Letter from Michael Gaffney
Sent to us on Nov.18, 2005
I just went to the site to get some information to
pass on to my grandson. Your history is very muddy and well, actually
wrong. Check out the dates, to begin. Michael didn't leave NY and found the
store in the same year or less. Also, the illness he had happened in NY
(yellow fever). The social distaste happened in Charleston, yes; but,
hasn't that happened to all of us?
I appreciate your site and what you are trying to
do. I do wish you'd clean up the discrepancies and offer a better view of my
great-great-grandfather. He was an Irish man who had been through a lot before
having to come to America. He didn't choose to leave his country. He was
forced, by the British, to either flee or face the wrath of the monarchy for
trying to help keep Ireland free. Michael was marked as a rebel to the cause
of England. We'd be best served to see him viewed as the freedom-fighter he
was. To label him as a mere capitalist, bent on changing the poor farmers of
upstate South Carolina into merchants and "citified and purified"
urbanites is truly off the mark. Having read his journal and other material
relating to his life and travels, I see him as more of a chronicler of his
particular time and not a condescending judge of the people he encountered. He
was a man of nineteen who was forced to relocate his passions and his hope for
humanity to South Carolina. What he did for the upstate is lost in the
nit-picky travails of what he didn't do to save all of humanity and win the
American Revolution (which happened while he was in Ireland).
All I ask is that you clean up the page to
not-confuse others who compare dates and information. I'll pass my information
on to my grandson verbally, as it was intended.
Best regards,