That the Irish were fairly plentiful in Boston in pre-revolutionary days is well brought out by Cullen.[[11]] He found that among the earliest records there appeared such distinctly Irish names as Cogan, Barry, Connors, McCarty, and Kelly.
In the register of births, marriages and deaths in Boston from 1630 to 1700 there was, according to Cullen, over two hundred entries of names distinctly Irish and probably many others just as certainly Irish, but not so entered. Under Cromwell’s government many Irish people were sent to New England. In 1654 the ship “Goodfellow,” Captain George Dell, arrived in Boston with a large number of Irish immigrants that were sold into service to such of the inhabitants as needed them. This service was only temporary, to pay for the expense of transportation.
During the two years, 1736–38, ten ships are on record as coming to Boston from Ireland with a total of nearly one thousand passengers.
On the rolls of Bunker Hill are very many purely Irish names.
“In New Hampshire,” writes John C. Linehan,[[12]] “as early as 1631, according to military records, the first representative of the Emerald Isle made his appearance in the person of Darby Field, an Irish Soldier.” According to the same writer, in Vol. I., “Provincial Papers,” 1641 to 1660, are found such names as Duggan, Dermott, Gibbon, Vaughan, Neal, Patrick, Buckley, Kane, Kelly, Brian, Healey, Connor, MacMurphy, Malone, Murphy, Corbett, McClary, McMillen, Pendergast, Keily, McGowan, McGinnis, Sullivan and Toole. Later records show that the Irish were very numerous in the early days in New Hampshire, even long before the settlement of Londonderry.
Londonderry, New Hampshire, was settled by Irish Presbyterians in 1719. Few settlements were more prosperous. In the process of time, according to Barstow, in his “History of New Hampshire,” page 130 (1853), the descendants of the Londonderry settlers spread over New Hampshire and Vermont.
Barstow speaks of them as Scotch, but as quoted by Linehan, p. 66, Rev. James McSparran, an Irish Protestant Clergyman of Rhode Island, writing in 1752, referring to the New Hampshire settlement, says: “In the province lies that town called Londonderry—all Irish and famed for industry and riches.”
In Maine, we may mention among the early Irish, the five O’Brien brothers, of Machias, including Captain Jeremiah O’Brien, who fought and won the first sea fight with the British. O’Brien’s exploits are well described by the Rev. A. M. Sherman in “The Life of Captain Jeremiah O’Brien of Machias, Maine.” Owen Sullivan, the father of Gen. John Sullivan and of James, Governor of Massachusetts, arrived at Boston, 1723, and settled in Berwick, Maine, about 1730. Being of an excellent education, he was a teacher in Berwick, Maine, and Somersworth, N. H. Several of the highest grade families of Massachusetts are descendant from Owen Sullivan.
The Irish have always been an upbuilding part of the population in New York. In O’Callaghan’s “Documentary History of New York,” as shown by M. J. O’Brien,[[13]] are found men named Gill, Barrett, and Ferris, settlers and Indian fighters in New Netherlands in 1657, and in 1673 Patrick Dowdall, John Fitzgerald, Benjamin Cooley, Thomas Basset, L. Collins, and Thomas Guinn were enrolled in the militia.
In the census of the City of New York in 1703, appear such names as Mooney, Dooley, Walsh, Carroll, Dauly, Corbett, Coleman, Curre, Kenne, Gilley, Gurney, Mogan, Buckley, etc., all with an Irish ring. In 1733 many others of clearly Irish origin are mentioned. In the muster roll of the militia of New York City in 1737, are such Irish names as Welsh, McDowell, Ryan, Mooney, Hayes, Donlon, Gill, Murfry, Magee, Kelly, Sutton, Farley, Sullivan, McMullen, O’Brien, etc.