Perhaps the most distinguished man of Irish birth who identified himself
completely with Virginia, was Gen. Andrew Lewis, who was born in Ireland
about 1720, and came to Virginia with his parents in 1732. John Lewis,
the father, was the first white man who fixed his home in the mountains
of West Augusta.
Andrew Lewis served as a major in the regiment commanded by Washington
in the Ohio campaign of 1754 and 1755. He served with valor in the
French and Indian wars, and was highly regarded by Washington, at whose
suggestion he was appointed a brigadier-general in the Continental army.
Four of his brothers served in the Revolutionary War, one of them, Col.
Charles Lewis, being killed at Point Pleasant. No better evidence of the
value which Virginia placed on the services of this Irishman could be
wished than the fact that she has deemed his effigy worthy to stand for
all time beside the immortal group of Henry, Mason, Marshall, Nelson and
Jefferson, which surrounds the heroic equestrian statue of Washington in
the Capitol Square at Richmond. This celebrated work of Crawford’s is
pronounced by the critics to be one of the finest in the world.
Descendants of John Lewis, the father of Gen. Andrew Lewis, are numerous
in the state at this day. Some of them have been very distinguished men:
John F. Lewis, who died recently, was lieutenant-governor of Virginia,
and a senator of the United States. Lunsford L. Lewis, his half-brother,
was president of the supreme court of appeals of Virginia for twelve
years, retiring from that office a few years ago. Dr. Lewis Wheat is a
well-known practising physician of Richmond. Judge John Lewis Cochran,
whose mother was a great-granddaughter of John Lewis, father of Gen.
Andrew Lewis, and whose great-grandfather, with his wife, _née_ Susanna
Donnelly, came to America about 1742, was a gallant soldier in the
Confederate army, and a distinguished lawyer and judge. James C.
Cochran, brother to the foregoing, was a colonel of Confederate militia
in the late war. Henry King Cochran served as a surgeon in the
Confederate service throughout the war. William Lynn Cochran was a major
in the Confederate service, and a lawyer by profession. Howard Peyton
Cochran was a captain in the same service. It is claimed that there were
one hundred and five of the Lewis family in the service of the
Confederate states.
Another Irishman who came to Virginia and left his impress was John Daly
Burk, of Petersburg, Va. He was born in Ireland, and educated at Trinity
college, Dublin. Because of his political opinions and affiliations he
was compelled to leave the country (1797) while yet a student at
college. He first tried his fortune in Boston, and afterwards in New
York. But he received no encouragement. His love for Ireland and his
ardent democracy made against his success at the North, and he finally
came to Virginia. Here he became the friend of Jefferson and John
Randolph, both of whom encouraged the brilliant young refugee.
He was a lawyer, poet, dramatist and historian, and was undoubtedly one
of the most accomplished men in the state during his day. His history of
Virginia in four volumes was the first comprehensive history of the
state written, and is regarded as one of the best ever compiled. He also
wrote “A History of the Late War in Ireland,” with an account of the
United Irish Association, from the first meeting in Belfast, to the
landing of the French at Killala (8 vols., 1779, Philadelphia). Before
he completed the fourth volume of the history of Virginia he was killed
in a duel with a French gentleman at Campbell’s Bridge, Chesterfield
county, Virginia, on the 11th of April, 1808.
The Preston family in Virginia is a distinguished one. Its propositus
John Preston was born in Ireland, and came to Virginia in 1735. He
married Elizabeth Patton before coming to America. She was a sister of
Col. James Patton, also of Irish birth. The latter was killed in
Virginia by the Indians in 1753, leaving two daughters, from whom
descended John Floyd and John B. Floyd, governors of Virginia; Hon.
James D. Breckinridge of Louisville, Ky., and Col. Wm. P. Anderson of
the United States army.
John Preston left one son, William, and four daughters, from whom are
descended some of the most distinguished men in American history. Dr. R.
A. Brock in his “Virginia and Virginians” says, “Scarce another American
family has numbered as many prominent and honored representatives as
that of the yeoman-founded Preston, with its collateral lines and
alliances.” In support of this claim he continues: “It has furnished the
National government a vice-president [Hon. John Cabell Breckinridge],
has been represented in several of the executive departments and in both
branches of congress. It has given Virginia five governors—McDowell,
Campbell, Preston and the two Floyds—and to Kentucky, Missouri and
California, one each, in Governors Jacobs, B. Gratz Brown and Miller;
Thomas Hart Benton, John J. Crittenden, William C. and William Ballard
Preston, leading moulders of public sentiment; the Breckinridges, Dr.
Robert J. and William L., distinguished theologians of Kentucky;
Professors Holmes, Venable and Cabell, of the University of Virginia,
besides other distinguished educators.”
Nor is their battle-roll less glorious. It is claimed that more than a
thousand of this family and its connections served in the contending
armies during the late Civil War. Among the leaders were Generals Wade
Hampton, Albert Sydney Johnston, Joseph E. Johnston, John B. Floyd, John
C. Breckinridge and John S. and William Preston. When it is stated that
besides the names enumerated, the family is connected with those of
Baldwin, Blair, Bowyer, Brown, Buchanan, Bruce, Cabell, Carrington,
Christian, Cocke, Flournoy, Gamble, Garland, Gilmer, Gibson, Grattan,
Hart, Henry, Hughes, Howard, Lee, Lewis, Madison, Marshall, Mason,
Massie, Mayo, Parker, Payne, Peyton, Pleasants, Pope, Radford, Read,
Redd, Rives, Seddon, Sheffey, Taylor, Thompson, Trigg, Venable, Watkins,
Ward, Watts, Winston, Wickliff, among many others, as well-esteemed,
some idea may be formed of its mental characteristics and social
influence.
Judge Peter Lyons was born in Ireland, and came to Virginia in his early
life. He was made a judge of the general court in 1779, becoming also a
judge of the first court of appeals. He served as such until his death,
July 30, 1809. As a jurist he ranked high. Among his colleagues on the
bench were Chancellor Wythe, Edmund Pendleton, St. George Tucker and
Spencer Roane. His descendants for several generations were eminent in
the professions, and some of them are still living in Virginia. James
Lyons, Jr., who was a colonel on the staff of Governor O’Ferrall, is the
oldest male descendant in the direct line. He married a daughter of
William Wirt Henry, grandson of Patrick Henry, and by her has several
children living.
Another judge of the supreme court of appeals was William C. Burks, of
whose ancestors little is known except that they were Irish. He died
recently, mourned by the profession which he had so signally adorned by
the profundity of his juridical learning and the simplicity and
spotlessness of his life. His opinions are as highly regarded as those
of any man who sat upon the bench of that court within a half century.
He was of weak frame and never enjoyed good health—“a creaking door,”
was the expression he commonly used to indicate himself—and never held
public office other than that mentioned. Yet his capacity for labor was
truly remarkable. He was one of the early presidents of the Virginia Bar
Association, which he was largely instrumental in organizing; and until
the time of his death was one of the editors of the _Virginia Law
Register_, the organ of the profession in this state.
Perhaps the ablest Irish lawyer in the state was Thomas J. Michie, whose
reputation extended throughout Virginia as a brilliant wit as well as
able jurist. Among the judges of the present supreme court of appeals of
Virginia is John W. Riely, who was a major in the Confederate service,
and whose ancestors were Irish. The speaker of the House of Delegates,
session of 1897–8, was John F. Ryan. A late governor of Virginia was
Philip W. McKinney, of Irish descent. His successor was Charles T.
O’Ferrall, a man of Irish descent. Among the state officers of Irish
descent may be mentioned P. H. O’Bannon, public printer; John Bell
Bigger, clerk of the House of Delegates; Major B. W. Lynn,
superintendent of the penitentiary, and the writer (Secretary of State
Lawless), both of whose parents were born in Galway, and came to America
after the “black famine.”
Gen. William Mahone was a descendant of an Irish progenitor who settled
in Virginia in colonial days. Judge Anthony Kiely is of Irish lineage,
and you know his history. After his appointment as minister to Austria
by Mr. Cleveland, and the indication on the part of Francis Joseph that
he was at Vienna _persona non grata_, Mr. Kiely was made one of the
judges of the international court at Cairo, Egypt, and became its
president.
Dr. Hunter McGuire, who was medical director of Stonewall Jackson’s
corps and the intimate friend of that great soldier, is of Irish
lineage. His great-grandfather, Ed. McGuire, left Ordfest, County Kerry,
in 1756, and settled in Winchester, Va.
The Dooleys, Pattersons, Glennans, Kevills, Barrys, O’Connors,
Fitzgeralds, Keans, Rheas, Kendricks, Kellys, McChesneys, Goolricks,
Wards, Higgins, Doyles, Lawlers, Rafters, Ferriters, McKenneys,
McCrackens, Youngs, Coles, Macgills, O’Bannons, Irvings, Irwins, Nolans,
O’Sullivans, Sullivans, Walshs, O’Neills, Kanes, Murphys, Ryans and a
hundred others, came largely during the present century. Perhaps most of
these families left Ireland in the great exodus which followed the
famine of 1846–’47. Certainly Virginia received about that time the
greatest number of immigrants who, unfortunately for themselves and for
their race, have preferred for the most part to lead urban lives. But
they and their progeny have not failed to leave the impress of their
character upon the people among whom their lot was cast.
And it is not too much to say that in the years to come, when, in the
expiring hours of the twentieth century, some chronicler pauses to
consider the virtues and deeds of Virginians, he will dwell in loving
admiration upon the talents and traits of those of Irish blood, who have
already made bricks without straw, and won the confidence and esteem of
their neighbors.
They are a people whose genius under the ægis of the Constitution enjoys
here that freedom of thought and liberty of action which have been
denied their fathers for eight hundred years—who love the Republic and
its institutions next only to their God, and who read their own
happiness and the fulfilment of all their earthly hopes in the
increasing and enduring glory thereof.
Capt. Page McCarty, of Richmond, Va., writes: “I learned something of
Irish-Americans from the papers of my father, governor of Florida at one
time, and member of congress in 1839. The ‘Scotch-Irish’ appear to have
established a theory of pre-emption or monopoly, and of that I learned
but little. O’Brien, of General Washington’s staff, was from Alexandria,
Va. Colonels McClanahan and Andrew Wagoner and Maj. Richard McCarty, of
the Revolution, were descendants of a small group of Irishmen who named
the little town of Kinsale on the Potomac about 1662. Daniel McCarty,
speaker of the Virginia House of Burgesses 1715, was of this set of
people, and grandson of McCarty, of Clenclare, though I see that some of
his kin are trying to Scotch-Irish him also. The main immigration of
Irish was through Philadelphia and Charleston, S. C., and they
penetrated to the mountains with the most adventuresome pioneers and met
in the valley that extends from the Peaks of Otter to the headwaters of
the Tennessee river.”
[Illustration:
MR. BERNARD CORR,
BOSTON, MASS.
]
[Illustration:
MR. EDMUND REARDON
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
]
[Illustration:
HON. PAUL KENDRICKEN,
BOSTON, MASS.
]
[Illustration:
POLICE CAPT. JOHN F. MURRAY,
CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
]