Newrys in America

The Newry place name has created an international footprint and can be found in four countries across the globe. The most northern and oldest was founded in Ireland in 1144 as a settlement around a Cistercian abbey. The name has followed its inhabitants as they have moved across America, Canada and Australia. This article will look at the Newrys in America, which has the most towns and townships named Newry spread across seven states. 

The name of Newry in South Carolina and Pennsylvania can each be accredited to a prominent benefactor. In contrast, Newry in Maine is an example where a group of settlers played that role. 

The Newry Historic District in South Carolina encompasses lands and a textile mill village. Bought in 1893 by William Ashmead Courtney (1831-1909) and investors in The Courtney Manufacturing Company. William’s father Edward Courtney had emigrated to Charleston from Newry in 1791. William served in the Confederate army in the American Civil War and following the post-war destruction of the confederacy had to rebuild his career in business. He succeeded and served as mayor of Charleston in 1879 and 1887. Part of his success included the purchase of land along the Little River in Oconee County. Believed to remind him of his ancestral home he called the town Newry. 

He created a mill and village in the traditional New England textile factory design, attributed to W.B.S. Whaley. The workers homes are a typical ‘salt box’ design for two family habitation, larger single-family residences for mill supervisors, a Neoclassical residence for Courtney himself. The rest of the village consisted of a boarding house, a company store, a church, a school, a company office and the mill complex, most of which still stand today. The mill closed in 1975 leading to population and village decline, however, since 2020 many buildings have undergone renovation and redevelopment. In 1993 Newry celebrated its centennial with many events including the publication of a local cookbook, which is in the Newry and Mourne Museum collection.

The development of the Borough of Newry, Pennsylvania is attributed to Patrick Cassidy, born in 1738 in Newry. He travelled to America, aged fourteen, in the service of a British Officer but left that employment to train and work as a surveyor. He joined Ashmead’s Company and fought as an American soldier in the War of Independence. Following the war, Patrick moved his family and bought 300 areas of land in Blair County. He constructed a small town naming it Newry after his hometown. Documents list Newry as one of the oldest towns in the region. To support the towns development in 1781 Patrick gifted land enabling the building of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church and the Newry Lutheran Church and their cemeteries. Newry’s town population was 245 in the 2000 census. Lucy Wolf states that the town retains many of its older buildings suggesting an ‘era lost in time’.

Newry, Oxford County, Maine, initially called the Sunday River Plantation was settled in 1781 by three Barker brothers from Massachusetts alongside Ithiel Smith of Cape Elizabeth and subsequently abandoned following an attack in 1782. The land was purchased in 1794 and known as the Bostwick Plantation. However, in 1805 the plantation was renamed by settlers that came from Newry and a petition was submitted to rename the area. Farms were established, alongside a sawmill and grain mill. Ithiel Smith and his family are buried in a section of the cemetery known as ‘Newry Corner’. Newry is now best known as the home of the Sunday River Ski Resort. It is also the site of the Artists Covered Bridge/Sunday River Bridge built in 1872, named as it is the most photographed and painted of the traditional covered bridges in Maine.

The Museum is currently offering free tours of the main exhibition galleries on Wednesdays at 2.00 pm. These must be booked in advance by calling our Education Officer at 0330 137 4422. 

Newry and Mourne Museum is open Tuesday – Saturday 10.00 am – 4.30 pm. Please call 0330 137 4422 or email museums@nmandd.org for further information.

Visit their website at www.visitmournemountains.co.uk