BEING IRISH

Chapter One
LIVING TO TELL THE TALE

Therefore, my brothers, be all the more eager to make your calling and election sure. For if you do these things, you will never fall. II Peter 1:10

It doesn't matter who my father was; it matters who I remember he was.
Anne Sexton

If you do not know who you were yesterday, how can you know who you are today, and who you expect to be tomorrow? Author unknown

The Autrys were a pretty populous group and the Lees even more so. There’s lots of stories about where the Autrys hailed from. Purportedly, the name Autry means powerful. Sounds good. The name has several spellings according to one of our good cuz, Mayo Bundy. There are several towns in France named Autry, one along the banks of the Reim. Other towns are Autry-les-Grey, Autry-le Chatre, Autry-sur-June, and Autreville. For our brother Corb, this is going to be way too much France.

The most popular story for the Autrys was their Irish linage with a little twist of French. The story goes that the family was in Ireland in the 1700s and then went from Ireland to France, some to England and then back to Ireland. One account says that some of the Autrys went to England and back to France as early as 1066. There is a wild story that says that one of the Autrys showed up on the Eastern coast of NC just before the war with England. In a fit of anger, he fought with an employer because of a political argument over breaking away from England. Nothing was so precious as freedom. This distant relative supposely spent the entire war leading a band of like minded individuals fighting the British. Eventually he became the leader of the NC militia.

Another batch of Autrys fled Ireland during the potato famine where the patriarch of the family had been imprisoned primarily for his political views. They can’t seem to stay out of trouble—they were Protestant in Catholic territory and constantly on the wrong side of most issues.

It is hard to know how true this is with the fact that most people we know want to be Irish, especially on March 17. But, it does make sense. The potato famine hit Ireland in the autumn of 1845. Somewhere along the way, there’s a Captain Jim Autry, not sure of what he was a Captain, but he was on the passenger list of the ship, Columbus, that sailed from Cork County, Ireland on September 7, 1849 via Liverpool, England to New York. In New York, Jim was arrested for fighting. Apparently, many of the new immigrants were forced into jobs or tightly controlled by something akin to an Irish mafia. After a vicious beating as the story goes, Jim seemed to comply and agreed to work on one of the trash collecting companies controlled by the Irish. However, sooner than later, Jim settled scores with the leader of the Irish mafia. Something dramatic happened of which we don't have a clue but some thereafter, Jim disappeared and apparently showed up on the coast of North Carolina.

In a remarkable turn of events, in late 1849, four of Jim's brothers appeared as indentured servants to work in the tobacco fields. Jim had a price on his head from New York but appears to have been feared to such a degree that he remained free. And, the idea that his brothers were indentured servants did not go over well. An indentured servant was a laborer under some sort of contract for a period of time, usually seven years, in exchange for such things as ship's passage, food, and once arrived, accommodations. Although this sounded good, it was a many faceted arrangement which more than likely favored the tobacco growers.

A major problem was that in many cases, an indentured servant would become indebted to the future employer, who would forgive the debt in exchange for an extension which could thereby continue indefinitely. The Autry brothers who were scheduled to work in the labor-intensive tobacco fields never quite fulfilled the arrangement. From what little we can determine, they either were bought out of the servanthood arrangement or were forgiven of it which is highly unlikely. A mystery but somewhere Jim Autry played a part.

One of the big problems with Irish ancestry is that it is almost all oral. Lineages often are skewed in the process—we like our Irish forefathers. It is our story and we are sticking with it.