The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, September 8, 1901, Page 3

T is a question whether the Irish are not, after the Spanish, the real pio- neers of California. Certain it is that plenty of them came here before gringo time—in the days when California was a Mexican land, from chili-con-carne to fandango. They came even before the days when gold was plenty in the land—when they had to farm their money, not dig it. It is a slower way to take it out of the soil by dint of plowing and sowing, reaping and mow- ing. than to lay bare a nugget by the stroke of a pick, But the Irish are a race who understand the art of waiting. Whaling ships came to this coast in early days, long before gold was thought of. and Irishmen constituted many of the crews. There were American vessels sent here not very long after the Revelution. A good many of the sallors deserted and settled in this State. Captain J. Smith of Kirgs County, Ire- land, was the first one known to make the trip overland. He reached here in 1826, having come with a party of trappers. His party of forty men were nearly all murdered by the Indians. He escaped at that time, reached here safely and went inte the fur business. Two years later he wae murdered by Indians in another mas- sacre. Many of the Irishmen who came here in early yvears did not preserve their nation- ality. They married senoritas, who were a more thrifty lot than they are common- y considered. The senoritas recognized he fact that ITrishmen were better pro- siders than the guitar-twanging gentle- men whom they had been reared with. But they taught the Irish pioneers Mexi- can ways and so defeated their own ends. A few remained thoroughly Irish. One of these was John J. Reed. He reached here in 1826 and settled in Marin County. He was the first English- epeaking resident of that county, by the way. His grant of land. one and a half leagues, came from Governor Figueroa in the year 1834. He built the first mill over there. He took the first soundings of the bay hereabouts. He established the Sau- salito ferry-boats. He did fancy farming. John Reed married a senorita himself, Hilarita Sanchez, but he remained an frishman for ‘all that, His daughters were given the names of their mother's race, Hilarit d Inez; the sons were named by their father's choice, John and Richard. , Timothy Murphy, who came here in 1828, vas given the name of Don Timoteo Mur- phy, and this strange mixture clung to him in life and death. He devoted him- self largely to commerce. James W. Burke, a sea captain, came from Lima in tne year 1830. He settled in Santa Barbara and lived there until 1577, These were a few of the forerunners. By the time that actual pioneer days had ar- rived, that is the days of '49. the Irishmen were flocking here. As farmers and min- ers they made money. The Murphy party was one of the earliest and most successful. Martin Murphy left Ireland, his “unhappy coun- try,” and settled in Canada, but, dissatis- fied there, he formed a party of family and friends and emigated to Missouri. THE SUNDAY CALL. Trigh Grove was the name of the prosper- ous settlement they formed there. The Sullivans, Enrights, Corcorans, Jordans, Walshes and Whites were some of those whose names were known later to Cali- fornia. Nothing would have brought them here if the fevers of the Missouri region had not driven them out. The death of Mrs, Murphy prompted her husband to take his family away. A Catholic missionary who visited the colony told him of Cali- fornia and he set out for the Pacific Coast. Disposing of his lands, he procured the outfit required for so long and dangerous a journey, and bearing with him a pass- port from Governor Reynolds assuring him and his the protection due American citizens he started in May, 154. The party reached here in November of the same year, being the first that succeeded in bringing its wagons into California. The little group, which included no end of Murphys, several Sullivans, a Durbin and some Martins, was under the guid- ance of Captain Stephens. ‘'Captain Stephens was a native of North Carolina, a trapper for twenty-eight years and ac- customed to frontier life. He had no trail to guide him across the plains, and start- ed without even a pocket compass, but no train that traversed the continent to the Pacific was more blessed, freer from dis- aster or so safe from savage attacks.” After a number of changes the Murphy family finally settled in the Santa Clara Valley, making a permanent: home there. Martin Murphy bought Mexican ranches and made them yieid as the happy-go- lucky Mexicans had never dreamed of doing. Some of the most famous fortunes made in the mines were made by Irishmen. James Fair was a forty-niner whuse wealth is known the country over. MHe was a native of Clogher, Tyrone, Ireland, whither he emigrated to Illinois, thence to California via Oregon. The Bonanza mines were the origin of his fortune, the income from which was said to be $540,000 2 month. Thomas Tobin was another forty-niner, a Tipperary man, who left Ireland with his parents when he was a youngster. His schooling was received in Philadel- phia, and he started out in commercial iife re. Afterward when he came to San Francisco he continued along the same line. He did business for a while in Downieville, where he came out a pros- perous man after others had been ruined by fire. Under his canvas store he had made a vault to store his goods in, for he had a long-headed idea that fire would make very easy prey of a town of can- vas. With all his goods in the vault It was easy enough to come out of the fire in a prosperous condition. Thomas Tobin brought his Irish shrewdness to America. Edward J. C. Kewen, although not an Irishman by birth, was a son of an Irish- man, Captain Kewen. He was a student, but there was too great a restlessness in his nature to permit him to devote his life to quiet studies. He liked to live. He traveled, fell in love, married in Sacra- mento. It was uncertain what he would settle down to. Fate decided the matter, He had a talent at oratory, and being 's192001d eituofiiey fo £321508 | Jo 110y 24 to William R. O'Reilly, J. "RANCIS CASSIN, William Casement, Lawrence Cunningham, Rob- Fert Bright, Francis Doud, Frencis Foley, Michael Gaffney, John Gleason, S. M. Holdeness, James F. Hough, Robert Jacks, James Kane, John Kelley Jr., Thomas Kyle, James Laflin, A. C. Loughmore, Patrick Lynch, Jerome Madden, W. B. Melville, J. Moffitt, B. D. Murphy, P. W. Murphy, Edward McGary, Myles P. O’Connor, Robert Wilson, J. Ross Browne, J. P. Buckley, Francis Buckley, M. 0. Barber, Felix Byrne. E. P. Buckley, John Brannan, Thomas Breeze, William Blackburn, Ed- ward Conway, William F. Cashman, Richard Coleburn, Thomas Connell, Jeremiah Callaghan, Michael Connelly, William Dunphy, James P. Deane, James Daly, William B. Dolan, James Dunne, John Donegan, J. C. Davis, Thomas Eagan, William J. Ennts, M. E. Fitz- gibbon, James G, Fair, Patrick Fenton, Richard Finley, Thomas Fallon, T. W. Freelon, Edward Gallagher, John Hogan, William Henley, Mich- ael Hayes, James Irvine, William Jones, Thomas King, W. E. Keyes, Ed- ward C. Kirby, P. C. Kelley, George Kinney, William G. Lee, J. A. Lyons, John A. Murphy, James MacDonough, George Morrow, William Murray, Thomas Murphy, Timothy Murphy, Martin Murphy, Daniel Murphy, Alexander Montgomery, Michael K. Murphy, Owen Murray, D. T. Mur- phy, Martin J. Murphy, Dennis Mahoney, William McKilareff, Patrick McDonald, Hugh McCormick, Samauel T. McMahon, Robert McKee, Pat- rick McAdams, James McClatchy, W. A. McWilliams, James McGuire, John A. McGlynn, John Nugent, George D. Nagle, C. D. O’Sullivan, Wil- liam S. O'Brien, James O'Callaghan, Jasper O'Farrell, Denis J. Oliver, John C. 0’Brien, James O'Meara, Hugh O’Donnell, J. C. Piercy, Samuel Percy, James Pullman, James Phelan, Edward Ryan, John Ryan, T. J. Roach, Thomas Rooney, George W. Ryder, Philip A. Roach, Thomas Roache, P. Rod Ryan, John Scott, Drvid Spencer, Michael Sullivan, John Sullivan, George F. Sweeney, Thomas J. Smith, Joseph Shannon, Wil- liam F. White (father of Senator &tephen White), Hugh Whittell, Colo- nel A. Wason, George A. Wom, Jokn Walsh, John A. Barry, Thomas Brannan, Edward B. Cox, San.uel T. Curtis, Edward Daly, Patrick Dunn, Malachi Fallon, James Hoiohan, James R. Keough, H. C. Murray, James P. McKenna, James McVea. William Neagle, Michael Nolax, B. Redmond, Rodger Ryan, Thomas Stewart, George Torrens, Michael Kane, Patrick J. Hickey, Patrick Hunt, C. J. Hughes, Thomas Hayes, Daniel Leahy. accidentally summoned to the rostrumt on the day of his arrival at Sacramento, he made a hit and the upshot was that he was elected Attorney General by the State Legislature. He was an original sort of man. His biographer writes that “‘if other evidences of moral and physical courage were wanting, his character in this respect wae especially manifest in his enlistment against the squatters, who at that early. period of our history had banded in mur- derous clans. Under threats of assassinae tion he boldly repaired to one of their convocatiops on the Levee and succeeded by the audacity of his tongue in disperse ing the threatening crowd.” James Phelan was an Irishman by birth, beihg a native of Grantstown, Queens County. He came here from New York, sending on three different vessely a neat little stock of hardware, glass- ware, liquors, tobacco and beans. He trusted that the sale of these would be profitable in a remote mining town. The beans and the tobacco set him up in business. From them -he progressed to a great commercial business. He dealt in im- ported liquors, he dealt in every other kind of merchandise besides. He came ir time to establish a bank. It was the first gold bank in California and the second in the United States. D. O. McCarthy has an Trish lineags to reckon with. He was born to the McCar- thy More family, or Great of Muskerry, renowned in the history of old Ireland as being ancient princes of that large prov- ince. MacCartha is the real spelling of the name. D. 0. McCarthy, the California pioneer, was named for Daniel O'Connor, the great Irish patriot, who was a friend of the sen- ior McCarthy. His coming to California was more ros mantic than that of any other pioneer. He was a boy of only seventeen when he or- ganized a company of young men to emi- grate here; he established himself their captain, interpreter and commissary gen- eral and conducted them here safely by way of Mexico, traveling on horseback more than 2000 miles. Bellew McManus was famed along 2 very different line from any of these. He was a martyr and patriot. He came here from the Australian penal colonfes and found a peaceful life after the long years of trials that he had endured for his na- tive land. Colonel Hayes was a 43-er of whom a most unfortunate love story is told by some old settlers. It is said that Frank McCoppin, young and bumptious and handsome, worked for Hayes on his place. McCoppin had come here as a young emigrant and started work in a humble capacity for Colonel Hayes. He showed himself so clever and. so trustworthy that he was rapidly ad- vanced, and he became so confidential a friend of the old Colonel that he was asked finally to do his wooing for him. The Colonel was enamored of Miss Van Ness. He didn’t know how to go about the matter for himself. He wanted Frank to help him out. Frank undertook the commission and it was a case of Priscilla over again. Miss Van Ness fell in love with the ambassador and married him while poor Hayes was left in the lurch. The old residents can string tales like this when they grow reminiscent. Per- haps the list of names given below (re- produced from the Nation) may call ta mind many another and make old times new times for the passing hour. - W 4gsu David Dwyer, ‘peaq ple Haini) ‘s1aqwa\|/-x7 ple s12qWa