Landing in New York

A schooner from mid 1850's

 

Our family story and the historical record tell us that Anne Hoey left Galway to sail for New York on 22 June 1847 on the Emma Prescott.  
Emma Prescott was a 116-ton two-masted wooden-hulled schooner was eighty feet long, twenty feet wide, and ten feet “tall”; along with Anne she held eleven other passengers and possibly a crew of nine and a captain.

I've learned that a schooner glides across waters at fast speeds. The schooner has two or more masts, and the forward, or front mast, is either shorter or the same height as the mast toward the back of the ship.

The Emma Prescott was built in Maine in 1846  by Peter Vose in Robinson, Maine; she was owned by George Lewis and T. O. Dunstone. the Emma Prescott was 88.2 ft long 20.8 ft wide 10 feet tall. She traveled from Ireland to American and then mostly to Australia; she rarely had large numbers of passengers - unlike boats that brought immigrants in later years or enslave peoples in earlier years. 

Emma Prescott sank just off Tasmania, specifically at Freestone Cove, Table Cape, on 9 January 1867. Her cargo of potatoes was lost; her crew and passengers safely exited the ship prior to the catastrophe.

The Charleston Daily Courier

Fri, Aug 13, 1847 ·Page 3

The Emma Prescott arrive in New York on 9 August and our story tells us Anne disembarked a day later on 10 August; I found notices in many newspapers across the U.S. listing the boats arrival. One example is here, from the Charleston Daily Courier.  

South Street, New York City, circa 1857

The New York Anne arrived in would look very strange to us today.  I found a wonderful account of an immigrant who arrived in New York the same year as Anne, Thomas Carolan and his family (wife and children) landed in New York about a month ahead of Anne at South Street - approximately two blocks south of where the Brooklyn Bridge stands today. 

1857 Gleason's Pictorial Magazine described this part of New York, spanning South and West Streets as blocks and blocks of "sail-lofts, shipping offices, warehouses of every description, cheap eating-houses, and markets." I suspect the sounds and smells contrasted just a bit with the port Anne had left in Kilcummin Harbour in County Mayo. 

See Kilcummin Harbour today - visited by Anne's great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren