Irish Town (Jackson/Pine Gove), Amador County

Irish Town was an important stopping place for emigrants on their way to the southern mines. The white settler on this spot found a 'city of wigwams' hundreds of mortars in the rocks testifying that it a favorite Indian campground."

In the early 1850s, about the only village between on and Volcano or Aqueduct City (on the Clinton route) was Clinton itself. And Irish Town was born on that route maybe a mile beyond Clinton. There was no Pine Grove then, but there may have been some boarders at Armstrong's saw mill, about where the Ridge road and highway 88 meet today.

The old road to Clinton, now the Irish Town­Wieland-Pine Grove road, hit Pine Grove in its heart, but the later highway alignment up Saw Mill gulch (you know where that name came from) joined the ridge road at its westerly limit. When the quartz claims, and subsequent mines and mills arrived in the early 1850s along one of the east­ern gold lodes, several were located in the vicinity of what would be Irish Town.

Though the 1866 county map doesn't even show Irish Town, it does show "Nichols & Company's mill," the "St. Louis claim" and at least three other mines and or mills within a mile from the hamlet's location. Logan concludes that these quartz claims in the area caused Irish Town's birth.

The nativity probably occurred in the 1852-1854 era, even though the Bacigalupi family and others may have claimed land in the area before that, After all, it was not known as Italian Town but Irish Town.

Probably in 1853, brothers James and Michael Carroll and maybe James' wife and daughter, too, settled on a land claim adjacent to the creek. They had emigrated to this country from Ireland. Logan believes that that single Irish family begat the name, and not any "teeming" preponderance of Irish miners or men in the area .. The evidence? The evidence if not certain proof about the beginnings of Irish Town, Reader, can be found in the 1855 assessment roll of Amador county.

But who but drudges and antiquarians spend time in such meaningless searches? Both breeds being rare, you can understand why no one has "solved" the Irish Town mystery up to now. The Irish family named Carroll who arrived in the Calaveras, or, if after June, 1854. Diarist Ben Bowenf in October, 1854, and named as a place of residence when the county assessor or his agent came by in 1855 and 1856. Those references were enough to prove such a place existed in the mid-1850s.

But how long did it live? Irish Town was never a voting precinct, even in 1855-56. It didn't appear on the first county map, published in 1866. Nor did it appear on other county maps in 1881, and 1904. For some reason, however, federal surveyors put the place on their 1869 township map surveys. If it was never a precinct, and never showed up on a county map, you have to conclude it was a short-lived place. Still, it did exist for a time, but for how long, and how did it get its name?

The writer reasoned that the assessment rolls for those years would indicate its size and population. After all, the assessors were supposed to list every man whether he had property or not - men had to pay a poll tax - and certainly record all assessable property. If Irish Town was an actual town or village, surely its buildings would appear upon the assessor's rolls. Furthermore, if the place was home to a clan of Irish, the recorded names would tell us that, too.

After scrutinizing the assessment rolls for both years, page by page and name by name, Logan learned that in 1855 only six men resided in Irish Town, and only one of the six owned an assessable improvement or building on lot or land. He also found that the the 1856 roll showed only five names, if you count one Mike Arrate who apparently had an Italian store near Irish Town. This roll, too, showed only one building in the place that was assessed. You even wonder how a spot on the trail and road from Clinton to Aqueduct City and Volcano got a name if only a half dozen men (maybe some dependents, too) lived there.

How about Irish names? In 1855, the surnames were Anderson, Daley, Hack, Right. In 1856, Azair, Arrate, Gregory, Gesato. That year Irish Town had more Italians than Irish. But there was one name, reader, on both rolls, Irish for sure, who owned the only building assessed in the place. He was James Carroll. The assessor valued his "improvement on a town lot" at $900 in 1855, and $800 in 1856. (Irish Town actually had town lots?)

The Carroll building's value suggests it was more than a mere rude dwelling for a family. It might have been a two-story inn or boarding house. It may have been built to house some of the hands working in the area's quartz mines. Would you name a place Irish Town because an Irish family had the only home there, or because an Irish family ran an inn or boarding house there? Logan opts for the latter.

That the place was named because of or after the Carrolls you should have little doubt. Back in 1855, after leaving the Carrolls, that census taker met one Gustavus Right, another denizen of the place. But Gustavus evidently wasn't sure where he lived. First, the census taker wrote down "Irish Town," but someone, mabye Right, had a second thought. So the census take crossed out "Irish Town" and above it, wrote "Carrollton(!)." Which proves to Logan at least that Irish Town was Irish Town as long as the Carroll's lived if not took in boarders there long ago.

Also note: there is a "Irish Town Road" today, just off of Highway 88, where this story all began.

Information, photographs courtesy of the Amador County Archives, The Historical Marker Database, and the Chronicling America Database