The Leaving of Liverpool Part 2

     
     In a previous blog, The Leaving Of Liverpool, I wrote about finding the immigrant ship of my 3rd great grandmother Mary Travers Hore.  She sailed on the packet ship America which entered New York harbor on August 13th of 1852.  I knew from the ship's manifest that the America left from Liverpool, but not the date of it's departure.  I began the search to find that date, just because I'm curious about things like that, and I've finally found an answer.

     The ad above, from the Liverpool Mercury of 18 June 1852, stated that "the splendid American Packet ship" America would sail punctually on the 24th instant, (instant means that same month), meaning it only took 20 days for Grandmother to reach New York; pretty good time for those days before steam.  The packet ships were known for keeping to their schedules which made travel easier than the days when immigrants might have spent days or weeks in Liverpool waiting for their ship to finally begin it's trip down the Mersey.

     I'm still curious about her time directly before the ship sailed.  I haven't been able to find any other familiar names on the manifest, no one who might have been traveling with her, though it's possible of course a neighbor or friend may have.  She must have been widowed by that time since no husband is listed with her.  Mary, age 50, would have had to leave her small townland of Ricketstown in County Carlow and travel about 45 miles to Dublin to catch the ferry to Liverpool-- then navigate that city to her ship's berth on the Waterloo Dock.  Did she do this all on her own?  I like to think perhaps her son Patrick or daughter Winifred, the only two of her children still in Ireland, accompanied her as far as Dublin and possibly to Liverpool; the ferry wasn't terribly expensive.  It's little details like that that intrigue me--the ones that are lost within a generation or two and are so hard to recover.  What I wouldn't give for a detailed diary...