of Derry. For many years he had entertained a plan for christianizing and civilizing the American Indian. His central idea was to establish a college in Bermuda, where missionaries were to be educated for work among the red men.

He was promised funds with which to carry out this project. Relying upon these assurances, he resigned his deanery, and in “a hired ship of 250 tons” arrived at Newport, R. I., in 1729. His object was, according to numerous authorities, to here await the arrival of the expected funds, when he would proceed to Bermuda. It is now also believed that while in Rhode Island he intended to influence well-to-do people here in behalf of his plans.

Soon after his arrival in Newport his great merit was recognized and he was quickly conceded the intellectual leadership of the colony. Berkeley often visited the Updikes and other noted families in Narragansett. It was during one of these visits he declared that if the promised funds for his college ever arrived he would build the institution on Barber’s Height, North Kingstown, R. I., instead of in Bermuda.

Alluding to this intention, Mr. William E. Foster, public librarian of Providence, declares of Berkeley that by “thus anticipating by over a third of a century the actual establishment of a college in Rhode Island, his plans unquestionably had an important bearing on the steps leading to it.”

The direct cause, however, that led to the establishment of Brown was the action taken in 1762 by the Philadelphia Baptist association and which resulted as aforesaid. The details for the inauguration of the institution were entrusted largely to Rev. Morgan Edwards of Philadelphia, and Rev. Samuel Jones of Lower Dublin, Penn. The institution was incorporated in 1764, its first location being Warren, R. I., a town named in honor of an Irishman, Sir Peter Warren. In 1770 it was removed to Providence, and in 1804 the name was changed from Rhode Island college to Brown University.

Dr. Guild in his production on “The First Commencement of Rhode Island College” declares: “It is a singular and well-known fact, and it may perhaps be stated in this connection, that the first funds of the college were obtained from Ireland, in guineas and half guineas, from Mary Murphy, Susanna Pilson, Joseph Fowke and other members of Protestant churches and societies in Cork, Waterford, Belfast, Ballymony, Coleraine, Londonderry and Dublin.” “This,” Dr. Guild continues, “may be accounted for when we learn that Mr. Edwards’s first settlement in the ministry, before coming to this country, was in Cork, where he married his wife [Mary Nunn]. The original subscription book, with genuine signatures, is one of the most interesting documents on file in connection with the history of the university.”

Morgan Edwards’s journey to Ireland and England was made in 1767. His Irish subscription list, mentioned by Dr. Guild, is still preserved in the university archives. It bears the following heading, written by Edwards himself:

“A list of persons in Ireland who have contributed towards endowing
the college in Rhode Island government. Published, according to
promise, partly for the honor of the benefactors, and partly to
satisfy them and the college of the fidelity of their humble
servant, by whom the money has been collected. The sums are put down
in English currency, because better known in America.”

Let us accompany him on his Irish visit. I am inclined to believe that not all his contributors were Protestants. Doubtless there were also generous, large-hearted Roman Catholics who aided him. In Cork he found over fifty subscribers. They included Mary Murphy, Matthew O. Dwyer, Francis McCarthy, Humphrey Crowley and Samuel Neale. In Waterford he found many friends. In Dublin his contributors included Mrs. Luke Kelly, Rachel Connor, John Reilly, William Gowan, James Martin and sixty or seventy others. Samuel McCormick was one of the many who aided him in Antrim. James Brennan and several others helped him in Westmeath. And so it was elsewhere throughout the country—a cordial greeting and a generous reception. The sums contributed were remitted to the college, from Cork, Newry, Belfast and Derry. Before leaving Ireland, he designated certain agents in Dublin to whom additional contributions intended for him could be sent.

In concluding his Irish tour he thus wrote: “Mr. Edwards begs the excuse of those gentlemen on whom he has not been able to wait a second time to receive their subscriptions; and desires they will be pleased to pay the same to Mr. Abram Wilkinson of Park street, or Mr. John Pym Joshua of Ushers Quay, Dublin, who will soon be authorized by the college to solicit, receive and remit money for its use. Mr. Edwards has also heard, since he left Ireland, of several who expressed a willingness to become benefactors to said college. He thanks them for their good will; and entreats them to deposit their gifts, whether money or books, with the above mentioned merchants in Dublin. This list may be had of the Rev. W. Boulton, in Golden Lane, Dublin.”

From the foregoing it would appear that Irish friends of Rhode Island college gave books as well as money to the institution. Writing from abroad in 1768 to President Manning at Warren, Edwards says:

“MY DEAR FRIEND: I long to hear from you. Your last was of October
12, 1767.... Mr. Miles informed me that he had sold one of my Irish
bills ... for £138 12s 4d, which gained for the college upward of
£13. I have not had any account of the sale of the other bill for
the same country. I want much to know how you intend to put the
money out.... You must also observe that in England, as in Ireland,
I solicit for money towards endowing the college, and, therefore,
take care that you all attend to the design of the donors. Inclosed
you have a list of all the sums I received in Ireland, which list
was distributed in the several places where I have been. The design
was to let every one of them see that I gave credit for what I
received.”

Irish generosity was likewise early displayed in this country toward the young institution. In 1769–’70, Rev. Hezekiah Smith solicited funds in South Carolina and Georgia. He says in his diary of the tour: “Thursday, March 1 [1770], went to Malachi Murfee’s.” The list of those who subscribed in aid of the college on this Southern trip includes Edward Dempsey, Charles Reilly, Patrick Hinds, James Welsh, Hugh Dillon, John Boyd, Matthew Roach and Capt. John Canty. Their names deserve to be perpetuated.

Rev. and Mrs. Edwards, to whom reference has just been made, had several children. Some of the latter were perhaps born in Ireland. One of the sons, William, was graduated from Brown in 1776, under President Manning. At the commencement in 1770, six years previously, this incident occurred as narrated in the _Providence Gazette_:

“The business of the day being concluded, and before the assembly broke up, a piece from Homer was pronounced by Master Billy Edwards, one of the Grammar school boys, not nine years of age.”