John Anderson of Dublin was high in the affection of the old Dutch settlers of Beverwycks, now Albany, as early as 1645, as shown by Danaher in “Early Irish in old Albany,” N. Y., 1903. He is mentioned in the old Dutch records: “Jans Andriessen de Iersman van Dublingh,” and as an instance of his popularity he is affectionately referred to as Jantie or Jantien, meaning Johnnie or little Johnnie. As shown by the same writer, many Irishmen were early prominent in Albany.
Thomas Dongan, the son of an Irish baronet, governed New York in 1683. During his administration he did much to encourage education. He was a Catholic, tolerant of all forms of religion. In 1687 he promulgated the “Declaration of Indulgence,” which authorized public worship by any sect and abolished all religious qualifications for office.
In a work entitled “Names of Persons for whom Marriage Licenses were Issued by the Secretary of the State of New York previously to 1784,” compiled by Gideon J. Tucker (when Secretary of State), page after page looks more like a record of the province of Munster than of the province of New York. “It is quarto volume,” says O’Brien, “printed in small type and there are eleven pages devoted to persons whose names commence with Mac and three to the O’s. Nearly every name common to Ireland is here represented.”
Between 1600 to 1775, many Irishmen were teaching in the Colonies. Of these I may mention a few. In 1640, William Collins in New Haven; Peter Pelham, in Boston in 1734. Robert Alexander is justly regarded as the founder of Washington and Lee University; Rev. Francis Allison of Donegal, Ireland, came to America in 1735. In 1752 he took charge of an educational institute in Philadelphia and became vice provost and professor of moral philosophy in the College of Pennsylvania in 1755. Rev. Samuel Finley, native of Armagh, Ireland, was president of the College of New Jersey in 1761. Michael Walsh came to America in 1792. He was a teacher in an academy at Marblehead, Mass. Among his pupils was Joseph Storey of the United States Supreme Court. Harvard conferred a degree upon him. In 1737, John Sullivan taught school at Somersworth, N. H. William Donovan, an Irish schoolmaster, kept a grammar school in the town of Weare, N. H., in 1773. Humphrey Sullivan was a school teacher of Exeter, N. H. Darby Kelly taught school in New Hampshire, etc. Bishop Berkeley, author of “Westward the Star of Empire takes its course,” came from Kilkenny to Newport, R. I., in 1729. He donated to Yale College an excellent collection of books.
At the opening of the revolutionary era, the whole Irish race threw its weight into the colonial scale. The Irish Commons, according to T. D’Arcy McGee in “The Irish Settlers in America,” refused to vote forty-five thousand dollars for the war. The Irish in England, headed by Burke, Barrè, and Sheridan, spoke and wrote openly in defense of America. The Irish in France were equally zealous. Counts MacMahon, Dillon, Colonel Roche-Fermoy, General Conway, etc., held themselves ready to volunteer into the service of America and afterwards at the desire of the American agent in Paris did so.
John Barry was the first Commodore of the American Navy. He was in many actions and was always successful. He has been called by naval writers “The father of the American Navy.” The first prize carried into the United States was a British ship captured by Captain O’Brien and brought into Marblehead.
Charles Thompson, an Irishman, was secretary to the first Continental Congress. He wrote out the Declaration of Independence from Jefferson’s draft. Mr. John Dunlap, a native of Strabane, Ireland, issued in 1771 the Pennsylvania Packet, the first daily paper published in America. He was printer to the Convention of 1774 and to the first Congress, and was the first who printed the Declaration of Independence.
Nine of the signers of the Declaration of Independence were of Irish origin: Secretary Thompson, Thornton for New Hampshire, James Smith for Pennsylvania, George Taylor, Pennsylvania; George Read, Delaware; Charles Carroll, of Carrollton, Maryland; Thomas Lynch, of South Carolina; Thomas McKean, a signer for Pennsylvania; Edward Rutledge, of South Carolina. Six of the thirty-six delegates to the Convention for ascertaining the Constitution were Irish: Read, McKean, John Rutledge, Pierce Butler, of South Carolina, Daniel Carroll and Thomas Fitzsimmons. The site of Washington is partly on the farm of Daniel Carroll, a cousin of Charles, the signer, and was presented to Washington by him.
As regards the Continental Army it may be said that Mr. George Washington Parke Custis, the adopted son of Washington, says in his Personal Recollections, that Ireland contributed to the Continental Army one hundred to one of any nation before the coming of the French. Among the French, as is well known, there were many Irish. Others have put the number of Irish in Washington’s army as high as fifty per cent. Since I have not been able to get original records regarding the Irish in the Revolutionary army I shall leave the question with the statement, supported by fairly wide reading on the subject, that to put it conservatively a very large number of the soldiers were Irish, or of Irish origin, as were many of the officers. The question of the Irish, composition of the army of the Revolution is being considered and an investigation of the muster rolls is being made by one of our members, so that in the near future the Irish contribution in this regard will receive an unquestionable verification.
The Friendly Sons of St. Patrick was founded at Philadelphia in 1771, where Catholic, Presbyterian, Quaker, and Episcopalian were united like a band of brothers. It was composed of the most active and influential men. The devotion of its members to the cause of freedom was acknowledged by Washington in a letter to the President of the Society where he described the Society as “distinguished for the firmness of its members to the glorious cause in which we are embarked.” Of the Society seven were generals in the Revolutionary army. Wayne, Stewart, William Thompson, Knox, Irvine, Hand, and Moylan, the latter being the first President of the Society. This Society rendered material assistance to the necessities of the army. At a time when everything depended on a vigorous prosecution of the war it was found impossible to arouse the public spirit of the Americans. In this emergency was conceived and carried into operation the plan of the Bank of Pennsylvania, established for supplying the army of the United States with provisions for two months. Ninety-three individuals and firms subscribed and the amount realized was three hundred thousand pounds. Of this twenty-seven members of the Friendly Sons of St. Patrick subscribed one hundred and three thousand five hundred pounds.