Reply #3: "Gordon’s trial came at a time of anti-immigrant hysteria against Irish Roman Catholics, [View All]

the first group to immigrate in large numbers and threaten the hold of Yankee Protestants.

Mill owner Amasa Sprague was beaten and shot to death on the banks of the Pocasset River on New Year’s Eve 1843. Suspicion soon fixed on the Gordon family, Roman Catholic immigrants from Ireland.

Sprague had had several clashes with John’s brother about Sprague’s workers coming to the mill drunk after buying liquor at the brother’s store. Sprague, the brother of U.S. Sen. William Sprague, persuaded city officials to suspend Gordon’s liquor license.

As widely told, Gordon was convicted of murdering Sprague after a trial rife with prejudice against Irish Catholics. John Gordon was hanged after his appeal failed before the same judges who heard his trial."

http://www.projo.com/news/content/GORDON_VOTE_05-05-11_2ONTN1A_v12.1cb17c0.html

Interesting to see evidence that "anti-immigrant hysteria" has been an American phenomenon for close to 200 years. The principal targets of the hysteria change over time (from the Irish to Southern Europeans to Asians to Hispanics) but there always seems to be a group of "others" whom we should be afraid of. If the tea party had existed in 1843, I'm sure they would have "wanted their country back" from Irish immigrants. Indeed that sentiment was one of the main factors that led to the rise (and quick fall) of the Know Nothing party (kind of the 19th century of the tea party.