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Promoting Irish Culture and History from Little Rock, Arkansas, USA

Tag Archives: Iroquois


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Death of Richard Butler, Irish-born Officer in the Continental Army

Richard Butler, an Irish-born officer in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, is killed on November 4, 1791, while fighting Native Americans in the United States in a battle that is known as St. Clair’s defeat.

Born on April 1, 1743, in St. Bridget’s Parish, Dublin, Butler is the oldest son of Thomas and Eleanor Butler (née Parker). His father is an Irish aristocrat who serves in the British Army. He is the brother of Colonel Thomas Butler and Captain Edward Butler. All three brothers serve in the American Revolution and in the Northwest Indian War against the Northwestern Confederacy of Native American tribes in the Northwest Territories. His two other brothers, William and Percival, serve in the Revolution but do not see later military service.

In 1748 Butler’s father opens a gun shop in Dublin, but that same year the family moves to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he learns to make the Pennsylvania long rifles used in the French and Indian War.

By 1760, the family moves to the frontier at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where Thomas and his sons manufacture long rifles and become friends with Daniel Morgan. The Butler gun shop still stands in Carlisle.

By the 1770s, Butler and his brother William are important traders at Fort Pitt in Pennsylvania and in Ohio. Butler Street in Pittsburgh is named for them.

At the outset of the American Revolution, the Continental Congress names Butler a commissioner in 1775 to negotiate with the Indians. He visits representatives of the Delaware, Shawnee, and other tribes to secure their support, or at least neutrality, in the war with Britain.

On July 20, 1776, Butler is commissioned a major in the 8th Pennsylvania Regiment in the Continental Army, serving first as second in command to his friend Daniel Morgan. He is promoted to lieutenant colonel on March 12, 1777, retroactive to September 1776. On June 7, 1777, he is promoted to colonel and placed in command of 9th Pennsylvania Regiment.

During the war Butler sees action at the Battle of Saratoga (1777) and the Battle of Monmouth (1778). His four other brothers also serve and are noted for their bravery as the “fighting Butlers.” In January 1781 he is transferred to the 5th Pennsylvania Regiment and leads the Continental Army at the Battle of Spencer’s Ordinary.

At the conclusion of the Battle of Yorktown in October 1781, General George Washington confers on Butler the honor of receiving Cornwallis’ sword of surrender, an honor which he gives to his second in command, Ebenezer Denny. At the last moment, Baron von Steuben demands that he receive the sword. This almost precipitates a duel between Butler and Von Steuben.

At the victory dinner for his officers, George Washington raises his glass and toasts, “The Butlers and their five sons!”

Following Yorktown, Butler remains in the Continental Army and is transferred to the 3rd Pennsylvania Regiment following a consolidation of the Army on January 1, 1783. On September 30 of the same year, he is breveted as a brigadier general. He remains in active service with the Continental Army until it is finally disbanded on November 3, 1783.

In 1783 Butler and his brothers become original members of the Pennsylvania Society of the Cincinnati, a military society of officers who had served in the Continental Army.

After the war, the Confederation Congress puts Butler in charge of Indians of the Northwest Territory. He negotiates the Treaty of Fort Stanwix in 1784, in which the Iroquois surrender their lands. He is also called upon during later negotiations, such as the Treaty of Fort McIntosh in 1785.

Butler returns to Pennsylvania and is a judge in Allegheny County. He also serves in the state legislature. He marries Maria Smith, and they have four children, only one of whom lives to have children and continue the line. He also fathers a son, Captain Butler (or Tamanatha) with Shawnee chief Nonhelema. He and his Shawnee son fight in opposing armies in 1791.

In 1791, Butler is commissioned a major general in the levies (i.e. militiamen conscripted into Federal service) under Major General Arthur St. Clair to fight against the Western Confederacy of Native Americans in the Northwest Territories (modern day Ohio). He is killed in action on November 4, 1791, in St. Clair’s Defeat at what is now Fort Recovery, Ohio.

Reportedly Butler is first buried on the battlefield, which site is then lost until it is accidentally found years later. The remains are laid to rest with the remains of the other fallen at Fort Recovery.

Butler County, Ohio, where Fort Hamilton stood, is named for Richard Butler, as are Butler County, Kentucky, and Butler County, Pennsylvania. The city of Butler, Pennsylvania and the General Richard Butler Bridge, located in the city of Butler, are also named for him. A miniature portrait of Butler is painted by “The Painter of The Revolution,” Colonel John Trumbull, in 1790 and is in the collection of Yale University.

Butler is also honored in the name of General Richard Butler KYSAAR, Butler County, Kentucky recognized August 20, 2016. A chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution is named for him as as is the General Richard Butler Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR), founded in Butler, Pennsylvania.


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Birth of James Logan, 14th Mayor of Philadelphia

James Logan, a Scotch-Irish colonial American statesman, administrator, and scholar who serves as the fourteenth mayor of Philadelphia and holds a number of other public offices, is born in Lurgan, County Armagh, in what is now Northern Ireland, on October 20, 1674. He serves as colonial secretary to William Penn and is a founding trustee of the College of Philadelphia, the predecessor of the University of Pennsylvania.

Logan is born to Ulster Scots Quaker parents Patrick Logan (1640–1700) and Isabella, Lady Hume (1647–1722), who marry in early 1671 in Midlothian, Scotland. His father has a Master of Arts degree from the University of Edinburgh, and originally is an Anglican clergyman before converting to Quakerism, or the Society of Friends. Although apprenticed to a Dublin linen-draper, he receives a good classical and mathematical education, and acquires a knowledge of modern languages not common at the period. The Williamite War in Ireland (1688–1691) obliges him to follow his parents, first to Edinburgh, and then to London and Bristol, England where, in 1693, he replaces his father as schoolmaster. In 1699, he comes to the colony of Pennsylvania aboard the Canterbury as William Penn’s secretary.

Later, Logan supports proprietary rights in Pennsylvania and becomes a major landowner in the growing colony. After advancing through several political offices, including commissioner of property (1701), receiver general (1703), clerk (1701), and member (1703) of the provincial council, he is elected mayor of Philadelphia in 1722. During his tenure as mayor, he allows Irish Catholic immigrants to participate in the city’s first public Mass. He later serves as the colony’s chief justice from 1731 to 1739, and in the absence of a governor of Pennsylvania, becomes acting governor from 1736 to 1738.

As acting governor, Logan opposes Quaker pacifism and war tax resistance, and encourages pacifist Quakers to give up their seats in the Pennsylvania General Assembly so that it can make war requisitions. On October 9, 1736, he responds to requests from Native American leaders to control the sale of alcohol, which is creating serious social problems, by prohibiting the sale of rum in indigenous communities, but as the penalty 1s only a fine of ten pounds and the law is poorly enforced, it does not have a significant effect.

During his tenure as acting governor, Logan plays an active role in the territorial expansion of the colony. Whereas William Penn and his immediate successors had pursued a policy of friendly relations with the Leni Lenape (Delaware) peoples, Logan and other colony proprietors (notably the indebted brothers John, Richard and Thomas Penn) pursue a policy of land acquisition. Such efforts to expand are spurred by increased immigration to the colony and fears that the New York Colony is infringing on Pennsylvania’s northern borders in the Upper Delaware river valley. In addition, many proprietors (including Logan and the Penn brothers) had engaged in extensive land speculation, selling off lands occupied by the Lenape to new colonists before concluding an official treaty with the tribe.

As part of his efforts to expand Pennsylvania, Logan signs the Walking Treaty of 1737, commonly referred to as the Walker Purchase, with the Lenape, forcing the tribe to vacate lands in the Upper Delaware and Lehigh valleys under the auspices of the tribe having sold the lands to William Penn in 1686, a treaty whose ratifying document is considered by some sources to have been a fabrication. Under the terms of the treaty, the Lenape agree to cede as much territory as a man could walk in one and one-half days to the Pennsylvania colony. However, Logan uses the treaty’s vague wording, the Lenape’s unclear diplomatic status, and a heavily influenced “walk” to claim a much larger territory than is originally expected by the Lenape. In addition, he negotiates with the powerful Iroquois Confederacy to allow for the treaty to take place. As a result, the Iroquois (nominally the diplomatic overlords and protectors of the Lenape people) rebuff Lenape attempts to have the Iroquois intervene on their behalf. The net result of the Walker Treaty increases the colony’s borders by over 1,200,000 acres but leads to the diplomatic isolation of the Lenape people and a breakdown in relations between the Pennsylvania colony and the tribe.

Meanwhile, Logan engages in various mercantile pursuits, especially fur trading, with such success that he becomes one of the wealthiest men in the colonies. He writes numerous scholarly papers published by the American Philosophical Society and European journals. He is also a natural scientist whose primary contribution to the emerging field of botany is a treatise that describes experiments on the impregnation of plant seeds, especially corn. He tutors John Bartram, the American botanist, in Latin and introduces him to Carl Linnaeus.

Logan’s mother comes to live with him in Philadelphia in 1717. She dies on January 17, 1722, at Stenton, Logan’s country home. His daughter, Sarah, marries merchant and statesman Isaac Norris. Logan dies at the age of 77 on October 31, 1751, at Stenton, near Germantown, at the age of 77, and is buried at the site of Arch Street Friends Meeting House (built in 1804).

In Philadelphia, the Logan neighborhood and the landmark Logan Circle are named for him. His 1730 estate “Stenton” (now a National Historic Landmark, operated as a museum) is located in Logan area.


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Death of Thomas Dongan, Governor of the Province of New York

Thomas Dongan, 2nd Earl of Limerick, a member of the Irish Parliament, Royalist military officer during the English Civil War, and Governor of the Province of New York, dies in London on December 14, 1715. He is noted for having called the first representative legislature in New York and for granting the province’s Charter of Liberties.

Dongan is born in 1634 into an old Gaelic Norman (Irish Catholic) family in Castletown Kildrought (now Celbridge), County Kildare. He is the seventh and youngest son of Sir John Dongan, Baronet, Member of the Irish Parliament, and his wife Mary Talbot, daughter of Sir William Talbot, 1st Baronet and Alison Netterville. As Stuart supporters, following the overthrow of King Charles I, the family goes to King Louis XIV‘s France, although they manage to hold onto at least part of their Irish estates. His family gives their name to the Dongan Dragoons, a premier military regiment.

While in France, Dongan serves in an Irish regiment with Henri de La Tour d’Auvergne, Viscount of Turenne. He stays in France after the Restoration and achieves the rank of colonel in 1674.

After the Treaty of Nijmegen ends the Franco-Dutch War in 1678, Dongan returns to England in obedience to the order that recalls all English subjects fighting in service to France. Fellow officer James, Duke of York, arranges to have him granted a high-ranking commission in the army designated for service in Flanders and a pension. That same year, he is appointed Lieutenant-Governor of English Tangier, which had been granted to England as part of the dowry of Catherine of Braganza. He serves as part of the Tangier Garrison which defends the settlement.

In September 1682, James, Lord Proprietor of the Province of New York, appoints Dongan as Vice-admiral in the Navy and provincial governor (1683–1688) to replace Edmund Andros. James also grants him an estate on Staten Island. The estate eventually becomes the town of Castleton. Later, another section of the island is named Dongan Hills in honour of Dongan.

Dongan lands in Boston on August 10, 1683, crosses Long Island Sound, and passes through the small settlements in the eastern part of the island as he makes his way to Fort James, arriving on August 25.

At the time of Dongan’s appointment, the province is bankrupt and in a state of rebellion. He is able to restore order and stability. On October 14, 1683, he convenes the first-ever representative assembly in New York history at Fort James. The New York General Assembly, under the wise supervision of Dongan, passes an act entitled “A Charter of Liberties.” It decrees that the supreme legislative power under the Duke of York shall reside in a governor, council, and the people convened in general assembly; confers upon the members of the assembly rights and privileges making them a body coequal to and independent of the British Parliament; establishes town, county, and general courts of justice; solemnly proclaims the right of religious liberty; and passes acts enunciating certain constitutional liberties; right of suffrage; and no martial law or quartering of the soldiers without the consent of the inhabitants.

Dongan soon incurs the ill will of William Penn who is negotiating with the Iroquois for the purchase of the upper Susquehanna Valley. Dongan goes to Albany and declares that the sale would be “prejudicial to His Highness’s interests.” The Cayugas sell the property to New York with the consent of the Mohawk. Years later, when back in England and in favor at the Court of James, Penn uses his influence to prejudice the king against Dongan.

On July 22, 1686, Governor Dongan grants Albany a municipal charter. Almost identical in form to the charter awarded to New York City just three months earlier, the Albany charter is the result of negotiations conducted between royal officials and Robert Livingston and Pieter Schuyler. The charter incorporates the city of Albany, establishing a separate municipal entity in the midst of the Van Rensselaer Manor.

Dongan establishes the boundary lines of the province by settling disputes with Connecticut on the east, with the French Governor of Canada on the north, and with Pennsylvania on the south, thus marking out the present limits of New York State.

James later consolidates the colonial governments of New York, New Jersey and the United Colonies of New England into the Dominion of New England and appoints Edmund Andros, the former Governor-General of New York, as Governor-General. Dongan transfers his governorship back to Andros on August 11, 1688.

Dongan executes land grants establishing several towns throughout New York State including the eastern Long Island communities of East Hampton and Southampton. These grants, called the Dongan Patents, set up Town Trustees as the governing bodies with a mission of managing common land for common good. The Dongan Patents still hold force of law and have been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States with the Trustees—rather than town boards, city councils or even the State Legislature—still managing much of the common land in the state.

Dongan lives in London for the last years of his life and dies on December 14, 1715. He is buried in the St. Pancras Old Church churchyard, London.

(Pictured: Portrait of Thomas Dongan, 2nd Earl of Limerick, from Castleton Manor, Staten Island licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license)