The oldest Irish organization in this country is the Charitable Irish Society, Boston, Mass. It was founded in 1737, and is still enjoying a prosperous existence. Gen. Henry Knox was a member.
Thomas McDonoghue was a resident of Charlestown, Mass., in 1798. John Russell married Mary Malonie in 1772. Russell is heard of as early as 1769. (Wyman’s Charlestown.)
Kennedy O’Brien was one of the early residents of Augusta, Ga. He was a merchant. A deposition made by him in 1741 is mentioned. (Collections of the Georgia Historical Society.)
According to Felt’s Annals of Salem, Mass., Butler Fogarty was a school teacher there in 1792. He gave up his school to become clerk of the Essex bank, but in 1794 went back to teaching.
St. Patrick’s Lodge of Masons was instituted at Johnstown, N. Y., in 1766. Another lodge bearing the same name was located at Portsmouth, N. H., and was chartered March 17, 1780.
Edward Jones, of Wilmington, N. C., a native of Ireland, was elected to the North Carolina House of Commons in 1788 and served until 1791, when he became Solicitor-General of the state.
Edward Rigg, an Irishman, died in New York city, 1786. He was for many years a school teacher there. Edward Fogarty, another school teacher, died in New York city about the same time.
Hon. Edward Kavanagh became governor of the state of Maine on the resignation of Governor Fairfield, 1843. Governor Kavanagh’s father was a native of New Ross, County Wexford, Ireland.
Savage’s Genealogical Dictionary of New England states that in 1654 Edward Welch, “an Irish youth,” was sent over, by the ruling power in England, in the ship Goodfellow, “to be sold here.”
John Campbell, who was twice speaker of the North Carolina House of Assembly, was reared in Coleraine, Ireland. He was “a wise and thrifty man.” (Moore’s History of North Carolina.)