Hi all, I see my name is mentioned earlier in this thread I was not aware all these years
Just to clarify a number of items, I am not directly descended from Israel Milliken but my Mothers Grandmother did inherit a large box of gold coins from his estate and each week she would cash in a coin and would spend it on her friends each weekend.
Israel's exploits in the rebellion were clearly detailed in a book called “The Pikemen of ’98” which can be found in digital form online, but that book confusingly referred to Thomas as the father of Israel? I put this down to the fact that “The Pikemen” was written 60 years after the event and memories might have been dimmed or confused.
In the North Belfast News, Joe Baker published an article recounting the memories of John Smyth from about 1900 , wherein he remembered his earliest years in Belfast. He described a Milliken who was a United Irishman but I feel he is describing Thomas rather than Israel! The Cotton Mill on Waring Street was sold about 1800 after Thomas’s death.
“In one of the houses (in Waring Street) lived a man, Isaac Milliken, whose career in life was as chequered as it was varied, and who, in adversity and declining years, maintained to the last the sturdiness of the Presbyterian and the independence of the Volunteer. He had a large cotton factory in Waring Street, and his position enabled him to take a prominent part of the transactions of the day. Fortune frowned on him and a subscription raised by one of our most honoured merchants solaced his last days.”
The Belfast Newsletter of 1st May 1797 recorded;
"This morning, eleven prisoners, under charges of High Treason, were sent off for Dublin, from the Artillery barracks here, guarded by a very strong detachment of the 22nd regiment of light dragoons, viz:
Joseph CUTHBERT, Taylor
John GORDON, Woolen Draper
Alexander GORDON, Woolen Draper
Thomas STOREY, Printer
Felix O'NEAL, Schoolmaster
Patrick CLEERY, Clerk to Mr. SPEERS
William DAVISON
Robert BLACK, Publican
Alexander ESLAR, Publican
Israel MILLIKIN, Clerk to Mr. Sampson CLARK, Hatter
Robert REDFIRN, Sadler"
A number of those listed above were definitely United Irishmen and Thomas Storey was the printer of the Northern Star, the newspaper of the organisation. He was later hanged.
It should be noted that at the time of his arrest Israel was working for Sampson Clarke in the Hatters Shop and as a bookkeeper. Clarke also petitioned for Israel’s release from jail and declared that the prisoner expressed an intention of going to America.
After release from jail Israel seems to have continued without a stain on his character and became a well known and loved local character. It’s worth noting he had two streets named in his honour; Israel Street on the Shankill and Milliken Street on the Falls.
In 1805 (at least by 1813) Israel had opened his main business, which was a “private steam baths and Vapor rooms” at 91 Peters Hill.
In 1831 the first stone was laid for an impressive memorial for William Orr of Ballycarry in the Temple Corran churchyard. Israel Milliken of Belfast was named on the memorial as the Treasurer of the Masonic Lodge Committee that raised the funds. William Orr was a famous United Irishman and this is one expression of his abiding sympathy and support for the failed rebellion and its participants. He is elsewhere described as a benefactor for various former participants of the rebellion up to his death. It should be noted that the definitive book describing the leaders of the rebellion (published in 1846 by RR Madden ) included interviews with Jemmy Hope, which were conducted at Israel’s home at Brown Square.
In Mary Ann McCracken’s letters to Dr Madden she refers to Jemmy Hope who died in 1853, whereupon she and old Israel Milliken – “a former United Irishman, now crippled with rheumatism and just able to get to his easy chair by the fire” – arranged for the erection of the headstone in the little burying-ground at Mallusk, Co. Antrim, Dr Madden being called upon to write the inscription.
