New Yesterdays by Jim L Wright - HTML preview

Chapter 7

Seamus McCarley was born in Galway, Ireland in 1794. It was a land dominated by division and religious discrimination. Even though reforms had begun after the death of James II, The Old Pretender they were slow and poorly implemented. Irishmen were banned from owning firearms or even a horse that was valued at more than £5. As Catholics, they weren't allowed to worship publicly and the rare church that was allowed by the crown had to be constructed of wood rather than stone and couldn't be located near any main road. The hateful tithe laws were still in effect, meaning every Irishman was obliged to pay 10% in cash or kind, usually stock, to the established state Church of Ireland. Voting rights had been restored in 1793 for Irish citizens who owned property with a rental value of more than £2 per year. Because most farms had been seized by the English, this effectively eliminated nearly all Irishmen. And even though they could theoretically vote, they couldn't be elected or appointed to any state office.

Nearly all lands in Ireland had been seized by the crown and bestowed on English citizens. The landlords then rented the farmland, in small plots, to the Irish. Very often the tenant farmers on an estate included the former owners of the land. There were no leases or contracts and the landlord could evict the tenant on a whim for any infraction, real or contrived.

The Irish Rebellion of 1798 had been brutally quashed by the English. It had inspired some of the most horrific characteristics of war. Each British victory was followed by a massacre of the rebels who had been wounded or captured. Some of the massacres were particularly gruesome with the rebels being burned alive. Captured rebels were viewed as traitors to the crown and as such, were not treated as prisoners of war but hanged instead. The British army didn't discriminate between combatants and noncombatants. Civilians were routinely murdered and the women gang raped by the soldiers.

The McCarley's farm hadn't been a large one, but it was enough to support the family and have enough to sell at market. The seizure and eviction by the English had been devastating to Edmund McCarley, Seamus' grandfather. Being evicted and forced to live as a tenant on his own farm destroyed his vitality and his health steadily declined. Before a year had passed Edmund was laid to rest. Seamus' father, Ernest was filled with resentment toward his 'landlord' in particular and the crown in general and purposed to immigrate to America the moment he had the passage in hand.

As things worked out, he didn't have to wait. He never attempted to disguise his contempt for the landlord and tried to cheat him at every opportunity. The landlord's agent summoned him to his house after tea one night and made him an offer. The disrespect given to the agent as proxy for the landlord would no longer be tolerated. He and his family could accept passage to British North America or face eviction and make his way in Ireland as best he could. The landlord would make sure that no other estate would offer him a tenancy. He and his family would be at the mercy of the elements.

Ernest didn't have to think about it long. He immediately accepted the offer and began making preparations to sail. The agent told him he would be met in Montreal by another agent who would provide him with £5, food and clothing to tide him over until he could find gainful employment. The ship sailed in late October. The McCarley's, along with more than a hundred other emigrants watched their homeland disappear over the horizon like a beautiful green jewel sinking into the sea. Tears filled their eyes as they watched their home being lost forever, but hope filled their hearts as they sailed toward freedom and opportunity.

Depending on weather conditions and the skill of the captain the three-thousand-mile voyage could take from 40 days to three months. The ship carrying Ernest and his family was poorly built and astonishingly unsanitary. There was barely enough food aboard to feed the migrants for six weeks. The conditions aboard caused sickness soon enough.

People began to sicken with typhus less than two weeks after setting sail. The feverish passengers, frequently unable to help themselves, lay in their own filth too weak to care for or feed themselves. The ship's crew quickly developed a 'hands-off' policy out of fear of catching the deadly disease themselves. A large number of them caught it anyway.

Fourteen days into the journey Seamus' mother, Anne fell ill. Because she already had a somewhat weakened constitution after fighting off a particularly strong case of influenza in the autumn, her condition declined rapidly. The cough and chills brought on by the fever wracked her entire body with pain. Quickly, a rash began to appear. It showed first on her chest, and then spread to cover her entire body. Ernest and Seamus tried to take her up to the main deck for fresh air, thinking it would make her feel better. The bright sunlight caused her headaches to worsen. After a few days the pain in her muscles became nearly unbearable. Within a week she was delirious and completely unaware of her surroundings. From time to time, she would call out to Edmund and Seamus to come in for tea.

Watching Anne’s condition deteriorate day by day was almost more than they could bear. Seamus talked to her about their new life in British North America and how grand everything would be. Through his tears he begged her to live. Eventually she stopped speaking at all, and after twenty-one days of illness she quietly died. Ernest and Seamus did their best to sew her into a shroud before burying her at sea. They prayed desperately that they wouldn't sicken as well.

Seamus and his father had miraculously managed to make the passage to British North America without contracting typhus. When they arrived in Montreal, they found that the promise of an agent who would provide them with £5, food and clothing to begin their new life was nothing more than a tissue of lies to encourage them to leave Ireland.

Montreal was a sight to behold! Thousands of Irishmen, sick and dying were quarantined on an island called Gross Isle. People were lying in tents and on the ground, dying. Some had been flung off the ships and were trying with their last scraps of strength to crawl through the mud and stones to the tents. Many died in the effort. Seamus saw a waif-like little girl covered in vermin. She was walking toward the tents with her sister, who stopped briefly to rest and died. The Canadians simply were not equipped to deal with an epidemic of this magnitude and due to their lack of understanding of the diseases of cholera and typhus many of them were dying as well.

Perhaps there was no agent and no money but the Canadian government was offering free land grants for the taking. Ernest briefly considered accepting the land grant and beginning life over in this new country. At last, he said to Seamus "Sure and the land is free for the taking and how long before the British are here taking it again like they did in the old country? I'll not work and build a farm only to have it taken from us again!" And so, starved, penniless, homeless and exhausted from the 3-month journey the two left Montreal on foot headed for America. Seamus’ father said he’d no desire to live one more day under the Union Jack and especially in this cold wilderness territory with the epidemic of cholera and typhus. “America is the land of promise, lad!” and with that, they decided to set off the following morning. The nuns made sure they were fed and offered them some clothes. They decided they'd best keep what they'd brought and not weigh themselves down too much. Given the typhus epidemic, it was a wise decision. Sister Mary Charles pressed a parcel of food into Ernest's hands and offered a prayer for their safety. "God be with you" she said and turned back to her endless task of passing out food to the sick and dying.

As they walked and planned Seamus and his father decided they would stop in the first settled place they could find jobs. They would spend the next few years working and saving every penny they could lay their hands on until they could afford to buy their own plot of land and begin to farm again. Seamus had read about the South and told his father stories of the soft weather and the vast fields of cotton and vegetables.

And they dreamed.

After walking for three days, they stopped at a farmhouse and asked to sleep in their barn for the night. The man of the house wouldn't hear of it. He brought them inside where his wife gave them the first hot meal they'd had since leaving Galway. After supper they were bedded down in a corner near the fireplace where they slept like Christians until daybreak. Next morning, after a breakfast that was astonishing in its variety and quantity they lingered over coffee and the two men discussed where the two were headed. After hearing of his plan, the farmer offered a few weeks work to them on his farm. "It wouldn't be much, but you could work here to help me clear that new field I've been thinking about. I haven't money for payment, but you could fatten up a bit on my wife's good cooking and rest after the long journey you've had so far." They didn't even need to discuss it. They instantly agreed and spent the next six weeks working on the farm cutting trees and digging stumps. True to his word, the man's wife fattened them up substantially with her wonderful meals and for the first time in years Seamus' father felt he was doing something for himself rather than a foreign landlord. As for Seamus, he was dreaming of the day they would reach the South and find a place they could call their own. Nothing is more important to an Irishman than land; land that is his own. Seamus meant that he would have that dream or die in the pursuit.

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