After grace had been said the company devoted itself to the fine menu.
During the repast music was furnished by an orchestra. There was also singing by the entire company, in chorus, and solo singing by Mr. John W. Donovan of New York; Mr. Joseph M. Byrne of Newark, N. J., and Hon. John C. Linehan of Concord, N. H.
At an interval during the dinner, Mr. Joseph Smith of Lowell, Mass., alluding to the approaching departure of James Jeffrey Roche, LL. D., for Genoa, Italy, as United States Consul, moved that the Society bid him God-speed on his journey and wish him a brilliant career in his new sphere of duty. The motion was adopted.
While the post-prandial exercises were in progress, Hon. William McAdoo arrived and the chair was yielded him by Judge O’Brien.
The paper of the evening was by Hon. Hugh Hastings, State Historian of New York, who took for his subject: “Thomas Dongan and the Earl of Bellomont, Governors of New York.” The paper was one of great merit and was frequently applauded.
Several brief addresses were made during the evening, having a bearing on the Society’s line of work.
While the dinner was under way, a toast to President Roosevelt, “one of our members,” was proposed by Hon. Thomas Z. Lee of Providence, R. I., and drank amid great enthusiasm.
The following letter written by President Roosevelt to Mr. William M. Sweeny of Astoria, L. I., N. Y., a member of the Society, was read to the company by Judge O’Brien:
My Dear Mr. Sweeny: Replying to your letter of the 14th inst., I would say that my Irish ancestors came to Pennsylvania early in the seventeenth century. They included John Potts and his wife, Elizabeth McVaugh (so set down in the records; I do not know what the real name was); John Barnhill, whose wife was Sarah Craig, and a man named Lukens, who may have been a German from the Palatinate.
They were all of them humble people, farmers, merchants, etc., although Sarah Craig is put down as being descended on her mother’s side, through the Barnwalls, from various well known Irish families, both of the pale and outside the pale, the Butlers, the Fitzgeralds, O’Neills and O’Briens. But about this more illustrious descent I fear I cannot give you any specific particulars.