BRODERICKS IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
The John Broderick who came out to Australia from Ireland in 1851 had six uncles, all of whom migrated from Ireland to America. The name Broderick is prominent in Californian history. One of the main street of Sacramento, the capital of California, is Broderick St (Dick Condon saw the street name when travelling through Sacramento in a bus in 1985), and there is a Mount Broderick in Yosemite National Park. They are probably named after Senator Broderick who is mentioned twice in Joy Monaghan Australians and the Gold Rush and Norman Bartlett's The Gold seekers.
Senator Broderick seems to have had a rather doubtful reputation. On 10th June, 1851, a felon named jenkins was caught rowing ashore with a safe which he dumped overboard when he realised he had been caught. He was delivered to the Vigilance Committee which had been formed by the people to replace the Tammany Hall approach to justice here hardened criminals, by bribery and in collusion with the officials were able to have their trials rigged for acquittal or, if sentenced, to be let out of gaol after serving only a small part of their sentence.
The Vigilance Committee conducted a full-scale trial on Jenkins, , found him guilty and sentenced him to be hanged.. The mob which had gathered approved of this verdict and proceeded with the arrangements for the hanging. David C. Broderick, a leader of the Democratic Partyasnd President of the Californian Senate in its second session, tried to mollify the mob and stop the execution, but was shouted down. Bartlett reports that a voice from the crowd had shouted "Dave Broderick will have you out". At the corner of the square, a policeman, urged on by Sen. Broderick tried to rescue Jenkins.
The second refeence to Senator Broderick concerns an Irish convict on a ticket-of-leave, T.B.McManus, who was one of six Irish patriots convicted of treason and exiled to Tasmania in 1848. McManus escaped from Launceston to California, where he arrived in 1851. A committee "including the scheming Senator Broderick" and wealthy Sam Brannan, (the spokesman for the Vigilance Committee of Jenkins five days later) was formed to arrange a demonstration of welcome to McManus. (There were several treasonable? Irish whisked secretly on to ships off the Tasmanian coast and taken to USA to be feted in this way.)
A third reference concerns a "Gentleman Jim or "English" Jim Stuart, who was the next to be condemned by the Vigilance Committee and sentenced to hanging after a two-hour trial. While the Vigilance Committee was passing Stuart from house to house to avoid the authorities before the trial, Senator Broderick was trying to organise a public meeting to protest against the activities of the committee.
However, he could arouse no enthusiasm from the citizens of San Francisco who had apparently had more than enough exposure to the large population of criminals (many from Australia known as "Sydney Ducks", whose votes the powers-that-be sought to keep them in office.
It should be noted, however, that that no recorder of history can write with complete detachment or objectivity, and the Irish have long been the victims of non-objective writing.
It is probable that Senator Broderick's motives may have been directed towards getting a fair trial for those being tried by the Vigilance Committee which was, after all, a body without legal authority engaged in lynchings.
Also of interest, on the American scene, is an extract from The San Francisco Examiner, in July, 1969 noted by Dick Condon on his visit to San Francisco at that time. This is a story by a Henry Broderick, about his pioneering father who came to USA from Ireland about 1900.