USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The story of the Irish in Boston, together with biographical sketches of representative men and noted women > Part 2
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GEORGE DOWNING
181
ANTHONY GULLIVER
181
JAMES BOIES ·
183
JEREMIAH SMITH
186
JOHN HANNAN .
186
HUGH MCLEAN
188
JOHN MCLEAN
189
JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY
190
LORD JOHN SINGLETON COPLEY LYNDHURST .
193
CHARLES JACKSON
193
JAMES JACKSON
194
PATRICK TRACY JACKSON
195
JAMES KAVANAGH
196
WILLIAM DOUGLASS O'CONNOR
197
JEREMIAH SMITH BOIES .
197
ANDREW DUNLAP .
198
CORNELIUS CONWAY FELTON
198
JAMES BOYD
199
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF REPRESENTATIVE MEN OF OUR OWN TIMES.
JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY
207
PATRICK A. COLLINS
213
HUGH O'BRIEN
216
PATRICK S. GILMORE
219
Gov. THOMAS TALBOT
221
THE MILMORES
223
175
WILLIAM HIBBINS
178 178
8
CONTENTS.
PAGE
WILLIAM PARSONS
224
PATRICK DONAHOE .
227
THOMAS D'ARCY MCGEE
REV. HENRY GILES
234
THE MOST REV. JOHN J. WILLIAMS
238
REV. ROBERT FULTON, S.J. .
241
ROBERT DWYER JOYCE, M.D., M.R.I.A.
243
REV. JOHN CORDNER
25I
REV. ROBERT MEREDITH
252
EDWARD C. CARRIGAN
253
REV. HENRY BERNARD CARPENTER
.
256
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF NOTED WOMEN.
LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY .
263
MARY ELIZABETH BLAKE
271
KATHERINE ELEANOR CONWAY
277
MARY CATHERINE CROWLEY
281
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF BOSTON LAWYERS
283
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF BOSTON PHYSICIANS
301
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF BOSTON JOURNALISTS
309
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF PAST AND PRESENT MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC SERVICE .
. . . 337
BUSINESS AFFAIRS AND MEN OF BUSINESS
397
431 APPENDICES
231
THOMAS J. GARGAN ·
235
RT. REV. MATTHEW HARKINS
240
GEN. PATRICK R. GUINEY
245
JOHN E. FITZGERALD
249
ENGRAVINGS.
BY J. P. MURPHY & CO.
PAGE
JOHN BOYLE O'REILLY
Frontispiece
JAMES BOYD
.
.
40
TOMBSTONE OF DANIEL MALCOM
. 49
HENRY A. MCGLENEN 102
GEN. PATRICK R. GUINEY
104
PENINSULAR WAR MAP
109
COL. PATRICK T. HANLEY
II6
THE MOST REV. JOHN J. WILLIAMS
124
JOHN HANCOCK
. 167
MAJOR-GENERAL HENRY KNOX
169
PATRICK A. COLLINS
214
HUGH O'BRIEN
216
Gov. THOMAS TALBOT
220
WILLIAM PARSONS
225
PATRICK DONAHOE
228
THOMAS D'ARCY MCGEE
231
THOMAS J. GARGAN .
236
LOUISE IMOGEN GUINEY .
· 264
KATHERINE E. CONWAY . 278
MARY CATHERINE CROWLEY
282
EDWARD J. JENKINS
292
WILLIAM A. DUNN, M.D.
304
JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE
310
THOMAS F. KEENAN
318
WILLIAM F. KENNEY
320
THOMAS MAGUIRE
322
JOHN J. MERRIGAN .
326
STEPHEN O'MEARA ,
328
(9)
10
ENGRAVINGS.
PAGE
CHARLES S. O'NEILL
o 330
HELEN F. O'NEILL .
332
MARGARET G. REYNOLDS
334
MICHAEL M. CUNNIFF
.
350
EDWARD J. DONOVAN
354
WILLIAM DOOGUE
356
PAUL H. KENDRICKEN
366
JOHN H. MCDONOUGH
374
MICHAEL J. McETTRICK
376
JOHN R. MURPHY
380
JOHN B. O'BRIEN
382
CHRISTOPHER BLAKE
408
THOMAS B. FITZ
410
PATRICK MAGUIRE
412
DENNIS J. HERN
418
JOHN B. REGAN
·
420
THE IRISH IN BOSTON.
CHAPTER I.
THE IRISH IN THE COLONIAL PERIOD.
B OSTON, Massachusetts, considered as a name merely, presents a contrast of elements that typifies its history. One end of it is ancient, Christian, civilized : St. Botolph's town, so clipped and rubbed in centuries of English speech as to leave its canonical name- sake out of all memory. As for the other end, it is the native name of a tribe whose history had ceased before Boston's was begun. " The town of a wild Indian tribe which used to be called after St. Botolph" would be a literal translation of its familiar, and, to most of us, intrinsically meaningless name. So, in the history of the dear old place itself, contradictions appear throughout its existence. Planted after several wealthy colonies had already achieved a place in history, it was destined soon to lead in all that marks advance of civilization, and shortly afterward to inaugurate the sullen state of insubordina- tion to England which eventually led to open rebellion. Founded for the sake of an unrestrained worship of God, it was most bitter in religious persecution ; giving of its first thoughts to the establishment of liberal education, it darkened ignorance in the days of witchcraft superstition ; English of all things, it was of necessity anti-Irish, and classed this unfortunate people with the heathen tribes of the forest : yet among her earliest records appear 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
(11)
12
THE IRISH IN BOSTON.
almost unrepresented. And what more striking contrast than its first year and its last past, when an Irish Catholic mayor forthe fourth time ascended the chair of office and entered upon duties that none have more ably and faithfully discharged !
During the colonization of America, Ireland was certainly a dreadful place to live in, and Irish emigration to America was very naturally to be expected. Class lines in Ireland were drawn sharply on the basis of formal religion, and the people were divided into three unequal portions, the largest having least power, and the smallest the greatest power. The government of the country was in the hands of communicants of the Established Church of Ireland; all refusing the rigid and systematic tests were excluded from the franchise. These Episcopalians were the agents of the most cruel and systematic oppression that ever disgraced civilization. They lived among a people outnumbering them nearly ten to one, whose religion they despised and persecuted, whose ignorance they mocked at while they fostered it, whose extreme poverty and distress were the conditions of their own prosperity. Avarice and bigotry both urged them to abuse their despotic power. They lived there as the carpet-baggers lived at the South after the war; and they had every reason to want to leave at the first profitable opportunity.
A large number of Presbyterians from Scotland had settled in the North of Ireland, in the reign of James I. These shared, to a certain extent, the political disqualifications of the Catholics. They hated Catholicism perhaps even more fiercely than the English them- selves, and they sowed the seeds of an unchristian bigotry, which to this day disgraces the name of Ulster. They were between the upper and the nether millstone, the Episcopalians above, the Catholics beneath ; and soon after the beginning of the eighteenth century, the best of them gave up the struggle and flocked in shiploads to America.
As for the Catholics, who constituted nearly four-fifths of the population, their condition is best described in the words of the his- torian Bancroft: -
a conquered people, whom the victors delighted to trample upon, and did not fear to provoke. Their industry within the
13
THE COLONIAL PERIOD.
kingdom was prohibited or repressed by law, and then they were calumniated as naturally idle. Their savings could not be invested on equal terms in trade, manufactures, or real property ; and they were called improvident. The gates of learning were shut on them, and they were derided as ignorant." Add to this that the law of the land was always and everywhere set against the dictates of their conscience, while the persecution of their priesthood delivered them over to the spiritual guidance of any ignorant peasant whose courage and faith enabled him to face the terrors of the law.
The same motive that brought about the " plantation of Ulster " moved the authorities to invite some of the New England colonists, a few years after the founding of Boston, to go to Ireland and settle there. In spite of liberal bounties offered for such colonization, very few went, and the episode is interesting rather as showing the un- desirableness of Ireland as a home at that time, than for its influence on the course of history on either side of the water.
When this sketch was first proposed it seemed to the writer that to begin before the Revolution with the history of the Irish here would be a profitless task. The subject has not before been treated in any publication. There are one or two church histories that deal with the question, but they, as well as all others, take it for granted, without very careful search, that an Irishman in New England was in early times as rare as a white blackbird. But on consideration of the large "Scotch-Irish" immigration to New Hampshire and to the South, and of the occasional visits of the Puritans to Ireland, it seemed strange if, with all the exodus from that land of sorrow, so few should reach America. On careful examination of some original records these suspicions were strengthened into belief. It was found that a large number of the American colonists were of Irish descent. How large may be inferred from the personnel of the patriot armies of the Revolution.
George W. Parke Custis, Washington's adopted son, in “ Per- sonal Recollections," says: "Of the operations of the war, I mean the soldiers up to the coming of the French, Ireland had furnished in the ratio of one hundred for one of any other nation."
14
THE IRISH IN BOSTON.
At an investigation of the causes of defeat in the war with the colonies, held in the British House of Commons in 1779, Major General Roberston, who had served twenty-four years in America, was asked, " How are the provincial corps composed, mostly of native Americans, or from emigrants from various nations of Europe?"
He answered: "Some of the corps consist mostly of natives ; others, I believe the greatest number, are enlisted from such people that can be got in the country, and many of them may be emigrants. I remember General Lee telling me that he believed half the rebel army were from Ireland." 1
Joseph Galloway, a native of Pennsylvania, Speaker of the Assembly of the colony for twelve years, and a delegate to the first Continental Congress, who became a violent Tory in 1778, was ex- amined for several days by various members of the House of Com- mons. Among other questions he was asked, "That part of the rebel army that enlisted in the service of Congress, were they chiefly composed of natives of America, or were the greater part of them English, Scotch, and Irish?" Galloway answered: "The names and places of their nativity being taken down, I can answer the question with precision. There were scarcely one-fourth natives of America, about one-half Irish, the other fourth English and Scotch." 2
The fact that hardly any Irish Catholic is heard of as eminent among the early Bostonians is easily accounted for, if we remember the feeling almost universal against them, as well as the great dis- advantages pressing upon Catholics at the very outset of the struggle. Englishmen, and Americans as well, inherited a hearty hatred of the French, and everything belonging to them, due to a warfare con- tinuous through generations. Catholics were, therefore, apart from religious prejudice, looked upon as hostile, in that they had beliefs and principles in common with the French. In fact, almost all the Catholics heard of in the earlier days of Boston were straggling Frenchmen; and the first priests to venture an establishment here were French.
1 British House of Commons Reports, fifth session, fourteenth Parliament, vol. xiii., p. 303.
2 British Commons Reports, vol. xiii., p. 431.
15
THE COLONIAL PERIOD.
This view of the case is borne out by the fact that, when French alliance was assured, and her friendly vessels lay at anchor in the harbor, the selectmen of Boston so far forgot their fears as to march in a solemn religious procession headed by French priests with a crucifix borne in the van.
Lest there should be any misunderstanding of the actual state of public opinion in Boston on the question of Catholics, the follow- ing declarations of the citizens of the town should be carefully con- sidered.1 In the records of the town meeting, on Sept. 22, 1746, this entry appears : -
Whereas it is suggested that there are several persons Roman Catholicks that now dwell and reside in this Town and it may be very Dangerous to permit such persons to Reside here in Case we should be attack'd by an Enemy, There- fore Voted that Mr. Jeremiah Allen Mr. Nathaniel Gardner and Mr. Joseph Bradford be and hereby are appointed a Committee to take Care and prevent any Danger the Town may be in from Roman Catholicks residing here by making Strict Search and enquiry after all such and pursue such Methods relating to them as the Law directs.
In the adjournment of this meeting, September 25, we find the following : --
The Committee appointed the 22ª instant to take Care and prevent any Danger the Town may be in by Roman Catholicks residing here, Reported that they had found the Laws now in force relating to such persons to be insufficient To Enable them to Effect the same and therefore could do nothing hereon altho they suspected a considerable number of Roman Catholicks to be now in Town, - Whereupon it was moved & Voted that the Representatives of this Town be and hereby are desired to Endeavour at the next Session of the General Court to get a law pass'd that shall be effectual to Secure the Town from any Danger they may be in, by Roman Catholicks Dwelling here.
The following extract is from the records of the town meeting held Nov. 20, 1772, or rather from a pamphlet published by order of the town, containing the report of a committee of that meeting. This committee was appointed " to state the rights of the Colonists,
1 Town Rec., 1746, p. 103.
16
THE IRISH IN BOSTON.
and of this province in particular, as men, as Christians, and as subjects. -
In regard to Religeon, mutual tolleration in the different professions thereof, is what all good and candid minds in all ages have ever practiced ; and both by pre- cept and example inculcated on mankind. . Mr. Lock has asserted and proved that such toleration ought to be extended to all those whose doctrines are not subversive of society. The only Sects which he thinks ought to be, and which by all wise laws are excluded from such toleration are those who teach doctrines subversive of the Civil Government under which they live. The Roman Catholics or Papists are excluded by reason of such doctrines as these " that Princes excommunicated may be deposed, and those they call Hereticks may be destroyed without mercy; besides their recognizing the Pope in so absolute a manner, in subversion of Government, by introducing as far as possible into the states, under whose protection they enjoy life, liberty and property, that solecism in politicks, Imperium in imperio leading directly to the worst anarchy and confu- sion, civil discord, war and bloodshed.1
After this, by way of justification, reference is made to the ex- ception of "Papists, etc.," from the benefits of the Toleration Act, and to the "liberty of conscience allowed in the worship of God to all christians except Papists" granted in the charter of the Province.
We find young Henry Knox, the future artillerist of the Ameri- can army, in an anti-popery procession, one "Pope's night," in Boston, and when a wagon broke a wheel, he supported it with his own tough-stringed muscles, lest the pageant should be eclipsed by that of a rival organization. His family was from near Belfast in Ireland.
" Pope's night" was celebrated on November 5, each year, by processions of anti-popery exhibits, and ended by burning the pope in effigy. We find a reference to it in one of General Washington's orders to his army soon after taking command at Boston : -
November 5. As the Commander-in-Chief has been apprised of a design formed for the observance of that ridiculous and childish custom of burning the effigy of the Pope, he cannot help expressing his surprise that there should be offi- cers and soldiers in this army so void of common sense as not to see the impropriety of such a step at this juncture ; at a time when we are soliciting, and have really
1 Town Rec., 1772, pp. 95-96.
17
THE COLONIAL PERIOD.
obtained, the friendship and alliance of the people of Canada, whom we ought to consider as brethren embarked in the same cause, -the defence of the liberty of America ; at this juncture, and under such circumstances, to be insulting their re- ligion, is so monstrous as not to be suffered or excused; indeed, instead of offering the most remote insult, it is our duty to address public thanks to these our brethern, as to them we are indebted for every late happy success over the common enemy in Canada.
The conflict of rival processions for the custody of the pope and the devil, the two important features of each display, sometimes led to serious trouble.1 The custom disappeared after the Revolution.
In such dread was this religion held at Boston that even the dying were grudged the solace of the priest's last office. On the 4th of February, 1789, a Frenchman named Louis Abraham Welsh, at point of death in the town of Dedham, begged to see a priest. His intimate friend and his landlord went together to Boston to bring the Abbé de la Poterie, the only Catholic clergyman in the vicinity ; but on arriving in the town they were dissuaded from their kindly enterprise, and the poor fellow died unshriven.2
It is to be remembered, too, that non-conforming Catholics in Ireland had small chance of retaining any property, and consequently came to this country in extreme distress. Probably most of them were sold into temporary slavery to pay for their passage over. Without doubt many came as transports under the penal laws against preaching or teaching their religion or harboring those who did. All education of whatever kind obtained by "papists " in Ireland must be obtained in secret, and in terror of the law. Even in manufactures, except in the case of linen, no more than two apprentices were allowed in any Catholic establishment. Neither are Irish apostates from Catholicity in America to be from any point of view seriously blamed; they lived without religious instruction from the learned of their faith, in the midst of men who, while known and acknowledged as in most things wise and good, regarded their condition as little better than paganism; and they were subject to social and political
1 Town Records, 1765, p. 158; 1767, p. 224; 1774, pp. 194-5.
? This was the occasion of a small pamphlet (4 pp.), to be found in a miscellaneous volume called " Boston Scraps," in the Boston Public Library.
18
THE IRISH IN BOSTON.
cold-shouldering, which is always more effective than active perse- cution. The wonder is that any of that creed remained. They did, however, make some effort for conscience' sake. It is said that the French authorities in Canada had to send home for an Irish priest for the benefit of the Catholics at Boston. It was intended to station him at St. Johns.1
A large number of the Irish in America were Presbyterians, descendants of the planters of Ulster. It has come to be the fashion to call them Scotch-Irish, and the statement has been made that nothing could be more unjust and offensive than to call them Irish. Perhaps they might be excused for appealing to the nationality of their great-grandfathers, coming as they did from a land where alienation was considered the highest claim to worldly distinction. What was the test? How many generations, born and dead on Irish soil, could be accepted as enough to prove Irish nationality? Of course such a test was not applied with the same thoroughness to Scotchmen, be- cause they were not coming to live with oppressors, and to compete with them for the good things of the wilderness.
Stress is laid upon the difference in race between the Scotch- Irish and the Catholic Irish; but as Scotland was in early times colo- nized by the Irish, received from them the Gaelic tongue, the Christian religion, the laws and customs of early civilization, and even her very name, the difference in race-tendency between the Irish and even the bona-fide Scotch cannot be great.
The condition of the " planters " and their descendants in Ireland was not, to be sure, so much like citizenship as that of their cousins in Scotland. They formed a separate community within the country, holding land by rental, bitterly hating the Catholics. But was the condition of the "wild Irish " any nearer to that of natives? So far as hatred went, they had plenty of cause to hate their Presbyterian neighbors as well as their "natural lords " the English; they held land on still more precarious tenure, if at all; they were separate as the pariahs of the East, and not only without political organization, but even without any opportunity of religious communion; they
1 Rev. James Fitton : The Church in New England, p. 74.
19
THE COLONIAL PERIOD.
were regarded by the government as alien and hostile. Of course, they were more numerous than the "planters " of Ulster and Con- naught; but this is not a question of majorities.
Perhaps the most significant thing in this connection appears in the organization of the Charitable Irish Society. Without the slight- est equivocation they describe themselves as " of the Irish Nation," and, to make the matter plainer, select St. Patrick's day as the time of starting their work. A Scots' Charitable Society had been in existence some sixty years, and was then in a flourishing condition ; so if they were Scotchmen, they had no need to call themselves Irish- men, and leave it for modern historians to undo their work. If there is anything less dignified than a negro powdered white, or a Jew that hopes to conceal his race, it is an Irishman ashamed of his nation- ality. In view of the worry of later generations, it is refreshing to note that these Irishmen were not of the worrying class. They did, however, bar Catholics from all offices of honor or trust; following is an order adopted on organization, and in force during the earlier years of the society : -
VIII. The Managers of this Society shall be a President, a Vice-President, a Treasurer, three Assistants, and three Key-keepers, with a Servitor to attend the Society's service, the Managers to be natives of Ireland, or Natives of any other Part of the British Dominions of Irish Extraction, being Protestants, and inhabi- tants of Boston.
Under date of 1764, a revised copy of the rules and orders is on record, and in the eighth article the qualification of Protestantism is omitted, all others being retained. In 1804, when the present constitution was drawn up, the religious limitation was formally · abandoned.
To the prejudice of the New England colonists against Irishmen is due much of the obscurity that now envelops the history of the Irish here in carly times. In cases where the emigrant dared to place his own old home upon record, his connections neglected to record or publish the fact, and in the second generation there were few traces left of the nationality of the first. We have, in another
20
THE IRISH IN BOSTON.
place, adverted to the conjectured birthplace of Peter Pelham; another and similar instance of mistaken history occurred among the Brecks, of Dorchester, a numerous and distinguished family, that have left their honorable mark on the whole of Boston's earlier life.
The first of the family is Edward Brick, or Breck, who came to Dorchester in 1636 with his son Robert, and was admitted a freeman in 1639. He was chosen to run the boundary of the town in 1642, was on the board of selectmen in 1645, and received many other tokens of the town's confidence. In 1653, when his wife's death was entered of record, he was described as "Edward Breecke of Dor- chester, servant to Mr. William Paddy" (after whom Paddy's alley, leading north-west from North street, was named). In Savage's Dictionary of Genealogy he is entered as "probably of Ashton in County Devon," England ; but it has recently been shown that this con- jecture was a mistaken one. There is, at present, in the possession of the Dorchester Antiquarian and Historical Society, a deed on parch- ment which has never been recorded. It recites that in consideration of £63 Thos Hawkins has conveyed to Dan1 Preston of Dorchester 24 acres of land more or less, part upland and part marsh, in a place anciently called Captain's neck, bounded by the land late Edward Brick's on the north, by the mill creek on the south and west, by the creek in part and by the land of said Dan1 Preston in part on the east, excepting about a quarter acre that belonged with the mill; "which twenty-fower acres of land the said Thomas Hawkins had and purchased of Robert Breck of Galway in Ireland Merchant and Sarah his wife as by their general deed bearing date the thirtieth of December 1663 more fully appeareth."
This Thomas Hawkins was the only son of Captain Thomas Hawkins, one of the earliest ship-builders in Boston, and a man of some note in his time.1 Robert Breck, named in the deed, was the son of Edward Breck, and had married Sarah, the daughter of the younger Thomas Hawkins. He removed to Boston, where he was admitted an inhabitant in 1655, and where his son Robert was born in 1658. From this family and its collateral branch, the Brecks of
1 See Drake, pp. 271, 287.
21
THE COLONIAL PERIOD.
Medfield, come many of the most respected citizens of Boston, from that time to the present day. The name occurs frequently among the early graduates of Harvard College.
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