THE EARLY IRISH SETTLERS OF PENNSYLVANIA.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume X, Issue 510, 19 January 1883, Page 23

THE EARLY IRISH SETTLERS OF PENNSYLVANIA.

The founding of Pennsylvania by William Perm, the virtuous Quaker, 200 years ago, was celebrated in many cities of that State on the 22nd of October. Philadelphia, on Monday last, began a week's festivities to commemorate the event, and her streets will witness daily processions of societies of all kinds and nationalities, military, civil, social, and literary, while her nights will be aflame with rockets and illuminations. It is worth recalling at this time the fact that the Irish element ia one of the strongest in the very foundation of the State of Pennsylvania. The Rev. T. A. Spencer, in his •• History of the United States," says : "In the years 1771-72 the number of emigrants to America from Ireland alone amounts to 17,350 Within the first fortnight of August, 1773, there arrived at Philadelphia 3,500 emigrants from Ireland ; aud from the same document which has recorded this chcumstance, it appears that vessels were arriving every month, freighted with emigrants from Holland, Germany, and especially from Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland." Although the Irish wire among the earliest settlers in Maryland and Massachusetts. Pennsylvaiua was the nnst distinctively Irish of all the colonies. Twenty-three years after the Mayflower passengers landed at Plymouth Rock an Irish emigration look place to Massachusetts, which exceeded in numbers the small Puritan colony which preceded them. But these Irish people were men sold into exile and slavery by the English Government. Frjndergast, in his " Cromwellian Settlement," says :—": — " As one instance out of many : Captain John Vernon was employed by the Commissioners of Ireland into England, and contracted in their behalf with Mr. Paniel Sullick and Mr. Leader, under his hand bearing date Sept. 14th, 1653, to supply them with two hundred and fifty women of the Irish nation above twelve years and under the age of forty-five, also three hundred men above years and undeT fifty, to b*s found in the country within twenty miles of Cork, Youghal, Kinsale, Waterford, and Wexford, to transport, them into New England." Here were 550 men and women in the prime of life, purely Celtic in blood, infused into the life of the primal Yankee stock ; and these weie only a drop in the tide of Irish emigration at that time. But the emigrants from Ireland to Pennsylvania were voluntary ■^settlers. "In 1727," says the PhUadelpliia Gazette, in Newcastle Government, there arrived last year 4,500 persons, chiefly from Ireland ; and at Philadelphia, in one year, 1,155 Irish, none of whom were servants." In 1728 the number of Irish emigrants landed at Philadelphia was 5,600, " while in the next ten years," says Mr. Bagenal, in " The American Irish," "the Irish furnished to the Carolinas and Georgias the majority of their immigrants." In 1722 the towns of Donegal and Paxton, Pa., were settled by Irish emigrants ; and in 1736 the Irish settled the York Barrens. From December, 1728, to December, 1729, the proportion of emigi ants who landed in Pennsylvania was as follows .—England and Welbh, 267 ; Scotch, 43 ; Palatines, 243 ; Irish, 5,655.—" The Irish," says Bagenal, "being thus nearly ten to one of all other emigrants taken together, and that proportion wasdoubtleßß sustained down to the Revolution,"

In 1729, a prominent member of the Provincial Government said :— " It looks as if Ireland is to send all her inhabitants hither. For last week not less than six ships arrived, and every day two or • three arrive also." Mr. Sherman Day, in his " Historical Collection of Pennsylvania," says of the early Irish settlers :— " They were a pertinacious and pugnacious race, pushing their settlements upon unpurchased lands, and producing fresh exasperation among the Indians." Mr. Winthrop Sargent, in his " Tribute to Principles and Usefulness of the Irish and Scotch Early Settlers of Pa.," says :—" They were a hardy, brave, hot-headed race ; excitable in temper, unrestrainable in passion, invincible in prejudice. Their hand opened as impetuously to a friend as it clinched against a foe. ... If they had faults a lack of patriotism or of courage was not amongst the number." lii 1785, Major-General Robertson was examined before a com* mittee of the English House of Commons on the American war, in which he had served. " How," he was asked by Edmund Burke, a member of the Committee, " are the American corps composed ?" " Some are mostly natives," was the answer ; " the greatest number such as can be got. . . General Lee informed me that half the rebel Continental army were from Ireland." But the highest, under Washington, as well the rank and file, were Irish, and the Pennsylvania Irish supplied an unusual share. Major-General Anthony Wayne, General Walter Stewart, General William Thompson, General William Irvine, General Edward Hand, Brigadier-General Stephen Moylan, these were all of Pennsylvania Irish stock. Nine men of Irish birth or descent signed the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia. Their names were Charlea Carroll, Thomas Lynch, George Reed, George Taylor, Edward Rutledge, Mathew Thornton, Thomas McKean, James Smith, and John Nixon. So we rejoice with Pennsylvania in her 200fch celebration, and we rejoice to see the magnificent development of the healthy blood of its early settlers from Ireland. — Pilot.