Spun Gold

1852

Dear Children,

They say when one door closes, another door opens. This is a tale of two mills, one for cotton and one for linen. The steam cotton mill has begun operating here in Sag Harbor and they are looking for skilled spinners. The York Street mill in Belfast is slowly putting the hand spinners like Mam and her whole Brady family out of business. With 525,000 spindles working at once, what use do they have for hand spun flax grown on the family farm? The Brady clan must turn to factory work, either living among the hated Orangemen sixty miles away in Northern Ireland, or renounce their vow to stay in Ireland and move to Sag Harbor and work at the steam cotton mill. When they made it through the famine years, the Bradys thought they were home free and now a big machine has driven them out. A family gathering was called, with Bridget, our Mam, the oldest sister, presiding. As strange as that may sound, that was the way it was with four of the five brothers younger, and all of them doting on her. John, Patrick, Hugh, and William and their families, including eight children, all decided to move to Sag Harbor and try to get work at the steam cotton factory. It will take time for everyone to make arrangements to conclude one life and book passage to another, and we expect to see the first of them within the year.

Bridget taught her brothers to spin, but none of them loved it like Mam. Beside spinning and weaving, she was the best at scutching, or cleaning, bleaching, and beetling, or beating the seed out of the flax with a paddle. As her spinning wheel turned, she would spin tales and songs to us as we gathered about to help. She needed us to get the job done, but somehow with all her ditties, it did not feel like work that we were doing.

Mam writes that Pap already mourns the loss of his beloved farm, even though he is getting too old to work it. She says seeing the suffering of the famine, even though his family had enough to eat, took something out of dear Pap. When he spins these days his hands are gnarled and no longer nimble, and he tends to fall asleep. He keeps saying that he has to see the rest of his children before he dies. Being the oldest girl, my dear Pap and I were always close. Just to sit and hold his hand one more time would be the joy of my life. I am so grateful to God that they will be coming.

When Pap married his beloved wife, a whirlwind came a blowing. Bridget Brady was like no other girl in Monahan. In fact the Bradys were like no other family in Monahan. They had so much energy and those big, brawny, Brady brothers were always together. The lot of them, Hugh, John, and William all followed older sister Bridget around. Despite being short in stature, she was strong and took care of fighting off the neighborhood bullies, and generally organizing every aspect of their lives. When Bridget was around, a body knew what to do, when to do it and how to do it, because she was there to tell them. Her pet name was “The Magistrate” because everyone listened to her, and because she hardly ever stopped talking.

Mam always believes everything will work out for the best and that a better life is just around the corner. She wanted John and me to come to America and thought it was just fine for a girl to go alone across the ocean to meet her brother, back before so many left. I was afraid but Mam told me it would be alright. I don’t know how she knew, but I believed her. When Mam described a brighter, better life so far away I never doubted her. She has never let me or anybody down. Everyone in Monahan knew that Mam was a person they could turn to. She trusted everyone and saw the good in even the worst people.

I have to confess, though, that Mam and I did not always get along so well. I suppose I am more like Pap, a bit of a dreamer. Although she loved me, she did not understand me, and she pushed me to be more forthright. She wanted so much for John, Charles, Ann and me to have the education she never received and I think she always regretted that. One of the reasons Mam agreed to leave Ireland was that our three younger sisters and brother, Betsey, Maggie and James all learned English at the National school, and they would have an advantage in their new home. Betsey is just like Mam, but I preferred needlework to spinning, and tapestry to weaving. That made Mam angry as she said I should not waste my time with work I could not sell. She seemed to have a plan for all of us, that we could do much more than we thought we could ourselves. It was wonderful and terrible at the same time to have so much belief in us and so many expectations of us. I hope she approves of my life with Terry, but that is up to her. John handled Mam’s demands with more skill than of any of us. He was such a natural leader of the family, and in turn of our Irish community here. Charles also had his differences with Mam, as he was always coming up with a new idea for a business or an investment that somehow did not quite work out. Ann was so patient with her, even when her energy outlasted us all.

Despite our differences with her, Mam has kept us all together by having the wisdom to let us spend time apart. Her unshaken belief is that God forged this bond of our family and none of us may put it asunder. We were sent here to be an entity that neither a famine, an ocean, a country, or any invented machine can break apart. Mam always believed we would all be together again, and she has been proven right. Bridget Brady may sometimes be loud, brash, bossy, even tipsy on occasion, but only she, on her magic spinning wheel, can spin chafe into the gold of comfort, safety, warmth and home.

Published in:  on January 29, 2010 at 4:12 pm Leave a Comment

The Gold Strike

November 1850

Dear Children,

Gold! That was all anyone talked about in town in 1848. One day it seemed Sag Harbor was the charmed town I traveled across the ocean to and the next day it had changed forever. By the time the Gold Rush in California was over, hundreds and hundreds of men left on what seemed like a moment’s notice. The timing of the discovery of gold coincided with the waning of the great whaling industry in Sag Harbor. For many years we enjoyed enormous prosperity from our thriving trade. The height was in 1847 when there were about 70 whaling ships stationed in Sag Harbor. We were so fortunate to arrive here at the height of its glory, for even one short year later it was a different story. Over fishing was causing the whales to become scarce and the voyages were now longer and more expensive than in the past. Whales used to be spotted offshore here, but lately our ships have to sail as far away as Africa to find them. Now the voyages last for years, instead of months.

I have heard some say the number of men fleeing Sag Harbor for the Gold Rush was as high as 500. It was hard to tell, with so much commotion happening at once. Six whale ships sailed away from Sag Harbor to California, and there is little expectation that they will ever return. The supporting businesses have started to slow down, like the coopers who make the large casks for whale oil, the blacksmiths, and the sail makers. The ups and downs of the whaling industry did not affect our livelihoods as farmers as badly as those businesses, but we felt the downturn. Maybe the slow times were not all bad luck. Between 1847 to 1850, Terry and I welcomed six of our brothers, sisters and in-laws to Sag Harbor from Ireland. This group was able to get a foothold here because most of them chose to live in town and take advantage of the new opportunities opened up by the departure of so many residents.

Terry’s brother Francis was a natural for town living. Frank was not what you would call the practical type, and he never met a stranger. It was not long before he seemed to know most everyone in town. Along Division Street, whenever an extra pair of hands was needed, Francis was always there with a smile and a chuckle. Like his sister and brother, he was educated, and like Cath, a bit of a free-thinker. He could be seen talking with Jason Hoopete, a Montauk Indian, along the water front when he probably should have been working. They would talk of the evils of slavery, which Frank said was a sin against God. It was Frank who brought our dear friend into our lives, Patrick Mulligan and his family. He was beloved by his fellow Irishmen, but he made friends with the old-line Yankees too, like young Henry Halsey. From the day he set foot on American soil, Frank dreamed of becoming a United States citizen. He put his book-learning to use studying at the circulating library on how to become a real American.

Frank came with his lovely, but remote wife Isabella. The poor thing had a harrowing journey over as she was in the family way. Little Mary is healthy, thank God. Bella complained that Frank was always chattering with the neighbors instead of working harder. She said they needed to save for the little Mary’s future. Frank just laughed over her worries, telling her that everything would be alright. After all, she had him to take care of her. It didn’t seem to satisfy Bella, but she was so private and proud that she would never let on. Maybe the shock of finding Cath, her dear friend, gone when she got here contributed to her sadness. Cath could always make her laugh.

Another of our clan who chose to live in town was my other big brother, Charles. He got work as fisherman, which surprised us all. We Irish are a land loving lot, and Charles was a farmer’s son. While he didn’t have a silver tongue like Frank, he managed to talk his way onto a ship when most of the crew absconded to California. This was fortunate, as Charles did not have anything saved to put down on a farm, like John and Terry were able to when times were better in Ireland. It was the same reason Frank had to go from odd job to odd job. Charles married a sweet Irish girl, Mary, within months of arriving, and  they were soon expecting a baby. When our younger sister Ann Fee came from Ireland in November 1848, it was just as Charles and Mary were about to become parents. Charles was so happy to see his favorite sister that they named the new baby Ann. Within a year, little Annie had six cousins to play with. There were John and Elizabeth Fee’s three, Jane, Charles and John, know as Jack. Francis and Bella had  Mary, and there was our own little Frankie, named after big loquacious Frank, and baby Mary Ann.

The newly arrived big Ann Fee came with a coincidence. One of her shipmates was Edwin Irwin, Jr. whose parents, Edwin Sr. and Huldah live here in Sag Harbor and go to our church. They struck a friendship on board and I have a feeling that perhaps it may become more than that. Charles had company on his voyage also. He came with Patrick Leonard, who also settled in the area, just over the channel in Shelter Island. He is a shoemaker, and we already had several here in Sag Harbor, like Frank’s friend and neighbor, James Corcoran. Ann helped make arrangements for the next sister in our family, Jane, our Jennie, to come six months behind her. The date came and went and we heard nothing. May turned into August and still we had no word of her. Ann put an advertisement in The Sag Harbor Corrector, our local newspaper, on August 29, 1849, but like all the Fees, she couldn’t write English, only Gaelic, and had to sign it with a mark, instead of her signature. I was lucky that Terry taught me to write English after we married. She had the newspaper add a line at the end, “New York city papers will perform an act of benevolence by noticing the above.” Well, that did the trick and word got to Jennie, staying in New York city with people she traveled with. Once she received the stagecoach fare we sent, it took three days for her to make the trip home to us.

The baby of the McGuirk family, John, arrived alone in 1849. He had the sunny disposition of that position in the family and he loved to tease and joke. His tall build and dark brown hair made him the talk of several girls in town, but John showed no signs of settling down. For him it would have to be just the right girl, as beneath his charm he was sincere and serious. There was never any question of John staying in town, and he found work as a laborer on a farm a bit north and west of our place. Like Charles and Frank, he had no savings from the terrible times in Ireland, but he impressed his employers with his willingness to work. It took a lot of catching up for John to feel at home. Not finding Cath here was a bitter disappointment for him. She mothered him and it was a comfort he sorely missed. He was only 16 when Terry left home five years before and they had to get to know each other again. He has stayed behind in Ireland hoping things would improve as he helped the older relatives. As they passed one by one and linen exports were down, he knew it was finally time to go.

I was so grateful to have more of our family here.  Now our new world was even more of a home, but there was pain amid the joy. In my heart, I knew the immigration of our brothers and sisters was different from our own, only four and five years before. They had been through something monumental that we only heard about. It was the Great Hunger, and I saw that it changed my family. It was a look in their eyes. They had seen terrible sights of people starving, destitute, and hopeless. I’ll always thank God that none of our family had to go hungry, but that did not protect them from what was happening to the whole country. While the suffering was less in upper Monaghan where we lived because the linen business was able to continue, it was impossible to avoid altogether. I saw that our newcomers did not jump in to their new lives with the energy and enthusiasm that we did just a few short years ago. They wanted to stay in Ireland and would not have come here if they had the choice. Of course, we missed home, too, but we wanted to leave and came freely to the United States with few reservations. They felt forced out, with lingering resentments and fear of their prospects here. With their hearts left behind in the Emerald Isle, and the fresh memory of horror, it was going to take a lot longer for our brethren to find a home. How ironic that our family members came just as so many fled Sag Harbor looking for riches somewhere else. We found what we were looking for, but now it was our challenge to show our loved ones that they had indeed struck gold.

HA7RB4PPVZT6

Published in:  on December 9, 2009 at 9:11 pm Comments (3)
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Things we found in the fire

October 1850

Dear Children,

It was the first crisis in my adopted village after I arrived here in April, 1845. The town was a hive of activity. To walk down the street was to be at the most exciting circus carnival. Spring and summer were spent acclimating to my new strange world, but things were going well. November 13, 1845 started out as a lovely fall Sunday, when just after midnight fire broke out. It burned all through November 14th and didn’t stop until early the next day. We ran down to the wharf to see the ship “Thames” consumed by flames. The whale oil seeped into the deck made the flames roar like the ocean that was just over the horizon. When the fire was over 100 buildings were burned to the ground. Our fire department, the first in New York State, could not begin to handle such an inferno.

It was the most spectacular sight I have ever witnessed in my life, and the most horrifying. I had been here six months, enough to love my new home almost as much as I loved the Emerald Isle. All the magical luck inhabiting this special place seemed to evaporate. I asked myself if God cursed this town and my place in it. Had we made a terrible mistake coming here, leaving everything and everyone we knew and loved? Despair was not too strong a word for the feeling that overcame me on the morning after the two-day fire had finally spent its fury.

Our Irish luck did not desert us entirely, as the east end of town was where all the destruction occurred, and I was living with my brother John and his wife Elizabeth west of Division Street, the dividing line down the middle of town. It was not the fancy side of town, and we did not have much to lose. What little we had we gladly shared with our less fortunate neighbors, thankful to God that we had a home. John’s friends and fellow recent Irish immigrants, Tom Kiernan and Parker King, both lost their businesses. It was a bitter irony as we were inordinately proud of their success as though it were our own. The first families of Sag Harbor were very hard hit, as the majority of businesses, no matter how prosperous, were gone.

The world was transformed. The fine Yankee families were suddenly not so high and mighty. They were asking us for help, to bring blankets, meals and woolens. People who had never spoken to us before came up on the street to talk about what happened. I was hugged and wept on by mere acquaintances that adversity had soldered into neighbors and fellow survivors. We spent all day digging, sweeping, and piling up charred ruins of furniture, household goods, and merchandise from the stores. The past had to be dispensed with as fast as possible. The future started today.

In the weeks that followed, I saw another transformation. People brought low and impoverished, were rising up with renewed energy. They were vowing to rebuild, not just what was there before, but new buildings, bigger and better. This attitude was a revelation to me. In Ireland, when despair set in, it was for a very long time, maybe permanently. The rebellion of our parents and great grandparents against the English oppressors was seeping out of us. We became tired and more than a little hopeless against endless opposition. Yet here in this young village, the determination was raw and fresh. There was no cowering and complaining, just a “roll up of the sleeves” energy to fight back.

For the first time I felt like I could and would become an American. I was more like my Yankee neighbors than I was like the farmers back home. I could fight too! I wasn’t afraid and I had plenty of energy. That night we all went to church to pray for the new Sag Harbor, the one that would rise up and be even better than the last. We knew it to be a place where opportunity was just a strong pair of hands and a long day’s work away. In only a few short months the town of Sag Harbor and I had been through something monumental together, and I was never to be a stranger again. I was a full participant, not a lonely foreign girl away from home for the first time, on the outside looking in. In the fire, I had found my new home.

Published in:  on November 24, 2009 at 4:51 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: , , , , , , , ,

My Best Friend

September 1850

Dear Children,

As promised, I wanted to tell you about my best friend, Catherine McGuirk. She was Terry’s only sister, the second in the family after him. Unlike me, she managed to convince her big brother to bring her along when they set sail from Ireland in early 1844. Of course, she had Terry wrapped around her little finger, even though they were as different as night and day. Where Terry was conservative and careful, Cath was fun loving and adventurous. Where he was shy, she was gregarious and outspoken. They had the same mesmerizing blue eyes, but on Cath they left a trail of broken hearts in her wake.

Terry was very protective of his sister, and the only place Cath was allowed to meet people was at church gatherings. Keep in mind that Sag Harbor could be a bit rough in those days. Some of the sailors and fisherman that worked on the docks and on the whaling ships could be something less than respectful to a lady. It was especially wise to avoid Main Street when they just came back from sea. They would dig elbows into each other and nod, wink and chortle as my sister-in-law and I walked by. We should not have been walking alone, and it was a good thing our hotheaded brothers could not see them or there would have been fisticuffs. The drinks served at the taverns along the wharf may have contributed to some of their boldness, or it could have been Cath laughing and singing as we walked down the street. I never had so much fun as when I was with her, and never so scared I would get into trouble.

Cath did meet a nice young man at our church, St. Andrews, the first Catholic Church in all of Suffolk County. His name was Michael Heffernan and his family was very active and generous in the parish. To give you an idea of what a special place our adopted home is, I will tell you a story about our church. When we Irish people came to the United States, we were not wanted here in America, and folks let us know it. But in Sag Harbor, when our leader, Michael Burke, bought us an old Methodist church to renovate and call our own, instead of stopping us, a lovely Protestant man, Mr. Mulford gave us $100 to put toward the work. That quieted any opposition, and we proceeded in peace. That is the way of Sag Harbor and this community has always had room for everyone.

Michael loved Cath very much, but perhaps he and his family were a bit pious for her. They married in 1847, but it did not take long before she was chafing under the bit. The Heffernans were a bit fancy for our Cath, as they had come to this country a while back and had become almost real yanks. They wanted her to take her place in church affairs, and be a perfect lady. Cath was too good at riding horses, raising cattle, and dancing for that.

After the young couple was married for over a year, the unthinkable happened. Cath ran away. She went to Greenport, a town on the north fork of Long Island, where my cousin, Laurence Brady and his family lived. It was not so far really, as you could take a steamer, the “Olive Branch”, over there from Sag Harbor. Laurence Brady had a troubled daughter by the name of Mary whom Cath turned to in her crisis. Laurence claimed there was more work for him in Greenport, but eventually we found out the real reason he and the family were living apart from us. It seems young Mary had a baby out of wedlock. It was a terrible shock, but there was nothing that could be done, and Mary had to raise her son as best she could. Cath went over there hoping that Mary would be the one person who would accept what she had done. She was right and Mary never judged her.

Michael went and pleaded with Cath, but it was to no avail. When Michael Heffernan realized his wife was not coming home, he was so devastated that he moved to the Ohio territory. After that, Cath did not even call herself Mrs. Heffernan, preferring to remain Catherine McGuirk. I worry so about her. What is to become of her? What is a woman to do without a man? Who ever heard of a girl wanting to be a spinster, especially after she had a husband? At least Cath and Mary have each other in their difficult, some would say scandalous situations. The funny thing is, they both seem to have found some peace. Is it because they do as they please with no man telling them what to do? I shall never understand what Cath did, and shall never stop missing her, my best friend.

Published in:  on November 20, 2009 at 12:27 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: , , , , ,

The Boy With the Far Away Eyes

Before I came to America to meet my big brother, John, he wrote that he had a surprise for me. I was puzzled because it was so unlike him to tease. John has always been the leader of our family. Even as a young boy, he was so serious and responsible that even Mam and Pap sometimes deferred to him. When he said it was finally time for me to come meet him in Sag Harbor, I was honored, flattered and so excited. He knew I wanted to come more than anything in the world. Ever since I can remember I dreamed of having an adventure and was waiting for John to send for me since he left a year ago. I should have been afraid to go, especially by myself, but just knowing that my rock, John, was there waiting for me gave me no hesitation. I missed him so much and what was keeping me here? Working on this farm until the day I die? Marrying and living on still a smaller piece of land? Having my children inherit an even smaller slice? I was ready.

John surely did have a surprise for me. In fact there were two. The first one I already knew about, his new wife Elizabeth, who surprised me with her sisterly affection. The other surprise was that he had someone special in mind for me to meet. When John arrived the year before, he met a brother and sister also from County Monaghan, not far from our home in the county seat, Monaghan town. Terence and Catherine McGuirk were as different as two sibling could be. Terence made John seem like a hail fellow well met. He was so shy that he barely spoke to me the first time I met him at a church gathering at the home of the Heffernans. I might not have noticed him but for his cornflower blue, far away eyes. I was smitten the minute I saw them. It seemed as if I could follow their gaze as far as I could travel and still not see over their horizon. His sister, Cath, was unlike any girl I have ever met. She, too, had the longing look, but had the restless nature to go with those eyes. I still miss her, but I will tell you her story another time.

My Terence was different from the young men I knew. For one thing, he was educated. He spoke beautifully and could read and write English fluently, something my family could only do in Gaelic. We attended “hedge schools” meaning that the classes were taught outside in between harvests. Terry’s family sent him to a proper school and even Cath could write well in English, something not many of our local girls could do. It was one of the reasons she thought she could go off on her own, even though she was a girl. She had ideas like no girl from Monaghan that I knew. Her brother was a bit different, also. Irish people love to talk, but Terry was quiet. They love to gather and stay awhile. Ter loved to stay at home. We are a dancing and singing people and love our stout, but Terry did not care for any of it. There was only one thing on his mind and in his heart, and that was land. Nothing going on in the town of Sag Harbor held much interest for him, because there were no rolling acres there. Parties, parades, fireworks, marches, concerts, all bored him. Tilling, planting, hoeing, and harvesting were the things that pleased him. He would not even marry me until he had made a deposit on his beloved land, so that it could be all ours in 10 years.

The little farm was not far from town, less than an hour buggy ride, and a bit longer to walk, in the town of Bridgehampton. I was lucky that when it got too quiet for me over there, I could steal away to town and be surrounded by our boisterous clan. Farm life agreed with me enough, for the most part because it reminded me of home. Even though we lived near the large town of Monaghan back in Ireland, I really didn’t mind the quiet, maybe because my brothers and sisters were anything but. Once Terry and I moved to Bridgehampton, it wasn’t long before John and Elizabeth moved next door to work the same land. We felt comfortable there as we met the owners at church gatherings, the Halsey family. They were kind, and gave us an opportunity that no one else wanted to give. Mr. Halsey never regretted it as we worked so hard that his profits increased. By the time John moved, our brother Charles was living with his family in Sag Harbor and Terry’s brother, Francis, known as Frank, was there also. Back home, as conditions grew worse, one by one, our stubborn relatives began to reconsider their attachments to home. Now that the letters were coming from more and different points of view, the dream of life in Sag Harbor and Bridgehampton grew more vivid and seemed more in reach to them. Until next time my darlings.

Tá mé chomh mór sin i ngrá leat, tá mé chomh doirte sin duit,
Your mother,
Susan

Published in:  on November 14, 2009 at 6:07 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: , , , , ,

We Were the Lucky Ones

August 1850

Dear Children,

We were the lucky ones. You may have heard of “the luck of the Irish”, well, that describes us. First we were lucky to be from Ireland, that place of misty wonder, but we were luckier to leave our beloved home. Many people would have liked to leave, but they could not afford to. You see, things were very difficult for Catholics in Ireland. It was not until recently that we got some of our rights back that were stripped away by our English oppressors. So having the means to leave was a great blessing for us. One of my great good fortunes was to miss the potato famine, what they called in Ireland, the Great Hunger or in Gaelic, An Gorta Mor. When I came to join my brother, little did I know that it would start in few months.

We were also fortunate to live in the town of Monaghan, in the north province of Ulster, where things stayed prosperous much longer than in the south and west of Ireland. Having crops and goods to sell to finance all our passages was another blessing. We did not come over here all at once. In fact, from the first of the family, until the last, our passages went on for over ten years. Some of the family was lucky that they could stay in Ireland, as the linen industry survived better than most, and there was still a living to be made growing flax and spinning cloth. None of us was forced to come here, as so many Irish people were because they were starving and evicted from their farms.

The first day I walked down Main Street of Sag Harbor in April 1845, I heard so many languages my head was spinning like my mother’s spinning wheel. Later I learned I was listening to Polish, Spanish, Portuguese, German and Russian. In Ireland, everyone spoke the same language and we knew each other for our whole lives. Here, even though we could not understand our fellow newcomers, they still made us feel less alone. It was our blessing that at least we were speaking the same language as the Americans, though they had trouble understanding our “Irish brogue”. While lots of the local people were not exactly friendly, they seemed to at least tolerate us. We considered that a great good fortune, to be left alone for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, especially compared to Irish immigrants in almost any other place else in America. It turns out that in our little corner of this land, being different was more of the same. Could we have found a better spot to stake our claim in the new world?

They say God gave us free will and it separates us from the animals, and it is surely something to be thankful for. Yet sometimes in this world, when it is taken away from a person, like it was from us in Ireland, a body begins to feel like an animal, penned up and hopeless. Now our lungs have sucked the air of freedom and we can hold our heads up again. We see our future and our children’s future as bright and full of promise. At home, there was nothing but loss and more loss, our land endlessly divided and subdivided. We have gone from shrinking to expanding in our hearts, minds and spirits.

Our bustling whaling village is so much more exciting than the town of Monaghan back home. They both have a weekly market, but how much grander and more varied it is here. Folks come from every town in the whole East End of Long Island every Saturday to be a part of it. There is work for any man willing to roll up his sleeves, and folks here like to work hard, even the rich ones. There is no landed gentry like the thieves who stole our land in Ireland, and everyone works for a living. We doff our caps to no man and the constitution says we are all equal. There are no tithes to bleed us dry and the taxes are low.

All in all, God has blessed us so since we set foot on this land and we are indeed the lucky ones. I am so glad to have our own little piece of heaven here in Sag Harbor and Bridgehampton. God willing, they will be ours for a very long time. Until next time, children.

Tá mé chomh mór sin i ngrá leat, tá mé chomh doirte sin duit,
Your mother,
Susan

Published in:  on November 10, 2009 at 2:41 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: , , , , ,

Mr. Gelston’s Visit

July 1850

Dear Children,

I’m starting a diary today and it is going to be a secret. I have found a hiding place where no one will find it until I’m passed away from this earth. Someday, one of you children will discover it and then you will know everything about how I came here and what my life was like. That is why I am addressing this diary to you for that far off “someday” when you will be reading these words.

I picked today to start my diary because for the first time I feel like a real American. A man named Mr. Richard Gelston came to our door and wrote down our names to be published in the 1850 Census of the whole United States of America. He is the son of the man who runs the Customs House in Sag Harbor for the whole United States, appointed by George Washington himself. Right here at our doorstep. What a great country we live in. I cannot believe the government wants to know all our names and ages, as if we are real citizens and not just Irish immigrants. They asked for Dad’s name, Terry, my name, Susan, and little Frankie and even Mollie’s name, though she is just a wee baby. I told them I was 22 years old and felt like a grand lady of the house, even though we are in a rented cottage on Mr. Halsey’s land in Bridgehampton. But unlike back home in Ireland, he says if we can turn a profit on our acreage, we can work toward owning it. Think of it, children, our own land! We have waited generations to get back the land that was stolen from us by the English. Now in this bright new world our chance has finally come.

Oh, do not be fooled by all the Irish people you will hear moan and groan about the Emerald Isles and the Old Sod. They forget that we were prisoners in our own country. We are free here. We have a chance to get ahead. Do not listen to the neighbors who long for the past. That is what we left behind. All our work was for the landlord, and we could never be our own masters. I wanted better for you children. Here, you will have a chance to be the master of your own fate. Now we are free, but make no mistake, we didn’t like being mistreated. Members of our family were risking their necks protesting the British rule. We are a proud people and we never forgot or forgave our land being stolen. It was time to leave and declare independence from tyranny.

Did you know, children, that I came here all by myself? Yes, it is true and I was only 16 years old. In April 1, 1845, I got on a huge ship called the Queen of the West and sailed here all alone. The hardest part was leaving Pap and Mam and the younger children, but at least the great hunger was still months away. I worried about them so once it started. Of course, your father was already here, but I was coming to meet my brother, John, and his new wife, Elizabeth. He came on the ship, “Hottinger” the year before and found his way to the town of Sag Harbor, New York, where there were plenty of jobs in the whaling industry for anyone willing to work. Little Jane Fee was our first American, born later the year I came and named for our beloved Aunt Jane.

Within a few years of our arrivals, Sag Harbor was teeming with Fees and McGuirks and many more of our relatives like the Bradys and the Mulligans. But there was always a few of us who preferred farm life. Even though I lived on a farm for most of the years I lived here, part of me will always love the bustle of town life. It was really the best of both worlds as we visited Sag Harbor every Saturday to trade at the market. I will tell you more about it all next time. Frankie and Mollie are waking up from their naps so I will bid you goodbye for now.

Tá mé chomh mór sin i ngrá leat, tá mé chomh doirte sin duit,
Your mother,
Susan

Published in:  on October 30, 2009 at 6:04 pm Leave a Comment
Tags: , , , , ,