That Daniel Barry was called “Lord Barry” by the people around. His father was known as Big Tom Barry—Thomas More. They were of the Barrys of Buttevant. They lost the old castles and the old lands of Buttevant, because their people stuck to the old faith in the days of English penal law, and persecution. They were naturally “disaffected” against the government of the plunderers in Ireland, and it was no doubt, on account of the people knowing that Dan Barry was a rebel at heart, that they honored him with a title, that would be his by right of descent, if he and his house had what properly belonged to them. From old manuscript papers that Father Tom Crimmins showed me, it seems that he and all belonging to him at father and mother’s side were not very fond of English rule in Ireland a hundred years ago. Many of them were what are called “Irish rebels,” and had to leave Ireland. There is on several of those papers the official stamp of American Courts of Law, carrying the dates of the years 1820, 1812, and 1805. One set of papers show that David Reidy had titles to several lots of land in Cincinnatus, in the county of Cortland, New York.—5,000 acres—3,000 acres—2,000. That David Reidy was the brother of the wife of Big Tom Barry; and the uncle of the mother of Big Tom Crimmins. David Reidy had to leave Ireland, after the “rising” of ’98. Arriving in America, he is found in the United States army, and engaged in the war of 1812. He died without leaving wife or children, in New York City, a few years after the termination of that war, possessed of considerable property in New York county, and Cortland county, Thomas Addis Emmet becoming his executor.

In the year 1835 Father Tom Crimmins came to America—landing from a sailing ship in Perth Amboy, with eighty-six gold sovereigns in his pockets. There were no steamships that time; steamships were not known here till he came here. He came to see about this Reidy property that was so much talked of in the family at home in Ireland, and brought with him as much money as would take him back again. He brought with him letters of introduction to the young Thomas Addis Emmet from some of the old ’98 exiles who had been in America after ’98 and had gone back to Ireland—letters from an uncle of his, Maurice Barry, a civil engineer who had been engaged on the Down Survey of Ireland, and another civil engineer named Landers who was married to one of the Barry sisters.

When Mr. Crimmins went to Cortland county, he found that the land had been sold for taxes—all, except eighty acres, on which was a cemetery. This eighty acres, except the cemetery part of it, he sold out. A few Irish families were buried in the cemetery, and he did not want to have them disturbed. He then returned to New York.

When he delivered his letters of introduction to Thomas Addis Emmet, he was received with the warmest of welcomes; he was introduced to some of the ’98 men who were in New York, and to all who knew his Uncles David Reidy and Dan Barry.

“If any soundings were taken around me as to whether or not I was in need of any help,” said Father Crimmins as he was telling his story, “I knew I had as much money as would take me back home whenever I desired to go back, and I suppose I had pride enough to show that. During my stay so far, I was a guest of Thomas Addis Emmet’s at his house.

“It was more worrying and more wearisome to me to be idle than to be at work, so I occasionally made myself occupation in straightening up things about the grounds.

“Then, when I thought it ought to be time for the very best of welcomes to be getting worn out, and when I was talking of leaving, Mr. Emmet and Mrs. Emmet begged me to stay, and take charge of the business of the whole place—farm, cattle, arbory, shrubbery, plants, hothouses, everything. The Emmets used to receive a lot of company; they kept a well-stocked wine cellar; I held the keys of that wine cellar for nine years, and a drop of anything in it, I never tasted.

“By the bye, Mr. O’Donovan, excuse me—won’t you have a drink of some kind?”

“No, thank you, Mr. Crimmins.”

“Wine, champagne, anything?”