John Patrick of Barre, Mass., was a lieutenant in the company recruited in that town, at the outbreak of the Revolution. His father was an emigrant from Ireland, and the original name was Kilpatrick. His descendants are scattered through New England, and like all sprung from Gaelic stock, have been prolific. He died in 1807, aged sixty-eight. Gen. M. R. Patrick, provost marshal of the Army of the Potomac, and at his death superintendent of the Soldiers’ Home at Dayton, Ohio, was one of his descendants. In harmony with the usage of the day, the descendants of the lieutenant derive a “Scotch-Irish” ancestry for the founder of the family.
Among the births recorded in Boston in the returns of births and baptisms, from 1630 to 1699, are Francis, son of Thaddeus and Eliza MacCarty, February 19, 1666; Thaddeus, son of the same parents, in September, 1670; Margaret, born February 25, 1676; Catherine, born January 23, 1679, of the same parents; Elizabeth, daughter of Florence and Elizabeth MacCarty, born December 25, 1687; Thomas, son of the same, born February 5, 1688 (evidently a mistake in dates); William, son of the same, born February 3, 1690. Mrs. Eliza MacCarty died July 6, 1696. Florence waited a little over a year before taking another partner, but not thinking it best to live alone, he married Sarah Newwork on August 24, 1697. She presented him with another Sarah in 1698.
The William MacCarty mentioned, became a noted shipmaster, and had the reputation of being a fine navigator. He was an enterprising man, fully up to the standard reached by his father and grandfather. The son, Rev. Thaddeus MacCarty, born in 1721, was a graduate of Harvard College and a minister in the Congregational Church. He was called to the pastorate of the first parish in Worcester, in 1746, where he remained thirty-seven years. He married a Welsh girl, and by her had fifteen children. He is described as being tall and slender, with dark eyes, sonorous voice and very pleasing address. He was a prolific writer, and like James Sullivan of another Munster family, one of the most scholarly men of his day; he died in 1784. His son, Thaddeus, born in 1747, was a noted medical practitioner. He first located in Dudley, then changed to Fitchburg, Mass., where he established a hospital for the treatment of smallpox by the Suttonian method. Here at one time he had 800 patients. He afterwards removed to Keene, N. H.
Another son, William MacCarty, was quartermaster of Colonel Bigelow’s Fifteenth Massachusetts Regiment in the Revolutionary War. Thus, in Massachusetts, three of the best known South of Ireland families, O’Brien (in Maine), MacCarty and Sullivan, were represented before and during the Revolution; and it is pleasant to record that all were true to the cause of Independence.
The Mackues had a representative in Timothy, son of Timothy and Ann Mackue, born October 20, 1699, probably one of the McCues or McHughes, all the same. Sarah, daughter of William and Olive McLoughlin, was born on October 29, 1689; and Eliza followed on September 10, 1691, who was joined by Mary, born on March 22, 1694. These undoubtedly are the ancestors of many McGloughlins, McLathlans, or Lafflins, as the fancy seized their descendants to alter the spelling, just as the name McCarthy became in time Maccarty, Maccartie, MacCarter, Carter or Carte, varied occasionally by Carty. On February 14, 1658, not a great many years after the founding of the colony, “James Webster a Scotishman & Mary Hay an Irish maid were married.” Mary was, no doubt, one of the poor girls torn from her home in Ireland, but hard as her lot was, she was fortunate in not being sent to the West Indies; but would it not be of interest to find, at the present time, the descendants of the Scotch laddie and the Irish lassie, the Websters of 1658?
Another couple, married April 5, 1692, bear names that denote Irish blood—Andrew Rankins and Grace Butler. The ceremony was performed by Gov. Simon Bradstreet. Daniel, son of Dermin—probably Dermot—Mahoone, was born Oct. 4, 1646. The next child born to the couple, on August 29, 1648, bore the well-known Irish name of Honour, and the name itself must have been Mahon, or Mahoney. Mrs. Mahone died November 8, 1656, and her husband, like his countryman, McCarty, did not remain single long, as another child, Margaret, was presented him on June 3, 1661, but it was after his death, which took place on April 2, 1661. His widow, Margaret, did not long grieve for him, for in the following July, 1661, the record reads, “Bryan Morfrey (Murphy) an Irishman & Margaret Mayhoone widow were married 20th July by John Endecott Governor.”
The Murphys were on hand “airly,” and no doubt made their mark, but where are their descendants? Hannah, daughter of John and Ann Cogan, was born September 6, 1636. This may be one of the characteristic names of England, but is more common in Ireland, being carried there by Milo De Cogan, one of Strongbow’s Norman knights. John was born to Garrett and Mary Bourne, May 30, 1643. Both given and proper names have an Irish appearance. The first Kelly having the honor of being entered on the records of births was Daniel, son of David and Elizabeth Kelly, born December 18, 1647; like the Murphys, they were on hand early; and also like the Murphys, are of the undiluted old stock, Gaelic to the core. Today, on account of the prominence of the name, it is as American as it is Irish, and what is still better, the spelling remains the same in both countries.
The first Butler, who heads the roll of a long line of descendants, and a representative of one of the most illustrious names on two continents, makes his bow in August, 1653, in the person of Benjamin, son of Stephen and Jane Butler. November, 1656, “Edmond Coussins of Pulling Point and Margaret Bird an Irish maid servant to John Grover of Rumney Marsh were married.” An Irish linnet to a French Huguenot, probably. Mary and John Bohanno, another Scotch laddie, and an Irish lass, were blessed with a little Mary on May 9, 1658. From these records it can be safely inferred that the exiles from Scotland and Ireland, the victims of Cromwell’s tyranny, were, in their persons, uniting the two branches of the old Gaelic race, as frequent mention is made of marriages between them.
Bohanno was undoubtedly Bohan or Buchanan, both from the same root. John Morrell, an Irishman, and Lysbell Morrell, an Irishwoman, were married, August 31, 1659. March 15, 1661, John Reylean, an Irishman, and Margaret Brene, an Irishwoman, were married by John Endicott, Governor. John, son of John and Sarah Starkey, was born on September 23, 1666, abbreviated later on to Stark. Barry appears on the roll, January 8, 1688. James, son of James, being born on that date. Kenney does not appear until 1691, when, on February 13, Moses and Margaret Kenny were blessed with the gift of a daughter. Like Butler and Kelly, this is not one of the most common names in America, as it is in Ireland—McKenna, Kenna, Kenny. Mulligan turns up in 1681, in the person of Robert, son of Hugh and Eleanor Mulligan, born on August 9. The Millikens and Mullikens can trace the stream and find the source, perhaps, here. Morrissey (spelled Morris and Morrisse) appears in 1655.
Edward Morris and Dermon (Dermot) and Honora Morrisse are mentioned quite often—some of the transports, undoubtedly. Another of the exiles, or the child of one, was Johanna Heffernan who married Christopher Vale in 1692. Mary Lynch married James Townsend in 1693, and Henry Townsen wedded Mary Keefe the same year—two more “Scotch-Irish” unions if names are an index to nationality—and still another at the same time was that of Mary Peard to Samuel Swetman.