The one hundredth anniversary of the settlement of Rev. Timothy M. Cooley, in 1795, took place in Granville in August, 1895, at which a large number of the descendants of those early Irish settlers were present, when they most fittingly honored the memory of their ancestors. J. G. Holland says that the facts were communicated to him by Rev. Mr. Cooley in 1854, when he was 83 years of age. He was born in Granville and like many of the Cooleys of Hampden county was descended from old Daniel Cooley from Ireland.
Among the early inhabitants of Rowe, Mass., which was settled in 1744, we find the names of Michael Wilson, Henry Gleason, William Taylor, Mathew Barr, and Joseph Thomas. They were a portion of the Irish colony to Worcester county, which after a short time scattered to form new settlements. The first permanent settlement of Shelborne was about 1760 by several Irish families who had lived for a time in Londonderry, N. H. Among them are the names of Joseph Thompson, Patrick Lawson, Robert Wilson, John Taylor, James Ryder, Daniel Nims and Samuel Hunter.
Quite a number of these men were soldiers in the Revolution and also took an important part in Shay’s insurrection. The first settler of the town of Ashfield, Mass., was Richard Ellis, a native of Dublin, Ireland. He was soon followed by Thomas Phillips, whose sister he married. Phillips built a log house for himself and family almost a half mile north of Mr. Ellis. A family named Smith, which had settled in South Hadley, soon joined them and they were followed by other families from time to time so that in ten years they numbered about twenty families and over one hundred people. They labored as none but the pioneers of the forest know how to toil to obtain a comfortable support for their families. The town increased years later in population and prosperity and was incorporated in June, 1765, and ten years later they like thousands of their countrymen took an active part in the Revolution, when they drew up a preamble and resolutions signed by Ellis, Phillips, and sixty-five others, denouncing England.
The settlers of Pelham, Mass., were Irish Presbyterians and in the agreement of the original committee with Col. John Stoddard, of whom the territory was purchased, occurs this passage: “It is agreed that families of good conversation be settled on the premises, who shall be such as the inhabitants of the Kingdom of Ireland or their descendants and none to be admitted but such as bring good and undeniable credentials or certificates of their being persons of good conversation and of the Presbyterian persuasion and confirm to the discipline thereof.”