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A whole parade of American folklore characters marched across the pages of mid-19th century Connecticut newspapers both in brief paragraphs and full-blown narratives rich in humor, drama and dialect were related to the feats and foibles of Yankee peddlers, Vermont and New Hampshire farm boys known by the generic term of Jonathan, French-Canadian lumberjacks, Puritan witches and Mississippi River boatman.
In a very real sense, the characters who appeared in these tall tales in 19th newspapers were stereotypes, according to today's meaning of the word. They were the people who wandered across the American landscape in those years - rough and ready frontiersmen, shrewd New Englanders, emigrants with strange new customs and languages. Their looks, their manners, their peculiarities, their dialects were captured and hardened into stereotypes in every conversation and then put on the record, as it were, by newspaper yarns in particular. The stereotypes linger even today in the American imagination.
Many of these stories attributed to Irish immigrants, some hilarious and some sad, are captured here. In its own way this booklet provides a window into the Irish American experience in 19th century Connecticut.
includes postage and handling
CT Irish-American Historical Society
c/o Mary McMahon
640 Arrowhead Drive
Orange, CT 06477
CT Irish-American
Heritage Trail
640 Arrowhead Drive
Orange, CT 06477
The Irish experience has had a profound impact on Connecticut's past, and its narrative spans all periods of the state's history and touches every one of its eight counties and 169 towns.
