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AN GAOḊAL
ORIGIN OF THE FRIENDLY SONS OF ST.
PATRICK OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
(In future issues we shall give the history of the
Society in this country, and it is so pregnant with
facts which tend to cast a halo round the Iris cha¬
racter in the dark days of Tory ascendency that no
Irishman should be without a copy of it.)
At the annual dinner on the 17 of March 1884, gi¬
ven at the Brunswick N. York, in commemoration
of the 100th anniversary of the Friendly Sons of
St. Patrick, Chef Justice Daly, the president of the
society, gave the following account of its origin and
subsequent history;
We are not the oldest society in this city, the St.
Andrew and the Marine Societies being older; nor
are we the oldest Irish society in the United States
for the Irish Charitable Society of Boston was
founded as early as 1737.
As I have mentioned Boston, I may with pro¬
priety, on this occasion, recall an early instance
of Irish benevolence in connection with that city.
In 1676 there was great suffering in Boston in
consequence of the Indian wars, and the citizen
of Dublin sent out a ship with a full freight, the
proceeds of which, £980, equivalent in this day to
at least $30,000, was divided by the captain among
116 impoverished familees of Boston. We date
our society from 1784, but the organization of
which it may be said to be a continuance, can be
traced as far back as 1762, the earliest date that I
know a commemoration of St. Patrick's Day in the
city. All the records of the society were destroyed
by the fire in New York in 1835, and what I have
been able to gather from other sources of its origin
and early history I will briefly state. In the year
1762 Broadway extended no farther than Reade
Street, the further progress of the street there be¬
ing interrputed by a broad and very high hill called
Mount Pleasant, from the top of which there was
an extensive view of the bay, the harbor, the
North and East Rivers, and the surrounding scen¬
ery. Upon this eminence there was a well-known
tavern kept by an Irishman named John Marshall
and here, on the 17th of March, one hundred and
twenty two years ago, the Irish residents of the
city celebrated St. Patrick's Day by a public din¬
ner, which was the initiation of an organization
formed shortly thereafter for social and benevolent
objects, called the Friendly Brothers of St. Patrick.
I do not know the exact year in which it was es¬
tablished, but it was in existence in 1776.
There was a great disposition in the first half of
the last century to form secret societies, a period
during which the Masonic fraternity was greatly
expanded if it did not, in fact, then come into ex¬
istence. Their objects were social and benevo¬
lent, the social feature greatly predominating. In
1740 a society of this description was established in
Dublin, composed chiefly of military men, called
the Ancient and Most Benevolent Order of the
Friendly Brothers of St. Patrick. Like the other
secret societies, its objects were benevolent and
social, and though in its rites, ceremonies and se¬
recy it greatly resembled, it was not of the Mason¬
ic fraternity. In the beginning of this century it
was changed into a club, and is still in existence
in Dublin, having its club house in Sackville Street.
The Society of the Friendly Brothers here was
modeled on this one in Dublin, being like the pa¬
rent body, composed chiefly of military men. At
the time of its institution New York was a little
garrison town of about 12,000 inhabitants, and was
the chief rendezvous for the British forces in North
America and in the British West India colonies.
There was always one, and generally two or more
regiments here, in which the Irish, who have al¬
ways been a fighting race, were largely represent¬
ed. Two of these, in fact, were Irish regiments
— the 48 and the 88 or Connaught Rangers.
It was, however, in the 16th and 47th Foot that
the Society of the Friendly Brothers of St. Patrick
was formed, probably by officers who had been
members of the parent society, and the military
officers and a few leading Irish civilians, among
whom were Hugh Gaine, the principal bookseller
and publisher of the city, and Daniel McCormick,
the leading auctioneer, kept up this body until
1782, and gave it its political character of un¬
swerving loyalty to the British Crown. In fact,
all its members, whether civilians or military,
were during the American Revolution loyalists,
and indeed all the Irish residents, who were toler¬
ably numerous, for Lord Rawden, better known
afterwards as the Earl of Moira, raised a regiment
in the city for the service of the crown. composed
exclusively of Irishmen, that was six hundred
strong. In contradistinction to this Tory body,
the leading Irishmen who had espoused the Am¬
erican cause founded a society in 1771 in Philadel¬
phia, and to distinguish it from the Tory "Broth¬
ers" in New York, they called it "The Friendly
Sone of St. Patrick," of which body General Wash¬
ington was made a member by adoption. I have
had a great deal to do with making adopted citi¬
zens from Irishmen, but this is the only instance I
know of in which an American was made an Irish
citizen by adoption. After the Revolution some
members of The Friendly Sons of Philadelphia,
together with members of The Friendly Brothers
here, who had given in their adhesion to the Am¬
erican Government, reorganized the New York So¬
ciety under the name which it now bears of "The
Friendly Sons of St. Patrick," the 100th annivers¬
ary of which we celebrate to-night.
But the connection of the Irish race with this
country extends far beyond the existence of either
this or the Boston Society. It may surprise our
New England friends, who generally embody their
