re with a number of Irish refugees from Barbados Island. An
Irishman named Joseph Collins with his wife and family came to Lynn,
Mass., in 1635. Richard Duffy and Matthias Curran were at Ipswich in
1633. John Kelly came to Newbury in 1635 with the first English
settlers of the town. David O'Killia (or O'Kelly) was a resident of
Old Yarmouth in 1657, and I find on various records of that section a
great number of people named Kelley, who probably were descended from
David O'Killia. Peter O'Kelly and his family are mentioned as of
Dorchester in 1696. At Springfield in 1656 there were families named
Riley and O'Dea; and Richard Burke, said to be of the Mayo family of
that name, is mentioned prominently in Middlesex County as early as
1670. The first legal instrument of record in Hampden County was a
deed of conveyance in the year 1683 to one Patrick Riley of lands in
Chicopee. With a number of his countrymen, Riley located in this
vicinity and gave the name of "Ireland Parish" to their settlement.
John Molooney and Daniel MacGuinnes were at Woburn in 1676, and
Michael Bacon, "an Irishman", of Woburn, fought in King Philip's war
in 1675. John Joyce was at Lynn in 1637, and I find the names of
Willyam Heally, William Reyle, William Barrett, and Roger Burke
signed to a petition to the General Court of Massachusetts on August
17, 1664. Such names as Maccarty, Gleason, Coggan, Lawler, Kelly,
Hurley, MackQuade, and McCleary also appear on the Cambridge Church
records down to 1690. These are but desultory instances of the first
comers among the Irish to Massachusetts, selected from a great mass
of similar data.

In the early history of every town in Massachusetts, without
exception, I find mention of Irish people, and while the majority
came originally as "poor redemptioners", yet, in course of time and
despite Puritanical prejudices, not a few of them rose to positions
of worth and independence. Perhaps the most noted of these was
Matthew Lyon of Vermont, known as "the Hampden of Congress," who, on
his arrival in New York in 1765, was sold as a "redemptioner" to pay
his passage-money. This distinguished American was a native of county
Wicklow. Other notable examples of Irish redemptioners who attained
eminence in America were George Taylor, a native of Dublin, one of
Pennsylvania's signers of the Declaration of Independence; Charles
Thompson, a native of county Tyrone, "the perennial Secretary of the
Continental Congress", and