THE INFLUENCES OF THE IRISH IN MINNESOTA

The Influences of the Irish in Minnesota



The Influences of the Irish in Minnesota

Introduction

It was during the nineteenth century that the American Republic began to see itself emerge as a new diversified nation, incompatible with the old native structures. Recent migrants offered changing cultures and swelled the cities. Settlement programs, designed to cultivate the vast unpopulated regions of the North and West offered relief throughout the United States. It was in the decade following the civil war when the leaders in Minnesota hoped to attract new settlers. During the famine and after, millions of Irish had immigrated to the states but few had managed to reach Minnesota. Those who emigrated reluctantly held memories of crop failures and were unaccustomed to large scale farming techniques and could not be enticed to take up land. Efforts were made by Irish leaders in the states in particular the clergy to entice the Irish from the east coast to what was called the West and it was from the east and Canada that the first Irish settlers came to Minnesota, by 1850 some 263 people of Irish birth were counted in Minnesota territory.

The Catholic Church was largely responsible for promoting settlers to the Western states. The United States leading Irish colonizer was Archbishop John Ireland who was born in Ireland but brought up in America. In 1864 Ireland formed the Minnesota Irish immigration society to promote immigrant aid. With this venture, Ireland was unsuccessful but was not perturbed and within one month of him becoming Bishop he set up the Catholic Colonization Bureau with Dillon O'Brien editor of the Northwestern Chronicle as it's head. Ireland prevented speculators from buying up the land by becoming the sole agent for the St. Paul and Pacific Railroad. From 1876 to 1879 Ireland held contracts for 369,000 acres in southwestern and mid-central Minnesota. With a $400 minimum stake needed for a family for it's first year, it meant many poor Irish families were eliminated from the scheme. Those who took up Ireland's offer were from the Midwest and New England. The colonization scheme settled Irish in promising areas of good farm land within reach of their churches. The land was purchased at a rent while the railroad benefited by the sale of the land and the ensuing railroad custom; the Catholic Colonization Bureau earned the agent's fee of 10% and the satisfaction of developing the new territory as Catholic. Ireland started 10 farm towns that stretched along railroad routes from Adrian to Graceville. Bishop Ireland was not the only one interested in aiding the Irish; General James Shields, statesman and entrepreneur, who purchased the townsite of Faribault and selective lands in 1855 that later became known as Shieldsville, established one of the state's first organized colonies. More than 200 Irish families, mostly from the East coast settled in and around Shieldsville, paying $1.50 to $2.00 an acre for farms of 80 to 160 acres. Southeastern Minnesota became the first major Irish concentration in ...