In the main, the first settlers of Kentucky were Virginians. The wife of Daniel Boone was the first white woman to stand upon the banks of the Kentucky river. This was in June, 1775, and in the September following she had for company Mrs. McCary and Mrs. Hogan.
Col. William Casey, born in Virginia, was one of the pioneers of the dark and bloody ground. Col. Joseph M. Daviess, who fell at Tippecanoe, was born in Virginia. His grandfather was an Irishman and his mother Scotch. It is written of him that he had marked peculiarities of both races. “The hardy self-reliance, the indomitable energy, and imperturbable coolness which had from earliest times distinguished the Scotch, were his; while the warm heart, free and open hand, and ready-springing tear of sensibility, told in language plainer than words that the blood of Erin flowed fresh in his veins.”
It is clear that this eulogy was not written by a “Scotch-Irishman.” His name undoubtedly comes from Wales, so it is fair to presume that he had in his veins commingled the blood of the three kindred races,—the Welsh, the Irish and the Scotch.
William T. Barry, a noted lawyer, a soldier, an educator, and postmaster-general under Jackson, was a Virginian of Irish parentage. Michael Cassidy, born in Ireland, emigrated to Virginia, and finally settled in and became one of the prominent citizens of Kentucky.
The descendants of the Irish settlers in Virginia in many instances became eminent in the southwestern states and territories organized after the Revolution. One of them was Gen. Benjamin Logan, a Virginian, both of whose parents were Irish. He was one of Kentucky’s greatest men. Three counties bear the names of Casey, Daviess, and Logan, in honor of the three men mentioned.
Brig.-Gen. James Hogan, a native of Virginia, served in the Continental army. He was commissioned Jan. 9, 1779.
In March, 1756, the Provincial Assembly of Virginia passed an act making provision for protection against the enemy, the French and Indians, and further enacted a bill providing for the raising of money, £25,000, for the payment of the militia of the several counties, and for provisions furnished by sundry inhabitants of the said counties. Among the names to whom payments were thus made, nearly twenty years before the Revolution, were the following: John Daley, Elizabeth Birk, Richard Murray, James Nevil, John Bryan, John Burk Lane, John McAnally, Alexander McMullen, Bryan Ferguson, John Fitzpatrick, William Cunningham, Robert Carney, Darby Conway, Thomas McNamara, Michael Mallow, Hugh Divar, William McGill, Robert Megary, John Shields, Cornelius Sullivan, Michael Dickie, John Farrell, James Burke, John Jordan, George Farley, Adam McCormick, Thomas Boyne, William Shannon, Bryan McDonnell, Robert Looney, Robert McClanahan, Michael Doherty, Peter Looney, John McNeal, William Curry, John McGowan, Ralph Lafferty, Patrick Frasier, Patrick Campbell, Michael Kelly, Patrick Porter, James Kennedy, Patrick Lowery, Patrick Savage, Patrick McCloskey, Charles McAnally, John Kilpatrick, James Boreland, Hugh Martin, Patrick Cargon, James Mulligan, John Caine, Dennis McNealy, Lawrence Murphy, Dennis Getty, William McMullen, William Garvin, William Doherty, Joseph Looney, Patrick McDade (Dowd), John Casey, John Macky, Thomas Sexton, Head Lynch, Patrick McDavitt, Ambrose Bryan, William Meade, John Riley, Reuben Keef, Jeremiah Early, Joseph McMurty, Patrick Hennessy, Edward O’Hare, Luke Murphy, James Murphy, Patrick Vance, Patrick Hallogan, James McFall, Patrick Johnson, John Patrick Burks, Thomas Dooley, James Dooley, Thomas Maclin, Thomas Connelly, Michael Poore, James Lynch, David Kelly, Michael Lawler, William Collins, Miles Murphy, John Hayes, Richard Burke, Cornelius Mitchell, William Gerrett, Michael Ryan, Garrett Bolin, William O’Donnell, Patrick McKenny, Richard Murphy, Francis Maginnis, Bryan Mooney, John Hickey, John Sullivan, William Murphy, Thomas McGuire, Cornelius Cargill, Michael Dixon, William Splane, Thomas Doyle, Michael Lynn, Edward O’Neal, Thomas McClanahan, James Doyle, John Donnelly, William Fitzgerald, Henry Dooley and Bryan Nolan. The people whose names are here given were soldiers in the militia fighting against the French and Indians between 1738 and 1758, as well as citizens furnishing them provisions.
In the poll for the election of burgesses for the several Virginia counties in 1741 are the following, among other names: Morgan Donnell, Daily Callahan, Edward Barry, John Carfey (Coffey), Simon Carnel, Dennis Connors, Edward Fagin, John Murphy, Patrick Hamericka, Michael Dermond (Dermott), James Cullen, William Butler, Michael Scanlan, Gabriel Murphy, James Dulaney, William Hogan, Henry Murphy, John Madden, Dennis McCarty, Thomas Carney, William Buckley, William Reardon and Philip Nolan.
The greater part of the names here given are in appearance Irish of the Irish, of Gaelic, or of old Norman origin. An examination of the early Virginia records will show, from 1619 to 1790, the entry of some of the most ancient of the Gaelic names peculiar to Ireland, like O’Neil, O’Donnell, O’Brien, O’Connor, accompanied by McMahon, McCarthy, McClanahan, McGuire, etc.
In an address delivered by the venerable Dr. Thomas Dunn English to the members of the American-Irish Historical Society, at one of its annual gatherings in New York several years ago, he stated that when a young man, over half a century before, he practised his profession in western Virginia. He noticed while there the manners, customs, and phrases of the mountaineers, and in later life, when he removed to New York, he was surprised to see the similarity between them and the newly-arrived Irish from the south, east, and west of Ireland. This for the first time caused him to change his opinion as to the nationality of the ancestors of the people in Virginia who had been classed as “Scotch-Irish,” for in every respect they appeared more like the southern Irish whom he had met later in New York.