Chapter IV: Part 4

The good old name of Hayes, in the persons of Thomas and his wife, Bridget, shows up July 25, 1690, when unto them a child was born, named Eliza. This is like some other names mentioned, found now all over the country; in this case, Bridget must be the Eve of the modern Garden of Eden—the Hub—at least so far as the Hayes’ are concerned, for she was the first of the tribe in the Trimountain Paradise. Reilly has two representatives in John and Bridget Rylee, who had born to them on September 10, 1693, a daughter, Hannah. After 1700, Irish names peculiar to the South, as well as the North of Ireland, rapidly appear. In the records of the selectmen of the town of Boston, September 27, 1736, John Savell was required to give a bond for a servant imported from Ireland by Captain Arnold. James Wimble had to do the same for George Lucas’ wife and child from Ireland.

Captain John Carrell—Carroll—ditto, for twelve persons he brought from Ireland in his vessel. Dinish and Honor Cniae—Kenna—and their two boys, were of this number. September 29, Joshua Winslow, Esq., gave a bond for William Steward, wife and two children, imported by Captain Boyd. Steward was a cooper, and in the following November was admitted an inhabitant of the town.

THE IRISH IN AMERICA.[7]

BY HERBERT N. CASSON, NEW YORK CITY.

Footnote 7:

Published originally in _Munsey’s Magazine_, New York, April, 1906.

A certain green isle in a northerly sea is the historic home of the Irish people, but the present address of at least two thirds of the scattered race is “United States of America.” Boston, not Belfast nor Dublin, is now the greatest Irish city in the world; and the overwhelming majority of Irishmen who have risen to places of distinction have done so under the Stars and Stripes.

The historian who shall do full justice to the Irish branch of the human family has not yet appeared, either in the United States or elsewhere. Consequently, there are few races, if any, which have been so persistently misunderstood and undervalued. Even in this country, where such a mistake is least excusable, there has been a tendency in some quarters to regard the Irish as merely an element of the rank and file. The truth is that they have contributed their share of leaders and pioneers in almost every line of progress.

_At least seven of our presidents_ have had more or less of Irish blood in their veins. Jackson, Buchanan and Arthur were the sons of Ulster parents; and the first American ancestor of Polk was an Irish immigrant. Monroe and McKinley were more remotely related to the “fighting race.” The latter, it is well known, was fond of saying, “We Irish.” Roosevelt, also, had several Hibernian twigs on his family tree. This, in itself, is an amazing record of Celtic leadership—to have helped to mold the character of seven American presidents out of twenty-five.

In the making of America, the Irish have been structural. No other word represents their influence so well. In the clearing of forests, the digging of canals, the building of railroads, and the extension of commerce, our civilization owes an incalculable debt to Irish hands and Irish heads.

In the traits of our national character, too, we Americans are all more Irish than we realize. Our versatility and buoyancy, our quickness of initiative, our free and unconventional ways, and the sporting instinct that leads us to take chances and beat records, are a few of the evidences of an Irish strain in our blood.

If the handiwork of the Irish were painted green, the average American city would be splashed on all sides with emerald hues. Yet there are few who are aware of this, even among the Irish themselves. A New Yorker, for example, may rise in the morning, bathe in water that comes from the Croton dam, built by James Coleman, ex-president of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick; breakfast on Cudahy bacon; then take the subway, built by John B. McDonald, past the new College of the City of New York, built by Thomas Dwyer, to his office in a skyscraper built by John D. Crimmins, where he will cable to Alaska over a line laid by David Lynch, to order certain freight sent _via_ James J. Hill’s Great Northern Railroad. Then, with a cigar bought from one of George J. Whelan’s 300 cigar stores, he will read the New York _Sun_, published by William M. Laffan and delivered by the American News Company, founded by Patrick Farrelly—and remark to an English friend:

“Yes, of course, this is an Anglo-Saxon country.”

When J. I. C. Clarke, the genial playwright, wrote his famous poem on “Kelly and Burke and Shea,” it was generally supposed to be a poetic fancy. On the contrary, I find it to be a simple matter of American history that the Kellys, the Burkes and the Sheas have been to the fore in every generation. They were all three in the battle of Lexington, as well as in the death-list of the _Maine_. When Hobson sank the _Merrimac_, a Kelly and a Murphy were his comrades in danger. Our first noted woman abolitionist was Abbie Kelley. William Darrah Kelley, of Philadelphia, was a Congressman for nearly thirty years. Hall Jackson Kelley was the founder of Oregon. The late Eugene Kelly, the New York banker, won renown as a philanthropist. Among the living members of this redoubtable family, James E. Kelly is a well-known electrical engineer. The Kelly Ax Company has a fifty-acre plant in Charleston, W. Va. Elsewhere * * * you will find the wonderful story of William Kelly, whose invention has added hundreds of millions to the wealth of the steel industry.

In the Burke family, three heroic figures appear in the first chapter of our Revolutionary history—Thomas Burke, the first governor of North Carolina; Adamus Burke, chancellor of South Carolina; and John Daly Burk, historian, patriot and duelist. All three were fighters with pen and sword, who made an indelible mark on the Southern states a century ago. In 1872, when Froude cast some aspersions upon the Irish, it was Father Thomas Burke who took up the cudgels against him. And at the present time we have Burkes enough in the United States to fill a “Burke’s Peerage” of their own. There are two bishops who bear the famous name, at Albany and St. Joseph; one brigadier-general, at Portland, Oregon; one congressman, in South Dakota; a railroad president, at Cleveland; and a judge at Seattle.

As for the Sheas, at least four of them have buffeted their way to the front—Gen. John Shea,[8] who won his laurels in the Revolution; Capt. Daniel Shays, who first fought at Bunker Hill and then stirred up a little side-show rebellion on his own account; George A. Shea, an eminent chief justice of New York; and John Gilmary Shea, the historian of the Catholic Church in the United States.

Footnote 8:

Gen. John Shee.

In the American business world of today, a large proportion of the solid men—the men who stand like pillars under the heavy burdens—are of Irish blood. Most conspicuous of all stands the financier upon whom the mantle of J. Pierpont Morgan seems to have fallen—the man who is not only combining but coördinating American capital—Thomas Fortune Ryan. He is one of the greatest masters of financial statesmanship, who cuts the Gordian knots of finance and ties others of his own.

Equally immovable, in a different field, stands James J. Hill, born in Canada of Ulster parents. What this one man has done for the United States has never yet been fully told. He is the creator of the Northwest—the railway builder who has opened up a territory equal to a couple of Germanys—the steamship builder who has linked America with the markets of the East. He has made wide pathways of commerce from Lake Superior across 1,500 miles of wilderness and 5,000 miles of ocean to the ports of China, Russia and Japan. Ever since he double-earned his first dollar as a Mississippi roustabout, fifty years ago, his life has been a continuous obstacle-race; and there have been few occasions when James J. Hill missed a hurdle.

Two other railway presidents are Samuel Sloan, of New York, who was born when Madison was in the White House; and Richard C. Kerens, of St. Louis. Daniel O’Day[9]—every inch of him Irish—is one of the most important members of the imperial group of financiers who float the flag of Standard Oil. Forty years since, he was a laborer in the oil regions, whose main problem was to find a job; today, as he jokingly says to his friends, his main problem is to find out how to invest his surplus. Another New Yorker of Titanic mold is Alexander E. Orr, who was nineteen years old before he had seen any other country than Ireland. As a president of large commercial bodies, he has few equals. He is a director who directs. For nearly fifty years he has stood under the heaviest responsibilities, and was recently chosen, because of his ability and uprightness, to preside over the immense interests of the New York Life Insurance Company.

Footnote 9:

Recently deceased.

If we speak of great Irish bankers, where is there a large American city without one? In Pittsburg, for instance, where there are a score of banks bulging with steel millions, the dean of the financial fraternity is Thomas Mellon, who, like Alexander E. Orr, was born in Tyrone. In New York there are three, at least, who are too prominent to miss—Thomas M. Mulry, the new president of the Emigrant Industrial Savings Bank, which was wholly Irish in its origin, and which holds a hundred millions in its vaults; Miles M. O’Brien, who was for some time the president of the board of education; and Samuel G. Bayne, who is notable for having organized national banks in seven states. Charles J. Bell is a conspicuous figure in the national capital, as John C. Davis is in Wyoming. And in Chicago John R. Walsh has been a notable banker and capitalist for twenty years. The recent collapse of his financial structure should not obscure the facts of his extraordinary career. To begin as a barefooted newsboy, and to struggle to a place of power in the sixth greatest city in the world, always preferring to fight big enemies rather than little ones—that was Walsh’s record.

Among the cattle kings of the West are Timothy Kinney, of Wyoming, and George Russell, of Nevada. Also in Chicago, Milwaukee and Omaha are four brothers who know something about the cattle and beef trade—four brothers whose parents left Kilkenny in the forties because black famine threatened them with starvation; who began their business life with no more chance of fortune than any day laborer in the United States, and who are today numbered among the few masters of the food supply of the world—Michael, Edward A., John and Patrick Cudahy.

Other weighty business men, scattered here and there, are John Flannery, the Savannah cotton king; Thomas F. Walsh, of Washington, who is the president of the Irrigation Congress; John D. Crimmins, the contractor who has added 400 buildings to New York; Patrick F. Murphy, president of the Mark Cross Company and well known in New York as an after-dinner speaker; Edward Malley, who began with a pack on his back and has now a department store in New Haven; Ephraim Dempsie, merchant and public man of Spokane; P. B. Magrane, a well-known merchant in the shoe city of Lynn; and William P. Rend, the coal magnate of Chicago.

Among the great Irish merchants of former days, the most notable was A. T. Stewart, whose New York store was the largest of its kind, either in America or elsewhere. His capital was $3,000 when he began to sell his Belfast laces, and more than forty millions when he died.

In the United States, as well as in Great Britain, many of the most distinguished judges have been of Irish blood. Among the nine justices who sit supreme over all American courts, two are Irish by descent—Judge Edward D. White and Judge Joseph McKenna. As yet, no one has compiled a list of the Irish judges in the various state Supreme Courts; but to take New York as an instance, we find five who are of unusual prominence—Martin J. Keogh, Morgan J. O’Brien, James Fitzgerald, George C. Barrett and Victor J. Dowling. It should also be mentioned that the chief judge in the Philippine Islands—John T. McDonough, formerly of Albany—is Irish born. William J. Hynes, too, a lawyer of whom Chicago is justly proud, began life in County Clare.

To answer fully the question “What have the Irish done for American education?” would need a small book in itself. Was not the late Pres. William Rainey Harper, the father of Chicago University, of Irish descent? This extraordinary man crowded the work of several centuries into less than fifty years, sacrificed his preferences as a student that he might carry the heaviest financial responsibilities, and died poor after having gathered a dozen millions for his university.

Of our Irish born educators, no one outranks William H. Maxwell, who has been for eight years the superintendent of New York’s public schools. Under him are 16,000 teachers and more than half a million children, the most lively and cosmopolitan army of youngsters in the world. Superintendent Maxwell has had to fight for every inch of progress in his development of the New York school system; but like the dogged Ulsterman that he is, he has driven ahead with his far-reaching projects, no matter whether the hue and cry was with him or against him.

“Nothing is too good,” he says, “for the taxpayer’s child.”

Speaking of public schools, it would be a sin of omission at this point not to mention the thousands of young women of Irish birth or parentage who are doing faithful work as schoolteachers in all parts of the United States.

The number of our Irish professors is comparatively small. Some who deserve special mention are Maurice F. Egan, of the Catholic University in Washington; James McMahon, of Cornell; Robert Ellis Thompson, of the Central High School in Philadelphia; and Thomas C. Hall, of the Union Theological Seminary in New York. A Gaelic chair was established in 1896 at the Catholic University by the Ancient Order of Hibernians, and is filled at the present time by Prof. Joseph P. Dunn, who is of American birth. To John Tyndall, the notable Irish scientist, the United States owes a double debt, inasmuch as he not only delivered a course of lectures here in 1872, but devoted the proceeds to the cause of scientific research in America.

It is very seldom that an Irishman lacks the gift of speech. Take away our Irish orators and journalists, and this would be a dumb and cheerless country indeed. Here, for instance, is an offhand list of Irish writers of the past and present:

Capt. Mayne Reid, the idol of American boys, and a soldier in our War with Mexico; John Boyle O’Reilly, the editor and poet; FitzJames O’Brien, who wrote the famous short story, “The Diamond Lens”; Ignatius Donnelly, the most versatile and picturesque public man of his generation in Minnesota; Edwin Lawrence Godkin, of the New York _Evening Post_, a fighter in the high realm of national morality; Henry W. Grady, editor of the Atlanta _Constitution_; Patrick Walsh, who was editor of the Augusta _Chronicle_ and represented Georgia in the United States Senate; and Joseph Medill, founder of the Chicago _Tribune_.

Among those still living are James Jeffrey Roche, now in the consular service; Joseph Fitzgerald, author and translator; William M. Laffan, proprietor of the New York _Sun_; George T. Oliver, of the Pittsburg _Gazette_; Eugene M. O’Neill, of the Pittsburg _Dispatch_; John McLeod Keating, who won fame by his fight against yellow fever in the South; and John F. Finerty, the eloquent founder of the Chicago _Citizen_.

Three great publishers of Irish birth have been Mathew Carey, of Philadelphia, the friend of Lafayette; Robert Bonner, founder of the New York _Ledger_; and Patrick Donahoe, founder of the Boston _Pilot_ and _Donahoe’s Magazine_. The name of William Desmond O’Brien, too, deserves to be included in this paragraph. Mr. O’Brien was a wealthy contractor of New York who devoted eighteen years of his life to the preparation of an _Encyclopedia Hibernica_, and who died, broken-hearted, in 1893, with his great project unfinished. Among Irish-American publishers now living, the most notable is P. F. Collier, founder of _Collier’s Weekly_.

This power of expression, which is typical of the Irish race, rises frequently to the heights of art. The Goddess of Liberty, on the dome of the Capitol at Washington, was chiseled by the hands of Thomas Crawford, who was of Irish parentage, and whose son is the well-known novelist, F. Marion Crawford. Many an American city has been enriched by the genius of Augustus St. Gaudens, one of the best beloved and most eminent of American sculptors. The statue upon which St. Gaudens is now working, in his Vermont studio, is a heroic figure of Parnell for the City of Dublin, St. Gaudens’ birthplace. Among the landscape painters, Edward Gay, of New York, has held a place for forty years; and another veteran artist of Irish birth is William Magrath, who painted “On the Ould Sod”—a clever study of Irish character that hangs in the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

It is to Dublin, also, that we are indebted for Victor Herbert, our popular conductor and composer, and for Patrick Sarsfield Gilmore, the famous band master of Civil War times. There have not been so many Irish singers of operatic rank, although the Irishman who cannot sing at all is as rare as a white blackbird. Probably the most notable was Catherine Hayes, who arrived in this country in 1851, married an American husband and settled in California. Among the best-known dramatic stars of Irish birth now upon the stage are Ada Rehan and James O’Neil, and the elder John Drew was a son of Erin. Andrew Mack and Chauncey Olcott are the most popular of those who portray Irish life.

That the Irish have been in politics goes without saying. In most states they have furnished more than their share, both of bosses and of reformers. Richard Croker, the Tammany Hall leader, and Charles O’Conor, who overthrew the Tweed Ring, fairly represent the two contending forces in American political life. So much has been written indiscriminately of Irish bossism that it is nothing but fair to state that some of the present leaders of the “anti-graft” movement are Mayor Dunne, of Chicago; Mayor Fagan, of Jersey City; District Attorney Moran, of Boston; and Hugh McCaffrey, a member of Mayor Weaver’s cabinet, in Philadelphia. The late Patrick A. Collins, congressman, consul-general in London and mayor of Boston, was for years the foremost Irishman in New England.

In the present Congress there are dozens of members of Irish descent, but only three of Irish birth—Senator Thomas M. Patterson, of Denver, who has been for thirty years a national figure; Representative Bourke Cockran, who is unequaled in the Celtic flow of his eloquence; and Delegate Bernard S. Rodney, of New Mexico. Senator Thomas Kearns, one of the solid pillars of the state of Utah, was born in Canada of Irish parents; and James D. Phelan, the well-known Californian, was the son of a wealthy Irish merchant of San Francisco. Three other public men of Irish birth are Thomas Taggart, of Indianapolis; William McAdoo, of New York; and ex-Governor James E. Boyd, of Nebraska. And no Irishman will ever allow the fact to be forgotten that James G. Blaine, one of the greatest figures in all American political history, was of Irish descent. His great-grandfather, Ephraim Blaine, bore an honorable part in the Revolutionary struggle, and far back in colonial days the Blaines were among the hardiest pioneers of the Cumberland Valley.

Rising to the religious world, we find many noted Irish names, alike in the Protestant and Catholic churches. There are no fewer than twenty-three bishops and five archbishops in this country who learned their first prayers on Irish soil. This may also be said of Cardinal Gibbons, who was born in the United States, but taken to Ireland in infancy. The five archbishops are John M. Farley, John J. Glennon, John Ireland, John Joseph Keane, and Patrick John Ryan. When was there ever before such a distinguished quintet of Johns?

Like St. Gaudens and Herbert, Dr. William S. Rainsford hails from Dublin. Thirty years ago he entered New York an unknown young curate, and proceeded to establish the foremost institutional church in America, having at the present time more than 5,000 members. Unfortunately, overwork has recently compelled him to resign.

Historically, there have been four Irish churchmen who have wielded a great influence in American affairs—Father Mathew, the apostle of temperance, who persuaded 600,000 Americans to sign the pledge; Archbishop Hughes, of New York, who was sent to England by President Lincoln during the Civil War; Father Ryan, the poet of the South; and the Rev. John Hall, the pulpit orator of New York.

Nothing can be more absurd than to speak of the Irish as newcomers in America. No one but a resurrected mound-builder would be entitled to do that. For the last thousand years or more, wherever there has been any great enterprise on foot, in the thick of things there have always been men with the shamrock in their hearts. The ship that carried Columbus from the known continent to the unknown had a Galway man aboard—so we are told on good authority. And one of the maps which cheered Columbus forward showed a country across the ocean which was called “Great Ireland.” This far western land had been discovered, it was reported, by St. Brendan, an Irish monk, eight or nine centuries before.

There were a few Irish on the _Mayflower_, but the first large body arrived about twenty years later. There were five or six hundred of them—a forlorn and pitiful mob, forcibly transported from their native land. Those were the black days of Cromwell, when $25 was paid for the head of a wolf and $50 for the head of a patriot Irishman. In ten years probably 100,000 were driven out, and many of them came to the American colonies.

The first big Irishman in our colonial history was Gov. Thomas Dongan, who gave New York its earliest charter, and who deserves to be called one of the pioneer champions of popular rights in America. The second was the distinguished philosopher, Bishop Berkeley, who came from Derry to Rhode Island in 1728, lured by a missionary enterprise that failed. All through the eighteenth century came a steady stream of the exiled Irish—men and women who had been toughened in a terrible school, and who were fit and ready for the perils of the American wilderness. Most of them were from the north of Ireland—from little Ulster, that giant-breeding province whose sons have made history in almost every country of the earth. They were the first across the Alleghanies. They settled Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia and the coal and iron regions of Pennsylvania. Such men as Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett and Matthew Lyon were their leaders. It was they who colonized Ulster County in New York and Londonderry in New Hampshire. The colonial hero of the Catskills was Timothy Murphy—so wrote Jay Gould in his famous _History of Delaware County_, published fifty years ago.

When the War of Independence began there were Irish on the firing-line everywhere. They had a personal as well as a colonial grievance against Great Britain; and here was a chance, at last, to even up old scores. A writer of those times describes them as “a hardy, brave, hot-headed race; excitable in temper; unrestrainable in passion; invincible in prejudice. They are impatient of restraint, and rebellious against anything that in their eyes bears the resemblance of injustice. They were the readiest of the ready on the battlefields of the Revolution.” These were not parlor virtues, but they were the kind that founded the American republic. “You lost America by the Irish,” declared Lord Mountjoy in the British Parliament.

In those critical days, while thousands were dilly-dallying, the Irish were hot for action. It was John Sullivan who struck the first blow, four months before the historic skirmish at Lexington, by capturing military stores at Portsmouth. The Sullivan family, of which he was a member, furnished three governors for the young republic. Their mother, in her old age, used to say that she had often worked in the fields carrying the governor of Massachusetts, while the governors of New Hampshire and Vermont tagged at her skirts. The first British warship was captured by an O’Brien; and John Barry became the official father of the American navy by receiving the earliest commission as captain. The first American general to fall was the brilliant Richard Montgomery, whose virtues compelled even Lord North to lament his death. It is an interesting fact, and one of which few are aware, that the three monuments in front of New York’s oldest church—St. Paul’s, on lower Broadway, are in memory of three famous Irishmen—General Montgomery, Thomas Addis Emmet and Dr. William MacNevin, the first scientific chemist of New York.

In 1776 three of the signers were of Irish birth—Matthew Thornton, James Smith and George Taylor. Five others, at least, were of Irish blood—Edward Rutledge, Thomas Lynch, Thomas McKean, George Reed and Charles Carroll of Carrollton. The secretary of the assemblage, who read aloud the Declaration on the birth-morning of our republic, was Charles Thompson, Irish born and the son of an evicted farmer. And one of the first societies to back George Washington with men and money was the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick of Philadelphia, who raised half a million dollars and swung into line with a cheer. Only one of their members objected, and his name was struck from the society’s rolls. Washington was a frequent guest at their banquets and an honorary member, as President Roosevelt is of the same society in New York.

No history of the Revolution is complete without its Irish chapter. What with the dashing work of the Irish Brigade under Count Dillon; with the exploits of Mad Anthony Wayne and General Moylan, the Murat of the Revolutionary cavalry; and with the powerful aid of Burke and Sheridan in England, King George the Third found himself beset by Irishmen from all quarters. There were whole companies of Irishmen who fought for American independence under their own green flag, as loyal to their adopted country as to the land of their birth.

The most typical Irishman of pioneer times was Andrew Jackson, our seventh president. One secret of his greatness lay in the fact that there were many men of his mold and nationality in every American community. It is a fact that should cause every Irish heart to beat with pride that the first American president who rose from the rank and file, without the prestige of aristocratic birth or the polish of education, was the son of a rack-rented exile from Ulster. It may even be true that he was the first in the world’s history to climb so high, not by force of arms, but by the free choice of a free people.

“Old Hickory,” as his soldiers called him, has had no superiors as a popular leader. None of his enemies, and he made many of them, could question his honesty, his sincerity, his courage. He believed that the duty of a government was to protect the weak, curb the strong, and obey public opinion. During his presidency the United States bounded into industrial greatness and international prestige.

Overlapping Jackson came another typical Irishman, equally great in peace and war—Gen. James Shields. This remarkable man climbed to fame by half a dozen various paths. He was the hero of two wars, a judge of the Illinois Supreme Court, a governor of Oregon, and the only American who has had the honor of representing three states in the United States Senate. Like Jackson, he was gentle and chivalrous in private life, and an incarnate fury on the field of battle. His whole career was one of romantic knight errantry and adventure. He was a wit and a maker of epigrams. One of his happiest replies was on one occasion when he was asked to name his greatest victory.

“My greatest victory,” he answered quickly, “was won on the day when my sweetheart, Mary Carr, said ‘Yes.’”

After the terrible famine caused by the failure of the potato crop in 1845 and the following years, the Irish poured into America in mighty hosts. Since that time more than four millions have arrived here, ready with Celtic buoyancy for the battle of life in a new land, and yet almost heart-broken to leave the green fields of their fathers.

“Is it hard to die, Barney?” asked a friend of a dying Irishman.

“It is,” replied Barney; “but not so hard as it was to leave Ireland.”

But they went to work with a laugh and an “Irish hurrah.” Whether they knew it or not, they had arrived when they were most needed. The era of railroads and steamships had begun. Great cities were being built and being rebuilt. The factory system was being established in New England. The iron and steel trade had secured a solid foothold. And so, while the Irish had nothing to offer at first but labor, labor was what the United States was most urgently in need of at that stage of its development.

When the Civil War put American manhood to the test the Irish were everywhere—in the thickets of the Wilderness, at the Bloody Angle of Gettysburg, on the crimson field of Chancellorsville. Standing for state rights—the rights of which John C. Calhoun had been the great exponent—were Gen. Patrick R. Cleburne, Senator Regan, the Texan, and others. Standing for the Union were Sheridan, Meade and Meagher, whose dashing valor is one of our national boasts. Unquestionably “Little Phil” Sheridan deserves a high place, not only among American generals, but among the foremost military commanders of the world. Today, among the retired veterans of the United States Army there are three brigadier-generals of Irish birth—Richard Comba, John J. Coppinger and William Quinton.[10] There is also one rear-admiral—Joseph Trilley.

Footnote 10:

To these three should be added: Brig. Gen. Bernard J. D. Irwin, Brig.
Gen. Michael Cooney, Brig. Gen. James W. Scully, Brig. Gen. Charles P.
Eagan, Brig. Gen. William E. Dougherty, Brig. Gen. John R. McGinness
and Brig. Gen. John J. O’Connell, all natives of Ireland.

For more than two hundred years the sons of Ireland have been among the pathfinders who prepared the way for the American nation in its mighty sweep from the Atlantic to the Pacific. No region has ever been too remote or perilous to daunt the Irish pioneer. Whoever discovers the North Pole will no doubt find a Kelly or an O’Brien already on the spot. It was Capt. John J. Healy, for instance, who was the commercial discoverer of Alaska; and when the United States first took possession of that frozen country, four of the sixteen white men in its largest settlement were found to be subscribers to the _Irish World_. Gen. Patrick E. Connor was a trail-maker in Utah, as Philip Nolan and Sam Houston were in Texas. Henry W. Oliver, the late steel king of Pittsburg, who had the most dramatic career of ups and downs that western Pennsylvania has ever known, was the first Pittsburgher to realize fully the value of the Lake Superior iron ore. In consequence, he piled up a forty-million fortune. Missouri had Brian Mullanphy, who left a fortune for the assistance of poor immigrants. In fact, when the history of any western state is written, it will be found that among the army that cleared the way there was always an Irish brigade.

The plain, straight truth about the Western Irish is more wonderful than any fanciful tale woven in the loom of Arabian imagination. Talk about _Monte Cristo_ or _Sinbad the Sailor_! They are paltry adventurers compared with men like John W. Mackay or Marcus Daly. With his three partners, also Irish—James C. Flood, James G. Fair and William S. O’Brien—John W. Mackay changed the silver markets of the world. Within a comparatively few years these four men took a treasure of $150,000,000 from one hole in the side of a Nevada mountain—the famous Comstock lode. Always ready for big enterprises, Mackay put his millions behind James Gordon Bennett’s dream to link America and Europe together by an Atlantic cable, and drove the scheme ahead to complete success. What Marcus Daly did in Montana was different only in detail. He, too, “grasped the skirts of happy chance” with a grip that landed him and his friends among the most powerful money kings of his generation.

All five of these Irishmen began at the lowest rung of the ladder. They made themselves the leaders in a country of strong and daring men, by being the strongest and most daring of all. And today their children have linked their fathers’ names by marriage with some of the proudest families in the older states—the Oelrichses, Vanderbilts, Duers and Girards, as well as to the princely Colonnas of Italy.

Whether it is the versatile genius of the Emmets of New York; or the fighting pluck of “Bucky” O’Neil, who was killed with the Rough Riders at Santiago; or the sagacity of John Mitchell, who is the leader of 150,000 miners—whether it is the sheer brain force and inventiveness of a Fulton, a Morse or a McCormick, or the quaint and witty wisdom of “Mr. Dooley,” there have always been qualities of the Irish head and the Irish heart that brought honor to the little home-land of the Celt.

“There is nothing negative about the Irish,” said Patrick Ford—which is exactly what anyone who knows the rugged old journalist would have expected him to say. They may be on the wrong side of the quarrel, but one thing is always certain—they are never on the fence. They care little or nothing for obstacles and adverse circumstances. They are the best of friends and the best of enemies—the quickest with either the open hand or the fist—the most loyal to a cause and the most rebellious against a tyranny. They live closest to hope and farthest from despair.

“Why,” said Maurice Healy, an Alaskan fur trader, “I’m only 700 miles from a bank!”

You can bend and twist an Irishman, but you can seldom break him—the records of insanity and suicide prove this. He “works hard in time of peace and fights hard in time of war,” as President Roosevelt has said. Impulsive, daring, constructive, indomitable, the Irishman has done indispensable work in this land of his choice.

“May his shadow never grow less!”—so say we all.

REVIEW OF THE YEAR.

LEADING EVENTS IN THE CAREER OF THE SOCIETY, FOR 1906, OR OF SPECIAL
INTEREST TO THE MEMBERS.

Jan. 4. Death of P. J. Kenedy, New York, senior member of the firm
of P. J. Kenedy & Sons, publishers. Mr. Kenedy was a member
of the Society.

Jan. 6. The U. S. gunboat _Hist_ arrived at the Charlestown (Mass.)
navy yard today from Newport, R. I. Chief Boatswain Hugh
Sweeney, who was in command, immediately turned the vessel
over to Boatswain Patrick Shanahan and returned to Newport.

Jan. 10. Thirtieth meeting of the council of the Society is held
this evening at Providence, R. I. Hon. Thomas Z. Lee of
Providence presides.

Jan. 10. Following the council meeting just mentioned the members
and friends partook of dinner at the Narragansett Hotel,
Providence.

Jan. 18. Annual meeting and dinner of the Society. The event took
place at the Hotel Manhattan, 42d Street and Madison Avenue,
New York.

Jan. 18. A dinner to James McMahon was given at the Waldorf-Astoria,
New York, tonight, by the officers of the Emigrant
Industrial Savings Bank, that city. Mr. McMahon retires from
the presidency of the bank after fourteen years’ service. He
is a member of the Society.

Jan. 29. Death of Ambrose F. Travers, New York, a member of the
Society.

Feb. 1. Governor Swanson of Virginia is inaugurated. He has
appointed Hon. Joseph T. Lawless, of Norfolk, a member of
the Society, to be a colonel on his staff.

Feb. 4. Capt. James Connolly of Coronado, Cal., a member of the
Society, writes to Secretary Murray that he has contracted
with a Boston publisher to bring out a volume of verse
entitled “The Jewels of King Art,” in commemoration of a
famous Irish monarch.

Feb. 18. John A. McCall, a life member of the Society, dies at
Lakewood, N. J.

Feb. 21. Rev. John F. Leary, rector of St. Michael’s Church, Chapman,
Kan., and chaplain of the Grand Army of the Republic, died
on this date. He was a native of Ogdensburg, N. Y. During
the Civil War he served as a member of the Fifteenth New
York Engineers. That was before he became a priest. He was
in the engagements at the Wilderness, Spottsylvania and
Appomatox. Though he was wounded at Bermuda Hundred, he was
able to get back to his regiment in time to be in at the
finish at Appomatox Courthouse. Father Leary was elected
chaplain-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic at the
national encampment held last September.

Feb. 28. George T. Little, librarian of Bowdoin College, requests a
copy of Volume II of the Journal of the Society for that
institution. He states that the college is already in
possession of the other volumes of the series.

March. Rev. Cyrus Townsend Brady, LL. D., of the Society, is the
author of a volume brought out this month entitled, _The
True Andrew Jackson_. It is illustrated, comprises 503
pages, and is dedicated as follows: “To that most useful and
eminent citizen, John D. Crimmins, and our fellow-members of
the American-Irish Historical Society, I dedicate this
appreciation of the greatest among the many of Irish lineage
who have contributed to the upbuilding of the republic.”

March 2. The State Historical Society of Missouri, by its secretary,
expresses a desire to secure copies of the publications of
our Society.

March 8. Cyril Crimmins, a son of Hon. John D. Crimmins, New York,
becomes a life member of the Society.

March 9. Frederick H. Hild, librarian of the Chicago Public Library,
writes that the library is desirous of having a complete set
of the Journal of the Society, and also copies of such other
publications as may be issued.

March 12. The Rhode Island state house commissioners granted this
afternoon, permission to the Society to erect a tablet in
the edifice to Gen. John Sullivan of the Revolution.

March 13. The Providence (R. I.) _Evening Tribune_ contains an
interesting article on the memorial tablet which the Society
purposes erecting in the state capitol, Providence, to
Maj.-Gen. John Sullivan of the Revolution.

March 14. An article on Maj.-Gen. John Sullivan is published in the
Providence (R. I.) _Evening Tribune_ today, accompanied by
his portrait.

March 15. Most Rev. Robert Seton, titular archbishop of Heliopolis,
lectured at the Irish College, Rome, today, on The Irish in
America. Among those present was Cardinal Michael Logue,
archbishop of Armagh, and primate of all Ireland.

March 24. A despatch from Montreal, this date, states that the Oakhall
restaurant, corner of St. Peter and Notre Dame streets, that
city, was burned out last night. Special interest centres
in the fact that the building was occupied in 1775 as the
headquarters of Gen. Richard Montgomery and staff of the
American army in Montreal.

March 28. Melvin G. Dodge, librarian of Leland Stanford Junior
University, California, wishes copies of Volumes I and III
of the Journal of the Society for that institution. He
writes us to that effect.

March 31. Gaelic Notes in this week’s New York _Irish World_ has the
following: “Now that the question of teaching Irish history
in the schools has again come to the front, we would repeat
the suggestion made by us a couple of years ago to the
American-Irish Historical Society, that in no possible way
could it so promote the objects for which it is organized as
by the preparation of a popular text-book of the history of
the race in America, suitable for the use of schools. The
Society has the material for doing this; it could do it
without loss to itself, and with great profit to the race,
which it would thus have put under a debt of gratitude.”

April. Death of Gen. M. T. McMahon at his home in New York City.
He was a judge of the New York Court of General Sessions
at the time of his death. He had practised law in New York
for many years and was a fine speaker, but he was known
chiefly as a soldier. He was educated at St. John’s College,
Fordham, from which he graduated in 1855, and then went
to Buffalo, where he studied law in the office of Eli Cook,
then mayor of the city, in company with Grover Cleveland,
since president of the United States. Although able to pass
the examination, he was too young to be admitted to the
bar, and he became a correspondence clerk in the general
post-office at Washington. In President Buchanan’s
administration he was appointed special post-office agent
to the Pacific coast. He was admitted to the bar at
Sacramento in 1861. At the first call for troops at the
breaking out of the Civil War he raised the first company
of cavalry on the Pacific. He was elected captain of the
company, but when it was decided that the company should
not go to the front he resigned and went to Washington.
He was made a captain in the regular army and an
aide-de-camp to Gen. George B. McClellan, whose bosom friend
he remained until “Little Mac’s” death. He served in every
engagement in which the Army of the Potomac took part. When
the Sixth Corps was disbanded he was adjutant-general and
chief of staff. He also served under Generals Franklin,
Sedgwick (who was killed at the Wilderness), Baldy Smith
and Wright. He received the congressional medal of honor
for bravery at the battle of White Oak Swamp. Congress also
presented him with a jeweled sword for conspicuous bravery
at Spottsylvania and other battles. At the close of the
war he was assigned as adjutant-general under General Dix,
to the Department of the East. He resigned in 1866 and
became corporation attorney of New York City. President
Johnson made him minister to Paraguay. In 1879 he ran for
Congress against Robert B. Roosevelt and was defeated. Two
years later he was appointed receiver of taxes by Andrew
H. Green, then comptroller. He was United States marshal
for the Southern District of New York under President
Cleveland. After that he was an assemblyman and a state
senator. For years he had been one of the managers of the
National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers. In 1896 he
was elected judge of the Court of General Sessions. General
McMahon was a Fenian and was ready for service in Ireland.
He was also a member of the Clan-na-Gael in its earlier
days. His brother, John E. McMahon, who was attorney-general
and adjutant-general of New York state under Governor
Seymour, was colonel of the One Hundred and Sixty-fourth
New York Volunteers, which he raised in Buffalo at the
outbreak of the war. The regiment was later consolidated
with the Phœnix Zouaves, a Fenian regiment, and McMahon
became colonel. It was part of the Corcoran Legion. Col.
John E. McMahon was killed at the siege of Suffolk, Va., in
1863. The other brother, James P. McMahon, was a captain in
the Sixty-ninth with Thomas Francis Meagher, later became
lieutenant-colonel of the One Hundred and Fifty-fifth New
York, and was promoted to be colonel of the One Hundred and
Sixty-fourth New York, in place of his brother, Martin. He
remained in command of the latter regiment until he was
killed in a charge at the battle of Cold Harbor on June 3,
1864.

April. About this time is issued from the Blanchard Press,
Worcester, Mass., a volume entitled: “A Study in the
Etymology of the Indian Place Name Missisquoi.” The author
of the work is George McAleer, M. D., of Worcester, a member
of our Society.

April. The _Munsey Magazine_ (New York) for this month has a paper
on the Irish in America by Herbert N. Casson.

April 7. Death today of Capt. Patrick S. Curry, Lynn, Mass., a
member of the Society. He passed away at Nashua, N. H.,
where he had been superintending the construction of a new
post-office building.

April 9. Daniel Walsh, a member of the crew of the _Monitor_ when
she fought the _Merrimac_, during the Civil War, died in
Lawrence, Mass. He was a native of Ireland.

April 18. Hon. James D. Phelan, ex-mayor of San Francisco, who is
a member of the Society, is appointed a member of the
Committee of Safety by Mayor Schmitz of that city, which
committee is rendered necessary by the great earthquake
and fire disaster.

April 18. E. Festus Kelly, of Northerwood House, Lyndhurst, Hampshire,
England, expresses his interest in a paper on “The New
Hampshire Kellys,” which appeared in Volume V of the Journal
of the Society, and desires a copy of the same.

April 20. Patrick J. Meehan, of Jersey City, N. J., editor of the
_Irish-American_ of New York, the oldest Irish newspaper in
the United States with the exception of _The Pilot_, and who
may be styled the Nestor of the Irish-American and Catholic
journalistic fraternity, died on this date.

April 20. A despatch from Lowell, Mass., today states that the
O’Sullivan Rubber Co., of that city, has wired $500 to the
mayor of San Francisco to aid the earthquake sufferers. The
check was signed by Treasurer Humphrey O’Sullivan, who is a
member of our Society, as is James O’Sullivan, president of
the company.

April 25. At Phalerum, Greece, today, Martin J. Sheridan of the
Irish-American A. C., New York, won the contest at discus
throwing. Giorgantas, a Greek, was second.

April 25. President Roosevelt, in a proclamation today, urges the
American people to now send their contributions for the
alleviation of the distress in San Francisco, directly to
ex-Mayor James D. Phelan, chairman of the finance committee
in San Francisco, instead of to the American Red Cross. The
proclamation goes on to say: “The need of employing the
Red Cross, save as an auxiliary, has passed, and I urge
that hereafter all contributions from any source be sent
direct to James D. Phelan, chairman finance committee, San
Francisco. Mr. Devine of the Red Cross will disburse any
contributions sent to him through ex-Mayor Phelan and will
work in accord with him in all ways.”

April 26. Reception this evening to Rear-Admiral John McGowan, U. S.
N., the new president-general of the Society. The event took
place at the residence of Hon. John D. Crimmins, 40 East
68th Street, New York.

April 28. An editorial in the _New Century_, Washington, D. C., this
date, says: “As an individual contributor to the San
Francisco relief fund, one notices an Irish name leading all
the rest—far and above in amount, the generosity of the
Rockefellers, the Astors and the Vanderbilts. The name is
that of James D. Phelan, who subscribed $1,000,000. And
this, notwithstanding that he himself lost $15,000,000 by
the fire. These great catastrophes always evoke
large-hearted acts and assure us that neither magnanimity,
public spirit nor courage have yet vanished from the face of
the earth. Mr. Phelan’s conduct proclaims him a man worthy
of his wealth. We learn, further, that he is a Catholic, a
graduate of a Jesuit college and that he was mayor of San
Francisco from 1896 to 1902. As he is only forty-five years
of age, we shall hope to hear more of him hereafter.”

April-May. A committee organized by Archbishop Farley, of New York,
for the relief of the San Francisco sufferers, has been
very successful. Among the members of the Society who have
contributed to the fund, together with the amount given by
each, are the following: Archbishop Farley, $1,000; Hon.
John D. Crimmins, $1,000; Hon. W. Bourke Cochran, $1,000;
Eugene Kelly, $1,000; James S. Coleman, $300; Francis J.
Quinlan, M. D., $250; Hon. Morgan J. O’Brien, $250; Edmond
J. Curry, $100; J. Henry Haggerty, $100; all of New York.
Mr. Crimmins is treasurer of the fund.

May 3. Warren Upham, secretary and librarian of the Minnesota
Historical Society, St. Paul, Minn., writes that the
organization is desirous of possessing a complete set of the
Journal of the American-Irish Historical Society.

May 5. The New York _Irish-American_ for this week has the
following relative to our San Francisco member, ex-Mayor
James D. Phelan: “In San Francisco the man of the hour in
whose hands is the management of the great relief fund,
and under whose executive direction the important movements
that are to lift the stricken city up from the depths and
rebuild her shattered fortunes have already been begun,
is that well-known Irish-American, James D. Phelan, former
mayor of the city. Although his personal and business losses
must reach millions, it is reported that he has devoted
the sum of $1,000,000 out of his private fortune to employ
the afflicted laboring people of his native city. Mr.
Phelan, whose father was one of the men who made San
Francisco rich and famous, was born in 1861, and was
educated at St. Ignatius College, in that city, where he
graduated with honor, after a four years’ course of study.
He then entered as a student at the law department of the
University of California, of which he is also a graduate.
He was selected mayor of the city, as a Democrat, in 1896,
and served until 1902. His régime was marked by zeal and
ability in the public service. The Democrats of the state
Legislature complimented him with their nomination for
United States senator a few years ago. He is one of the
leading capitalists of the United States, and has numerous
commercial and mining interests. He is president of the
Mutual Savings Bank and the finest business block in San
Francisco, situated on Market Street, bore his name. It
withstood the shock of earthquake, but the resulting fire
reduced it to a mass of smoking ruins. Mr. Phelan has been
for years a generous supporter of the Irish cause and has
stood by both Parnell and Redmond with his influence and his
money. His father aided in receiving Terence Bellew McManus,
John Mitchel and Thomas Francis Meagher when those patriots
escaped from the British penal settlements in Australia and
sought liberty and new careers in America. No city has been
more generous in aid of Ireland than San Francisco and its
people, of all races, are renowned for their hospitality
and liberality, and foremost among those who offered that
hospitality has always been James D. Phelan. In the new city
that is to rise triumphant from the ashes of the present
disaster his grateful fellow-citizens will no doubt give him
every honor in their bestowal.”

May 12. The funeral took place, at Boston today, of Patrick E.
Flood. He was a member of the crew of the U. S. S.
_Kearsarge_ when she fought the _Alabama_.

May 29. John F. Sweeney, Buffalo, N. Y., becomes a life member of
the Society.

May 30. In the old Granary burying ground, Boston, this morning,
was unveiled a slab marking the burial place of those who
fell in the Boston massacre of March 5, 1770, and of a boy
who was killed on the previous February 22. The modest slab
of slate is in keeping with the other memorials in this
historic burying ground. It was erected by Boston Chapter,
S. A. R., and is the first permanent marker that has been
placed over these graves. Dr. Samuel Crowell, president
of the Boston Chapter, unveiled the slab with a brief
introductory speech, presenting Dr. Moses Greeley Parker
of Lowell, president of the Massachusetts Society, who
congratulated Boston Chapter on the work it has done and
is doing. Edward W. McGlenen, city registrar, of the
committee, gave a brief historical sketch of the events
leading up to the massacre, including the shooting of the
boy, Christopher Snider, by the British soldiers, who fired
into his father’s house. Little attention has been paid in
history to the killing of this boy, called on the slab “the
innocent first victim of the struggles between the colonists
and the crown.” The slab stands close to the grave of Samuel
Adams and is in plain view from the street. The inscription
reads:

+-------------------------------------------+
| The Remains of |
| SAMUEL GRAY |
| SAMUEL MAVERICK |
| JAMES CALDWELL |
| CRISPUS ATTUCKS |
| and |
| PATRICK CARR |
| Victims of the Boston Massacre |
| March 5th, 1770 |
| Were here interred by order of the |
| Town of Boston |
| Here also lies buried the body of |
| CHRISTOPHER SNIDER |
| aged 12 years |
| Killed February 22nd, 1770 |
| The innocent first victim of the struggle |
| between the Colonists and the Crown |
| which resulted in |
| INDEPENDENCE |
| Placed by Boston Chapter, S. A. R. |
| 1906. |
+-------------------------------------------+