IRISH AMERICANS

   This is dedicated to lesser known Irish Americans.  Everyone is aware of John F. Kennedy and his wife Jackie (her mother was from County Clare).  Sure Ronald Regan was Irish as was Maureen O'Hara and Bruce Springsteen has a bit of the "green" in his heritage.  Walt Disney's father was Anglo-Irish.  Bareknuckle boxing champion, John L. Sullivan's parents were both Irish immigrants.  Henry Ford's father was born in County Cork.  Both of Eugene O'Neill's parents were Irish immigrants.  Of course, you know that he won the Nobel Prize for literature and also his plays won four Pulitzer Prizes for drama.

This week I'm reprising an entry of 18 years ago.

5/13/2008

BUTLER COUNTY

Butler County was named for Revolutionary War General Richard Butler. Born in Dublin Ireland on April 1, 1743, Butler's family moved just five years later to Pennsylvania where he learned to make the Pennsylvania long rifles used in the French and Indian War in his father's gun shop. He and his brother, William, became important traders throughout Ohio and Pennsylvania. Due to his familiarity with Indian tribes through this work, the Continental Congress named Butler to negotiate with the Indians either for their support or to ask they remain neutral in the Revolutionary War.

Proving himself during the War, Butler was given the honor of receiving from Lord Charles Cornwallis his sword of surrender, almost prompting a duel between Butler and Baron Friedrich Von Steuben, who demanded he receive the sword. Von Steuben was a German-Prussian officer who served as the Inspector General of the Continental Army.

Butler was mortally wounded in 1791 during an Indian ambush in what became known as St. Clair's Defeat near present-day Fort Recovery, Ohio. A number of years after Butler's death, Chief Little Turtle, who led the ambush, returned to Butler's widow the Society of Cincinnati medal Butler was wearing when he was killed.
---thanks to John Boehner's newsletter