Andrew Porter, a member of the Hibernian Society, opened “an English and Mathematical School” in Philadelphia in 1767, in which he taught till 1776, when he was appointed a captain of marines and ordered to the frigate Effingham. He was a son of Robert Porter, who emigrated from Derry to New Hampshire in 1720, and who afterwards removed to Montgomery County, Pa. He was transferred from the marine corps to the command of the Fourth Pennsylvania Artillery, which post he held until the close of the war. He fought in several battles of the Revolutionary War at the head of his gallant regiment, and is said to have been personally commended by Washington for his conduct at the battle of Germantown. He became general of Pennsylvania militia, and took a prominent part in all movements for the welfare of his native state. Gov. David R. Porter of Pennsylvania, Gov. Bryan Porter of Michigan, and James M. Porter, secretary of war under Tyler, were grandsons of the exile from Derry, Robert Porter.
EARLY IRISH IN ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI.
BY FRANCIS J. WARD, ST. LOUIS.
In 1815 the population of St. Louis was 2,000. Billon’s Annals for 1817–’20 states: “The adult male population of that day was about 700. Of American birth 400, French and Spanish 150, and of foreign birth 150. Of these, fully two thirds, or about 100, were Irishmen, some fifteen or twenty European Frenchmen, about the same number English and Scotch, and some ten or twelve Germans.”
The tax list for 1811 shows Auguste Chouteau as the largest taxpayer, the Irish-American firm, McKnight & Brady, second. The first directory of St. Louis (1821) contains 749 names. Of these but few are Germanic. As late as 1827 there were but twenty-seven German families here.
In 1663 Marquis de Tracy was governor-general of all the French possessions in America, and another Franco-Irishman, Chevalier McCarthy, in 1751, was commandant of the French settlement of the Illinois territory, and in 1769 a native Gael, Alexander O’Reilly, had command under the Spanish.
Peter Conley appears as a witness to Laclede’s will. Charles Gratiot was a member of the firm of David McCrae & Co., at Cahokia, from 1771 to 1781. Among the earliest mortgages in St. Louis is that of Pierre Saffray to Joseph O’Neille. Mathew Kennedy, in 1771, executed a bond to Antoine Bernard, and in the will of Jan Louis Lambert, a merchant, who died here in 1771, is found memoranda of an indebtedness due Morrissey & Co. Both Kennedy and Morrissey were prominent merchants here long prior to this.
When Patrick Henry, then governor of Virginia, determined to check the progress of the English on the Western frontier, he gave the command to the son of an Irishman, Gen. George Rogers Clark. Virginia was unable to furnish the money to equip Clark’s troops for the Illinois campaign, but an Irish merchant of New Orleans, Oliver Pollock, borrowed $70,000 from Count O’Reilly, once commandant of the Louisiana territory. What Morris did in the East Pollock did in the West for the American cause. To his financial aid the United States owes the success of Clark’s Illinois campaign. That Clark had many soldiers of Irish birth in his army is shown by a deposition taken at Kaskaskia, June 11, 1779, in which are the names of Andrew McDonald, Aaron Barrett, Patrick Shine, Andrew Coil and Tarrance Mooney.
The first American who settled in St. Louis after Clark’s surprise of Kaskaskia, in 1778, was Philip Fine, son of Thomas Fine, an Irish settler in Virginia. He came in 1781. Kaskaskia was the settling place of many Irish in the early days, among them being Robert Morrison, an Irish merchant, who arrived in 1792.
In 1800 occurred the murder of Adam Horne, on the Meramec. The commandant at Carondelet appointed as witnesses to the inventory John Cummings and John Donald, the witness to the order being Bartholomew Harrington.