Writing to his friend William Stevenson, in Ireland, Aug. 21, 1752, MacSparran informs him that “My brother and his wife died a year ago last June.... I have to go for England for ten or twelve months, to go to the baths for better health; if I can bring matters to bear to get to England, my next push will be to be seated in Ireland.... I am in the hands of a good God, who has the hearts of men at command; and if he sees that I can serve the interests of Christ’s church, either in the use of the English or Irish language, which you know I can write and read, and upon occasion could preach in, He will raise me up friends, and restore me to my native land, or near it—if not, His will be done.”

Dr. MacSparran’s brother, whom he mentions, Archibald, sailed from Ireland for Rhode Island, but the ship made another port and he settled near New Castle on Delaware bay. He had seven children: Margaret, Eliza, Bridget, John, James, Archibald, and Joseph. Dr. MacSparran, as I have said, had no children. The Doctor and his wife went to England sometime before 1755. She died there in the latter year.

The Doctor returned to Rhode Island and made pastoral visits to Providence, Warwick and several other places. In 1757 he died.[[20]] The manner of his death was a little remarkable. It is thus described in papers in the possession of the Updike family:

“Dr. MacSparran caught his death at father’s. He went to prayer, and had read and was going to kneel, and being a fat, heavy man, and putting his hands on the table to ease himself down, the table split off and his weight came down and he hit the edge of his eyebrow against the sharp edge of the table leg and he bled profusely—but he would have nothing done till he had finished his prayer. They bound it up and he got home and never recovered.”

He was buried under the communion table of St. Paul’s. In 1781 his successor, Rev. Samuel Fayerweather, was laid beside him. It is believed that Dr. MacSparran had written a history of Narragansett, but the manuscript was not found after his death. It may have previously been sent to Ireland. He bequeathed his house and farm to church purposes and the property became a glebe for the rectors of St. Paul’s.

Sometime previous to his death he sent his diplomas as Master and Doctor to Rev. Paul Limrick, a cousin in Ireland, requesting the latter to have them registered in the parish registry of Dungiven. He asked to have this done “not through vanity, but being a pilgrim on earth and not knowing but my carcase may fall in a strange land, it would be pleasing to me that my relations in time to come might be able to speak of me with authority.”

MEN OF IRISH BLOOD WHO HAVE ATTAINED DISTINCTION IN AMERICAN JOURNALISM.

BY MICHAEL EDMUND HENNESSY.[[21]]

In journalism, as in every other walk of life, men of Irish blood are, and have been, leaders of those who mould public opinion. As American newspaper men, Irish-Americans have added new laurels to the fair name of Erin’s sons. Irish in name, their intense Americanism pervades every cosmopolitan journal from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the Canadian line to the Gulf of Mexico.

Irishmen were among the pioneers in the establishment of the early American newspapers. It would, indeed, be interesting to follow one by one, step by step, the career of the men of Irish blood who, more than a hundred years ago, braved blind prejudice and established newspapers which did so much for American freedom, and later labored so hard for internal improvements, the developing and the upbuilding of the great Republic.