James Quinn

family piper, wood and coal dealer, player

b. Cloone, County Leitrim circa 1805
d. Chicago, Illinois April 28, 1888

In his book Irish Minstrels and Musicians (1913), Francis O'Neill wrote a lovely sketch of James Quinn. It would be difficult if not impossible to improve on, so I reprint it here. Then follows a bit more information I have found about James Quinn and his legacy.

An early settler on the shores of Lake Michigan, James Quinn enjoyed the distinction of being the first Irish piper who became a resident of Chicago. Famous as a musician and popular as a citizen, he was regarded as an old-timer when the writer made his acquaintance in 1873.

Mr. Quinn was born in the parish of Cloone, barony of Mohill, County Leitrim, about the year 1805, and he died in Chicago in 1890, at a patriarchal age. Being uncommonly bright and precocious, he attracted the notice of his landlord, Augustus Nicolls, commonly called "Gusty" Nicolls, a noted piper and composer of pipe music, who took him in hand and gave him a thorough schooling on his favorite instrument.

Following some years' experience as a professional piper, Mr. Quinn was engaged as a house-piper by a gentleman in the adjoining county of Cavan. Every man of prominence prided himself on his piper in those days, for whoever had the best piper was sure to have the most company. Whimsical as prima donnas, pipers were always noted for their eccentricities. [...]

Fifty pounds a year and the use of a saddle horse was the ordinary annual allowance for a family piper, and this James Quinn received during his ten years' stay in Cavan. Letters addressed to him in New York in 1840 indicate his emigration to America before that date. Little is known of his life in New York except that for four years preceding his death [in 1855] the great piper Patrick Flannery lived with him. Mr. Quinn was interested in the livery business after his coming to Chicago, but later he became a coal and wood dealer, in which gainful calling he continued up to the time of his death.

He was commendably liberal with his music in public and in private, and he never failed to entertain his callers to their heart's content. His style of execution was close staccato of the classic Connacht school of piping, and, like most old-time players, he was inordinately addicted to embellishing his tunes with a surprising number of variations. Many a rare tune has been preserved through him. Besides John K. Beatty, Michael McNurney, afterwards alderman, and Sergt. James Early, who were his pupils, "Pat" Coughlan and John McFadden, famous fiddlers, played in concert with him for many years in Chicago, and consequently acquired and perpetuated his music.

As a wit and a story teller he was in a class by himself. Keen, observant and gifted with a phenomenal memory, we can well believe that his fund of anecdotes was endless. Revered in death as he was loved when living, this typical piper and minstrel, although summoned to eternity over a score of years ago, is still affectionately referred to as "Old Man Quinn" by a large circle of surviving friends, as well as by his numerous descendants.

O'Neill is the only source of most of this information. Writing in 1904 John Ennis agreed with O'Neill's observations.

He was an excellent performer on the pipes, and a highly competent teacher on that instrument. He possessed a remarkable fund of quaint anecdote and Irish musical lore.

He was possessed of a trait common to most musical geniuses in that he would resent the slightest interruption of his playing by a severe reprimand, and if the offense was prolonged, or repeated, he would take off his pipes and refuse to play again on that occasion.

Quinn's landlord and patron in Ireland, Augustus Nicolls, is associated with and probably wrote the multi-part slip jig "Gusty's Frolics," still occasionally heard today.

New York City directories from 1842/43 to 1854/55 list a James Quin, sometimes as musician, more often as "porterhouse" [a place that sells porter and ale] and later as "milk" [dealer?]. An 1850 US Census entry has James Quinn, wife Mary and three children living in New York City. There is a suggestion that James and Mary were married in Ireland. James Quinn's profession is "Musician." All these references may or may not be to the piper.

More convincing is an 1860 US Census entry, in which James, Mary and four children are in Chicago, and James' occupation is "Saloon." Their next-youngest child, Bridget, was born in Chicago about 1857. If O'Neill has the correct death date for Patrick Flannery then Quinn moved from New York to Chicago between 1855 and 1857.

Chicago city directories show that Quinn was in the wood and coal business by 1867. Until about 1870 he was in partnership with Peter O'Connor as O'Connor & Quinn, "wood and coal, whol. and ret. [wholesale and retail]" After 1873 and until his death the firm name was James Quinn & Son, and at various times his sons Daniel and Edward worked with him. City directories list many "Wood & Coal" dealers, and one has the sense that these were smaller neighborhood firms, not large wholesalers.

By 1870 the Quinn family was well established. Mary was running a boarding house with eleven male boarders and a domestic servant for help. The boarders included six teamsters and two horse shoers, which suggests some might have been employed at James Quinn's business.

O'Neill writes that he first met Quinn in 1873. O'Neill had moved to Chicago in 1870 and joined the police force in 1873. O'Neill says Quinn played pipes "in public" and "in concert" (although this may mean only that Quinn played with others and not that he played at public concerts) but I have seen only one reference to a public performance. "Messrs. Quinn, Beatty, and O'Connor" played a "medley of Irish airs on the Hibernian and Union pipes" at a Celtic Music Festival in Chicago June 9, 1885.

In a 1906 letter O'Neill wrote that piper James Early was "inheritor of much of" Quinn's music, and fiddler John McFadden was "custodian of more of Quinn's music than Early...." Early and McFadden played together for many years. In his writings O'Neill acknowledged Quinn as the source for a few specific tunes. With one exception, Quinn is not credited in the written-out music collections. Source credit goes to Early or McFadden, perhaps to others. Examples include "Brian the Brave" (written-out music in O'Neill's Music of Ireland 1903, no. 255, to McFadden), "The Cloone Hornpipe," (no. 1558, to Early), "Old Man Quinn" (no. 1649, to Early).

James Quinn died April 28, 1888 and is buried at Calvary Catholic Cemetery, Evanston, Illinois. His wife Mary died later that year and four of their children survived.

In 1948 James Quinn's grandson Francis H. Quinn gave a set of bagpipes to the Irish Library at DePaul University in Chicago. They were described as "A set of 150-year-old Irish bagpipes, covered with green velvet and embellished with hand-embroidered shamrocks ... together with the box in which they were brought from Ireland" and were once owned by James Quinn. There is no telling who might have made this set. Francis H. Quinn was an alumnus of DePaul, class of 1929. The Irish Library was probably a reading room with a separate book collection, part of the larger DePaul University Library. The pipes were on display there. The Irish Library no longer exists. The set is no longer in possession of DePaul University and its whereabouts unknown.

Selected References

"Celtic Music Festival," Chicago IL Citizen, 6 June 1885, p. 5 cited in Nicholsen, Michael D. "Identity, Nationalism, and Irish Traditional Music in Chicago, 1876-1900" New Hibernia Review/Iris Éireannach Nua vol. 13 no. 4 Winter 2009 p. 119
From JSTOR
http://www.jstor.org/stable/25660924

Ennis, John "Famous Irish Pipers of the Past and Present." Chicago Citizen April 9, 1904 p. 7 column 1
Microfilm from the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Springfield IL

"Gusty's Frolics" music notation and comments from The Session website.
https://thesession.org/tunes/169

"Irish Library Gets Bagpipes, President's Chair, and More Books" [grandson donates set to DePaul University Library] DePaul Alumni News vol. IV no. 8 June 1948 p. 6 column 2

O'Neill, Francis "A Few Gossipy Notes" From the article 'Francis O'Neill's "Music of Ireland." ' [Early and McFadden inherit Quinn's music; "Brian the Brave"] by A. P. Graves Journal of the Irish Folk Song Society vol. V 1907(?) pp. 31-36.
HathiTrust Digital Library
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=inu.30000108642194&view=1up&seq=255
starts with image 255 of 1018 accessed March 2020

O'Neill, Francis Irish Folk Music A Fascinating Hobby Chicago, 1910, pp. 36-37, 114-15 [O'Neill calls him David Quinn in this book]

O'Neill, Francis Irish Minstrels and Musicians Chicago 1913 pp. 186 [Augustus Nicolls], 204-05 [Patrick Flannery], 223-24 [biographical sketch], 310 [James Early and Quinn]

O'Neill, Francis Waifs and Strays of Gaelic Melody 2nd ed. 1924? p. 151 [not credited, with one exception, "Greig's Pipes"]

Nick Whitmer
March 2020, addition Oct. 2022