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
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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
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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
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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
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