In the settlement of New Londonderry, Chester County, Samuel Blair, an Irishman, established a school in 1740. This settlement was founded fourteen years before by immigrants from Derry and Donegal. Blair is described in Pennsylvania history as “one of the most able, learned, pious, excellent and venerable men of his day.” His academy was called “the school of the prophets,” and “from it there came forth many distinguished men who did honor to their instructor and their country.”
One of the most eminent educators in the province was Dr. Samuel Finley, who arrived from Ireland in 1734 and located in Pennsylvania, where he taught school. In 1744 he founded an academy at Nottingham, Md., where some of the most distinguished men in the country laid the foundation of their education and usefulness. Among his many scholars were such men as Governor Martin of North Carolina, the famous Benjamin Rush of Philadelphia, his brother, Judge Rush, Governor Henry of Maryland, and Doctor McWhorter of New Jersey. It is said “there were no better classical scholars formed anywhere in the county” than in this school. In 1761, Doctor Finley was appointed president of Princeton College. He died in 1766.
Dr. Francis Alison, of Donegal, came to Pennsylvania in 1735, and settled at New London, Chester County, where he opened a school. At the time of its establishment there was a great want of learning in the Middle Colonies, and Doctor Alison is said to have instructed all who came to him “without fee or reward.” A Dr. Patrick Allison, who was born in Lancaster County in 1740, is thought to have been a relative of the Donegal schoolmaster. He held a place “in the very first rank of the American clergy, and had scarcely an equal for his eloquence.”
The father of John W. Geary, governor of Pennsylvania from 1867 to 1873, was an Irishman who had settled early in Franklin County. He became an iron manufacturer, but having failed in business and lost his entire investment in the mines, he opened a select school in Westmoreland County, to which he devoted the remaining years of his life. His son, General Geary, commanded a Pennsylvania regiment in the Mexican War, and was commissioned governor of Kansas in 1856. He fought in the War of the Rebellion and distinguished himself for his bravery at Gettysburg. “His name will forever be associated with the great events of the brilliant Chattanooga campaign.” While in the command at Lookout Mountain, his son, Capt. Edward Geary, a youth of eighteen, was killed by his side.
William Powers, who was elected a member of the Hibernian Society of Philadelphia in 1790, is referred to in Campbell’s history of that society as “a teacher in the university.”
Benjamin Workman, who also joined in the same year, is described as a teacher of mathematics. He advertised in the Freeman’s Journal on June 28, 1786, as “from the University of Pennsylvania.”
Rev. S. B. Wylie, a native of Moylarg, County Antrim, was a teacher in a private academy at Philadelphia in 1797, in which year he fled from the wrath of the British government. He was an early member of the Society of United Irishmen in Belfast. He became professor of languages in the University of Pennsylvania and was vice-provost of that institution. He joined the Hibernian Society in 1811.
William Findlay, who was born in Ireland in 1750, came to Pennsylvania in August, 1763, and taught school in Westmoreland County for several years after his arrival. He was elected to the state Legislature from Westmoreland County, and was a member of Congress from 1791 to 1799, and again from 1803 to 1817. He was a prominent writer and pamphleteer on subjects devoted to the public welfare. He was a member of the Hibernian Society.
Among the members of the Hibernian Society who were elected in 1790, Francis Donnelly, John Barry, John Heffernan and James Kidd are described as schoolmasters in Philadelphia.
Patrick Farrall, who joined the Society in 1792, and who is described as “the first clerk in the office for settling accounts between the United States and individual states” after independence had been won, is thought to have been a Pennsylvania schoolmaster.