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Death of Waddell Cunningham, Belfast Merchant

Waddell Cunningham, merchant and public figure in Georgian-era Belfast, dies at his restored house in Hercules Street (now Royal Avenue) in Belfast on December 15, 1797, seven months before the Irish Rebellion of 1798.

Cunningham is born in 1728 or 1729 at Ballymacilhoyle in the parish of Killead, County Antrim, the youngest son in the large family of John Cunningham and his wife, Jane, daughter of James Waddell of Islandderry, a townland in the parish of Dromore, County Down. The extended families of Cunningham and Waddell have interests in farming, linen, provisioning, and overseas trade. By 1752, no doubt with support from his family, Cunningham is in New York City trading near the meal market. Just as the Seven Years’ War is beginning in May 1757, he becomes the local partner of a Belfast merchant, Thomas Greg. While carrying on a wide range of commercial activities, the firm of Greg & Cunningham specialises in the flaxseed trade with Ireland and becomes “the most successful Irish American transatlantic trading partnership of the colonial period.” He amasses a large fortune from trade, some of it illicit, during the war, and becomes one of the largest shipowners in the American port. This enables the partners to purchase a 150-acre estate, which they rename “Belfast,” on the West Indies island of Dominica, just as it is passing, by the Treaty of Paris (1763), from French to British rule. It is possible that the estate is managed by Greg’s brother, John.

Sometime after suffering imprisonment for assaulting a fellow merchant (July–August 1763), Cunningham returns to Ireland, leaving the firm in the charge of junior partners until its dissolution in 1775. In Belfast he enters into a second partnership with Greg in May 1765 comprising all their business activities other than those in New York. In November 1765, he also marries Greg’s sister-in-law Margaret, second daughter of a Belfast merchant, Samuel Hyde. He lives in a large house in Hercules Street, later renamed Royal Avenue, which serves also as the premises for his many business interests, commercial, financial, industrial, and agricultural. In 1767, he and Greg start the manufacture of vitriol at a factory by the River Lagan at Lisburn, 12 km from Belfast. They open up fisheries in Donegal and Sligo, exporting herring to the West Indies as food for slaves. They also trade Irish horses and mules for West Indian sugar and American tobacco, the sugar being processed by them at the New Sugar House in Waring Street, Belfast. During the American Revolutionary War (1775–83), he illegally ships linen uniforms to the insurgent colonists. He becomes a middleman on the estate of Arthur Chichester, 5th Earl of Donegall, by obtaining leases of land in the Templepatrick district of County Antrim, a venture that involves him in disputes with tenant farmers resulting in an attack by the Hearts of Steel on Belfast and the destruction by fire of his home on December 23, 1771.

Despite this setback, Cunningham becomes the foremost Belfast merchant. As well as those mentioned, he has interests in shipping, brewing, glass manufacture and flour milling. When a chamber of commerce is set up in 1783, he is elected president, a position he holds until 1790. In the 1780s, in partnership with William Brown, John Campbell and Charles Ranken, he opens a bank. Known as Cunningham’s Bank, it closes on December 31, 1793, likely as a result of the recession brought on by the outbreak of war between England and France.

A prominent Volunteer, Cunningham joins the movement as a lieutenant in 1778 and is captain of the 1st Belfast company from 1780 until the dissolution of the Volunteers in 1793. Entering politics, he fails to be nominated as a parliamentary candidate for Belfast by its patron, Lord Donegall, at the general election of 1783, but stands for Carrickfergus at a February 1784 by-election on a platform of parliamentary reform and is returned – a rare distinction for a Presbyterian – by 474 votes to 289. A petition against his return is lodged successfully, but he remains an MP until March 1785, when he is defeated in a new election. It is during this period that he, probably the wealthiest, most enterprising merchant in Belfast and having, as he does, Caribbean interests, proposes in December 1784 fitting out a ship to engage in the Atlantic slave trade. The proposal comes to nothing but is the subject of intense debate in the 1920s between two rival Belfast local historians, Francis Joseph Bigger and Samuel Shannon Millin.

Cunningham plays a prominent role on several Belfast boards – those of White Linen Hall, the harbour, poorhouse, and dispensary. He gives money to the first Catholic chapel, St. Mary’s, opened in the town in 1784, and to the First Belfast Presbyterian congregation, as well as providing a site for a meeting house for his own congregation, Second Belfast, in 1767. Staunch in his advocacy of the reform of parliament, he becomes a member of the Northern Whig Club in 1790. He is cautious, however, about Catholic relief, for he fears its possible consequences. On July 14, 1792, an organiser of a Volunteer display to mark the third anniversary of the fall of the Bastille, he balks even at a very moderately worded resolution in favour of the Catholics. Thereafter he becomes increasingly ill-disposed toward reform and when the Belfast yeoman infantry is formed in 1797, he becomes captain of the 4th company.

Cunningham dies on December 15, 1797, at his restored house in Hercules Street. He and his wife have no children. His property in Ireland (worth £60,000) passes to James Douglas, youngest son of his sister Jane, who had married their first cousin, Cunningham’s personal clerk Robert Douglas. His name had already passed to Thomas Greg’s son, Cunningham Greg, who takes over Greg’s business after his death. Cunningham’s portrait is painted by Robert Home. A mausoleum is built over the Cunningham vault at Knockbreda Church cemetery overlooking Belfast.

(From: “Cunningham, Waddell” by C. J. Woods, Dictionary of Irish Biography, http://www.dib.ie, October 2009)


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Death of John Havelock Nelson, Composer & Conductor

John Havelock Nelson, composer and conductor, dies in Belfast, Northern Ireland, on August 5, 1996. He makes an immense contribution to the development of the cultural life of the province – and beyond – over the second half of the 20th century.

Nelson is born of middle-class parents in Cork, County Cork, on May 25, 1917, his distinctive forename being taken from a cousin of his mother who lost his life in World War I. Despite his birthplace, both his parents’ ancestral roots lie firmly in Northern Ireland.

Nelson’s father Robert comes from Larne, County Antrim, where he was raised. However, the early years of his mother Grace are quite eventful. She is born in the Belgian Congo on account of her father’s placement there as a missionary in the latter years of the 19th century (his family hail from Tobermore, County Londonderry). She is eventually sent home at an early age, due to the threat of malaria, and is raised in Belfast by an aunt and uncle who have no family of their own. It appears that Nelson inherits his musical genes from both parents. Although his father is trained as a chartered accountant, he is a capable baritone singer who studies in the early 1900s with C. J. Brennan, later to become the organist and choirmaster at St. Anne’s Cathedral, Belfast). Meanwhile, his mother shows talent as a pianist during her upbringing in her adopted city and by her early 20s is offering her services as an accompanist.

By chance, this is how his parents meet. They marry in 1916, shortly before their arrival in Cork where Robert takes up his first accountancy job. Within a month of Nelson’s birth, the family moves to Dublin where his father has secured a better post, eventually settling near Dún Laoghaire, just south of the capital city. From the age of five, now the eldest of four brothers born a year apart, he starts piano lessons and makes such rapid progress that, by the age of ten, he is able to play in a piano trio and to accompany his father in informal concerts. By the age of twelve, he wins a scholarship to the Royal Irish Academy of Music, Dublin, giving him the opportunity to study piano and theory and helping him to establish his core musical skills. Soon he adds conducting and organ lessons to his study programme.

As far as Nelson’s general education is concerned, this is completed at St. Andrew’s College, Dublin, where he excels in English, history and the sciences. By his late teens, he is determined to pursue a professional career as a musician. His father, however, exercises caution in this regard, advising him to take a science degree in the first instance. Consequently, he gains entry to Trinity College Dublin (TCD) in 1935 to read Natural Science, then makes a decision the following year to change to Medical Science. By 1939, he completes his primary degree in Medical Science, leading to doctoral research in bacteriology. At the same time, he begins a 4-year music degree at TCD while remaining musically active outside the university in relation to his piano studies, and also co-founds and conducts the Dublin Orchestral Players, a body that continues to provide an invaluable platform for amateur performers. He completes his university studies in 1943, graduating with a PhD in Medical Science and a primary Music degree. Seven years later he also completes a doctorate in Music from the same university.

His university career now behind him, like many fellow Irishmen, Nelson feels a desire to contribute to the World War II effort and applies for a commission in the medical branch of the Royal Air Force (RAF) in 1944. Eventually, he is called up and located at RAF Halton, Buckinghamshire, where he remains until after the end of the War, only returning to Dublin for his marriage in 1945. By nature, an outgoing, sociable person, he wastes no time in immersing himself in music-making activities when off duty, both inside and outside his RAF base. It is during this immediate post-war period that he becomes convinced that he wants to pursue a career in music. By chance, his attention is drawn to a BBC advertisement regarding a number of regional posts for staff accompanists, including Northern Ireland. His application is successful, and he reports for duty at BBC Northern Ireland in March 1947, where he remains for the next 30 years. In his new post, his main role is to play and accompany on the piano. To this end, he becomes involved in a number of new radio programmes, notably Children’s Hour. Elsewhere, he composes and arranges music for adult dramas and serials, the best known being The McCooeys. Another responsibility is to assist in auditioning local musicians for broadcasting opportunities, a process that uncovers much local talent, including a young James Galway. While his activities revolve around radio work in the 1950s, the next 20 years embrace opportunities arising from the new medium of television, including the popular Songs of Praise which involve him as conductor.

Nelson’s decision to retire from the BBC in 1977 enables him to focus fully on his free-lance career which had been running parallel, up until then, with his broadcasting work. In this capacity he is able to give full rein to his diverse range of musical skills as choral and orchestral conductor, chamber musician, music-festival adjudicator, composer and arranger. One should not overlook his role as animateur in founding the Studio Symphony Orchestra (1947) and the Studio Opera Group (1950). Both became integral parts of the local cultural scene during Nelson’s lifetime. His contribution as a festival adjudicator is an important activity, notably when undertaking tours abroad, including to Canada and the Caribbean. His visits to the latter area lead him to form the Trinidad and Tobago Opera Company shortly after his BBC retirement. In his busy lifestyle, he makes time to satisfy his creative energy as a composer and arranger. In total he publishes over 100 pieces, many inspired by his love of Irish traditional song and are of short duration and scored for a variety of vocal combinations. His enjoyment of his reputation as a piano accompanist of international standing is confirmed by his association with some of the leading Irish and British professional singers of the period, including Bernadette Greevy (soprano), Margaret Marshall (soprano), Peter Pears (tenor) and Ian Wallace (bass-baritone).

During his lifetime, Nelson’s outstanding services to music, both inside and outside the province, are recognised by a number of awards. The first of these is an OBE in 1966, followed in the latter part of his life by four honorary doctorates, three from local universities. A gifted and versatile musician, his personality is described by one colleague as “magnetic”- he has the unique ability to reach out to everybody irrespective of their age, status and position in life in whatever role he performs. In his best-known role as a conductor, a critic says of him that, “Dr. Nelson has a remarkable touch in getting people to do what he wants in the pleasantest way possible.” His vision and determination help to establish a vibrant music culture throughout Northern Ireland, an achievement that will remain his lasting legacy.

Nelson is survived by his three children and eight grandchildren; his wife Hazel having predeceased him in 1983.

(From: “John Havelock Nelson (1917-1996),” Dictionary of Ulster Biography, http://www.newulsterbiography.co.uk)


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Commissioning of the USS Juneau

USS Juneau (CL-52), a United States Navy Atlanta-class light cruiser, is commissioned on February 14, 1942, with Captain Lyman Knute Swenson in command. The ship becomes horribly famous as the vessel which carries the five Irish American Sullivan brothers to their death on November 13, 1942, after it is hit by a Japanese torpedo at the Battle of Guadalcanal.

The USS Juneau is laid down by Federal Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, Kearny, New Jersey, on May 27, 1940, and launched on October 25, 1941, sponsored by Mrs. Harry I. Lucas, wife of the mayor of the city of Juneau, Alaska.

After a hurried shakedown cruise along the Atlantic Coast in the spring of 1942, USS Juneau assumes blockade patrol in early May off Martinique and the Guadeloupe archipelago to prevent the escape of Vichy French naval units. She returns to New York to complete alterations and operates in the North Atlantic and Caribbean from June 1 to August 12 on patrol and escort duties. The cruiser departs for the Pacific Theater on August 22.

On 8 November, USS Juneau departs Nouméa, New Caledonia, as a unit of Task Force 67 under the command of Rear Admiral Richmond K. Turner to escort reinforcements to Guadalcanal. The force arrives there on the morning of November 12, and USS Juneau takes up her station in the protective screen around the transports and cargo vessels. Unloading proceeds unmolested until 14:05, when 30 Japanese planes attack the alerted United States group. The anti-aircraft fire is effective, and the USS Juneau alone accounts for six enemy torpedo bombers shot down. The few remaining Japanese planes are, in turn, attacked by American fighters with only one bomber escaping. Later in the day, an American attack group of cruisers and destroyers clears Guadalcanal on reports that a large enemy surface force is headed for the island. At 01:48 on November 13, Rear Admiral Daniel J. Callaghan‘s relatively small landing support group engages the enemy. The Japanese force consists of two battleships, one light cruiser, and nine destroyers.

Because of bad weather and confused communications, the battle occurs in near-pitch darkness and at almost point-blank range, as the ships of the two sides become intermingled. During the melee, the USS Juneau is struck on the port side by a torpedo launched by Japanese destroyer Amatsukaze, causing a severe list, and necessitating withdrawal. Before noon on November 13, USS Juneau, along with two other cruisers damaged in the battle, USS Helena (CL-50) and USS San Francisco (CA-38), head toward Espiritu Santo for repairs. USS Juneau is steaming on one screw, keeping station 800 yards off the starboard quarter of the likewise severely damaged USS San Francisco. She is down 12 feet by the bow, but able to maintain 13 knots.

A few minutes after 11:00, two torpedoes are launched from Japanese submarine I-26. These are intended for USS San Francisco, but both pass ahead of her. One strikes USS Juneau in the same place that had been hit during the battle. There is a great explosion, and USS Juneau breaks in two and disappears in just 20 seconds. Fearing more attacks from I-26, and wrongly assuming from the massive explosion that there are no survivors, USS Helena and USS San Francisco depart without attempting to rescue any survivors. In fact, more than 100 sailors survive the sinking of USS Juneau. They are left to fend for themselves in the open ocean for eight days before rescue aircraft belatedly arrive. While awaiting rescue, all but ten die from the elements and shark attacks. Among those lost are the five Sullivan brothers. Two of the brothers apparently survive the sinking, only to die in the water. Two presumably go down with the ship. Some reports indicate the fifth brother also survives the sinking but disappears during the first night when he leaves a raft and gets into the water. On November 20, 1942, USS Ballard (DD-267) recovers two of the ten survivors. Five more in a raft are rescued by a PBY Seaplane five miles away. Three others, including a badly wounded officer, make it to San Cristobal (now Makira) Island, about 55 miles away from the sinking. One of the survivors recovered by USS Ballard says he had been with one of the Sullivan brothers for several days after the sinking.

As a direct result of the Sullivans’ deaths (and the deaths of four of the Borgstrom brothers within a few months of each other two years later), the United States Department of War adopts the Sole Survivor Policy, a set of regulations, partially stipulated by law, that are designed to protect members of a family from the draft during peacetime, or from hazardous duty or other circumstances, if they have already lost family members to military service.

To honor the five Sullivan brothers, who all died in the sinking, and the USS Juneau, the United States Navy later commissions two ships named USS The Sullivans, and two ships named USS Juneau. On March 17, 2018, the wreck of USS Juneau is located by Paul Allen‘s research crew on board RV Petrel at a depth of about 13,800 feet off the coast of the Solomon Islands in several large pieces.


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The Battle of Ramillies

The Irish Brigade of France fights at the Battle of Ramillies in the War of the Spanish Succession on May 23, 1706. For one hundred years Irishmen are smuggled from Ireland to France, where their rights are stripped by foreign invaders to fill the ranks of the famous Irish Brigade. During those one hundred years they fight all over Europe, in North America, the Caribbean, and even India. They shed their blood freely on several hundred fields “from Dunkirk to Belgrade,” in the words of Thomas Davis.

For the Grand Alliance – Austria, England, and the Dutch Republic – the Battle of Ramillies follows an indecisive campaign against the Bourbon armies of King Louis XIV of France in 1705. Although the Allies capture Barcelona that year, they are forced to abandon their campaign on the Moselle, stall in the Spanish Netherlands and suffer defeat in northern Italy. Yet despite his opponents’ setbacks Louis XIV wants peace, but on reasonable terms. Because of this, as well as to maintain their momentum, the French and their allies take the offensive in 1706.

The campaign begins well for Louis XIV’s generals. In Italy, Marshal of France Louis Joseph, Duke of Vendôme, defeats the Austrians at the Battle of Calcinato in April, while in Alsace Marshal Claude Louis Hector de Villars forces Louis William, Margrave of Baden-Baden, back across the Rhine. Encouraged by these early gains Louis XIV urges Marshal François de Neufville, Duke of Villeroy, to go over to the offensive in the Spanish Netherlands and, with victory, gain a ‘fair’ peace. Accordingly, the French Marshal sets off from Leuven at the head of 60,000 men and marches toward Tienen, as if to threaten Zoutleeuw. Also determined to fight a major engagement, John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, commander-in-chief of Anglo-Dutch forces, assembles his army of some 62,000 men near Maastricht, and marches past Zoutleeuw. With both sides seeking battle, they soon encounter each other on the dry ground between the rivers Mehaigne and Gete, close to the small village of Ramillies, Belgium.

In less than four hours Marlborough’s Dutch, English, and Danish forces overwhelm Villeroi’s and Maximilian II Emanuel‘s Franco-Spanish-Bavarian army. The Duke’s subtle moves and changes in emphasis during the battle, something his opponents fail to realise until it is too late, catches the French in a tactical vice. With their foe broken and routed, the Allies are able to fully exploit their victory. Town after town falls, including Brussels, Bruges and Antwerp. By the end of the campaign Villeroi’s army has been driven from most of the Spanish Netherlands. With Prince Eugene of Savoy‘s subsequent success at the Siege of Turin in northern Italy, the Allies impose the greatest loss of territory and resources that Louis XIV would suffer during the war. Thus, the year 1706 proves, for the Allies, to be an annus mirabilis.

(Pictured: “The Battle of Ramillies between the French and the English, 23 May 1706” by Jan van Huchtenburgh, oil on canvas painted between 1706 and 1710)


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Birth of Anne Bonny, Irish Pirate

Anne Bonny, Irish pirate operating in the Caribbean and one of a few female pirates in recorded history, is said to be born in Old Head of Kinsale, near Cork, Kingdom of Ireland on March 8, 1697.

Bonny is the daughter of servant woman Mary Brennan and Brennan’s employer, lawyer William Cormac. Official records and contemporary letters dealing with her life are scarce, and most modern knowledge stems from Captain Charles Johnson‘s A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates.

Bonny’s father, William Cormac, first moves to London to get away from his wife’s family, and he begins dressing his daughter as a boy and calling her “Andy.” When Cormac’s wife discovers William has taken in his illegitimate daughter and is bringing her up to be a lawyer’s clerk and dressing her as a boy, she stops giving him an allowance. Cormac then moves to the Province of Carolina, taking along his former serving girl, the mother of Bonny. At first, the family has a rough start in their new home, but Cormac’s knowledge of law and ability to buy and sell goods soon finances a townhouse and eventually a plantation just out of town. Bonny’s mother dies when she is 12. Her father attempts to establish himself as an attorney but does not do well. Eventually, he joins the more profitable merchant business and accumulates a substantial fortune.

It is recorded that Bonny has red hair and is considered a “good catch” but may have have a fiery temper as, at age 13, she supposedly stabs a servant girl with a knife. She marries a poor sailor and small-time pirate named James Bonny. He hopes to win possession of his father-in-law’s estate, but Bonny is disowned by her father. He does not approve of James Bonny as a husband for his daughter, and he kicks Anne out of their house. There is a story that Bonny sets fire to her father’s plantation in retaliation, but no evidence exists in support.

Sometime between 1714 and 1718, Bonny and her husband move to Nassau, on the island of New Providence, known as a sanctuary for English pirates called the Republic of Pirates. Many inhabitants receive a King’s Pardon or otherwise evade the law. It is also recorded that, after the arrival of Governor Woodes Rogers in the summer of 1718, James Bonny becomes an informant for the governor. He reports to Governor Rogers about the pirates in the area, which results in a multitude of these pirates being arrested. Bonny dislikes the work her husband does for Governor Rogers.

While in the Bahamas, Bonny begins mingling with pirates in the taverns. She meets John “Calico Jack” Rackham, and he becomes her lover. He offers money to her husband if he would divorce her, but her husband refuses and apparently threatens to beat Rackham. She and Rackham escape the island together, and she becomes a member of Rackham’s crew. She disguises herself as a man on the ship, and only Rackham and Mary Read are aware that she is a woman until it becomes clear that she is pregnant. Rackham then lands her at Cuba where she gives birth to a son. She then rejoins Rackham and continues the pirate life, having divorced her husband and married Rackham while at sea. Bonny, Rackham, and Read steal the ship William, then at anchor in Nassau harbor, and put out to sea. Rackham and the two women recruit a new crew. Their crew spends years in Jamaica and the surrounding area. Bonny takes part in combat alongside the men, and Governor Rogers names her in a “Wanted Pirates” circular published in The Boston News-Letter.

In October 1720, Rackham and his crew are attacked by a sloop captained by Jonathan Barnet under a commission from Nicholas Lawes, Governor of Jamaica. Most of Rackham’s pirates put up little resistance, as many of them are too drunk to fight. They are taken to Jamaica where they are convicted and sentenced by Governor Lawes to be hanged. According to Johnson, Bonny’s last words to Rackham are: “Had you fought like a man, you need not have been hang’d like a dog.”

Read and Bonny both “pleaded their bellies“, asking for mercy because they are pregnant, and the court grants them a stay of execution until after they give birth. Read dies in prison, most likely from a fever from childbirth. A ledger from a church in Jamaica lists her burial on April 28, 1721, “Mary Read, pirate.”

There is no record of Bonny’s release, and this has fed speculation as to her fate. A ledger lists the burial of an “Ann Bonny” on December 29, 1733, in the same town in Jamaica where she was tried. Charles Johnson writes in his book: “She was continued in Prison, to the Time of her lying in, and afterwards reprieved from Time to Time; but what is become of her since, we cannot tell; only this we know, that she was not executed.”

Other sources have stated that she may have returned to the United States after her imprisonment, dying in South Carolina in April 1782.


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Birth of Robert Horatio George Minty, Officer in the U.S. Union Army

Robert Horatio George Minty, a Brevet Major General in the Union Army during the American Civil War, is born in Westport, County Mayo, on December 4, 1831.

In 1836, Minty’s father, also named Robert, is promoted to lieutenant in the 1st West India Regiment of Foot, which is a regiment of black enlisted men with white officers. The whole family leaves Ireland and travels with him through Minty’s later childhood and teenage years. They move all around the Caribbean and West Africa ultimately being sent to Sierra Leone.

Minty’s father becomes judge advocate general in Jamaica in 1846 but dies after falling victim to yellow fever in 1848. Though he is only 17 at the time, he is allowed to take over his father’s commission in the regiment. After serving five years in the regiment he resigns his commission, possibly because he nearly becomes a victim of a tropical disease himself.

Minty immigrates to Ontario, Canada, where his mother and the family had moved after his father’s death. He is hired by the Great Western Railroad Company at a time when the railroad business is exploding in both the United States and Canada. He is involved with railroads for the rest of his life, with time out for the American Civil War.

Minty is commissioned as Major of the 2nd Michigan Cavalry Regiment on October 2, 1862, but holds that duty for only a month before he is transferred to the 3rd Michigan Cavalry Regiment and promoted to Lieutenant Colonel. His time with the new regiment is again relatively brief, for in March 1862 he is given the task of recruiting another regiment that becomes the 4th Michigan Cavalry Regiment.

Promoted to Colonel and officially given command of the unit on July 21, 1862, Minty leads it as it fights in Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia and the Carolinas, taking part in the Battle of Chickamauga and the Battle of Atlanta. He is brevetted Brigadier General, U.S. Volunteers and Major General, U.S. Volunteers on March 13, 1865, for “gallant and meritorious services during the war.”

Minty and the men under his command are noted as being the regiment that captures the fleeing President of the Confederate States of America, Jefferson Davis, at Irwinville, Georgia on May 9, 1865, as the Confederacy collapses.

Minty is honorably mustered out of the Union Army on April 15, 1865, at Nashville, Tennessee, and becomes a successful railroad executive in his post-war career. He dies at the age of 74 on August 24, 1906, in Jerome, Arizona. He is buried at Aultorest Memorial Park in Ogden, Utah.


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Andrew Lewis Appointed Brigadier General of the Continental Army

andrew-lewis-statue

Irish-born Andrew Lewis is appointed a brigadier general in the Continental Army on March 1, 1776. He is most famous for his 1774 victory in the Battle of Point Pleasant in Lord Dunmore’s War. He also helps found Liberty Hall, later Washington and Lee University, when it is made into a college in 1776.

Lewis is born in County Donegal to Colonel John Lewis and his wife Margaret Lynn. In 1732 John Lewis, having killed his landlord in an altercation, flees to Virginia with his sons Andrew and Thomas. They become among the first settlers in western Augusta County.

Lewis receives a basic education and learns the skills of a surveyor. He spends at least fifteen years farming and working as a surveyor in southwestern Virginia. He also serves as county lieutenant and later captain in the Augusta County militia.

Early in the 1740s Lewis marries Elizabeth Givens, daughter of Samuel and Sarah (Cathey) Givens, formerly of County Antrim. They establish their own home, called Richfield, in what later becomes Roanoke County near Salem.

The Virginia frontier becomes a battleground in the French and Indian War, as do the frontiers of the more northerly colonies of Pennsylvania and Maryland. Virginia organizes a militia to defend settlers subject to attacks by Indians upset at encroachments into their territories. Lewis becomes a captain in George Washington‘s regiment. However, after the loss at the Battle of Fort Necessity in 1754, Washington is forced to surrender to the French. Lewis retreats across the Appalachian Mountains.

Washington proposes a series of frontier fortifications to protect settlers east of the Appalachians. Lewis initially serves to build Fort Dinwiddie on the Jackson River of present-day Bath County and is relieved of his command September 21, 1755. The Virginia assembly approves Lewis’ promotion to major and assigns him to oversee the region along the Greenbrier River. On February 18, 1756, he leads the Big Sandy expedition from Fort Frederick with a mixed force of militiamen and Cherokees to raid the Shawnee towns along the Big Sandy and Ohio rivers to retaliate for Shawnee attacks. He leads several expeditions against both Indian settlements and French outposts. During the Forbes Expedition, he is captured during Major James Grant‘s attack on Fort Duquesne during the Battle of Fort Duquesne in September 1758. Taken to Quebec, he remains a prisoner until late 1759.

Upon the formation of Botetourt County from Augusta County in 1769, Lewis is elected to the House of Burgesses and reelected several times until 1780, though the American Revolution precludes much attendance in later years.

When the American Revolution begins, Governor Dunmore suspends Virginia’s legislature. The Whigs form a provisional congress, which includes both Lewis and his brother Thomas as delegates. When the Continental Congress creates a Continental Army in 1775 and makes George Washington its commander, he asks that Lewis be made a brigadier general. However, initially the Continental Congress had decided there should be only one general from each state, and Charles Lee is the first Virginian commissioned as Brigadier General.

On March 1, 1776, Lewis becomes a brigadier general, overseeing Virginia’s defense and raising men for the Continental Army. Virginia’s Committee of Safety calls on Lewis to stop Governor Dunmore’s raids along the coast from his last stronghold, a fortified position on Gwynn’s Island in the Chesapeake Bay. On July 9, 1776, he leads Virginia’s forces which capture the island as Lord Dunmore escapes by sea, sailing to the Caribbean, never to return.

On April 15, 1777, Lewis resigns his commission, alleging poor health. However, he also faces discontent among his men and the army as a whole. Moreover, he is bypassed when promotions are announced for Major General in early 1777. George Washington, in need of every able officer, expresses his disappointment to Lewis.

Lewis remains active in the legislature, and in 1780, Governor Thomas Jefferson appoints him to the Executive Council. The following year, he falls ill while returning home from a council meeting. He dies of fever in Bedford County on September 26, 1781. He is buried in the family plot at his home. His gravesite is not marked. Colonel Elijah McClanahan, who marries Lewis’ granddaughter, Agatha Lewis McClanahan, attended his funeral as a young man, and later identifies his grave to Roanoke County’s Clerk of the Court. In 1887 General Lewis’ remains are re-interred in the East Hill Cemetery at Salem, Virginia.

(Pictured: Statue of General Andrew Lewis outside the Salem Civic Center)


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Funeral of Sister Theresa Egan

sister-theresa-egan

Irish soil is sprinkled over the casket of Sister Theresa Egan as more than 2,000 mourners attend her funeral on the tiny Caribbean island of Saint Lucia on January 7, 2001. The nun is brutally murdered while attending Mass on New Year’s Eve. She is described as a “cheerful and committed” woman by her colleagues.

Sister Egan, originally from Clonaslee, County Laois, trains as a nun at the order’s convent in Ferbane, County Offaly, and leaves Ireland in her early 20s. She spends the first 20 years on the missions, working for long periods in the West Indies, including Grenada.

Sister Egan lives in Saint Lucia for more than four decades, serving as a teacher and administrator at several Catholic schools. She comes from a religious family and seven of the nine children join orders. She is survived by three elderly sisters, all Presentation nuns, and at least one brother.

When the attack takes place Sister Egan, 73, is serving communion at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Castries. According to local police the attack is carried out by a group of men, dressed in traditional rastafarian clothes, who claim to be opposed to the island’s main churches.

Sister Egan is beaten to death after she tries to escape the attackers. One other person reportedly dies at the hospital after the attack. At least 12 are injured including another Irish nun, Sister Mel Kenny from Clonmacnoise, County Offaly.

Two men who identify themselves as Rastafarians are formally charged with murder and attempted murder among other offences.

Her funeral mass takes place in the same Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception where she died. At the front of the basilica, candles are arranged to spell out the words “sister” and “peace.” She is then buried on a hillside overlooking the capital, Castries, where the attack occurred.

The reasons for attack on the Castries cathedral are unknown and lead to much speculation in the Saint Lucian press. Initial reports say the two suspects tell police they are prophets sent by Haile Selassie, the late Ethiopian emperor worshiped as a god by Rastafarians, to combat corruption in the Catholic church. However Rastafarian leader Ras Bongo Isley says the attack is not the work of real rastafarians, since the movement “teaches love and peace.”

There are also reports that the men belong to an anti-Christian organisation, and that “satanic” symbols had been posted on the doors of Cathedral of Immaculate Conception and other churches a week before the attack. The accused, however, are said to deny any knowledge of the symbols.


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Death of General Jean Joseph Amable Humbert

jean-joseph-amable-humbert

General Jean Joseph Amable Humbert, French soldier and French Revolution participant who leads a failed invasion of Ireland to assist Irish rebels in the Irish Rebellion of 1798, dies on January 3, 1823, in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Born in the townland of La Coâre Saint-Nabord, outside Remiremont Vosges, Humbert is a sergeant in the National Guard of Lyon. He rapidly advances through the ranks to become brigadier general on April 9, 1794, and fights in the Western campaigns before being allocated to the Army of the Rhine.

In 1794, after serving in the Army of the Coasts of Brest, Humbert serves under Louis Lazare Hoche in the Army of the Rhin-et-Moselle. Charged to prepare for an expedition against Ireland, he takes command of the Légion des Francs under Hoche, sailing in the ill-fated Expédition d’Irlande against Bantry Bay in 1796, and is engaged in actions at sea against the Royal Navy. Contrary weather and enemy action force this expedition to withdraw. The trip home ends in a naval battle, the Action of 13 January 1797, during which Humbert, on the French ship Droits de l’Homme (1794), narrowly escapes death. As the ship is destroyed and sinks, hundreds of men perish, but Humbert is among the last to escape.

On his return to France, Humbert serves in the Army of the Sambre-et-Meuse, before being appointed to command the troops in another attempt to support a rising in Ireland in 1798. His command chiefly consists of infantry of the 70th demi-brigade with a few artillerymen and some cavalry of the 3rd Hussars, however by the time he arrives off the Irish coast the United Irish rising has already suffered defeat. The expedition is able to land in Ireland at Killala on Thursday August 23, 1798, meeting with initial success in the Battle of Castlebar where he routs the Irish Militia. Humbert subsequently declares a Republic of Connacht, with hopes of taking Dublin. However, Humbert’s small force is defeated at the Battle of Ballinamuck by the Irish Royal Army, and he is taken as a prisoner of war by the authorities. The British send the French officers home in two frigates and then massacre their Irish supporters. Humbert makes no attempt to save the Irish who bravely supported him.

Humbert is shortly repatriated in a prisoner exchange and appointed in succession to the Armies of Mayence, Danube and Helvetia, with which he serves at the Second Battle of Zurich. He then embarks for Santo Domingo and participates in several Caribbean campaigns for Napoleon Bonaparte before being accused of plundering by General Brunet. It is also rumored that he engages in an affair with Pauline Bonaparte, the wife of his commanding officer Charles Leclerc. He is returned to France by order of General Leclerc in October 1802, for “prevarications, and liaison relationships with organisers of the inhabitants and with leaders of brigands.” A committed Republican, his displeasure at Napoleon’s Imperial pretensions lead to him being dismissed in 1803 and he retires to Morbihan in Brittany.

In 1810, after brief service in the Army of the North, Humbert emigrates to New Orleans, where he makes his acquaintance with French pirate Jean Lafitte. In 1813, Humbert joins the revolutionary Juan Bautista Mariano Picornell y Gomila in an unsuccessful attempt to foment rebellion in Spanish Mexico, but the effort fails. In 1814, Humbert again leaves New Orleans and joins the rebelling forces of Buenos Aires, briefly commanding a corps, before returning home. Humbert last fights the British at the Battle of New Orleans, as a volunteer private soldier in U.S. ranks, in the War of 1812, wearing his Napoleonic uniform. General Andrew Jackson thanks him for his assistance there after the American victory in January 1815. Thereafter Humbert lives peacefully as a schoolteacher until his death on January 3, 1823.

A monument to General Humbert depicting Mother Ireland stands on Humbert Street, Ballina, County Mayo. In 1989, sculptor Carmel Gallagher unveils a bust of General Humbert in Killala, Ireland, to mark the upcoming bicentennial of the Irish Rebellion of 1798.