Part 6

It is almost as hopeless a task to define an Irishman as it is to give the dimensions of a perfume; for the Irishman is as evasive and delusive, as pervasive and variable in type and character as the sweetness rising from the glowing bed of flowers.

If this society is to have a logical and reasonable plea for existence, if its title of American-Irish is to mean anything, we must reach some solid basis upon which to build our fabric; we must agree upon an acceptable definition of what is an Irishman.

This is what I shall try to do rather than attempt to show the ethnical components that enter into the Irishman. I have gone past the point in my speculations and theories on the Irishman where I place much stress upon the racial elements that go to make the Irish nation. We must start with these facts—the race and the nation are two distinctly different things; the terms Celtic and Irish are not synonymous.

I will state, so as to avoid the polemics of ethnology, just a few facts upon which all people are agreed, to explain why I attach so little importance to the merely racial elements that go to make up a nation. The islands of Ireland and Great Britain were at one time peopled by the one race which was known variously as the Celtic, Cymric, and Gaelic. By emigration, conquest, settlement, slavery, and intermarriage, and all those causes that mix races, Dane, Norse, German, Norman-French, Dutch, French, Walloon, and Flemish were mingled and intermingled with the original race, the constituent elements varying with time, place, and circumstances. So we have to-day in Ireland, Scotland, Wales, and England four distinct peoples different in characteristics, temperaments, thought, and methods, peoples made up practically from the very same elements. As the different sections of Great Britain are separated by purely artificial frontiers, they do not differ as profoundly as do the people of Ireland from those of the neighboring island. We observe in this republic people who claim a direct descent from English and other stocks producing a people as widely separated in thought, ideals, and physical appearance, and other distinctive features from the stock of the old countries as the Russian is from the Spaniard.

It is clear to me that there are other and more potent elements that make and differentiate peoples than mere racial admixtures.

The Irish, though speaking the English tongue and living under laws foreign to the instincts of the people, are a nation apart from the English, hating intensely the tie that binds them, out of sympathy with English ideas, ambitions, religions, and methods; and yet they are both the product of the same racial elements, the alleged preponderance of the Celt in the Irish being largely a matter of doubt and speculation.

What is it, then, that makes this tremendous difference in the two nations? What were the forces that were at work to produce from the same ingredients such profoundly different results? That is the question we must answer; and in answering it we will reach the basic idea of this society. Let me try and answer it in my way, and endeavor to show as simply as possible what an Irishman is.

There are in England as well as in America, among that class that for lack of a better term we must call Celtophobes, those who have an original if unsatisfactory and unscientific way of answering this question which adds to the accumulation of their stolen laurels and seems to afford them much satisfaction. If an Irishman break the record in science, art, literature, or any department of human activity, he is at once classed as an Englishman in England, an American in America; if, however, he merely break the Decalogue, the law, a bank, or his mother’s heart, he must perforce be an Irishman. This differentiation will not do for us, however.

There are some things we must remember, for our work has to bear the closest scrutiny and the most searching criticism.

The characteristics which we deem essentially Irish are not distinctly Irish; they are merely more widely distributed among the Irish. Wit, humor, poesy, melancholy, loyalty to faith and fatherland, patience under trial and hardship, daring in adventure, valor in battle,—these are found in all lands, among all peoples, though the Irish have displayed them so conspicuously in all the centuries that some, aye, many of our own people have come to regard them as exclusively theirs. While good blood will tell and bad, we must look to other things, we must consider other causes than race and blood, if we are to understand the workings of a mysterious Deity and learn how he makes nations and differentiates peoples.

The crude ore lies in the mines of the hills all over the earth, potential in its possibilities, yet heavy, dull, inert, awaiting the day when man shall dig it from its hiding place, try it in the fires of the furnace, beat it on the anvil and transform it into the polished rail that ties together the ends of civilization, that will shape it into the massive engine that carries the fruits of industry and commerce to the uttermost parts of the world, that moulds it into the type and press that spreads intelligence and frees the soul, and that fashions it into the sword that frees the slave. And as the ore, so is man; he must be tried in the fires to be re-made for the work he is to do. The elements lie everywhere; circumstances and conditions weld and mould him into nations. He may creep on into the centuries dull, heavy, oppressed, carrying the thrall of the master, content that he shall eat and drink and sleep in the peace of ignorance, content that his master shall do his thinking and fighting, heedless who the master is, for the hands of all are heavy; taking his religion and his lot from him who rules and starves him.

Others there are who have lived for centuries watching the tide of civilization and the higher life sweep by them, too hotly engaged in the struggle of life and death to snatch the prizes as they go by. Such a land for the long centuries has been Ireland. Seven hundred years has Ireland felt the edge of the sword, and for seven centuries she has shown the naked breast and empty hand to the oppressor, beaten but unsubdued.

Into the fires of hate and oppression, into the hell of battle and persecution, into the _inferno_ of famine, misgovernment, robbery, torture, and all the evils that cold, deliberate malice and wickedness could invent, Celt and Saxon, Norman and French, Dane and Norse, Englishman and Scotchman were thrown, to be fused and mingled, that, in the cooling, God might draw from the ashes the Irishman.

In all those long dark centuries his courage never failed, his hope never dimmed, his faith in God never faltered; he never acknowledged the right of might; he accepted nothing from the man who boasted himself the conqueror of him who is to-day unconquered; he believed the day would come, and it is coming, when the forces of evil would sink beneath the scorn of the world.

In this terrible school the Irishman was made; here was learned the infinite patience of his kind; here was bred that mental alertness, that wit and humor, tinged with the melancholy the world calls typical; here he drank into his blood the courage and flame and battle, that marches him to death with a song and a laugh; here every fiber and tissue of his elemental parts were made over, and upon the green sod, that blood-soaked soil, he preserved the virtues of the man who lives with God and nature.

THIS IS THE IRISHMAN.

The man born on Irish soil, breathing Irish air, drinking in the beauty of the hills and vales and streams and loughs of Ireland, listening to whispering winds of Irish seas, hearing the story and legend of the Irish days long gone, his heart and soul responding to the hopes of those around him, be his father English or Norman, Scotch or Welsh, Dane or Norse, French or Dutch, that man will grow into an Irishman. This is the verdict of history; this is the experience of seven centuries. Let them come from where they will, those who plunge into the Irish Lethe emerge on the other bank Irishmen, better betimes than the son of the older race, more Irish than the Irish.

Conditions, climate, environment are more potent than blood; they are the instruments with which God works. The normal man born on Irish soil and growing to manhood on it is an Irishman. Carry him to the most remote quarter of the earth, and he is still Irish, and his children even to the tenth generation.

On May 4, 1897, the sad tidings reached the society of the death of Admiral Meade, the President of the society. He was born in New York City, 1837; appointed midshipman Oct. 2, 1850; first sea service in sloop-of-war _Preble_, 1851; warrant as master and commission as lieutenant, 1858; lieutenant-commander, 1862; was a commander in 1870; commissioned captain in 1880; became a commodore in 1892, and rear-admiral in 1894; admitted to the society at its organization, Jan. 20, 1897, and chosen President-General of the same, being the first to hold the office.

The Meade family has been to a wonderful extent identified with the growth and development of our national life. A glance at the societies of which Admiral Meade was a member, will show the active and heroic part this family has taken in every movement since the settlement of the land.

* * * * *

1. The Order of the Founders and Patriots of America, 1607–57, 1775–83. (Councillor of New York Society.)

_Period 1607–57._

_Ancestors._ 1) Vincent Meigs, 1583–1658. 2) John Meigs, 1st, 1612–72. 3) John Meigs, 2d, 1640–91.

Vincent Meigs and his son John, 1st, were emigrants to Connecticut in 1637–38, and in 1639 were among the founders of Guilford, Conn. John Meigs, 2d, was one of the patentees of Guilford mentioned in the Charter granted by James II to the town, May 25, 1685.

_Period 1775–83._

The patriot progeny of the above-named who made their mark in the War of Independence were four brothers (sons of Admiral Meade’s maternal great-great-grandfather, Return Meigs, of Middletown, Conn., born 1708, died 1770) as follows:

1) Col. Return Jonathan Meigs, of the 6th Connecticut line, born 1740, died 1823. He was with Montgomery at Quebec, having crossed the wilderness with Arnold, and he commanded the expedition against Sag Harbor, May 21, 1777, which destroyed the British vessels’ defenses and stores. He was one of the four colonels that led the forlorn hope at the storming of Stony Point, July 15, 1779, under General Wayne. He figures as one of the best and most reliable soldiers of the Revolution.

2) Maj. Giles Meigs.

3) Capt. John Meigs.

4) Josiah Meigs, of Yale College. (Eighteen years of age when Revolution broke out.)

2. The Society of Colonial Wars, 1607–1775.

Admiral Meade was the Deputy-Governor of the District of Columbia Society.

_Ancestors._ 1) Maj. Simon Willard, born 1605, died 1676. (Son of Richard Willard, of Horsemonden, Kent, Esquire.)

Simon Willard emigrated from England to America in 1634, and in 1635 was one of the founders of Concord in the colony of Massachusetts Bay; deputy to the General Court, 1636–54; assistant to governor and a councillor from 1654–76; commander-in-chief of the expedition of the United Colonies against Ninigret, Sachem of the Nyantics, 1655; led the heroic relief against the Indians at the battle of Brookfield; commanded the Middlesex Regiment of Massachusetts troops in King Philip’s War; a magistrate of Salem.

2) Capt. Janna Meigs, born 1672, died 1739. (Son of John Meigs, 2d, of Guilford.) Served in the Queen Anne Wars as lieutenant and captain of the Guilford Company; deputy to the General Court of the Province of Connecticut in 1717–26.

3. The Military Order of Foreign Wars of the United States of America.

War of Independence.—War with Tripoli.—War of 1812.—War with Mexico.

Admiral Meade was Vice-Commander-General for Pennsylvania.

Hereditary member by right of his father, Richard Worsam Meade, 2d, who served as a lieutenant in the U. S. Navy, during the Mexican War, on board of the U. S. frigate _Potomac_, Captain Aulick, at Vera Cruz.

Incidentally it may be said that Richard Worsam Meade, 1st, was naval agent of the United States abroad, during the War of Tripoli and War of 1812, and that George Meade (father of R. W. Meade, 1st) was a prominent agitator against the Stamp Act of 1765, and was one of the signers of the non-importation resolutions of merchants of Philadelphia, Oct. 25, 1765, and though a man of wealth, served as a private soldier in 3d battalion of Col. Cadwalader’s regiment. He gave £2000 sterling to the fund for Washington’s suffering army at Valley Forge. Was a member of the Philadelphia “Associators” during the Revolutionary War. Left the city when the British army came in and did not return until Washington’s troops reoccupied it.

4. The Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, 1861–65. Pennsylvania Commandery.

Joined 1866, No. 187 on general roll.

5. The Grand Army of the Republic, 1861–65.

Commander of Lafayette Post, No. 140, Department of New York. Reelected December, 1896, for a second term.

6. The California Pioneer Society of New York City, 1849–50.

An ex-President of the society, 1893–94.

7. The New England Society in the city of New York. Life member.

8. The American Catholic Society of Philadelphia.

9. The Christ Church Historical Society of Philadelphia.

10. The National Geographical Society of Washington, D. C.

11. The Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers, New York City. A Vice-President of the society.

12. The Navy Mutual Aid Society. An ex-President, having held the office five years.

13. The Society of Graduates of the U. S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, Md. Class of 1850.

Admiral Meade is also a lineal descendant of John Benjamin (gentleman), who came over from Wales, England, with Governor Winthrop in 1630, and settled at Cambridge, Mass. His son John removed to Connecticut. Admiral Meade’s great-great-grandfather, Col. John Benjamin, of Stratford, served in the War of Independence and received a British musket ball in his shoulder at the battle of Ridgefield. His brother, Col. Aaron Benjamin, of Stratford, was with Montgomery in the expedition to Quebec, and in the battles of White Plains, Princeton, Monmouth, Germantown, Fort Mifflin, Stony Point, and at Valley Forge. He was more than one hundred times under fire. At Stony Point, it is said, he was the second man to enter the fort. He was lieutenant and adjutant during the greater part of his service.

The Admiral is also a lineal descendant of John Hopkins, of Hartford, Conn., who came to America in 1630. This John Hopkins is now alleged to have been one of the children (by first wife) of Stephen Hopkins, who came over in the _Mayflower_, 1620, and was the fourteenth signer of the compact of the Plymouth colonists. It is alleged (see the _Signers of Mayflower Compact_, by A. A. Haxtun) that John Hopkins (of Hartford) having a harsh stepmother, was left behind with his dead mother’s relatives in England, but followed his father to America in 1630, being then only seventeen years of age.

Another line of descent is through Thomas Coates, who came over with William Penn in 1682. The descendant of this Thomas Coates was William Coates, of Philadelphia (a colonel in the Revolution), and the great-great-grandfather of the admiral.

* * * * *

Summing up the various strains of blood, here is the result:

_Irish._—Meade, Butler.

_English._—Meigs, Willard, Hopkins, Austin, Worsam, Stretch, Hosmer, Hamlin, Wilcox, Judd, Fry, Backus, Beckley, Sharpe, and Bronson.

_Welsh._—Benjamin.

_French._—Jacques.

* * * * *

_Religions._ _Catholic._—Meade.

_Church of England._—Worsam, Butler, Austin, Richard Willard.

_Non-Conformist or Puritan._—Meigs, Simon Willard, Hopkins, Hosmer, Benjamin, Wilcox, Hamlin, Judd, Fry, Backus, Beckley, Bronson, and Sharpe.

_Quaker._—Coates.

_Huguenot._—Jacques.[2]

Footnote 2:

This Jacques was Thomas Jacques, who, with his wife Elizabeth, were Huguenot refugees from France, settling in Leicestershire, England. They subsequently emigrated to America, and their daughter Beulah married, October, 1694, Thomas Coates (son of Henry), who was born 1659 in Sproxton, England, emigrated, as before stated, with William Penn, and died in Philadelphia, July 22, 1719.

* * * * *

At the funeral of Admiral Meade, the society was represented by Messrs. Edward A. Moseley, J. R. Carmody, J. D. O’Connell, and Capt. John M. Tobin. The honorary bearers were: Rear-Admiral John G. Walker, Commodore Charles S. Norton, Admiral George Dewey, Commodore Norman H. Farquhar, Commodore Winfield S. Schley, Capt. A. S. Crowninshield, Capt. Charles O’Neil, U. S. N., and Col. Charles Heywood, United States Marine Corps. Eight stalwart seamen bore the body. A battalion of marines from the Washington barracks, under command of Capt. E. B. Robinson, and a delegation from Lafayette Post of New York City, escorted the body to Arlington, preceded by the United States Marine Band.

The following letter was subsequently received:

1100 Vermont Ave., WASHINGTON, D. C., May 7, 1897.

MY DEAR MR. MOSELEY:—Your kind and sympathetic note of the 5th was most gratefully received, as was also the beautiful emblem of your society, which now rests on my father’s grave. On behalf of my mother and sisters, as well as myself, I want to thank you, individually, and the American-Irish Historical Society, for the touching tributes you have paid his memory. We shall not forget how much this crushing blow has been lightened by the sympathy of my father’s associates in the organizations of which he was a member.

Respectfully and sincerely yours, (Signed) RICHARD W. MEADE, Jr.

The council of the society, at its September meeting, was entertained by the Rhode Island members at a banquet in Pawtucket, at which Hon. Hugh J. Carroll presided. Mr. Thomas Hamilton Murray delivered the following address of welcome on that occasion:

Gentlemen of the Council of the American-Irish Historical Society,—We are glad to have the honor of your visit, and we hope that your stay in Pawtucket will be pleasant to you and profitable to the great movement in which you are engaged.

The organization you represent seeks to write an unwritten chapter of American history, an essential chapter which has been too long ignored. Yet, until this chapter is written and its prime importance recognized, American history as published will be radically defective.

Every American, therefore, no matter what his ancestry and no matter what his creed, must wish you Godspeed in your patriotic labors.

While supplying this missing chapter in American history, you are at the same time helping to supply a missing chapter in Rhode Island history.

The Irish chapter in the history of Rhode Island has its roots away back in the days of Roger Williams. But it is little known by this generation. In the old colonial days men of Irish blood figured prominently in this land of refuge. Like Williams and his colleagues, they found here a haven of peace, found rest and freedom.

Many soldiers of Irish birth or extraction battled during King Philip’s War, 1675–76, in defense of the homes and lives of the settlers. Not a few of them participated in the Great Swamp Fight in Southern Rhode Island, and settled here when that war had ended. We may mention as an interesting fact that an Irishman, Robert Beers, was killed by the Indians in 1676 within a few miles of where you meet to-night.

Another Irishman, Charles Macarty (McCarthy), was one of the founders in 1677 of our town of East Greenwich. The town of Warren in this state was named in honor of an Irishman, Sir Peter Warren, whose deeds of valor no word of ours need chronicle.

Irish Rhode Islanders are heard from in the capture of Louisburg, and there the bones of some of them repose to this day.

The Revolution found among its most ardent supporters in Rhode Island men of Irish lineage. The Blacks, the Dorrances, the Sterlings, the Larkins, and a host of other people of Hibernian origin are evidence of this.

General Knox, a member of the Boston Charitable Irish Society, was here during the early part of the Revolution; Gen. John Sullivan, son of the Irish schoolmaster, commanded the Rhode Island Department for a considerable period, and was in command of the patriot forces at the siege of Newport and the battle that ensued. His brother James, the Governor of Massachusetts, received in after years the degree of LL.D. from Brown University.

You see, therefore, gentlemen, that Rhode Island is rich in historic material for your society. The shaft needs but be sunk to bring the treasures to the surface. Your coming here on this occasion helps to sink it.

We Rhode Islanders are very proud of our little state. That much of the Irish chapter in the history of this state is but little known we acknowledge and regret.

Yet some of it we do know. We recall many noble men that Ireland has given us—Berkeley, McSparran, Brown, Jackson, and the rest. We recall the Irishman Wilson, who was head of one of the first free schools opened in Providence, and of those other Irish schoolmasters here at an early day—Kelly, Reilly, Knox, Phelan. May their memory be in benediction!

We know, too, that Irish blood was not wanting in the veins of Perry and of Burnside. At least two of our governors could truthfully claim an Irish ancestry on the one side or the other, and at least three of our secretaries of state. We know that at the founding of Rhode Island College, now Brown University, the first funds for the institution came from Ireland, generously contributed by Irish men and women.

We are aware that many people of Irish extraction have married into families of other extractions, some of these families representing the oldest in the state. Thus we learn from the colonial and state records that a Mahoney wedded an Olney, that a McGowan married an Angell, that a McCarthy married a Maxson, that a Connor became the wife of a Robinson, a McLoughlin the wife of a Steere, a Murphy the husband of a Pitman. We see, moreover, that Prudence Mathewson became Mrs. Kelley, that Harriet Thayer became Mrs. Patrick Brown, that Rachel Aldrich wedded David Flynn.

Patrick Cunningham, the records show, was married in Providence to Mary Goddard; Sally Mahoney became the wife of Asa Capron. The records further show the marriage of persons bearing the following names: Heffernan and Coggeshall, Flanagan and Cornell, Riley and Sabin, Fallon and Cook, Connor and Odlin, Burke and Greene, Kenney and Chadwick, Mulholland and Hooper, Hurlihy and Thorp, Carroll and Slater, O’Brien and Newcome, McGee and Perkins, Donohue and Sutleff, Egan and Wilson, and a long list of others.