The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1906-11-11
LORD" ScULLY, FARM KING.
Became Naturalized to Better Promote
Interests in America.

Bloomington, H., Dispatch in New York
Sun.
LORD William Scully, known as the
greatest of American landlords, is dead.
A cable message to this effect was re-
ceived today by Ferdinand Trap, his
American agent Scully died in London
yesterday.
He was an Irish peer of the realm UNI
til 1900, when vast property interests IN
this country prompted him TO procure
naturalization as an American citizen. lie
bought the John A. Logan residence IN
Washington, and made infrequent visits
to the United States, during which he
made minute inspections that were feared
by his hundreds of tenants The farmers
of Kansas, Nebraska and Illinois made d
hue and cry u quarter of century ago
when Scully appeared as purchaser OF
broad tracts of land. He left a fortune,
mostly in lands estimated at about $oO,-
900 900. His latest deal was in last August
when he decided to his wife. e. Angela
Scully, for 81 about 10000 acres of land in
Logan county, Illinois, valued at 5000, 900.
Scully was the most conspicuous farm
monopolist of alien birth in this country
He began his career as a landlord in Tip
perary county, ireland, taking over prop
critics on which the SIullys mad had lease
holds for a century. In 1S49 he was tried
at the Clonmel assizes for shooting two
young men, sons of a tenant whom he
was evieting, but was acquitted. In lSb9
he was sentenced to twelve months I'M
prisonment for beating the wife of a ten
ant, and served out his time at hard la
Dor in the Kilkenny county jail.
He came to this country shortly after
the close of the Mexican war, and before
he was done with his farm purchases in
the ensuing years he had acquired $4,000
acres in Central Illinois, 60,o00 acres IN
Nebraska, $4,000 acres in Kansas anu 40,
900 in Missouri.
Scully transplanted his ideas of Irish
landlordism to American soil. He trav-
eIed the country on horseback serutiniz-
ing his farms with q jealous eye. lie car
ried away samples of the soil in little pa
per bags leading the tenants to believe
that he must have at his home earth from
every acre of land that he owned. These
tenants were for the most part Swedes,
Germans or Irish. Scully ruled them
through agents who were instructed 10
be most particular about leases. The
farmer who applied, for lease had to
be practical farmer. His stock must
look well fed and the farm machinery
spck and span. Good reputation, sobric-
ty and industry were demanded. They
were permitted to lease farms at from
$l25 to "a an acre and make their own
improvements. Scully bought land but
he never sold it. lie was careful to see
that new generation of farmers would
be on hand to take the places of the old
when the latter could not properly till
his soil Scully not inrrequently put
young men to work on his farms and later
sent them to college al his own expense.
William Seully was the son of Dennis
Scully prominent in the Irish emancpa-
tlon cause and the. first Irish student in
200 years to be admitted to Trinity, col
lege Cambridge. William Scully studied
law in a Dublin office Upon the passing
his estates In Ireland, but it was many
years later before he transferred the bulk
of his interests to this country.