“Descendants of Irishmen may well feel proud of the honorable part which the Irish race has borne in the settlement and development of the country. As early as 1649, Cromwell, by his cruel policy, transported 45,000 of them beyond the seas. A large number came to Barbadoes. Many of them afterwards came to the continent of North America.
“The revolution of 1688 in England, and the acts of British Parliament to discourage manufactures in Ireland, drove 100,000 operatives out of Ireland, and a writer of that time says multitudes of them went to America.
“In 1729 a writer stated that 3000 males left Ulster yearly for the American colonies. And the arrivals at the port of Philadelphia for 1729 are set down as: English and Welsh, 267; Scotch, 43; German, 343; Irish, 5655, or a proportion of ten Irish immigrants to one from all other European nations. This constant influx continued, though not in so great proportion. So we see what an important factor they were in the settlement of the colonies.
“James Logan, of Lurgan, Ire., came over with William Penn, and complaint was made against him that public Mass was permitted in the colony.
“The name of Logan has through all our history been honorably identified with every step of our progress. In 1729 several families came from Longford, Ire., who were landed at Cape Cod, but made their way to New York. Among them was Charles Clinton, whose three children became historical men in the annals of New York. The colony of Maryland was largely settled from Ireland; the Carrolls, whose names are indissolubly associated with American history, coming to the colony in 1689.
“In 1710 we find in Virginia along the Blue Ridge, in what are now the counties of Patrick and Rockbridge, the McDowells, Breckenridges, McDuffies, McGruders, and others, and the two rivers Mayo, and the towns called McGaheysville, Healysville, Kennedysville, McFarland, Lynchburg, and Kinsdale,—all names that tell us plainly what was the origin of the settlers.
“In 1737 an Irish settlement was established on the Santee River in South Carolina, and the historian of that time says none has furnished so many settlers to this province as Ireland.
“In 1746 Daniel Boone commenced the settlement of Kentucky, and had with him Hugh McGrady, also Harland and McBride.
“In the Massachusetts Bay Colonies, prejudices against natives of Ireland existed almost from the settlement of the colony. There were restrictions as to land, and in 1720 the General Court warned settlers from Ireland to leave the colony within seven months.
“As you all know, in 1737 the Charitable Irish Society was founded here in Boston by twenty-six natives of Ireland, Robert Duncan heading the list. William Hall was the first president, and in that list of names are the founders of many distinguished Boston families, some of whom, I am sorry to say, are not inclined to own their origin, or choose rather to call themselves Scotch-Irish, an appellation which their ancestors would have despised. We find at Concord the burial place of Hugh Cargill, born in Ballyshannon, who came to this country, in 1744, a poor emigrant, acquiring no mean estate, leaving as a legacy the Stratton farm to the town of Concord to be used for the poor.