The Irishmen of Pelham were on the right side in the Revolution. They issued an address to their countrymen in Boston, Nov. 3, 1773, of which the following extract is an illustration: “We are not at present much intimidated with the pompous boasting on the other side of the water or the claim that Great Britain could blow America into atoms.” They unanimously voted their acquiescence in, and support of, a declaration of independence fourteen days before the Declaration of Independence was made at Philadelphia, and throughout the war they furnished from their slender means and resources more than their proportion of men and money for its prosecution.
The town of Chesterfield, Mass., was first occupied about 1760 to 1765 by Simon Higgins, George Buck, Pierce Cowing, Charles Kid, Robert Hamilton, Benj. Kid, Con. Bryan, Thomas Pierce, John Holbard, Jerry Spaulding, William White and David Stearns. They were mostly Irishmen from Pelham and elsewhere. The first pastor called to preach the gospel was Rev. Peter Johnson of Londonderry. They named one of the principal streets of the town, Ireland street. This street was accepted March 17, 1763, and is the only street in the town which has remained unaltered. The people of Chesterfield were patriots in the Revolution and voted, in 1775, to purchase 400 pounds of powder, 400 pounds lead, and 1,200 flints to supply the forty-seven Minute Men who marched to Cambridge upon the Lexington alarm.
Of the territory comprising the original county of Hampshire, Mass., from which the counties of Hampden and Franklin have been set off, the Irish settled a large portion of the area from which the early organized towns were formed, such as Palmer, Chester, and Blandford. Pelham, Colerain, Charlemont, Sunderland, and many districts were later set off and organized into townships, such as Granville, Brimfield, Southwick, Russell, Montgomery, Goshen, Conway, Ware, Amherst, Orange, Gill, Huntington, Rowe, Greenwich, Worthington, and Middlefield.
The history of the towns of Berkshire county, Mass., shows that they were mostly all organized a generation or two after the coming of the Irish, who settled the original territory from 1718 to 1740, and although the names on the town records show that many of them were settled by the sons and grandsons of the settlers from Ireland, we can only guess at the origin of others by their Irish names, such as the Plunketts of Pittsfield and Adams, Patrick Murphy and Michael Sweet of Savoy, with Patrick Tyrell, Whalen, or Phelan, Casey, Kerwin, Kneil, or Neil, Hale, and McHale, Bryan, or Bryant, in several towns of the county.
Isaac Magoon came from Ireland with the colony that settled in Palmer, Mass., in 1727. The farm allotted to him by the legislative commission was at the southwest corner of the Reed estate. He left two sons, Alexander (who also left two sons, Isaac and Alexander), and Isaac who married Lucretia, daughter of John Downing, and had thirteen children. This family owned about 1,400 acres of the best land in Ware, Mass. Several of the descendants of the Magoon family afterwards settled in the Western states, and many of them probably know very little of their Irish ancestry.
Among the very early Irish settlers whose descendants are at present residents of the Connecticut valley, and of whom we have authentic records, a few families deserve special mention because of the prominence to which they have attained in the community. Irish men and women, boys and maidens, were imported to these colonies in the very first years of the settlements, while in June, 1643, an Irish immigration took place that far out-numbered the Plymouth colony in Massachusetts. Of the descendants of these early settlers, Hall J. Kelley, one of the most enterprising men of Palmer, Mass., who developed the village of Three Rivers, was born in New Hampshire, Aug. 24, 1790, and was a descendant of John Kelly, who settled in Newbury, Mass., in 1633. John Riley and his wife, Grace O’Dea, came to this country from Ireland about the year 1624. They settled at Hartford, Conn., where their first two children were born,—John in 1646 and Joseph in 1649, after which they moved to West Springfield, Mass., where Jonathan was born in 1651, and afterwards Mary, Grace, Sarah, Jacob, and Isaac, the dates of whose births are unknown, but all the eight children are named in this order in his will of 1671. With the Rileys came a nephew of Mr. Riley, named John Riley, and a young sister of Mrs. Riley, named Margaret O’Dea. This couple got married at Springfield, Mass., in 1660, and had two daughters, Margaret, born Dec. 21, 1662, and Mary, born June 2, 1665. John died Oct. 24, 1684, and his wife died Aug. 22, 1689. He had two brothers, Richard, who remained in Hartford, and Patrick, who with his wife Bridget moved to Middletown.
Garret and Miles Riley came in 1634 from County Longford, Ireland. Patrick and Richard Riley came to Windsor and Wethersfield, Conn., in 1639. John Riley and wife, Margaret, came to Springfield, Mass., in 1640, where two daughters were born. Mary, born June 2, 1665, married Joseph Ely, June 2, 1685; Margaret, born Dec. 21, 1662, married William McGraney, July 19, 1685.
Bridget Clifford, who died at Suffield, Conn., May 7, 1695, came from Ireland to this country with her brothers, John, aged twenty, and Oliver, eighteen, in the vessel Primrose for Virginia, 1635. John died Dec. 25, 1668.
James Coggin and John Cogan, from Dublin, Ireland, settled at Windsor, Conn., and removed to Hartford in 1641. John Connor, whose parents, Philip and Mary Connor, came from Cork in 1634, was born at Middletown, Conn., June 14, 1686. His son John was taken prisoner at Quebec, 1775.
Robert Smith, born in Ireland 1672, came to Palmer, Mass., 1728, where he died Dec. 21, 1759.