Enough has been written to show what a large proportion of the people of the Old Dominion before the year 1800 were of Irish descent. The mention of any more names would simply be a tiresome proceeding.
While many of these people were distinguished in Virginia, the greater part of their descendants were more eminent in the territories and states to which they migrated. A distinguished Virginian, although not a native of the state, was Major-General Benjamin F. Kelly of the Union army. He was a native of New Hampshire, but went to West Virginia when a youth. He was the grandson of Darby Kelly, who served three years in the old French War in northern New York under Sir William Johnson. Darby was a soldier, a schoolmaster, and a farmer, and his New Hampshire descendants are, and have been, among the most useful citizens of the old Granite state. Gen. Kelly is credited with raising the first Union regiment and winning the first victory for the Union south of Mason and Dixon’s line during the Civil War. His nephew, Capt. Warren Michael Kelly, commanded a company in the Tenth New Hampshire Infantry, commanded by Col. Michael T. Donohoe, and it is claimed that he led the first white troops into Richmond after its evacuation.
Another distinguished Union officer, a West Virginian, if I am not mistaken, was Gen. Milroy. Every Irishman is aware that this was the good old Gaelic name of Mulroy, and in that form is borne by hundreds of Irish persons in America to-day. On the Confederate side none of the many distinguished officers serving under Gen. Lee had a better reputation as a fighter than Gen. William Mahone. It is claimed that he was opposed to the surrender of Lee, and that his troops were ready, under his direction, to continue the fight.
That writers in time will do justice to those of the Irish race and to Ireland for the part taken in the colonization of the country and in the establishment of the republic, is unquestioned, but Irishmen and the sons of Irishmen must interest themselves in this matter in each state in order to accomplish that end. New England in this respect, through its writers, has made known to the world the part taken by the Pilgrims and Puritans in the building of this nation, and their example can well be followed by people of our own race in laboring with the pen to show that in the same work Irishmen and Irishmen’s sons have taken no small part.
The authorities examined in connection with the writing of this paper are Hotten’s Original Lists of emigrants, the Virginia Calendar of State Papers, the First Republic in America, Ramsay’s History of the United States, Campbell’s History of Virginia; Historical Collections of Virginia, William & Mary College Quarterly, Gleanings of Virginia History, Collins’ History of Kentucky.
THE IRISH PIONEERS OF THE CONNECTICUT VALLEY.[[2]]
BY EDWARD A. HALL, SPRINGFIELD, MASS.
Since the organization of the American-Irish Historical Society, in 1897, with Hon. Theodore Roosevelt, whose father’s mother was Irish, as one of the charter members, and Rear Admiral Richard W. Meade as the first president-general, many important facts have been recorded of the contributions of the Irish element in the upbuilding of this republic.
A distinguished statesman and statistician recently stated that within the memory of men now living upwards of twenty-one millions of immigrants arrived and settled in the United States. This same authority states that almost two thirds of our entire population is represented by English and Irish blood in about equal proportions. In this computation it should always be remembered that England was given credit for many of the earlier Irish emigrants who were obliged to sail from English ports and compelled to adopt English surnames.
It is, however, with thousands of Irish pioneers who immigrated to this country before the time of men living now and who settled many of the towns in or bordering on the Connecticut valley that I wish to occupy the attention of my readers.