His two sons, Robert and Henry, were remarkable men. It was they, who, with Captain John McCracken and Thomas MacCabe (“the Irish Slave”) introduced the cotton industry into Belfast—and with it laid the foundations of the present prosperity of that city. Young Henry Joy McCracken, who had an extraordinary gift for mechanics and was as clever with his hands as any prestidigitator, was sent to England and Scotland to ferret out the carefully guarded mechanical secrets of the British cotton manufacturers—and accomplished his mission in a manner which will furnish an exciting chapter in Irish industrial history—when it comes to be written. Belfast of to-day has little thought to spare for the “United Men”—but it should not forget what it owes to Henry Joy McCracken—to him who died for the cause which so many in Belfast to-day are sworn to destroy: “a brotherhood of affection, an identity of interests, a communion of rights, and a union of power among Irishmen of all religious persuasions.” To Henry and Robert Joy, Belfast owed likewise the “Old Poorhouse,” the first shelter devised for Belfast’s poor. The little Joys and McCrackens were early interested in the poor old men and women, and especially in the children; and, as they grew up, they were active workers in their behalf—getting up dances, and concerts and collections for the institution. It was partly in the design of procuring funds for the Poor House (as well as to give employment to the linen weavers during periods of depression in their own trade) that the Joys first turned their attention to the cotton trade. The managers of the Poor House rejected the offer made by Robert Joy to instal the new machinery (which Harry McCracken’s cleverness had made it possible to erect in Ireland), and to carry on the manufacture of cotton as a regular part of their routine, and a means of making the institution self-supporting. They allowed, however, the children to go to work in the mill which the firm of Joy, MacCabe and McCracken presently established. Come of such strains as has been indicated, both on the paternal and maternal side, is it any wonder that the children of John and Anne McCracken should have been endowed with uncommon gifts both of body and mind and soul? They were a numerous tribe—but, as was so usual with these large eighteenth-century families, only a certain proportion of them survived the ordeals of childhood. Of these, four were boys: Francis, William, Henry Joy, and John; and two were girls: Margaret and Mary Anne. The latter was the youngest but one, of the family, and was ten years the junior of her sister.