On April 12, 1847, the ship Marion sailed into New York Harbor and docked. She had sailed out of Londonderry, Ireland many weeks before and her passengers were likely starving. What she’d left behind was the Great Famine, otherwise known as the Great Hunger or, to the people of New York City where they’d just arrived, the Irish Potato Famine.
Over a six- or seven-year period, roughly a million people starved to death in Ireland. 1847 was the worst of it. People called it Black 47. More than a million of the living fled the country searching for a way to survive. Among them was my thirty-year-old great-great-grandfather, John McElhinny, Jr. He and the other steerage passengers on board the Marion likely had little more to their names than the clothes on their backs. Before continuing up to Quebec, they got off the boat in New York to register.
John McElhinny. Male. 30. Laborer. Literacy: unknown.
The facilities at Ellis Island hadn’t been built yet, but it is possible that he was processed through Castle Clinton which is where you can buy tickets for the ferry today.
When he got to Canada he first settled in Kingston, Ontario, and formed a partnership with a guy named William Gunn. That didn’t last very long because a year or two later he moved to Brockville and opened a horse-powered cabinet shop. He had a talent for it. When the Provincial Exhibition came to Brockville in 1851, he won prizes for best sofa and best six drawing room chairs.
In 1850 he married Harriet Marie Van Buren from Gouverneur, St. Lawrence, New York, which was right across the border. It has been part of family lore that we were somehow related to President Martin Van Buren but nobody really knew how. Until number 45, number 8, Martin Van Buren had the reputation of being the worst president that we’d ever had. He does, however, have the distinction of being the first US President to have been born a US citizen.
After some digging, I was finally able to find out how we are connected to him. Martin Van Buren’s grandfather, Martin Pieterse Van Buren, was the brother of Barent P. Van Buren who was Harriet Marie’s grandfather. Martin, the President, and Harriet were, therefore, second cousins since they shared a great-grandfather. Barent was my sister’s and my 4th-great-grandfather. Clear? All that means is that either my sister Sue or I can procreate with any Van Buren we choose and not worry a jot about any genetic risk in the resulting offspring.
John’s business flourished. The factory continued making furniture until about 1880. There is a record of him being paid $250.00 on September 3, 1866, for supplying 360 wood-seat chairs for the newly built Victoria Hall.
John and Harriet had nine children although only six of them, including my great-grandfather William, survived into adulthood. Their oldest daughter Ella was born a respectable time following the wedding. (I checked) When she got married in 1872, John’s occupation was listed as “Gentleman,” so he had clearly moved up in the world.
Sometime after he had settled down, he brought both his mother and father over from County Tyrone, Ireland. They lived out the rest of their lives in Brockville. I can trace Harriet’s family back further, but John, Jr.’s parents, John McElhinny, Sr., and Frances McCrea is where I hit a wall with that branch.
McElhinny is a Scottish name, not an Irish one. There were several difficult periods in British history when the Scotts fled to Ireland. The McElhinnys must have done that but, for now, I don’t have any idea when or why. Part of the reason that I have so much genealogical information about my family is that many of them were either relatively wealthy or in the military. The McElhinnys, prior to my great-grandparents were neither.
Only the educated keep records. We don’t tend, historically, to care about peasants except collectively. Unless somebody who was literate recorded the information somewhere, often in a family bible, the names of whole generations of uneducated laborers and farmers are forever lost to history. I suppose it’s possible that there are records to be found (and believe me I haven’t given up yet) but John McElhinny, Jr. didn’t leave Ireland to sail into the unknown because he was wealthy. For several generations, at least, it appears that the family had almost nothing.
The Van Burens were Dutch. Martin Van Buren grew up in Kinderhook, New York speaking Dutch. He is the only President we’ve had for whom English was a second language. Even though Harriet is only distantly related to him, the connection has somewhat guaranteed that the ancestry on that side can far more easily be traced. I wonder how much was made of the relationship at the time. Van Buren served only one term, from 1837 to 1841, nearly a decade before John and Harriet married. Was Harriet a “catch?” I’d love to know how they met. Did their relationship help John’s furniture business and standing in Brockville?
A rather remarkable number of my great-grandparents on both sides of the family went to university when many folks around them didn’t: my paternal great-grandfather went because he’d suffered an accident and couldn’t farm, and my maternal great-grandfather went because his father became successful. That is nothing more than luck with maybe a spark of ambition from their parents.
In some ways, the McElhinny line became the most successful of the various branches of my sister’s and my tree. Our grandmother and grandfather swanned around in society in India as if they’d been born to it. The McElhinny cousins are all intelligent, educated, and successful. We have all pursued a wide variety of goals that are somewhat out of the norm. I think that we all grew up with the security and belief that we could do what we wanted. And maybe that we should. So, we did.
That, in a nutshell, is privilege. Not only is it privilege, but it is also White privilege. It is being born into a family that believes that it deserves the success that it has – that doesn’t question it. I’m not saying, for a moment, that my ancestors didn’t work hard for what they made. The more I find out about them, though, the more I see that they were surrounded and helped by people who didn’t have what they had. Far too many of my ancestors owned slaves. Far too many of them supported military regimes in places that they had no business being.
John McElhinny, Jr. is the first of my ancestors I’ve found who seems to have started from nothing. Even so, he was young, white, and male. The Irish people were reviled over here in the early 1800s when he came over to North America, but he overcame that. Skill and hard work made him a successful furniture maker. His success ensured that all of us who came after him had a head start. None of us who followed has had to face anything like what that sea voyage into the unknown must have been like. Did he screw anyone over on his way up the ladder? How did he treat the people who eventually worked in his factory? I have no idea. Yet.
I hit peasant early on, on one branch of my tree. My husband hits peasant on almost all his. He and I are the same age. We’re both intelligent. We both went to high-ranking colleges in New York City. We’ve both had successful careers in the arts. Michael worries about succeeding far more than I do. Michael’s family is Catholic through and through, mine is… God knows. The McElhinnys were Presbyterian in Canada and then became Church of England. The Hesters were Methodist, I think. We should have guilt but don’t, Michael’s family has absolutely nothing to be guilty about, and yet… Catholic.
That the McElhinny antecedents started out as peasants would probably have horrified my grandmother. I, however, am relieved. At least somebody back there really had to work for it.
History is written by the victorious. Genetic lines are also only carried on by those who succeed. Our species has a bloody history stretching back to its very beginning. For someone to win, someone else must lose. For every empire that has risen, cultures and people were overcome and oppressed. We’re only human. Our survival has always been at somebody else’s expense.
I went to Ellis Island today to see what I could find about John. I’d been there before with Michael to look for his grandfather Benedetto and we’d found him. I had no idea that one of my ancestors, on my British mother’s side no less, had come through there as well. It was raining and cold, yesterday, and honestly, a perfect time to go.
I found the record of John Jr.’s arrival in New York. I had to do a bit of searching to find out what kind of ship the Marion was, though. It turns out she was a bark which was a three-masted sailing ship. The famous Cutty Sark was also a bark. John Jr. traveled in steerage which meant that he probably wasn’t allowed on deck. Far too many people in our recent history have made that crossing against their wills below decks, but he was lucky enough to have been able to choose to do it. Given the famine, it probably wasn’t much of a choice, but he had the option not to go. It must have been terrifying, nonetheless
All that way. All that ocean. He had no idea what, if anything, he’d find over here.
I’ve never flown without a net. I wonder what that must be like.
My father spoke about his grandfather at Chris’s funeral making the connection to them both being fine craftsmen with wood. Dad and Jo also went to the museum in Brockworth where great grandfather’s chairs are on display. Shortly after their visit, they appeared on the front page of the local rag!
I’m sending this post to Jo as there are definitely some more insights here.
Lovely work! Xx
Another winning post! A side note on Martin Van Buren...one of my co-workers, John "Jack" Van Buren is a direct descendent. He and his family live in Kinderhook.