The following served in the several companies named, during the Revolution, on detached service, mainly against the Indians, who were the auxiliaries of the British:
In Captain Bourman’s company,—William Barry, Edward Bulger, Patrick Doran, Isaac McBride, Robert McClanahan, Edward Murray, Joseph Michael and Thomas Pendergast.
Captain Logan’s company,—Capt. Benj. Logan, Lieut. John Logan, William Casey, George Flynn, Bartholomew Fenton, Stephen Houston, John McCormack, John McElhone, James McElwain, John McKaine, Archibald Mahone, William Neal.
Captain Harrod’s company,—Daniel Driskill, John Conway, Patrick McGee, John Lewis, William Smiley, James Sullivan, James Welch.
Captain Boyle’s company,—Capt. John Boyle, Barney Boyle, Elisha Clary, James Coyle, Owen Devine, Peter Higgins, Robert Moore, William Rowan, Dennis Devine.
Captain Holder’s company,—James Barry, James Bryan, John Butler, William Collins, William McGee, Hugh Ross.
Captain Boone’s company,—John Butler, Patrick Ryan, Morgan Hughes, John McFadden.
An idea can be formed of the Irish blood in Kentucky during those stirring times, from the character of the names given. Nearly all the great Gaelic family names are represented, and the absence of Scriptural (Old Testament) names, so common among those of the Presbyterian and Congregational denominations, indicates that these men were of Catholic stock when they, or their fathers, immigrated. The first settlers of the “Blue Grass” state were from Virginia, North Carolina and Pennsylvania,—nearly all of this stock, which no doubt accounts for the gallantry and beauty of the modern Kentuckians, men and women, and the superior quality of the whiskey and horses, for the usquebaugh, or “mountain dew,” was first distilled in Ireland, and when first tasted by the sluggish Saxons, the effect was such on their thick blood, muddied by beer, that they considered it good not only as a beverage, but as “cure-all” for medicinal purposes.
James McBride, an Irishman, has the credit of being the first white man to enter the territory, “paddling his canoe up the Kentucky river in 1745.” Twenty years later Col. George Croghan, the well-known Indian agent of the same stock, was at Shawane town, on the Ohio river.
When Daniel Boone left North Carolina for Kentucky in 1769, he was accompanied by James Mooney, John Stewart, Joseph Holden, John Findlay and William Cool, all but the leader being of Irish stock.