From New Ross to America

This post is in honor of St. Patrick’s Day and all my Irish family and friends.

Passenger Ship Carmania

The following was written with information gathered from New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 Record for John Bennett, New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 Record for Bridget and Delia Heraty, Cook County, Illinois Marriage Indexes, New-York Tribune, Social Security Death Index and the The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc. 

Between the years, 1880 and 1930, 1,700,000 Irish immigrants entered the United States. The following is a glimpse into the journey of one young Irish immigrant named John Bennett.

 

Steerage section aboard the Carmania

John Bennett left the Port of Queenstown, Ireland aboard the ship Carmania on May 18, 1910.  Like so many immigrants at the dawn of the twentieth century, John traveled within the cheapest passenger accommodations available, the crowded, noisy, steerage section of the ship.   

 John Bennett did not enjoy these accommodations.

John arrived at the Port of New York, twenty-two years old and alone, on May 25, 1910, with $25.00 in his pocket.  As he disembarked from the ship to be processed, one can only imagine the flurry of excitement and restless anticipation he must have felt.

On July 4, 1887, John Bennett was born to William and Alice (Harrington) Bennett in New Ross, County Wexford, Ireland.  In 1910, the ships passenger manifest, which listed his last residence and who he lived with, only conveyed that his mother, Mrs. Bennett was living in New Ross at that time, there was no mention of his father.

 

1887, John Bartholomew's Gazetteer of the British Isles

While John was busily trudging through the immigration process, according to that day's New York Tribune, New Yorkers were enjoying free admission to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the American Museum of Natural History and the Zoological Gardens.  As indicated in the weather report, John encountered a cool, rainy, spring day as he ventured out onto the crowded and bustling streets of New York City.

Front page, New-York Tribune, May 25, 1910

 

However, New York City was just a stopover in John Bennett’s journey.

State Street by Night

John must have been eager to reach his ultimate destination, Chicago.  He most likely felt reassured in the knowledge that his Uncle Patrick Harrington would be waiting for him upon his arrival. Not only did Uncle Patrick pay for John’s passage, odds are that he also arranged for John to stay at the same boarding house in which he lived, 2252 Orchard Street. 

State Street Chicago, Illinois   http://chuckmancollectionvolume5.blogspot.com

   

According to the 1910 Federal Census, Patrick worked as a conductor for a streetcar company.  The same streetcar company would soon employ John Bennett, and he too would eventually work as a conductor.  Nevertheless, their occupations were not the only experience that they would end up sharing.

Two Chicago Streetcar Conductors

     

 Sometime between 1910 and 1914, Patrick Harrington and John Bennett met two young Irish lasses from Waterford County, the Heraty cousins. Bridget and Delia had travelled to America together aboard the ship Campania, arriving at the Port of New York on May 19, 1906.  At the time of their arrival, Bridget was twenty and Delia was just nineteen. They were to join their cousin, Richard Heraty who lived at East Indiana Avenue in Chicago.  Soon after their arrival, as was common with young, female, Irish immigrants, Delia and Bridget lived and worked in private residences as servants.

Marriage License of John Bennet and Delia Heraty

How they met may forever be a mystery, but Patrick Harrington ended up marrying Bridget Heraty on September 12, 1916.  John Bennett married Delia Heraty on June 16, 1914.  Both couples went on to raise their families in Chicago.  John and Delia were the parents of Eugenia Bennett, my dear mother-in-law, my husband’s mother, my children’s grandmother.

Eugenia Bennett

Source citations

 

Ancestry.com. Cook County, Illinois Marriage Indexes, 1912-1924 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.

Original data: Private donor.

Ancestry.com. New York Passenger Lists, 1820-1957 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2010.

Ancestry.com. Social Security Death Index [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2011.

Original data: Social Security Administration. Social Security Death Index, Master File. Social Security Administration.

 New-York Tribune [New York] 25 May 1910, 7. Web. 16 Mar. 2012. <http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030214/1910-05-25/ed-1/seq-7/>.

 "The Peopling of America." n.pag. Web. 16 Mar 2012. <http://www.ellisisland.org>.

 http://chuckmancollectionvolume5.blogspot.com