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.”