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What of Nancy Rogan, left in Ireland with her child for 20 years
and dependent on family and friends? Why did Rogan not
return for two decades? During the American Revolution, which began just after Rogan and Carlen landed in Philadelphia, no passenger service was available for several years. Following the resumption of civilian ships between America and Ireland, Rogan did indeed start the return journey. On his way to the coast, however, he visited his brother-in-law, Daniel Carlen, now living in North Carolina with a new wife and family. Carlen, not wanting the Irish family he had abandoned to learn of his current situation, lied to Hugh saying that he had heard from Nancy. Having received no word from her husband for so many years, she believed him dead and had remarried. Rogan returned to his land and continued fighting and farming. Another decade passed, and a letter from Nancy was delivered to Hugh by a nephew who had recently emigrated. In it she told Rogan that she and Bernard, now a grown man, still waited for him to come for them. With the Indian wars over and statehood about to be granted, Hugh Rogan left for Ireland in 1796. He returned to his Sumner County farm in 1797 with Nancy and Bernard. Francis Rogan, a second son, was born in 1798. As a new century approached, the Rogan family, now Irish-Americans and Tennesseans, had political and religious freedom, economic opportunities, and nearly 1000 acres of fertile land. |
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Rainbow over Donegal Courtesy Tom Sweeney, Dublin |
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| This article is an abstract of research and information that appears in "Hugh Rogan of Counties Donegal and Sumner: Irish Acculturation in Frontier Tennessee," Caneta Skelley Hankins. Tennessee History: The Land, the People, the Culture. Carroll Van West, ed. University of Tennessee Press, 1998. For further information contact the author at the Center for Historic Preservation, Middle Tennessee State University, Box 80, Murfreesboro, Tennessee 37132, phone (615) 898-2947; e-mail < chankins@mtsu.edu>. | ||
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