Thomas Casey, a Rhode Island settler, was born about 1636, and died in
1719. That Ireland was his native land is generally conceded. A
suggestion has been set up in some quarters, however, that he was of
English parentage.
To support this idea, a “tradition” is produced. Yet Casey as a family
name is Irish of the Irish. For centuries it has been prominent in the
east and south of Ireland. It derives from O’Cathasaigh which has been
anglicized O’Casey, Cahasy, Casey, Casie, and Case. Those intent on
making out an English, rather than an Irish, parentage for Thomas Casey,
the immigrant, declare that “By tradition, he was a son of one of the
English planting families in Ulster county, Ireland. His father and
mother and all his family were destroyed in the Irish massacre [1641],
he, a child, being saved by his uncle and carried to his relatives in
Gloucestershire. It is further asserted that he sailed for America from
Plymouth, England.”
The “tradition” here noted is radically defective. In the first place,
there is no Ulster county in Ireland. Perhaps the province of Ulster was
what the writer was aiming at. In the second place, the “Irish massacre”
mentioned never happened. For a long period, writers in the English
interest asserted that on October 23, 1641, the Irish Catholics rose and
slaughtered in cold blood thousands of English and other Protestants
then in the country. But the charge is now rejected as untrue by
impartial historians. W. J. O’Neill Daunt brands the story of such a
massacre as “a thorough and most impudent falsehood,” and as being
another of those “stupendous calumnies” circulated by the enemies of the
Irish people. Other authoritative writers similarly testify.
“It has been represented,” says Prendergast, a Protestant,[10] “that
there was a general massacre [by the Irish], surpassing the horrors of
the Sicilian Vespers, the Parisian Nuptials, and Matins of the
Valtelline, but nothing is more false.”
Consequently, as there was no massacre by the Irish Catholics, then as
charged, Thomas Casey’s “father and mother and all his family” could not
have perished in it. In February, 1642, however, a dreadful massacre was
ordered—not by the Irish Catholics, but by the English lords justices.
The mandate was issued to Lord Ormund, the lords justices signing the
fearful instructions, being Dillon, Rotheram, Loftus, Willoughby,
Temple, and Meredith.
The mandate for the massacre as issued to Ormund was, “That his lordship
do endeavor with his majesty’s forces to wound, kill, slay, and destroy,
by all the ways and means he may, all the said rebels, their adherents,
and relievers; and burn, waste, spoil, consume, destroy, and demolish
all the places, towns, and houses, where the said rebels are, or have
been, relieved or harbored, and all the hay and corn there; and kill and
destroy all the men there inhabiting capable to bear arms.”
The orders were only too well obeyed. Men, women and children perished
alike. The English soldiery made no distinction between age or sex. In
their savage fury they committed massacre after massacre. The English
garrison of Carrickfergus alone murdered 3,000 men, women and children
in that neighborhood. Lord Broghill perpetrated like cruelties in Cork
and Waterford. In County Wicklow Sir Charles Coote was guilty of a
massacre so horrible that after it, to use his own language, “not a
child, were it but a hand high, was left alive.”
It is probable that the family of Thomas Casey, the Rhode Island
settler, were Irish Catholics, and if they perished in a massacre it is
quite possible it was in the one thus inaugurated by the English. It is
quite likely that the author of the “tradition” and “Ulster county” got
matters somewhat mixed. Hosts of Irish Catholics fled the country at the
period mentioned, and if Thomas Casey’s uncle did so, taking the child
with him, it would be entirely in accord with the facts and conditions
here described. The statement that Thomas eventually sailed from
Plymouth, England, if he did so sail, has no particular significance and
proves nothing.
Thomas Casey is first heard of in Rhode Island at Newport. His wife’s
name was Sarah. They had, so far as known, three children, Thomas, Adam
and Samuel. In 1692, the father and his son, Thomas, witnessed a deed
given by James Sweet of East Greenwich, R. I., to Thomas Weaver of
Newport. Adam Casey, another son, was a lieutenant in 1742, and in 1750
purchased 50 acres in Scituate, R. I. In 1760, Adam and his son, Edward
Casey, sold 100 acres to Nathan Brown of Swanzey, Mass., and removed to
Coventry, R. I. Adam Casey’s will was proved in 1765.
Samuel, the third son of Thomas Casey, the immigrant, lived at different
times in Newport, Kings Town and Exeter, R. I. He held various town
offices. At his death, his personal estate inventoried £2,803 18s. 6d.
He had six children; his brother, Thomas, four; and Adam, five. Several
members of this noted family have been distinguished in American civil
and military life. The family is still represented in Rhode Island.