Information is wanted of Thomas McNamara, of Glandree,

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Jimbo
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Information is wanted of Thomas McNamara, of Glandree,

Post by Jimbo » Fri Feb 16, 2018 8:40 pm

near Tulla, in the county Clare, who served in the American civil war; when last heard of he was on furlough at Wawarsing , Ulster county, State of New York. Any account respecting him will be thankfully received by his sister, Mary McNamara, No. 4 Albert St., Barnsley, Yorkshire, England.
The above information request was published in the Irish American Weekly newspaper on 3 Mary 1879, fourteen years after the end of the American Civil War. Although over 150 years have now passed since the end of the American Civil War, I am hoping with the large amount of data available on the internet that this mystery can be solved. Thomas McNamara is probably one of the most common names in County Clare. But his sister Mary McNamara did leave plenty of clues to hopefully distinguish this Thomas McNamara from the hundreds of others and discover what military unit Thomas fought with and whether or not he survived the war.

smcarberry
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Re: Information is wanted of Thomas McNamara, of Glandree,

Post by smcarberry » Sat Feb 17, 2018 1:03 pm

Actually, saved in a file I have a similarly-worded ad from an Irish newspaper entitled something like __ Irishman, published 12 April 1879, mangling the placename as Glanderu and ending with a request for American newspapers to pick up the text.

Since my family history is heavily involved with Ulster County NY, where Wawarsing is located, I went through other notes to see if I could see something useful for your search for Thomas. After viewing online resources for the Civil War and early naturalizations in Ulster County, I am thinking that you might not believe that Thomas was a resident of that county and thus was not recruited for the Civil War from there (I checked the unit and muster rolls of the 20th, 80th, and 120th infantry regiments). The federal Soldiers and Sailors System (Civil War search engine) lists several Thomases, requiring hours of research to eliminate them. I assume you have thoroughly explored censuses for yours.

So, all I can offer are bits and pieces of info that may or may not be useful:

A. Wawarsing was and is very rural. It's not near any sizeable population center or built "anything." I don't know what industry might have been a leading employer there in the mid-1800s. The area is known for its recreational opportunities, as it is very scenic and near the famous Schwangunk Mountains, a ridge which I rappeled off in my youth during an exercise led by a NYC climbing club. If you can't find family there that Thomas was visiting during his furlough, it's possible that he was there simply for recreation. If so, his Civil War unit was recruited elsewhere. The closest cities other than Kingston were Middleton and Poughkeepsie, both in other counties. Beyond those are Manhattan and Brooklyn. I don't have him in my donated database of Clare-born men in the Civil War, nor in the group waiting to go online as an update. If you do document Thomas's unit, I can include him in the database.

B. You may be aware that Martin was a popular first name for McNamara families of upper Tulla in the early to mid 1800s. While researching a McMahon family that seems to be from that area, I collected info on Joanna McMahon married to Martin McNamara b.c. 1811, with his birth location called "Lough Graney" by descendants (I have old emails for 2 people). Martin and Joanna lived in Manitowoc County, Wisconsin, along with other early settlers known to be from upper East Clare. That couple had some children born in Ireland, including a Michael b.c. 1846. The Tulla RC Parish records (thank you Sheila) show a Michael baptised in Sep 1845, parents Martin and Judy (McMahon) McNamara of Glendree. You can also see their earlier child Patrick baptised in 1840, with sponsors Tom and Mary Mac. Their second child born in the U.S. was a Thomas in Ohio, a stepping-stone state for other Clare-born residents of Manitowoc County. This McNamara family left with some of their Irish friends from Manitowoc Co. to Richardson Co., Nebraska, and the younger generation went on to the State of Washington, where my notes stop. I checked my notes and can't find anything along this route or any other, that fits your Thomas, but I am happy to discuss this Martin McNamara family.

Good luck,
Sharon Carberry

smcarberry
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Re: Information is wanted of Thomas McNamara, of Glandree,

Post by smcarberry » Fri Feb 23, 2018 5:33 pm

I happened to have a spare 15 minutes to put into the quest to find Thomas. You hadn't provided any dates for him except that he still hadn't contacted his sister 14 years after the Civil War. Using a possible birth range of 1820 to 1843, I found a veteran from a NY army unit when he was in an old soldiers home in Wisconsin. His unit was the 150th Infantry, which had been recruited out of Dutchess County, and his soldiers home record listed "Armenia" as his residence upon enlistment. Being a former Dutchess County resident, I knew that meant Amenia, a place as rural as Wawarsing but on the side of the Hudson River fairly near Springfield, Massachusetts, an urban area that attracted many Irish emigrants in the mid-1800s. After viewing his listing on the federal Soldiers and Sailors System website (no age shown), I double-checked his enlistment on a state muster roll, available at the New York State Military Museum website. I don't have enough space here to show all that as attachments. Note that this Thomas used "Mack" as his surname, which we doing East Clare research know as a common substitute for McNamara. This Thomas would have been born in 1839 or 1840, per the old soldier home and enlistment records. This veteran was single and apparently died in the same year as his admission there in 1886.

Since Thomas Mack of the 150th had lived in Steuben County (location of the town Bath) after the war, I looked at census records there (using any surname spelling or reference to McNamara), with only one notable record: Thomas Mack b.c.1843 with his family, all the oldest ones listed as born in Clare, Ireland. The possibilities are that this is the war veteran or his cousin who also came over from Clare. This area of NYS, very remote and rural, was sparsely populated compared to the other regions in NY like Buffalo and the NYC area. My research of the past has shown other Clare emigrants there, so there was work readily available and RC churches to attend.

I stopped at that point. Perhaps this can be useful. I include a map section showing the part of Steuben County in which Bath is located. The county's major city is Corning, now known for the university. To the east is Binghamton in Broome County, and to the west is Dunkirk in Chautauqua County on Lake Erie, part of the Great Lakes system used back then to travel to the Midwest. The location of Lindley (of the 1875 state census record) is shown by the colored icon on the map section.

Sharon Carberry
Mack, Thos of NY 150th, WI home file.JPG
Mack, Thos of NY 150th, WI home file.JPG (99.8 KiB) Viewed 403348 times
Mack, Thomas 150th NY Inf.JPG
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Mack, Thos of Clare, 1860 Steuben Co..JPG
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Sduddy
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Re: Information is wanted of Thomas McNamara, of Glandree,

Post by Sduddy » Fri Feb 23, 2018 8:17 pm

Sharon, how did you fit all that into such a short space of time!

I looked at the 1875 census and decided that Francis, aged 7, might be Francis McNamara, son of Tom McNamara and Judy Neil, who was baptised in Tulla on Oct. 10, 1867. The address is Tyreda – not Glendree. There are no other children recorded for this couple.

But if Tom and Judy/Julia emigrated in 1867, how can Tom have served in the American Civil War (1861-1865)?

Sheila

Jimbo
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Re: Information is wanted of Thomas McNamara, of Glandree,

Post by Jimbo » Fri Feb 23, 2018 9:14 pm

Thank you Sharon for the local knowledge of Wawarsing and neighboring communities. Sounds like I have brought back fond memories of being outside in the Schwangunk Mountains. Yes, it would have too easy if Thomas McNamara enlisted at Wawarsing as his sister mentioned he was last heard from on furlough. Not sure why she didn't mention where Thomas had been living prior to the war. Perhaps Wawarsing reminded Thomas of Glendree back in County Clare and he just mentioned this to his sister as we was passing through.

Since I'm researching such a common name as Thomas McNamara, I think there will be more suspects than an Agatha Christie mystery (having just watched Murder on the Orient Express a few days ago). Lucky that the 1875 census for Thomas Mack of Steuben County provided birth as County Clare as typically only Ireland is stated. I see that Sheila (thank you!) has found that one child Francis of Thomas Mac and Judy Neil was baptized in Tyreda in the parish of Tulla. Sheila, while this Thomas Mack clearly did not fight in the Civil War, it does show a possible connection between Steuben County and County Clare (now Tulla based upon your finding). Although when the Thomas Mack of the 150th NY Infantry (and of Steuben County) died in 1886, he listed his nearest relative as an Edward Kelly living in NYC but the kinship is not stated. Will keep this Thomas Mack of the NY 150th in mind as he certainly can't be ruled out.
_____

It is often reported that about 150,000 Irish born men fought for the Union (North) and another 20,000 for the Confederates (South) in the American Civil War, but I've found no estimates by Irish county. Approximately, how many County Clare born men fought in the American Civil War? Before getting into the trenches of finding my missing Thomas McNamara, I created an analysis with two estimates (see below):

Estimate #1: allocated simply based upon the 1841 Irish census. This census data and list of counties was simple to download from Republic of Ireland's excellent Central Statistics website. Unfortunately, the Northern Ireland county data was more difficult to source, so I relied upon the very authoritative website of St. Cronan's School of Bray, County Wicklow for most of the Northern Ireland data (but never did find corresponding 1851 and 1861 data). This method estimates that approximately 6,000 County Clare men fought in the American Civil War.

http://www.cso.ie/px/pxeirestat/Statire ... language=0
http://homepage.tinet.ie/~cronews/geog/ ... e1841.html

Estimate #2: also allocated on the 1841 census but provides a weighting based upon the decline of population from 1841 to 1861. The Irish population in total declined by 29% over these two decades. Those counties whose population decline exceeded 29% (such as County Clare at 42%) would receive a higher weighting and thus allocated a higher percentage of the total. Basically, this shifts the estimated Civil War soldiers from areas of low decline (mostly Northern Ireland and Dublin) to counties with larger population declines (all the rest of them). Was surprised that there wasn't more variation across counties in Ireland - nearly all counties suffered population declines exceeding 30% from 1841 to 1861. Under this weighted method approximately 6,600 County Clare men fought in the American Civil War.

According to this weighted method of allocation, the top 3 counties in Ireland with men who fought in the American Civil War were County Cork (18,800), County Tipperary (10,000), and County Galway (9,800). County Clare was ranked #6.

Hopefully, of the estimated 6,600 County Clare men who fought in the American Civil War not more than 100 will be named Thomas McNamara!
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Estimated Irish Born Soldiers in American Civil War by county.jpg
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smcarberry
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Re: Information is wanted of Thomas McNamara, of Glandree,

Post by smcarberry » Fri Feb 23, 2018 9:27 pm

Sheila, excellent to have that baptism. At this point I am not doing comprehensive research on Thomas, but merely noting possible directions to take. Finding sufficient data to point conclusively to anyone would take hours and hours. However it may be more than a coincidence that Thomas the unmarried veteran resided in the same rural county as Thomas the family man from Clare.I did state a possibility that the married Thomas was a cousin. My family also had an unmarried Thomas in this time period, and he had a habit of visiting his married relatives (in Illinois). The truly odd thing is that Thomas of Bath was sent to Milwaukee when there was an old soldiers home in central NY.

Sduddy
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Re: Information is wanted of Thomas McNamara, of Glandree,

Post by Sduddy » Sat Feb 24, 2018 1:56 pm

Just some musings here:
When Irish veterans of the American Civil War are mentioned together with Upstate New York, I think of the crazy* attempts at invasion of Canada by the Fenians – meant to force Britain to cede independence to Ireland.
I probably have no concept of the distances between Steuben county and the various scenes of musterings and marching to battle, but I suppose the Irish people who had settled in Steuben county would, at least, have been aware of the action. Reports of it reached this country, of course, and Canada Cross in Miltown Malbay was so named because local Fenians gathered there to discuss the latest news (this bit of info from Eddie Lenihan’s book, ‘In the Tracks of the West Clare Railway’, Mercier Press, Cork, 1990, p. 157)
“Lower Canada” was a local name for a place in Tulla, but here the name refers to the Wydham scheme for the resettlement of his tenants in Canada, and has no connection to the Fenians - I got this bit of info from Gerard Madden’s book, ‘The Annals of the Poor’ (Gerard Madden, East Clare Heritage, 2017), pg. 67, where Madden explains that, although the resettlement scheme had finished up in 1843, some families, as late as 1848, were still clinging to the expectation that they would be accommodated in Canada or elsewhere. Finally, it seems, they took the few pounds quit money and ended up in abject poverty along the bottoms of Knockderra. He says, “This area on the Feakle road soon became known as Lower Canada”.
Or was there a connection with the Fenians - albeit a tenuous one? Many of those Wyndham tenants, who were supposed to resettle in Canada, instead made their way to the United States and maybe some got no further than upstate New York.

Sheila

*My knowledge of these invasions is limited to (and probably coloured by) what’s in Ian Kenneally’s book, ‘From the Earth, a Cry – the story of John Boyle O’Reilly’ (The Collins Press, Cork, Ireland, 2011).

Jimbo
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Re: Information is wanted of Thomas McNamara, of Glandree,

Post by Jimbo » Sat Feb 24, 2018 7:16 pm

Hi Sheila, your musings about the connections to Canada and the Fenian Invasion are probably very accurate. And interesting all the place names in Tulla associated with Canada. Like Sharon, I also thought it was strange that Thomas Mack of New York would be taken to the Veteran's Home in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

My first thought was that Thomas Mack was attending a GAR National Encampment in Milwaukee and fell sick. GAR is the Grand Army of the Republic, a civil war veterans association that held annual reunions of Civil War veterans across the USA. But the National Encampment in Milwaukee was not until 1889; the 1886 reunion was held in San Francisco.

Another clue was on the Milwaukee Home records that Thomas Mack was escorted to Milwaukee from Bath by a General Martin T. McMahon. General McMahon was born in Canada, his parents were newly arrived immigrants from County Waterford. He is a bit famous and has his own wikipedia page that mentions briefly that in 1885 he became responsible for the Veteran's Old & Disabled Home in Bath, Steuben County!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_T._McMahon

Here is more about him in the Catholic Encyclopedia. I believe the author Thomas Francis Meehan has County Clare roots:

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Catholic ... as_McMahon

In the 1880 census, Thomas Mack is living at the Old & Disabled Veterans Home in Bath along with hundreds of other men. The census enumerator (coincidentally named John W Mack) incorrectly states that Thomas was born in the United States and not Ireland. However, Thomas Mack was suffering from "mal fever" and I reckon that the census enumerator didn't want to get too close! So in 1886 Thomas Mack was transferred from one veteran facility to another and died in a just a few months.

After the Civil War, General Martin T. McMahon was associated with the city of Buffalo. Here in both 1865 and 1870, we also find an Irish born Thomas Mack living in the "infamous" Ward 1 of Buffalo in a saloon / boarding house on Ohio Street with dozens of other Irish gentlemen. Thomas Mack would certainly have been a prime candidate to participate in the Fenian invasions of Canada.

Below is an interesting link to a research study of the saloon / boarding houses of Buffalo, especially the "Historical Context: The First Ward". According to this paper, the 1st Ward was referred as "The Infected District". Given Thomas Mack's "mal fever" in 1880 and death by phthisis pulmonalis (TB) in 1886, the name sounds appropriate.

http://users.clas.ufl.edu/davidson/Hist ... 202000.pdf

Although we can't be sure why Thomas Mack was transferred to Milwaukee from Bath in Steuben County, the move certainly allowed him to be buried in a beautiful cemetery which is located conveniently next to the Veterans Old Home. It is now named Wood National Cemetery run by the National Park Service. On findagrave.com, Nadeen Sobottka has taken a beautiful photo of the headstone of Thomas Mack and has generously allowed permission to post directly on the Clare Past Forum.

https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/national_ ... etery.html

Most likely Thomas was baptized as a "Mack", he enlisted in the NY 150th Infantry as a "Mack" and is buried at the national cemetery as a "Mack". So I think it would be very unlikely that his sister Mary McNamara would ask for assistance looking for her missing brother as "Thomas McNamara". But hopefully in the ongoing search for my missing Thomas McNamara of Glandree, this Thomas Mack might also turn up in the newly transcribed and easy to search baptism records of County Clare.

Sduddy
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Re: Information is wanted of Thomas McNamara, of Glandree,

Post by Sduddy » Mon Feb 26, 2018 5:37 pm

I took a break from transcribing this afternoon and enjoyed reading all about Three Privies in Buffalo – especially the background information on the life of a labourer living in a boarding house on the Waterfront. Even a place like that had its social distinctions – evident from the couple of brier pipes found among the clay pipes. Thomas Mack, I'd say, was a clay-pipe man.

Sheila

Jimbo
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Re: Information is wanted of Thomas McNamara, of Glandree,

Post by Jimbo » Sun Mar 11, 2018 1:09 am

I am finding the Irish Fenians of Buffalo to be an interesting bunch. "Between Raid and Rebellion: The Irish in Buffalo and Toronto" by William Jenkins (McGill-Queen's Press, 2013) compares the "lives and allegiances of Irish immigrants ... between the era of the Fenian raids and the 1916 Easter Rising. Highlighting the significance of immigrants from Ulster to Toronto and from Munster to Buffalo, he distinguishes what it meant to be Irish in a loyal dominion within Britain’s empire and in a republic...". I should receive the book in a few weeks, but found a short preview from google books to be particularly interesting as it relates to whether or not Thomas Mack was a member of the Fenian Brotherhood who invaded Canada:
Consider 36 year old Patrick Kane, whose dwelling space at 286 Ohio Street sheltered not only his extended family, with a wife, two sons, one daughter, an aunt, a niece, a mother-in-law, but also three servants and 26 boarders, 16 of the latter being Irish born. How many of these sixteen would have been impressed by the fact that "Captain Kane" was another veteran of Ridgeway [most famous of the Fenian invasions] who had done his bit for the "Irish cause" in 1866.
The above is referring to the household of Patrick Kane in the 1880 census. In 1870, the 27 year old Kane had an equally large household at Ohio Street with 21 boarders including 17 Irish born *. Among this group was Thomas Mack, age 30 years old. Thomas Mack would have relied upon the elevator foreman & saloon keeper Patrick Kane not only for his accommodation, food & drink, but also for his job and pay. Certainly not a very advantageous position for an Irishman of the First Ward of Buffalo to be in.

1870 census: https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903 ... print=true

Patrick Kane was the Captain of Company C of the Seventh Regiment of the Fenian Brotherhood. The Digital Library at Villanova University has a collection of Fenian Brotherhood documents including a 28 December 1866 receipt (see below) from Captain Patrick Kane to F. B. Gallagher for the district of Buffalo for the purchase of "40 uniforms comprising 40 jackets, 40 pairs of pants, and 40 Caps Harps & Banks [no idea what this is??] for the same." I reckon that one of these 40 uniforms would have been for the Civil War veteran Thomas Mack of the NY 150th Infantry.

https://digital.library.villanova.edu/C ... udl:247376

In July 1869, Patrick Kane led Company C in a procession of the Seventh Regiment in a Picnic and Festival of the Fenian Brotherhood. My previous post about Thomas Mack was a bit grim as source material was a Disabled Veteran Home census and a death certificate. I would think that the Civil War veteran & Irish Fenian would prefer to be remembered in better times such as a summer picnic in 1869 where he could trip the light fantastic in a day of relaxation:
Buffalo, July 23, 1869 (Irish American Weekly, NY, July 31, 1869)

The Pic-Nic and Festival of the Fenian Organization in this city, which took place yesterday, was one of the most successful and most numerously attended demonstrations ever witnessed here. The whole of the Irish-born population seemed to enter into the spirit of the occasion unanimously; and as all the "Elevators", and most of the principal business places gave their hands a holiday for the purpose, the procession was an immense and imposing one. At least 10,000 people participated in the festival.

... About one o'clock Young's band took its place on the music stand, when dancing was inaugurated. "The light fantastic" continued to be tripped as the sons and daughters of the Emerald Isle know how to trip it, till a late hour, and as many as could conveniently availed themselves of the opportunity to dance. The afternoon was whiled away pleasantly, each couple or group exercising their own discretion as to how they should enjoy themselves the best; and fun and recreation held sway. To the great majority of those in attendance it was a day of relaxation, and a regular order of exercises or a military display was out of the question...
* 17 Irish born & possible Canada invading Fenians in 1870 Census: Timothy McCarthy (30), Patrick O'Neil (33), Cornelius Mullaney (26), Timothy Boughen (23), Michael Shannon (28), Mortimer Shannon (24), Thomas Mulvana (32), Michael Scanlan (37), James McCarthy (36), James Whelan (32), Michael Daley (33), John Cusick (33), Patrick Mahanney (41), Thomas Mack (30), John Long (28), James Cooley (36), Simon Casey (41). Note that James Whelan was the witness for the 1869 receipt for Patrick Kane's purchase of 40 uniforms for the Fenian Brotherhood.
Attachments
Receipt, To FB Gallagher From Patrick Kane December 28, 1866 (Digital Library at Villanova University).jpg
Receipt, To FB Gallagher From Patrick Kane December 28, 1866 (Digital Library at Villanova University).jpg (239.1 KiB) Viewed 402949 times
Buffalo Fenian Picnic on 23 July 1869 (Irish American Weekly).jpg
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Sduddy
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Re: Information is wanted of Thomas McNamara, of Glandree,

Post by Sduddy » Sun Mar 11, 2018 12:14 pm

Hi Jim, that’s magic – it’s not so mad to think that Thomas Mack might have been in Company C. How could he have escaped it!

But whether or not he really was, your posting is very interesting – and a bit of an eye-opener for me. After I posted my musings I began to doubt very much that the residents of Upstate New York had any involvement whatsoever in the action – especially after reading one of the digital books linked to the clarelibrary site: http://www.archive.org/stream/personaln ... 0/mode/2up *. The General Orders at the bottom of page 240 make it look like the troops came from everywhere except Buffalo, and that Buffalo was just a rendezvous. I gather that they came there by train, disguised as workers, and the arms marked as gas fittings. And so I formed the impression that they only had a fleeting image of that area as they passed through. After the battle of Ridgeway, all those arrested were held in Toronto and were quickly and quietly put into a train and sent home again.

But, going back again to what you found and how you found it – how did you pull Patrick Keane out of the hat? You’ve concealed a whole sequence of movements there.
Looking forward to hearing more when you get that book.

Sheila

*In these letters, “the Senate” refers to the Senate of the Irish Fenian Brotherhood – not the Senate of the American Government.

Sduddy
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Re: Information is wanted of Thomas McNamara, of Glandree,

Post by Sduddy » Mon Mar 12, 2018 9:25 am

Hi Jimbo again - Sorry about my confusion there. I see now that it is just an amazing coincidence that the preview of that book mentions Patrick Kean, the head of household (in 1870) of the boarding house that Thomas Mack was living in – the same Thomas Mack that you had previously found in the 1870 census – or is it? Is it the very same boarding house in Ohio Street?

Sheila

Jimbo
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Re: Information is wanted of Thomas McNamara, of Glandree,

Post by Jimbo » Tue Mar 13, 2018 5:48 am

Hi Sheila, definitely no magic involved, just a simple google search of "Patrick Kane" and "Fenian" as well as a bit of luck. Using "Fenian" in the search greatly narrowed the numbers of hits, and led directly to the "Between Raid and Rebellion" book and Villanova's Fenian Collection. Initially I thought the book's mention of the Patrick Kane household was referring to the 1870 census, and had to edit my post to reflect that this was the 1880 census. Perhaps this late change led to the confusion. For some reason it appears that the author didn't find Patrick Kane in the 1870 census (see my link in prior posting). Nor the Villanova Fenian collection which was digitized in 2014 after the book was published in 2013.

In the 1870 Buffalo City Directory, Patrick M. Kane has a saloon at 288 Ohio. In the 1881 Buffalo City Directory, Patrick M. Kane has a grocery and saloon at 286 and 288 Ohio. So yes, it is the very same boarding house in both census years.

Sheila, you probably have a mental image of Patrick Kane's saloon/boardinghouse where Thomas Mack was living in 1870. Fortunately, buildings back then were made to last and the saloon/boardinghouse/hotel operated continuously in one form or another for 127 years. Below are a few photos of 286 Ohio Street over the years. Truth be told when I read the 1870/1880 census reports of a boardinghouse full of Irish dock workers living in the "notorious" First Ward of Buffalo, I wasn't expecting a 3 story Italianate style brick building. It must have been pretty fancy back in the day.

Here is the history of the building:
https://www.preservationready.org/Buildings/HarborInn
Source of photos below: David Torke: http://fixbuffalo.blogspot.com/
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286 Ohio Street, Buffalo, 1940's.jpg
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286 Ohio Street, Harbor Inn, Buffalo, late 20th century.jpg
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286 Ohio Street, Today.jpg
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Sduddy
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Re: Information is wanted of Thomas McNamara, of Glandree,

Post by Sduddy » Tue Mar 13, 2018 11:03 am

That very fine building is a nice surprise. Thanks for those pictures. Thomas Mack was boarding in a very respectable place indeed. I had imagined a building that was thrown up hastily in a very fast-growing city. Chapter 11 of ‘The Great Hunger’ by Cecil Woodham-Smith (first published in 1962 – and still a great book after all these years), has this reference to Buffalo:
The vast majority of emigrants to British North America landed at Quebec and went up the St. Lawrence to Montreal, a distance of 180 miles …. There was, however, very little desire on the part of Irish emigrants to settle in British North America; with an almost frantic longing they wished to go to the United States. At this date [late1840s] the United States, with its nearly 23 millions of inhabitants and its rapidly-developing territories, was immeasurably in advance of Canada. Lord Durham, High Commissioner and Governor-General of Canada, contrasted the two sides of the border in his famous report of 1839: ‘On the American side all is bustle and activity … on the British side of the line, with the exception of a few favoured spots, where some approach to American prosperity is apparent, all seems waste and desolation. The ancient city of Montreal, which is naturally the commercial capital of Canada, will not bear the least comparison in any respect with Buffalo, which is the creation of yesterday.’

Sheila

Jimbo
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Re: Information is wanted of Thomas McNamara, of Glandree,

Post by Jimbo » Fri May 04, 2018 8:03 pm

Getting back to the search for my missing Thomas McNamara of Glandree...

The Tulla Baptism Register from 1819 to 1846 is the perfect age range for potential American Civil War recruits. From the Tulla baptism transcriptions (thank you Sheila!), I've cut & past the 16 Thomas McNamara's born in Tulla during this period (see below listing with NLI original source reference). For the five Thomas McNamara's born in Glandree, I've included their siblings as it was a Mary McNamara who was searching for her brother Thomas. Two of the Glandree born Thomas McNamara's have sisters named Mary.

Thomas McNamara (#4), the son of Michael Mac and Bridget McNamara, married Bridget Hayes in Caher Feakle Parish on 17 February 1863. They had six children born in Glandree, and is listed in the 1901 Irish Census as living in Glendree as per below link. So Thomas McNamara (#4) is clearly not the missing Civil War soldier.

http://www.census.nationalarchives.ie/r ... 000489625/

Of the 16 Thomas McNamara's born in Tulla from 1819 to 1846, very few appear to have remained in the parish. Obviously, Tulla was heavily impacted by the famine and emigration. In looking at the post Civil War era baptism register for Tulla (1862 - 1881), there were only three Thomas McNamara's listed as fathers: (1) husband of Bridget Hayes as noted above; (2) Thomas McNamara & Judy Neil who appeared to be living in Steuben County, NY in the USA 1870 census as discussed previously; (3) Thomas Mack & Ellen Hogan who had a child in 1880. However, on their Tulla marriage record from 1878 this Thomas McNamara is from O'Callaghan's Mills and I assume not born in Tulla.

So this still leaves four remaining Thomas McNamara's born in Glandree as the likely missing Civil War soldier who was last heard from in Wawarsing, with another eleven Tulla born Thomas McNamara's with only remote odds.
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Thomas McNamara listed in Tulla Baptism Register (1819 to 1846).jpg
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