In the councils of the first territorial legislature of Missouri were Sullivan, Cassidy, Murphy, McDermid, McGrady, Flaugherty, McGuire, Dunn, and Hogan, and among the merchants, lawyers, and bankers in the pioneer days of St. Louis there were a number of Irishmen, the most noted of whom were Mullanphy, Gilhuly, O'Fallon, Connor, O'Hara, Dillon, Ranken, Magennis, and Walsh. In all early histories of Missouri towns and counties, Irish names are mentioned, and in many instances they are on record as "the first settlers." * * * * * And so it was all through the west. In Ohio, Indiana, Iowa, and Illinois, across the rolling prairies and the mountains, beyond the Mississippi and the Missouri, in the earliest days of colonization of that vast territory, we can follow the Irish "trek" in quest of new homes and fortunes. They were part of that irresistible human current that swept beyond the ranges of Colorado and Kansas and across the Sierra Nevada until it reached the Pacific, and in the forefront of those pathfinders and pioneers we find Martin Murphy, the first to open a wagon trail to California from the East. The names of Don Timoteo Murphy, of Jasper O'Farrell, of Dolans, Burkes, Breens, and Hallorins are linked with the annals of the coast while that territory was still under Spanish rule, and when Fremont crossed the plains and planted the "Bear flag" beyond the Sierras, we find Irishmen among his trusted lieutenants. An Irishman, Captain Patrick Connor, first penetrated the wilderness of Utah; a descendant of an Irishman, Hall J. Kelly, was the explorer of Oregon; Philip Nolan and Thomas O'Connor were foremost among those brave spirits "whose daring and persistency finally added the Lone Star State to the American Union"; and the famous Arctic explorer, scientist, and scholar, Dr. Elisha Kent Kane, was a descendant of John O'Kane who came from Ireland to the Province of New York in 1752. * * * * *