O'CALLAGHAN, EDMUND BAILEY. – As a politician and historian, b. 28 February 1797 at Mallow (County Cork, Ireland), d. 29 May 1880 in New York. He emigrated in 1823 to Canada, to Québec, where he completed his medical studies, and then moved to Montréal. He soon began taking part in Canadian political life and organized there the Society of the Friends of Ireland, holding public meetings and writing political articles.
This was the moment when the French portion of the population, fearing an excessive predominance of the English element and encouraged by the progressive growth of national consciousness, also due to the European events of 1830–31, could ill tolerate being governed by an almost exclusively English administration and demanded more direct participation in the government of public affairs, with the right to subject the governors to scrutiny. At the head of this movement was Papineau, president of the Legislative Assembly of Lower Canada, and among his followers, the so-called patriots, was O'C. They demanded the establishment of a legislative assembly modeled on that created in France following the Revolution, and a federal system similar to that of the United States. Their attitude was not, however, free of a certain anticlerical spirit, which alienated some Catholics’ sympathies. O'C. soon became, together with Papineau, one of the representative figures of this movement. Director, in 1834, of the Vindicator, the patriots’ newspaper, he was elected the following year as a deputy to the Assembly of Lower Canada. The state authorities’ unequivocal refusal to grant any reform brought about the crisis. In November 1837, O'C.’s and Papineau’s departure from Montréal was interpreted as a prelude to an insurrection, and arrest warrants were issued against them and other patriots. To evade the public forces, some patriots took up arms; there were minor skirmishes without result; O'C. and Papineau, who had unsuccessfully opposed resorting to arms, were obliged to seek asylum in the United States, where O'C. remained even after the amnesty had been granted. He settled in Albany, in the State of New York, as a physician and journalist. He also began a notable career in historical studies and published several works, among them a history of New York under the Dutch (History of New Netherland, or New York under the Dutch, New York 1846). His Documentary History of the State of New York, in 4 vols., published from 1849 to 1851, constitutes the first genuine history of the State and prompted the government to gather the relevant documents held in archives, including foreign ones. O'C. was entrusted with translating the French and Dutch papers, as well as with the general supervision of the publication. The eleven volumes of Documents relative to the Colonial History of the State of New York (Albany 1855–61) were produced. A practicing Catholic, O'C. was a member of the local Catholic Union in New York.