IRISH AMONG THE EARLIEST AMERICAN SETTLERS.

New Zealand Tablet, 3 July 1919, Page 29

IRISH AMONG THE EARLIEST AMERICAN SETTLERS.

■ 'isb In the ■• first voyage : made 'by ' Sir ' Walter Raleigh to Virginia Irishmen 1 are 'referred * to'by' Hakluyt, the chronicler of the ' expedition. ■ The first recorded '.'colony to establish itself at "Newport News/ Va. : J came from Cork, Ireland, 5 in the year 1621, or only one year after the landing of the pilgrims of the Mayflower. - ; " The first attempt' of Europeans to establish a settlement on the Merrimac River, in Massachusetts, was a mixed Irish and : Scotch company, which embarked at Carrickfergus, Ireland, in the year 1636 with "a considerable quantity of equipment and merchandise." ■:■■■ The first- settlement in Shenandoah Valley, at Staunton, Va., where President Wilson was born, was made by John Lewis, from Donegal, and the first known schoolmaster in the Valley was John Wilson, from Co. Armagh. '

b&y With the first English expedition to Maryland, in tHe; : Arke;and'the' Dove, in the year 1633, Irishmen came. "'; How '■'- many there l ' were : has never been determined, ;: but in what remains at [Annapolis'of* the records or" "Certificates and Patents to the Earliest* Settlers" in Maryland, many Irish names ' are found. ; \\ ; H 'ln the'.first proclamations regarding "Conditions of Plantation," issued by Lord Baltimore, he limited the settlers to "persons of British or Irish descent:!' '° ■:'-_.; lii the first voyage of William Penn to Pennsylvania in 1682 he brought with him a number of Irishnien, some of whom are referred to as "people"of consequence. The first schoolmaster in Pennsylvania was Thomas,Dongan, son of an eminent merchant of Dublin and kinsman of Thomas Dongan, from : Co." Kildare; who, as Governor of the province of New York,'■gave their first chapters to the cities of Albany and New York. Dongan established his primitive school in'the year 1686, at a place called Lower Dublin in Philadelphia County. , ' /.'• Vc