during
this period as to be the cause of considerable jealousy on the part
of other settlers from continental Europe. They were a vigorous and
aggressive element. Eager for that freedom which was denied them at
home, large numbers of them went out on the frontier. While the
war-whoop of the savage still echoed within the surrounding valleys
and his council fires blazed upon the hills, those daring adventurers
penetrated the hitherto pathless wilderness and passed through
unexampled hardships with heroic endurance. They opened up the roads,
bridged the streams, and cut down the forests, turning the wilderness
into a place fit for man's abode. With their sturdy sons, they
constituted the skirmish line of civilization, standing as a bulwark
against Indian incursions into the more prosperous and populous
settlements between them and the coast. From 1740 down to the period
of the Revolution, hardly a year passed without a fresh infusion of
Irish blood into the existing population, and, as an indication that
they distributed themselves all over the Province, I find, in every
Town and County history of Pennsylvania and in the land records of
every section, Irish names in the greatest profusion. They settled in
great numbers chiefly along the Susquehanna and its tributaries; they
laid out many prosperous settlements in the wilderness of western
Pennsylvania, and in these sections Irishmen are seen occupying some
of the foremost and most coveted positions, and their sons in after
years contributed much to the power and commercial greatness of the
Commonwealth. They are mentioned prominently as manufacturers,
merchants, and farmers, and in the professions they occupied a place
second to none among the natives of the State. In several sections,
they were numerous enough to establish their own independent
settlements, to which they gave the names of their Irish home places,
several of which are preserved to this day. It is not to be wondered
at then that General Harry Lee named the Pennsylvania line of the
Continental army, "the Line of Ireland"!

Ireland gave many eminent men to the Commonwealth, among whom may be
mentioned: John Burns, its first governor after the adoption of the
Constitution, who was born in Dublin; George Bryan, also a native of
Dublin, who was its governor in 1788; James O'Hara, one of the
founders of Pittsburgh; Thomas FitzSimmons, a native of Limerick,
member of the first Congress under the Constitution whi