Hi Sheila,
Thanks for providing a link to the "Tour of Historic Buildings of Tulla" by Michael McMahon. Very nice photos of all the buildings. I had previously stumbled upon the Tulla tour website when researching the 1856 will of John Harrison, married to Johanna Walsh. According to the will, "the title to the burial vault erected in the chapel yard of Tulla was given to his son John Harrison, age 2". Stop 10 of the Tulla tour has a photo of the Catholic church, but the headstones / burial vaults are not visible. However, on google street view they are visible to the right facing the church. A burial vault, if it exists, might not just contain John Harrison, Sr., but also his young son John, Jr., who went missing. I couldn't find any transcriptions for these headstones at the Clare library site to verify this theory.
The Souper School, stop 6 on the tour, has an interesting history. But I agree with you that it would be very unlikely that the missing Thomas McNamara of Glandree, or his two known sisters, ever step foot in this building. Mary McNamara, reported as Johanna, married Thomas Madigan in the Catholic church in 1860. And their first two children were baptized in 1861 and 1863 as reported in the Tulla Catholic baptism register.
As far as the identity of Elizabeth McNamara of Wawarsing, the sister of the missing Thomas McNamara of Glandree, I also agree that my "Bridget" theory was a bit weak. Although an improvement to the prior "Johanna" theory. But there is a far more simple theory for Elizabeth McNamara of Wawarsing.
Back in June 2020 (page 25), I had discovered that John McNamara and Mary Kelly of Glandree had a daughter, Mary, in December 1825. The priest had mistakenly reported the mother as Mary McNamara. After this late discovery, I made some adjustments to the John McNamara family tree:
With the addition of a child born in 1825, I've shifted my estimate of when parents John McNamara and Mary Kelly were born to about 1800. This birth year would be consistent with most of the John McNamara's whose deaths were registered in Tulla between 1864 and 1878, including: a John McNamara died in 1866, aged 68; a John McNamara died in 1868, aged 67; a John McNamara died in 1869, aged 69; a John McNamara died in 1875, aged 80; and a John McNamara died in 1870, aged 92. These records are not yet available online.
But what I failed to do, until now, is to consider whether or not John McNamara and Mary Kelly had any other children in the newly created large gap between the baptism of Mary McNamara on 17 December 1825 and the baptism of James McNamara on 22 November 1828. This is a 35 month period, nearly three years. In the subsequent births of their five children through Johanna McNamara in November 1835, there was never even a two year period between births, let alone three years. Surely, John McNamara and Mary Kelly had a child in the period of the missing Tulla baptism register between June 1826 and May 1827. Might not that child have been an Elizabeth McNamara?
Elizabeth McNamara Hornbeck of Wawarsing reported her birth as March 1833 in the 1900 census, and her memorial page (not an actual headstone) on findagrave states a birth of 3 March 1833:
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/700 ... -hoornbeek
Early USA census reports for Elizabeth Hornbeck starting in 1855 also reflect an approximate birth year of 1832 / 1833. Very consistent, but perhaps not accurate? Could Elizabeth McNamara have been born on, say, 3 March 1827? Irish immigrants to America frequently cut five or so years from their age when they crossed the Atlantic. It would not be unusual, and in fact it would be typical, if Elizabeth McNamara reported a birth year of 1833, but was actually born in 1827. A six year difference. I've gone back to my prior posting and added another Elizabeth McNamara born in the missing baptism register period of June 1826 to May 1827 as another possibility to be the sister of the missing Civil War soldier Thomas McNamara of Glandree. Of course, this remains just a theory.
Elizabeth McNamara was not an uncommon name, but not nearly as common as a Bridget, Mary, or Margaret. Thus, it is reasonable to have a look at the passenger listings for when Elizabeth McNamara of Wawarsing likely immigrated. By allowing that Elizabeth McNamara was a bit older and possibly born in 1827, it increases the number of Elizabeth McNamara's who immigrated. Also, it's important to consider that Elizabeth McNamara may not have reported an accurate age on the passenger listing.
In the 1900 census, Elizabeth McNamara Hornbeck stated her year of immigration to America as 1850 and she had been in the USA for 50 years. Similar to age, the reported year of immigration was often an approximate year. I've looked at passenger listings for ships arriving as early as 1848, but in 1850 America did receive lots of Irish emigrants:
IRELAND.—The Limerick Chronicle says that emigration is again amazingly on the increase, not, however, so much for Canada as to the United States, and the train from this [Limerick] to Dublin is daily crowded with intending emigrants, mostly agricultural, and who embark for their destination at this port (*).
Valley Spirit, Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, 27 April 1850
* by "this port", I believe they mean Dublin, but then some emigrants would continue to Liverpool.
1 **********
A Betsey McNamara, age 20, arrived in New York from Liverpool on the packet ship
Milicete on 1 February 1848. Betsey appears to have been traveling with a James McNamara, age 40, possibly a carpenter (the occupations don't line up well with the passengers). Was James a father, brother, cousin, or husband? Also on board was a 20 year old Hugh Quigley, traveling with his parents and three siblings.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:27GR-Q6F
The packet ship
Milicete, captain Thomas Hunter, was initially scheduled to depart Liverpool on 16 December 1847, but a later advertisement stated a scheduled departure of 28 December 1847, which appears to have been the actual departure. So the journey took about 35 days.
2 **********
An Eliza McNamara, age 20, arrived in New York from Liverpool on the packet ship
West Point on 7 March 1848.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:27GR-CNZ
This line of packet ships (three different ships advertised) departed Liverpool on the 26th of every month. There were connecting passenger ships from Cork:
FOR NEW YORK
TO SUCCEEED THE "ASHBURTON"
The Packet Ship, WEST POINT, Allen, Commander, starting from Liverpool for NEW YORK, on the 26th January. Passengers should leave CORK on SATURDAY EVENING, 22nd January, at Three o'CLock. For Passage apply to Messrs. . . .
Cork Examiner, 21 January 1848
According to the wikipedia page for The Great Southern and Western Railway, "In July 1848 the main line [of the GS&WR] reached Limerick Junction, where it met the Waterford and Limerick Railway and thus linked Dublin and Limerick by rail."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Sou ... rn_Railway
Eliza McNamara left Ireland before the GS&WR train line was extended to Limerick. If Eliza was from County Clare, would she have taken some other local transportation to Cork and then taken a boat to Liverpool as advertised above? Or would she have taken other transportation to Dublin, and then a boat to Liverpool? Cork looks closer on a map than Dublin, but it depends on what transportation was available. It is interesting to consider how Irish emigrants made their way to Liverpool, and noting that during this period some emigrants took a ship that left for North America directly from Cork, and less commonly from Limerick and Galway.
The
West Point departed Liverpool on 27 January 1848, so the journey time to New York was about 40 days. The Eliza McNamara who traveled on the
West Point would unlikely ever want to cross the Atlantic again:
VESSEL STRUCK BY LIGHTNING.—The packet ship West Point, arrived yesterday from Liverpool, was, on the 28th of February, when in lat. 38, 30, lon. 67 60, at midnight, struck by lightning seven times within an hour, each time the fluid passing down the mainmast, most of the watch on deck feeling the shocks severely, and two of the crew being instantly killed. The fifth time, Capt. Allen felt himself nearly knocked down, although 50 feet from the mainmast. The names of the seamen killed were John Armstrong of New York, and Marcellus Robinson, of Rhode Island.
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 8 March 1848
3 **********
A Libby McNamara, age 15, arrived in New York from Liverpool on the sailing ship
Tarquin on 7 May 1850 (according to FamilySearch).
Libby:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:27P8-KGW
First page:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903 ... cc=1849782
The identity of the ship that this Libby McNamara arrived in New York is a mystery; the first page with captain sign-off listing the name of the ship is very unclear. FamilySearch states the ship was the "Tarquin" which indeed arrived in New York on 7 Mary 1850. However, both UK and NY newspapers state that the Tarquin departed from Havre, and not Liverpool. Plus, the captain was reported as "Moody", who does not appear on the sign-off page of the passenger listing. Ancestry states that this ship was the "Grace McNea" from Liverpool which does not exist in any newspaper reporting of ship departures or arrivals, and is a very odd name for a ship. The Tarquin sank in September 1850: "The crew, 17 in number of ship Tarquin, before reported abandoned on the voyage from Quebec for London were taken off 11th ult [September] . . . The ship was laden with deals, and was water logged . . . "(
Daily Evening Transcript, Boston, 3 October 1850).
Whatever the name of the ship she arrived in New York, I reckon this 15 year old Libby (passenger #195) would be too young to marry a John Hornbeck in his early forties in 1852 or 1853. She was traveling with a Catherine McNamara (#194) who was age 29.
4 **********
An Eliza McNamara, age 20, arrived in Boston from the port of Galway on the barque
Charlotte on 16 May 1850. Eliza may have been traveling with the "Frawler" family as her name on the passenger listing was nestled between the Frawler parents and their five children; "Frawley" is a more likely Irish name.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KCH6-WWM
Galway was connected by rail to Dublin via the Midland Great Western Railway on 1 August 1851. A train line linking Ennis and Athenry junction and thus Galway city was not opened until 1869. Although there was not a train connection in 1850, if Eliza McNamara was from County Clare, emigrating from Galway, I reckon, was a much better option than distant Liverpool.
A large advertisement ran in the
Galway Vindicator, "For the Flourishing City of Boston, The American Ship, "CHARLOTTE", 500 Tons Burden, Thomas Fowler, Commander will Sail on the 30th MARCH, weather permitting. . . (Galway Vindicator, 16 March 1850). "The Charlotte sailed from Galway for Boston, on Wednesday [10 April 1850], with 110 passengers * (
Limerick Chronicle, Saturday, 13 April 1850). So the journey from Galway to Boston would have taken approximately 36 days.
Emily Dickinson of Amherst, Massachusetts would not have approved of all the Irish immigrants arriving in Boston in 1850, the large numbers likely included a few future pupils of her brother Austin.
MORE IMMIGRANTS. Upwards of fifteen hundred immigrants arrived at this port since Tuesday. On that day 702 Irish arrived, most of whom were brought in British vessels. Last night came the R.C. Winthrop with 400 more; the Caledonia with 275, Adonis 311, Esther May 250, from Liverpool; and barque Pandora from Cork with 277. At quarantine are the British ship John Francis from Cork with 181; and British brig Charlotte from Galway with 88 *. Today we have the British brig Garland from Ireland with 87 of her own passengers and 53 taken from the wreck of the British ship Seraphine, already reported abandoned at sea.
Daily Evening Transcript, Boston, 16 May 1850
* The actual passenger listing for the Charlotte included 116 passengers
5 **********
An Eliza McNamara, age 21, arrived in New York from Limerick on the sailing ship
Hopewell on 5 July 1850. She appears to have been traveling with a Thomas McNamara, age 27.
Index only:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KDXR-S6K
Passenger listing (ancestry subscription required): note the departure port was transcribed as "Munich, Germany", an obvious error and geographic impossibility:
https://search.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/sse ... cessSource
AMERICA
Now in Port, direct from Limerick
FOR NEW YORK
Wind and Weather permitting, on or about the
10th of May,
The well-known, Copper Fastened, Copper Bottomed Barque,
HOPEWELL
300 Tons
JOHN LESLIE, COMMANDER
This splendid well-known Barque in the American Passenger Trade, had accommodation for First and Second Cabin Passengers, as also for Steerage, of a very superior kind, and Capt. Leslie will observe that the same attention to paid to the comforts of those sailing with him this Voyage as merited the thanks of the Passengers that sailed in her last trip, and who arrived in good health in New York. He will also afford every possible information to the Passengers on the Voyage. Passengers by this Ship will be supplied once a week, with the following Sea Stores, all of the best quality, viz.:—2½lbs Bread, 1lb Flour, 1lb Pork, 3 lbs Oatmeal, 2lbs Rice, 2ozs Tea, ½lb Sugar, and ½lb Molasses, besides 3 quarters of Water daily, in accordance with the new Act of Parliament, which came into operation in October last.
Apply for Berths to:
RYAN BROTHERS & CO
General Emigration Agents, at the American Consulate Office, Howley's Quay, Limerick.
Limerick and Clare Examiner, 27 April 1850
THE FLIGHT FROM IRELAND.—Cleared with passengers at the Limerick Customhouse since Saturday last:—British Queen, for New York, 139; Wyandotte, do. 128; Argent, Quebec, 98; Derwent, do. 91; Hopewell, New York, 124. Additional at Kilrush—Lively, for Boston, 21 **. Total, 601. Nothing can equal the rage for emigrating. The quays crowded from morning to night.—Limerick Chronicle
Westmeath Independent, 18 May 1850
The passengers who left for North America directly from Limerick have a greater chance to be from County Clare, I reckon, than a ship departing from Liverpool. It would be interesting to obtain a list of all ships that departed from Limerick.
** The brig Lively, which the newspaper stated left Kilrush with only 21 passengers, departed Limerick according to the passenger listing and included 117 passengers, as also reported by the Boston newspapers upon its arrival in June 1850.
Brig Lively:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903 ... 3AKCH6-89N
The passage to North America was very perilous in the spring of 1850:
DESTRUCTION OF FOURTEEN VESSELS BY ICEBERGS IN THE ATLANTIC—UPWARDS OF ONE HUNDRED LIVES LOST.
The arrivals during the last few days from the Atlantic have brought sad intelligence respecting losses of a large number of vessels amidst the floating fields of icebergs in the western latitudes; and among the number, we regret to add, one was from one of the Irish ports with between eighty and to one hundred persons on board, every soul of whom is supposed to have gone down in the unfortunate vessel and perished. Great quantities of ice are generally looked for by the traders in those parts of the Atlantic Ocean about the months of April and May, the result of the breakup of the frost in the Arctic seas, and driven down to the southward by the force of the currents. The masses that have appeared this season exceed anything of the kind that has for years been met with. They have been immense. Fields of ice some hundreds of miles in extent, towering up in all manner of forms to a very great elevation, have swept the waters of the Atlantic; and there is too much reason to fear that the losses appended form a very few of the mishaps that have occurred. The ill-fated vessel, in which so many are believed to have perished was from Londonderry, bound to Quebec. . .
Weekly Freeman's Journal, Dublin, 22 June 1850
And in November 1850, another ship, the barque
Edmond, out of Limerick was wrecked on the coast of Kilkee, as described in this excellent history by Sean Marrinan, on the Clare Library website:
https://www.clarelibrary.ie/eolas/cocla ... kilkee.htm
6 **********
An Eliza McNamara, age 18, arrived in Boston from the port of Galway on the barque
Emmeline on 1 August 1850.
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KCH6-NSS
The advertisement in the
Galway Vindicator read, "For the Flourishing City of Boston, To Sail on the 25th of May next, The Splendid First-Class Fast-Sailing Ship
"Emmeline" . . . improved ventilating apparatus, new cooking ranges, and all the latest inventions . . . (
Galway Vindicator, 11 May 1850). The Emmeline departure was likely delayed from its 25th of May scheduled departure by at least a week as the
Limerick Chronicle noted its departure "last week" in its June 12th newspaper edition. The delay was likely due in part to the "Wanton Attack Upon a Prussian Seaman", "Fritz Schlutter, of the Barque Emmeline of Prussia, was on board his vessel on the morning of the 2d June instant, when three men came along side, one of whom got on board and stabbed him (Schlutter) with a knife. . . . John Crute, of the same Barque, said three men came to the ship, one insisted he should go aboard, as he had a friend there. Schlutter refused him permission. Prisoner (Nolan) freed his way, and stabbed Schlutter with a knife, the three men went away, prisoner was the man who stabbed Schlutter. The carpenter of the Amphitrite swore that he saw the men to the Emmeline, saw them return, and heard one say "I gave the beggar enough." Remanded to next Tuesday (
Galway Mercury, and Connaught Weekly Advertiser, 8 June 1850).
For Eliza McNamara, even prior to departing on the
Emmeline for Boston, there were dangers lurking at the Galway port, as at all other ports. She was unlikely traveling alone but was accompanied by a few friends or relatives.
7 **********
An Eliza McNamara, age 18, arrived in New York from Liverpool on the sailing ship
St. Louis on 5 December 1850. She was traveling with a Thomas McNamara, age 15, and also an Allan McNamara, age 20. The
St. Louis was a "packet ship" and thus meant to depart on its set schedule, the 26th of October, 1850. The ship was cleared for sailing on the 25th, and if departed on the 26th, the journey to New York would have taken about 40 days.
Index only:
https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KDXY-3QB
Did Elizabeth McNamara Hornbeck of Wawarsing, New York arrive in America on one of the seven passenger ships listed above?