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Dallas Cadwallader Irish

1832 - 1899

BiographyDallas Cadwallader Irish was the son of Lydia and William Beckford Irish. He was born in Mercer County in 1832, and grew up in New Lisbon, Ohio and New Brighton, Pa. Dallas attended Washington College and was involved in the wholesale and retail commission business in Pittsburgh. He was commissioned a Captain in the 13th United States under then-Colonel William Sherman. Dallas was brevetted Major and Lietenant Colonel for gallant and meritorious service at the battle of Arkansas Post and Vicksburg. He resigned his commission in April of 1866 and returned to New Castle. He married Linda Jack in 1869. He held extensive real estate properties in Pittsburgh including the Penn Building and “Irish block” near St. Clair St. He lived in his later years near Dallas and Penn Avenues, where he died in 1899. He is buried in Homewood Cemetery.

Members of the Irish family arrived in Western Pennsylvania in 1785, when Nathaniel Irish was granted 50 acres of donation land near New Castle. Due to the dangers of settling that area, the Irish family lived off that property but took residence near present-day Verona, Pa. Nathaniel Irish moved to Pittsburgh in 1789 to a property off St. Clair Street near Penn Avenue. That property remained in the family for two hundred years. Successive generations of the family were prominent in business and served in the Civil War and WWI.