Irish family papers (RLC.Ms.016)

Biographical note

George Irish (1729-1801) was born in Little Compton, Rhode Island, and was one of the eleven children of Jedediah (1658-1758) and Mary Irish. On September 25, 1757, he married Sarah Babcock (1732-1816) and they lived in a farmhouse in Middletown, Rhode Island. Together the couple had 11 children, Martha (1758-1833), Rebecca (1760-1838), George (1761-1849), Mary E. (dates unknown), James (1766-1813), Sarah (1766-1804), John (1768-1815), Patience (b. 1770), Joseph (1772-1818), Jedediah (1776-1823) and Phoebe (1781-1818).

Irish established himself as a trader, farmer, horse dealer, and had served as a colonel for the Rhode Island Militia. He conducted business throughout southern Rhode Island and neighboring Connecticut, often acting as a middleman for prominent figures of the Newport community by finding goods and collecting and delivering payments for others. Irish’s business matters often led to his involvement in various court and legal proceedings. Irish died on October 11, 1801, and was buried in a family burial ground in Middletown.

His daughter, Mary, married Easton Bailey in 1788 and their son, George Irish Bailey (b. 1797) and grandson William Bailey (1823-1908) continued their family’s farming tradition and kept residence at George Irish’s Middletown home which was commonly known as the John Banister House or the Irish Homestead. According to one of the donors, this estate was built in 1756 and became Irish’s property through nonpayment of a loan held by Irish to John Banister. It continued to be the home of Irish descendants including the MacKaye and Atwood families. The house was later dismantled and deeded to the Winterthur Museum in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1957 by Mary Goodwin MacKaye. The façade of the house was installed at the museum.

George Irish’s great-great granddaughter, Ellen Ida Bailey (1861-1949), married Henry Goodwin MacKaye (1856-1913), who attended Harvard University and later practiced medicine in Newport. His aunt, Juliet Hunter Goodwin (b. 1831) also resided in Newport and they were the ancestors of Asher Robbins (1761-1845), a former Rhode Island Senator. MacKaye’s daughter, Mary Goodwin MacKaye (1892-1986) married Roy Silas Atwood (1887-1953) on November 20, 1920. The couple had three children, Roy MacKaye Atwood (1921-2003), Mary Goodwin Atwood Sharp (b. 1924), and Bradford Bailey Atwood (1931-1994). This family would be the last to live in the Banister House in Middletown before it was deeded to the Winterthur Museum.