Part 5

Felt’s history states that the town of Greenwich, Mass., was settled about the year 1732, by an Irish colony, and among the names of the first families are Powers, Hynds, Patterson, Cooley, Rogers, and Gibbs. Capt. N. Powers was a descendant of the Powers from Ireland, as was also Mr. Patterson, who died April 19, 1811, at the age of 79 years. In the Revolutionary struggle the men were patriotic, and furnished their full quota for the war.

The settlement of Hadley, Mass., was commenced in 1659, by a company of persons residing in Windsor, Wethersfield, and Hartford, Conn., and is, therefore, one of the oldest towns of the Connecticut valley, and has an interesting history. The original territory of Hadley included the present town of Hadley, Hatfield, Amherst, Granby, South Hadley, and a part of Whately. A portion of the town was called “Patrick’s Swamp,” possibly after some Irishman who resided there. Among the early settlers we find the families of Thomas Coleman and John White.

Among the early settlers of Middlefield, Mass., was Col. David Mack, who defined the boundaries of the town. It was incorporated March 12, 1783. John Ford built the first grist-mill about the year 1780. Here also settled the families of Malachi Loveland, J. Taggart and M. Rhodes.

The district of Williamsburg, Mass., set off from Hatfield, was incorporated a town, Aug. 23, 1775. Early tax lists show Irish names, such as Joseph Carey, Thomas Finton, George Dunn, James Ludden, Edward Curtis, William Finton and Joseph Ludden.

The settlement of Worthington, Mass., was so rapid that from the time the territory was sold at auction, June 2, 1762, the settlers flowed in and became so numerous that the town was incorporated in 1768. Among the first settlers are such names as John Kelley, Thomas Kinne, James Kelley, Jeremiah Kinne, Mathew Finton, and N. Collins. The inhabitants of this, like many other towns, were composed of a mixed population from England, Ireland, and a few from Scotland and France.

The first settlement of Bernardstown, Mass., commenced about the year 1738, and it was here, on May 18, 1676, during the Indian troubles, occurred what is known as the “Falls Fight,” when Capt. Turner with only a comparatively small body of men, attacked and destroyed hundreds of Indians at what has been called in honor of the commander of the forces, Capt. Turner,—who lost his life during the engagement,—Turners Falls.

Major John Burke built one of the first four houses erected in the town, and among the first settlers are the names of Griffin, Lee, King, Gleason, Baker, and Bradshaw. Major Burke was clerk of the town for twenty-two years, and became the first representative in 1764.

The history of many of the towns of western Massachusetts shows that several of them had been set off and named in the first years of the eighteenth century. They had very few inhabitants previous to the coming of the Irish in considerable numbers about 1718. Several towns laid out and named after that time, like Colerain, Montgomery, Gill, and Charlemont, Conway, Monroe, Huntington, were called after places in Ireland from whence the early settlers immigrated.

West of the Connecticut river the territory was divided up into towns soon after the settlement of the boundary line between Connecticut and Massachusetts, which took place in 1713, when the present town of Suffield, formerly in Massachusetts, was thrown into Connecticut, and in 1632 the owners of the tract of land in that territory were given an equivalent tract of six miles square by the Massachusetts legislature, and this territory is included in the present town of Blandford, Mass., one of the first towns almost entirely settled by people from Ireland who arrived in this country in considerable numbers about that time.

These people were Irish Presbyterians who came from Ireland about the year 1718. Francis Brimley, A. M. Collins, Samuel Knox and Patrick Boies came up from Hartford, Conn., and purchased land of Christopher Lawton and Francis Wells, to whom the legislature had conveyed undivided parts of the township.

The first clergyman was Rev. Mr. McClenathan, an Irishman, who received £135 a year for his services. He did not give satisfaction and remained only two years, when he became a chaplain in the army. Rev. James Morton, also an Irishman, was installed as pastor in August, 1748, and preached to the people for twenty years. He retired June 2, 1767, and lived in Blandford, Mass., until his death, which occurred in October, 1793, at the age of 80 years.

Many of the representatives of the town to the legislature for nearly a hundred years after its settlement were native born Irishmen or the sons of Irishmen, among whom were Reuben Boies, William Knox, Timothy Blair, John Ferguson, Daniel Boies, Patrick Boies, Samuel Knox, Daniel Collins, and David Boies. The following are the names among the early families: McClinton, Reed, Brown, Taggart, Blair, Wells, Montgomery, Stewart, Campbell, Ferguson, Boies, Sennett, Wilson, Gibbs, Knox, Young, Carr, Black, Anderson and Hamilton.

Hon. Patrick Boies, a descendant of the Boies family who settled in Blandford, Mass., was the first lawyer admitted to the Hampden county bar, in 1812, and one of the first sheriffs of Hampden county. A daughter of Patrick Boies was the organist in St. Mary’s church, Westfield, Mass., for several years. The first clergyman of the Congregational church of Blandford, was, as stated, an Irishman named McClenathan, one of the petitioners to Governor Shute.

Chester is another of the towns of Hampden county, Mass., settled a few years after Blandford, almost entirely by Irish. The present town formed one of the ten original townships sold at auction by order of the general court, Jan. 2, 1762. About that time the first settlers of the place began to arrive who in all probability were like large numbers of Irish coming to this country at that time, Presbyterians, although the names of some of them would indicate that they were Catholics, such as John and David Gilmore, Thomas Kennedy, Daniel Fleming, William Moore, Thomas McIntire, William Kennedy, John McIntire, James Clark, Andrew Fleming. Other prominent settlers were the Gordons, Hollands, Knoxs, Henrys, Hamiltons, Quiglays, Elders and Bells. This town was incorporated Oct. 31, 1765, when it was called Murrayfield. Among the clergymen who officiated at Chester we find the name of Rev. Andrew McCune.

The first settlers of Granville, Mass., which was first called Bedford, were almost all from Ireland. Following the first settler, Samuel Bancroft, came Daniel Cooley, Thomas Spellman, John Root, Peter Gibbons and Samuel Church. Dr. Holland in his “History of Western Massachusetts” refers to the longevity of the early settlers of this town as quite remarkable. The ancestor of the Cooleys from Ireland died at the age of 90 years; of the Spellmans, who died in 1767, at 93; of the Gibbonses at 92; of the Churches at 95, and of the Roots at 103. Hamilton, Goff, Cortiss, Gibbons, Clark, Moore, Phelan were also early settlers at Granville.

The one hundredth anniversary of the settlement of Rev. Timothy M. Cooley, in 1795, took place in Granville in August, 1895, at which a large number of the descendants of those early Irish settlers were present, when they most fittingly honored the memory of their ancestors. J. G. Holland says that the facts were communicated to him by Rev. Mr. Cooley in 1854, when he was 83 years of age. He was born in Granville and like many of the Cooleys of Hampden county was descended from old Daniel Cooley from Ireland.

Among the early inhabitants of Rowe, Mass., which was settled in 1744, we find the names of Michael Wilson, Henry Gleason, William Taylor, Mathew Barr, and Joseph Thomas. They were a portion of the Irish colony to Worcester county, which after a short time scattered to form new settlements. The first permanent settlement of Shelborne was about 1760 by several Irish families who had lived for a time in Londonderry, N. H. Among them are the names of Joseph Thompson, Patrick Lawson, Robert Wilson, John Taylor, James Ryder, Daniel Nims and Samuel Hunter.

Quite a number of these men were soldiers in the Revolution and also took an important part in Shay’s insurrection. The first settler of the town of Ashfield, Mass., was Richard Ellis, a native of Dublin, Ireland. He was soon followed by Thomas Phillips, whose sister he married. Phillips built a log house for himself and family almost a half mile north of Mr. Ellis. A family named Smith, which had settled in South Hadley, soon joined them and they were followed by other families from time to time so that in ten years they numbered about twenty families and over one hundred people. They labored as none but the pioneers of the forest know how to toil to obtain a comfortable support for their families. The town increased years later in population and prosperity and was incorporated in June, 1765, and ten years later they like thousands of their countrymen took an active part in the Revolution, when they drew up a preamble and resolutions signed by Ellis, Phillips, and sixty-five others, denouncing England.

The settlers of Pelham, Mass., were Irish Presbyterians and in the agreement of the original committee with Col. John Stoddard, of whom the territory was purchased, occurs this passage: “It is agreed that families of good conversation be settled on the premises, who shall be such as the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Ireland or their descendants and none to be admitted but such as bring good and undeniable credentials or certificates of their being persons of good conversation and of the Presbyterian persuasion and confirm to the discipline thereof.”

The Irishmen of Pelham were on the right side in the Revolution. They issued an address to their countrymen in Boston, Nov. 3, 1773, of which the following extract is an illustration: “We are not at present much intimidated with the pompous boasting on the other side of the water or the claim that Great Britain could blow America into atoms.” They unanimously voted their acquiescence in, and support of, a declaration of independence fourteen days before the Declaration of Independence was made at Philadelphia, and throughout the war they furnished from their slender means and resources more than their proportion of men and money for its prosecution.

The town of Chesterfield, Mass., was first occupied about 1760 to 1765 by Simon Higgins, George Buck, Pierce Cowing, Charles Kid, Robert Hamilton, Benj. Kid, Con. Bryan, Thomas Pierce, John Holbard, Jerry Spaulding, William White and David Stearns. They were mostly Irishmen from Pelham and elsewhere. The first pastor called to preach the gospel was Rev. Peter Johnson of Londonderry. They named one of the principal streets of the town, Ireland street. This street was accepted March 17, 1763, and is the only street in the town which has remained unaltered. The people of Chesterfield were patriots in the Revolution and voted, in 1775, to purchase 400 pounds of powder, 400 pounds lead, and 1,200 flints to supply the forty-seven Minute Men who marched to Cambridge upon the Lexington alarm.

Of the territory comprising the original county of Hampshire, Mass., from which the counties of Hampden and Franklin have been set off, the Irish settled a large portion of the area from which the early organized towns were formed, such as Palmer, Chester, and Blandford. Pelham, Colerain, Charlemont, Sunderland, and many districts were later set off and organized into townships, such as Granville, Brimfield, Southwick, Russell, Montgomery, Goshen, Conway, Ware, Amherst, Orange, Gill, Huntington, Rowe, Greenwich, Worthington, and Middlefield.

The history of the towns of Berkshire county, Mass., shows that they were mostly all organized a generation or two after the coming of the Irish, who settled the original territory from 1718 to 1740, and although the names on the town records show that many of them were settled by the sons and grandsons of the settlers from Ireland, we can only guess at the origin of others by their Irish names, such as the Plunketts of Pittsfield and Adams, Patrick Murphy and Michael Sweet of Savoy, with Patrick Tyrell, Whalen, or Phelan, Casey, Kerwin, Kneil, or Neil, Hale, and McHale, Bryan, or Bryant, in several towns of the county.

Isaac Magoon came from Ireland with the colony that settled in Palmer, Mass., in 1727. The farm allotted to him by the legislative commission was at the southwest corner of the Reed estate. He left two sons, Alexander (who also left two sons, Isaac and Alexander), and Isaac who married Lucretia, daughter of John Downing, and had thirteen children. This family owned about 1,400 acres of the best land in Ware, Mass. Several of the descendants of the Magoon family afterwards settled in the Western states, and many of them probably know very little of their Irish ancestry.

Among the very early Irish settlers whose descendants are at present residents of the Connecticut valley, and of whom we have authentic records, a few families deserve special mention because of the prominence to which they have attained in the community. Irish men and women, boys and maidens, were imported to these colonies in the very first years of the settlements, while in June, 1643, an Irish immigration took place that far out-numbered the Plymouth colony in Massachusetts. Of the descendants of these early settlers, Hall J. Kelley, one of the most enterprising men of Palmer, Mass., who developed the village of Three Rivers, was born in New Hampshire, Aug. 24, 1790, and was a descendant of John Kelly, who settled in Newbury, Mass., in 1633. John Riley and his wife, Grace O’Dea, came to this country from Ireland about the year 1624. They settled at Hartford, Conn., where their first two children were born,—John in 1646 and Joseph in 1649, after which they moved to West Springfield, Mass., where Jonathan was born in 1651, and afterwards Mary, Grace, Sarah, Jacob, and Isaac, the dates of whose births are unknown, but all the eight children are named in this order in his will of 1671. With the Rileys came a nephew of Mr. Riley, named John Riley, and a young sister of Mrs. Riley, named Margaret O’Dea. This couple got married at Springfield, Mass., in 1660, and had two daughters, Margaret, born Dec. 21, 1662, and Mary, born June 2, 1665. John died Oct. 24, 1684, and his wife died Aug. 22, 1689. He had two brothers, Richard, who remained in Hartford, and Patrick, who with his wife Bridget moved to Middletown.

Garret and Miles Riley came in 1634 from County Longford, Ireland. Patrick and Richard Riley came to Windsor and Wethersfield, Conn., in 1639. John Riley and wife, Margaret, came to Springfield, Mass., in 1640, where two daughters were born. Mary, born June 2, 1665, married Joseph Ely, June 2, 1685; Margaret, born Dec. 21, 1662, married William McGraney, July 19, 1685.

Bridget Clifford, who died at Suffield, Conn., May 7, 1695, came from Ireland to this country with her brothers, John, aged twenty, and Oliver, eighteen, in the vessel _Primrose_ for Virginia, 1635. John died Dec. 25, 1668.

James Coggin and John Cogan, from Dublin, Ireland, settled at Windsor, Conn., and removed to Hartford in 1641. John Connor, whose parents, Philip and Mary Connor, came from Cork in 1634, was born at Middletown, Conn., June 14, 1686. His son John was taken prisoner at Quebec, 1775.

Robert Smith, born in Ireland 1672, came to Palmer, Mass., 1728, where he died Dec. 21, 1759.

Edward King located at Windsor, Conn., about 1635, and is described as “An Irishman and one of the oldest settlers in this vicinity.”

John Cleary of Hadley, Mass., died in 1691. His son John was born Oct. 4, 1647, while his son John, Jr., was born April 3, 1671, and was slain in Brookfield in 1709. Joseph, son of old John, was born Nov. 30, 1677; and Joseph, son of John 3d, died in 1748. Joseph’s son Joseph was born Sept. 3, 1705.

John Clark was born in Ireland, 1704. He had two sons, John and Moses, living with him at Hadley, Mass.

The following interesting extract is from the records of Northampton, Mass., Sept. 17, 1663: “At a legal Town Meeting there was then granted to Cornelius, the Irishman, three acres of land upon condition that he build upon it and make improvement of it within one year, yet not so as to make him capable of acting in any Town affairs, no more than he had before it was granted to him.”

John Fleming, born in Ireland in 1673, came to America and settled in Palmer, Mass., 1721. Robert Farrell came from Ireland in 1720 and came to Palmer a few years later. Samuel Shaw came from Queenstown, County Cork, in 1720, and to Hampden County, Mass., in 1736.

The first inhabitants of Colerain, Mass., were mostly of those who had immigrated from Ireland in 1718, although many of them, did not leave Ireland until about the time of the settlement of the town in 1736. Some came from the Irish settlement of Londonderry, N. H., and more from Stow, Pelham, Woburn, and Roxbury, Mass., where they had previously settled before coming to Colerain. Holland says, “They were a robust set of men; six foot or more in height with frames of corresponding size; possessing constitutions capable of great endurance and fitted for every emergency.”

Capt. David Hamilton of Blandford, Mass., was born in Ireland, July 11, 1742, and his wife was born July 17, 1752. He immigrated to this country prior to the Revolutionary War, and in that struggle for independence took an active part, being captain of a company in the Continental army. After the war, he purchased a farm in Blandford, on which his thirteen children were born and reared, and hundreds of their descendants have been active forces in the development and prosperity of the community.

The Codmans were descended from William Cod, who came to this country from Ireland, and settled at Amherst, Mass., about 1740. The last syllable of the name was added by his sons, one of whom was Dr. Henry Codman, who died in 1812. Michael Carroll sold land in Hartford to Isaac Graham for £180, May 13, 1728, and his grandson, Michael Carroll, graduated from Harvard in 1813.

Richard Ellis, the first settler of Ashfield, Mass., and the ancestor of many of the families of that name in the Connecticut valley, was born in Dublin, Ireland, Aug. 16, 1704, and was thirteen years of age when he landed in this country, as stated by one of his descendants, Aaron Smith of Stockton, N. Y. Tradition has handed down the following account of him: Mr. Ellis was the only son of a widow. A native of Ireland who had become a wealthy planter in Virginia, and having no children, made application to a friend in Dublin to send over a youth of promise to be adopted into his family and brought up under his care and patronage. Young Ellis was selected and started for this country. On his embarkation his passage was paid and an agreement made with the captain of the ship to land him safely in Virginia, but the captain proved faithless to his trust, brought the youth to Boston, and there sold him for his passage money. After serving out the time thus unjustly exacted from him he left Boston and settled in Easton, Mass., where he married Bridget Phillips and removed to Ashfield, then called Hunstown, where he probably made a settlement about the year 1742. Here they lived and raised a family of eight children.

One of the most distinguished soldiers of the Revolutionary War from western Massachusetts was Col. Hugh Maxwell, who lived in that part of Charlemont now within the bounds of Heath. Col. Hugh Maxwell was born in Ireland, April 27, 1733. He was a devoted patriot and rendered his adopted country valuable service in the French and Revolutionary wars. He was in the battle near Lake George and at the capture of Fort William Henry. It was chiefly owing to his influence that there was not a Tory in his town. On the Lexington alarm he marched as lieutenant with a company of Minute Men to Cambridge. He was in the battle of Bunker Hill and received a ball through his right shoulder, and although he never entirely recovered from his wound, he served throughout the war, fighting at Trenton, Princeton, and Saratoga. He was also with the suffering army at Morristown, and endured the horrors of Valley Forge. Col. Maxwell enjoyed the friendship of Gen. Washington and other distinguished patriots of the Revolutionary struggle. At the age of sixty-six years Col. Maxwell started on a trip to visit the land of his birth, and was lost at sea during the voyage.

Benjamin Maxwell, a brother of Col. Maxwell, also did service in the French and Indian wars, and was a lieutenant in a company of Minute Men in the Revolution. He lived in Heath, in the homestead occupied by his daughter Mary. His sons were Winslow, Benjamin, and Patrick.

For more than a hundred years the descendants of the early settlers of this valley have been spreading out far beyond the borders of New England into the ever-retreating West, to people with thousands of their kit and kin from Ireland, and to develop the fertile fields and reap the harvests of prosperity and of cheerful endurance, daring enterprise and patient perseverance. Their love of liberty, their devotion to religion, their respect for law and order, chastened by sacrifice and suffering, make them ideal citizens to found and develop states and maintain the principles of the institutions established by the fathers of the republic.

SOME VOICES FROM Y^E OLDEN TIME.

BY THOMAS HAMILTON MURRAY,[3] BOSTON, MASS.

Alexander Gilligan was a resident of Marblehead, Mass., in 1674.

Many Irish participated in the settlement of Salem, N. Y., in 1765. (_The Salem Book._)

Samuel and Robert Elder, brothers, came from Ireland about 1730 and settled in Falmouth, Me.

In 1746 a marriage license was issued, Spottsylvania, Va., to Patrick Connelly and Ann French.

Dennis Lochlin, of Putney, Vt., was a representative to the General Assembly of that state in 1777.

Lucy Todd O’Brien married, in 1698, John Baylor of Gloucester county, Va. (_Virginia Historical Magazine._)

The records of Braintree, Mass., note the birth “6th mo. 18. 1669” of Samuel Daly, a son of John and Elizabeth Daly.

Timothy Hierlehey was captain of the seventh company of the First Regiment of the Colony of Connecticut, 1758.

Rev. James Tate, a Presbyterian minister from Ireland, organized Tate’s Academy, in Wilmington, N. C., about 1760.

At a great fire in Boston, Mass., 1787, among those whose premises were burned were Dennis Welch and Andrew Kalley.

Capt. Wm. McGinnis, with 89 men of Schenectady, N. Y., was at the battle near Fort George, Sept. 8, 1755, and was killed there.

About 1762–65, Rev. Ezra Stiles, of Newport, R. I.,acknowledges having received from Capt. Jno. Nichols a firkin of “Irish butter.”

James Warren settled at South Berwick, Me., as early as 1656. He was a native of Scotland; his wife, Margaret, a native of Ireland.

On May 14, 1663, Miles More and Michael Rice of New London were accepted as freemen by the General Assembly of Connecticut.

Among the men serving under Capt. John Gilman, New Hampshire, in 1710, were Daniel Lary, Thomas Lary and Jeremiah Connor.

Major William Waters, son of Capt. Edward and Grace (O’Neil) Waters, patented land in Maryland as early as 1663. He left six sons.

We learn in Frothingham’s _Charlestown, Mass._, that in 1640 “there came over great store of provisions both out of England and Ireland.”

Edwin Larkin was located at Newport, R. I., as early as 1655. His name appears in the “Roule of y^e Freemen of y^e colonie of everie Towne.”

Several years previous to 1686, “persons from Ireland, picked up at sea and brought hither, have £17 given them.” (Felt’s _Annals of Salem, Mass_.)