Although unable to be present, to my great regret, I very much desire to be counted one of the charter members of the society when it is organized. I am a member of the Society of the Sons of the Revolution, and my name, as well as my family history, indicates my Celtic descent, a derivation of which I am very proud.
I think the purposes of such a society are admirable, and if I can do anything to further its objects I shall be delighted. Kindly advise me of the receipt of this letter at your convenience, and oblige,
Very sincerely yours,
C. T. Brady,
Archdeacon of Pennsylvania.
From Dr. Thomas Dunn English.
Newark, N. J., January 11.
Dear Sir:—My age and consequent infirmities prevent me from attending too many night meetings in a month. I have promised to be present on the 16th at the annual dinner of the Alumni of the University of Pennsylvania, and on the 25th to attend the Burns celebration of the Newark Caledonian Club. This is about as much as I can attend to without endangering my health. I regret, however, my enforced absence, because I have a cordial sympathy with the proposed movement. As a descendant on my father’s side through over two centuries of American ancestors from Norman-Irish stock, and more immediately on my mother’s side from the Gaelic, I naturally take an interest in all that concerns the honor and reputation of my lineage. I therefore beg of you to place my name on the list of original members when you organize.
I have a further interest in the matter as a native American desiring that our federal and state historical records should be accurate and complete. Writers covering the part played by Irishmen in this country’s history generally confine themselves to services rendered during a revolutionary and post-revolutionary wars; and these the enemies of Ireland constantly depreciate, and the friends of Ireland sometimes exaggerate. Both sides lose sight of the fact that very much is due to Irish efforts in the colonization of the country and in its civil and social development. The society proposed will be able to show how much the Quaker Irish in Philadelphia and its vicinity, the Catholic Irish in Maryland, and bodies and individuals of them elsewhere on the seaboard did to develop our civilization and promote our progress. The society will have a rich and poorly worked mine of historical wealth in another quarter. The Appalachian and Alleghanian ranges and their immediate valleys found large numbers of Irish settlers among the pioneers, and from Londonderry in New Hampshire to Murphy and Coleraine in Georgia, there extends a long line of settlements where many customs, terms, phrases, and modes of thought and action attest the country of the founders. “The dark and bloody ground” of Kentucky has among its residents so many with Hibernian names, though the sept mark of O’ has been dropped in many cases, the Macs being more adherent, that in calling off the assessment rolls in some quarters it would seem to the hearer as though he had dropped in upon the meeting of some Irish society.
With my best wishes for the thorough success of the proposed organization,