Histories of Boston and the chapters on colonial Boston in the histories of the United States, as might be expected, both ignore the story of John Cogan, and you would search the city in vain were you looking for a memorial of any sort to him. Neither is there tablet nor memorial of any sort marking the site of that humble little shop, which was the first link of the great chain of mercantile establishments which have followed in its wake. Historical spots of even less interest are, and properly, suitably marked, but for some reason the site of Boston’s first place of business has been ignored by our municipal authorities and historical societies.
I determined to try to rescue John Cogan’s name from the practical oblivion which enshrouded it and discover details of his career sufficient for a newspaper or magazine article. My researches into the musty records of the past were well rewarded and my discoveries I hope to give the public through some reputable magazine or journal in the near future.
It was while engaged in this long and laborious work that I discovered a new vein, as it were, in Boston’s history, and following it up I found much of the material which goes to make up this paper and which suggested its preparation.
Had it been our good fortune to have had a directory containing the names of the residents of Boston each year since its settlement we would have found in every one of those works, with perhaps the exception of the first two, Keltic names, and in the entire period of which I treat some thousands of them.
Undoubtedly these statements surprise you. Naturally. Yet I could easily make them good. And furthermore I believe it to be quite likely that if we made a careful research among the names of the Kelts in colonial Boston that we could easily duplicate ten per cent or more of those borne by readers of this article.
Of the thousands of these names I have compiled I select a few for illustration—Blake, Barrett, Boyce, Bryan, Bishop, Boyle and Burk; Collins, Carey, Connell, Conner, Casey and Cunningham; Drury and Downing; Flannagan; Griffin; Healy, Hart, Harkins and Hurley; Kennedy; Lynch and Lane; Murphy, Moore, Martin, Mackey and McLean; Norton and Neale; Power and Powell; Strain; Timmins; Welch.
The children of Erin began coming here from practically the foundation of Boston. As Cullen says: “English of all things, it (Boston) was of necessity anti-Irish, and classed this unfortunate people with the heathen tribes of the forest; yet, among her earliest records appears the distinctively Irish names of Cogan, Barry, Connors, MacCarty, Kelly; throughout her colonial history, when the wild Irish, the Pope, the Devil and the Pretender were classed together and hated in the lump, the Irish were in their midst, though Irish Catholicity remained till near the Revolution almost unrepresented.”
Yet this fact is disputed. One well known newspaper writer of Boston, an Irishman, too, declares: “It is quite safe to say that there were no Irish at that time (1630) among the settlers.”
Now that assertion may or may not be true. But I would say in reply to it that if the Irish were not here as early as 1630 there was at least one representative of the race in the colony in 1632[[4]] and another in 1634[[5]], both prominent, too, by the way, and Irish have been here ever since.
[4]. John Cogan, already alluded to.