Corpus Christi History
By Murphy Givens

Wednesday, Mar. 17, 1999

Land-hungry Irish arrive in Texas

By Murphy Givens
Staff Writer

   The first Irish settlers in Texas came from a cramped little country that had too many people and too much land owned by absentee Englishmen. The immigrants landed in the large cramped cities of New York and Boston. They sailed from New York on two ships, and they carried with them farm tools, food to last for a year, and plenty of dreams.
   This was in the fall of 1829. The Irish settlers were following two of their countrymen - James McGloin and John McMullen, men called "empresarios." Both had been living in Matamoros, operating a store, when they secured from the Mexican government a contract, an empresa, to bring settlers into the region of Texas on land on the left bank of the Nueces River. For every 100 families they settled, the empresarios >would receive, for themselves, 23,000 acres.
   The two men went to New York to find settlers. They promised immigrants that each farmer arriving in Texas would receive a labor of land, 177 acres, and, if he raised stock, he could get a sitio, 4,428 acres. For the Irish - some of whom had been tenant farmers who were "turfed out" - this was an unbelievable wealth of land. The empresarios persuaded 25 families and some single men to return with them to Texas. The colonists paid for their passage at $30 per adult. They sailed in September, 1829. On the long voyage to Texas, they lived below decks in quarters divided by blankets.
   The ships, the Albion and the New Packet, were supposed to land at the port of El Copano, but the Albion's captain got lost and he put in on Matagorda Bay. It was October, 1829, when McMullen and his party went ashore at Copano, an old Spanish port that dated back to 1785.
   After landing, the families began to stack their belongings - guns, tools for farming, nails, axle grease, cooking utensils, food and clothing - in separate mounds on the beach, above the tide line. Blankets were stretched on poles for shelter. Within an hour after landing, labor pains started for Anna Burke, whose husband William died on the voyage. Patrick Burke was born on the beach. Because his mother was unable to nurse him, a friendly Indian woman nursed him until his mother was well enough to care for him. The colonists found water by digging a shallow well; a little girl fell in and drowned.
   The immigrants obtained carts from Goliad and began to move inland. We can try to imagine what the scene was before them. These poor souls were in a far-off place that must have looked like an infinity of wilderness, oceanic in its own way. Here was plenty of room for their ambitions, and here was plenty of room for their fears.
   The fears must have won out for a time. They huddled around the crumbling old Spanish mission of Refugio, a vestige of civilization, and refused to go further, even though this was not on their own grant. They were joined by the other immigrants from the Albion and they stayed for a year, feuding with the two empresarios whose grant included the mission. Some of them, disheartened, asked for their passports back so they could return to New York, but the others voted to go on and settle on their own grant.
   McGloin with four families went to pick a spot for their settlement. They chose a site on the Nueces River where the Camino Real - the King's Highway - crossed on the way to Mexico. It was a mile away from the old Spanish fort of Lipantitlan. It may have been the ancient site of a Lipan Indian village. It was high level land covered with live oaks. The families were all moved from the old mission by November, 1830.
   They named their settlement Villa de San Patricio de Hibernia, after Ireland's patron saint. They built a church of logs with a dirt floor and named it St. Patrick's. They built log and picket houses, with the kind of thatched roofs that were so common in Ireland. They made plaster from clay and whitewashed the houses. They cleared land and began farming. Their freight came by ship to McGloin's Bluff, between Ingleside and Corpus Christi. New settlers arrived. One immigrant wrote another, telling him what to bring to Texas:
   "Bring some boxes of glass, bars soap, plenty candle wicks, bring seeds of every kind, shallots; bring cross cut, whip frame saws; bring as many cart wheels and cart mountings as you can; chains for oxen; no timber, as this is the country for timber of every kind; bring supply of sugar, coffee and tea and flour for 8 or 9 months; if you have any to spare, you get your price..."
   San Patricio thrived for a few years, then almost disappeared during the fighting in the Texas Revolution. It remained a struggling community for the rest of the century, but the railroads passed it by, the county seat was moved to Sinton, and the people - descendants of the original settlers - drifted away. The post office was closed in 1930. Today, there are a couple of stores and some scattered homes in what is left of Old San Patricio.
   The first Irish settlers came to fill the vast emptiness of a place called Texas. They had grit and gumption and they blazed the way for all who were yet to come. It's something to think about on St. Patrick's Day.