A return of the men enlisted by Lieut. Henry Piercy of the Second Pennsylvania Regiment, 1778, mentions Patrick McQuire, a native of Ireland, 42 years of age, and says that he “has the brogue on his tongue.”
The provincial congress of North Carolina, 1776, appointed James Hogan paymaster of the Third Regiment and also of the three companies of Light Horse. (Wheeler’s Historical Sketches of North Carolina.)
Thomas Burke was chosen governor of North Carolina in 1781. He was an Irishman by birth and had been educated for a physician. He came to America long prior to the Revolution and first settled at Norfolk, Va.
We learn from the published records of Providence, R. I., that, in 1682, Cornelius Higgins bought of Andrew Harris, of Pawtucket, R. I., 98¼ acres in Scituate, in the “precincts of ye said Towne of Providence.”
John Keeney and Thomas Roach of New London, Conn., were nominated for freemen at the General Court, opened in Connecticut on Oct. 14, 1669. Timothy Forde was nominated for freeman on May 14, 1668.
John, Daniel and Nancy O’Brien were residents of New London, Conn., in 1795. John Callahan and Henry McCabe were there in 1796. Patrick Mann and John Sweeney were residents of Hartford, Conn., in 1799.
It is said of Arthur Dobbs, an Irish governor of North Carolina (1754), that he brought over a few pieces of artillery, one thousand muskets “and a plentiful supply of his poor relations.” (Moore’s North Carolina.)
James Coleman, Maurice Murphey, Jr., Matthew Murphey, John Kenneday, and Francis Kenneday were among the organizers of a military company on the northeast side of the Pee Dee river, South Carolina, in 1775.
On Aug. 16, 1688, at Northfield, Mass., three men, two women and a girl were killed by the Indians. One of the victims was John Clary, father of the John Clary who was killed at Brookfield, Mass., in 1709. (Temple.)
John Neil, from Ireland, was in Scituate, Mass., as early as 1730. He established a pottery thereabouts. Edward Humphries, from Ireland, was a resident of Scituate as far back as 1740. (Deane’s History of Scituate.)