Is It Julia? Or, Label Your Darn Photos

     Last week I wrote about Julia Whalen from New York City who spent part of four summers at the farm of my great-grandmother Ellen O'Hora, under the auspices of the Fresh Air program.  Since writing that blog, I've spent some time building a tree for Julia in the hope I could definitively say that the person I believe to be her in census records, in fact is.  As I carefully considered all the evidence at hand, two photographs from among the collection I inherited from my great-aunt suddenly came to mind.  I was able to identify a married couple featured in one of those pictures, maybe I could do it again.

     The majority of the photos are not labeled.  I can recognize my great-aunt, grandmother and great-grandmother in many of them and several were identified by other relatives, but I'm left with some that have no identity.  The two that occurred to me as I pondered Julia are among the unlabeled.  One is of a young girl posed with my great-aunt, in the other she is with my grandmother and great-grandmother.  It dawned on me, this girl could conceivably be Julia.

Great-Aunt Alice O'Hora Shannon is on the right

Great-Grandmother is on the left, Grandma on the far right

     I have no doubt it's the same girl in both photographs, the question is, is she Julia?  I know the time period is right and the girl's age appears also to be right.  The photo with Grandma looks like it was taken at an earlier date than the top photo but that gets me no closer to figuring out who she is.  The fact that I don't recognize this young lady does tell me something however.  Most of the people in my aunt's photos look familiar.  There are three or four I've no idea who they are, but for the most part I know them.  This girl appears only in these two photographs.

     I'd love to know if it really is Julia Whalen. I've written to the owners of two family trees on Ancestry in which Julia appears, but I've had no response.  One tree had a picture of Catherine Whalen, a sister of the Julia Whalen who I suppose from my research to be the correct Julia.  It could be nothing more than wishful thinking on my part, but do you see a resemblance?

Catherine Whalen

    In the end I cannot say the two top photos are of Julia.  They well may be, but I can't prove it.  I'm still hopeful I'll hear from one of the tree owners, or perhaps  someday a picture of Julia will appear on Ancestry.  How cool would that be?

 

Like a Breath of Fresh Air

 

Shortsville Train Station 1920's

     

     One summer afternoon in 1926, readers of The Shortsville Enterprise picked up their newspaper and saw this on the front page-- "Shortsville and Manchester have completely surrendered to the Fresh Air children from New York City, sent out through the New York Tribune's Fresh Air Fund".  The article's early date surprised me, I had believed the Fresh Air program to be a more recent invention but after some online reading, I found it actually began in 1877.  That year the Rev. Willard Parson, a former resident of New York City himself, asked members of his small congregation in Sherman, Pennsylvania to provide a country vacation for some of New York City's neediest children.  As a former New Yorker, Rev. Parsons personally knew social workers and missionaries in the city who could help him in selecting the children.  His efforts were so successful, the New York Tribune offered their support as sponsors and would go on to underwrite the construction of summer camps.  By the year 1895, over 100,000 of these disadvantaged children had visited, "Friendly Towns".

Ellen O'Hora

     Another surprise, was to read that among the crowd waiting for a child at the train station that July day, was my great-grandmother Ellen O'Hora.  Ellen, a widow by that time, lived on the family farm with her three children and her brother-in-law Michael O'Hora.  Her daughter Mary, my grandmother, would have been thirteen years old that summer, her older daughter Alice fifteen and her son Edward ten.  Their guest was Julia Whalen who would spend two weeks in her new environment, surrounded by trees, chickens, horses and pigs.

     An unnamed host offered his opinion regarding the visitors, "The farm is a happier place because of them and it does us old folks as much good as it does the children to have them here".  Julia must have agreed with that sentiment because the following July she was once again sojourning at the O'Hora farm as she would in 1928 and 1929.  Every July the Enterprise published a list of local families hosting children, so after finding Great-Grandmother's name missing in 1930, I wondered why Julia had not returned?  The Great Depression had begun when the stock market crashed in the fall of 1929, but the Fresh Air program was still up and running; other local families were hosting children in 1930.  It's a little known fact that the stock market rallied in early 1930 only to crash again in April beginning a decline that would drag on for years, but the worst was still ahead in 1930.  Unless Julia had found a job in New York, I doubted the economy had ended her visits.

     Perhaps the reason Julia did not return after 1929 was that she had simply grown out of the program. There were age limits, but unfortunately none of the newspaper articles I found mentioned Julia's age.  If that was the case, it must have been a sad parting in 1929.  I would love to know if Julia and Great-Grandmother or any of the O'Hora children kept in touch, which gave me the bright idea to see if I could trace her. I wasn't overly optimistic I would find Julia in teeming New York City, there were well over five million people residing there in 1920, but I decided to give it a go.

   I started at Ancestry with a search of the 1920 census using the birth year 1914 plus or minus five years, figuring it was likely Great-Grandmother would have requested a child around the same age as her own children.  Surprisingly, only three possibilities came up, even when I increased the age range to ten years.  One little girl caught my eye right away, Julia Whalen born in New York on 7 July 1911; that put her right in between my grandmother born in 1912 and her sister Alice born in 1910.  

     In 1920 Julia was living in Brooklyn with her mother and stepfather, Annie and Bernard Laughlin, both of whom were natives of Ireland.  Julia's two sisters, Nora and Catherine, were also part of the household.  In 1925 I couldn't locate Bernard or Annie, but Nora and Catherine resided with their older sister Mary and Mary's husband John Reilly; fourteen year old Julia was not with them.  I found her living with David Douglas and his wife Kate in the Bronx.  Kate Douglas, fifty-six, was from Ireland, perhaps she was a relative?  Indeed, after consulting NYC marriage records, I later found she was the sister of Julia's father.  By 1930, eighteen-year-old Julia had been reunited with her sisters in the Reilly household.  At that age Julia would definitely have been ineligible to participate in the Fresh Air program any longer.

      In an attempt to find Julia's father, I checked Family Search which has a database of births in New York City for the years1846-1909, Julia wouldn't be included, but her older sister Nora Whalen should be.  After a search for Nora, daughter of Annie, there she was-- born 19 October 1907, which fit nicely with her birth date in census records.  The parents were Patrick Whalen and Annie Molloy.   Having Patrick's name, I could more easily go back further in census records.  In New York's 1915 census, Annie was already a widow with five children, including Julia.  Going back to 1910 I saw Patrick (gardener) and Annie living in Brooklyn with their children.  Earlier still, the 1900 census listed Patrick (day laborer) and Annie still in Brooklyn with their first child Mary, the one who later gave her younger sisters a home. The NYC death index at the Italian Genealogical Group site shows two Patrick Whalen's died in Brooklyn between 1910 and 1915, one in 1912 and one in early 1915. The Patrick who passed away in 1915 must be my man, the youngest child in this family, Catherine Whalen, was born in 1915. Poor Annie was pregnant when she lost her husband!

     There were of course two other possibilities for the Fresh Air child; Julia Whalen born in 1919 and another one born in 1916.  Both of these girls however, were living in families with two parents present and their fathers were working steady jobs, making the first Julia seem the neediest of the three by far.  I lost track of Julia after 1930.  New York didn't take a census in 1935 and by 1940 she was probably married.  Perhaps someday I'll learn the rest of her story...

  

A May December Romance

     Many hours have been devoted to uncovering the identity of the second wife of my fourth-great-grandfather Thomas Garner.  I’m descended from Thomas and his first wife Prudence Lamphere, so why do I why spend so much time on number two?  Several reasons: for one, you never know what will turn up in the records of your ancestor's associates and secondly, I enjoy a challenge. Some people like to solve crossword puzzles, I like to solve genealogy puzzles.

     Back in 2019 I wrote a blog about Thomas in which I questioned who that Laney Garner person living with Grandpa Thomas was, and if she was really his wife or had the census taker made a mistake?  She was a good twenty years younger than Thomas, who was an elderly, chronically ill man without much money, though he did have a War of 1812 pension which may have made him more attractive to Laney.  Today I decided to find all I could about her, which when you’re taking about a female in the early to mid-1800’s is indeed a challenge.

      I already had the 1855 New York State census of Summerhill in Cayuga County showing Thomas Garner age 84, born in Massachusetts and his wife Laney Garner age 59, born in Canada.  Thomas was really 82, but still much older than Laney.  Immediately above them in the census was David Robertson 50 and his wife Catherine 34, both born in New York.

      I knew Thomas had passed away in the spring of 1857 but Laney being twenty years his junior was likely still alive for the next census.  Ancestry has an annoying habit of sending hints for something called, “NY Compiled Census and Census Substitutes…”, containing scant information with no image, when they could just as easily show you the 1860 census.  I have no idea why they do this, but when you see it, it’s time to open another window and do a search of the 1860 census at Family Search.  Which is what I did when they sent me a hint for "Lana" Garner in that odd database.  I found Lana Garner living alone in 1860, still right next to David and Catherine Robertson/Robinson.  In fact, she seemed to be living with them at that point.

1859 map of Summerhill, Mrs. Garner is the 4th name down on the far left D. Robinson is right below her.

     The next logical step was the 1850 census but that presented a problem.  There was no Lana or Laney Garner listed, nor a Thomas Garner for that matter.  He was in Summerhill in 1840 with his first wife but seemed to have vanished by 1850.  Prudence died in 1848 so perhaps Thomas hadn’t yet remarried in 1850?  Since I didn’t know Laney’s surname before her marriage to Thomas, I tried looking up David Robertson to see who was living next to him in Summerhill that year.  His neighbor was Laura Wallace, age 54, born in Canada!  The age was right, the birthplace was right, and the name was very close, could it be that Laney Garner was the former Laura Wallace?

     Going further back in census records was not productive. There were many Wallace families in the area, but only heads of households were named in 1840 and Laney wasn’t one of them, so I struck out there.  Ditto with newspapers and cemetery records.  Reading through Thomas’ pension documents I found that his original pension certificate was destroyed in 1856 by a fire at the establishment where he had left it for safekeeping, forcing him to apply for a replacement.  One of the witnesses to his signature, actually his X, on that application was Laney Garner but it contained no further information about her.  There were still New York land records to be checked at Family Search, if I could find Thomas in 1850 that might hold a clue.  After forty-five minutes of finding nothing for Thomas Garner or Thomas Gardner or other variations I was about to give up.  Discouraged, on a whim I typed “Laney Wallace” into the search box. Bingo!  In 1840 Seth Runnells “demised”, (leased), twenty-two acres in the town of Summerhill to Laney Wallace for the remainder of her life…adjacent to Catherine Robertson!  Laura Wallace was Laney Wallace was Laney Garner.

Seth Runnells to Laney Wallace, Lot 16 Summerhill

     I’m still not sure of Laney’s maiden name, it may or may not have been Wallace.  A marriage record would probably clear this up, but Summerhill was located behind the back of beyond and there were several nearby villages where her marriage to Thomas could have taken place, none of which have online records.  Nonetheless, I'm getting closer all the time...

What Can Be Found in Old Newspapers

      

     Each week I check the genealogy news for Ireland, and each week I'm disappointed. No new records means no new discoveries, so no new blogs. I'm currently considering purchasing a month's subscription to a newspaper site in the hopes something interesting may turn up, but in the meantime I'm posting an excerpt from the narrative I wrote long ago about my family in Counties Carlow and Kildare, the McGarrs and O'Horas; drawn in part from contemporary newspaper accounts to show what wonderful stories can be found even if one's ancestors didn't make it into print by name...

     Although Ireland was overwhelmingly Catholic everyone who worked the land was required by law to pay a tithe to the protestant Church of Ireland. This presented a real hardship for tenant farmers already hard pressed to clothe and feed their families. To add insult to injury, protestant landlords who did not farm the land but instead devoted it to pasture for livestock were exempt. After winning emancipation, an organized campaign of resistance to the tithe began and spread rapidly. In 1831 a list of tithe defaulters was drawn up by the government with orders to seize their goods and chattel. With the signing of that order, the opening salvo of the Tithe War had been fired. Over the following years robberies, murders, cattle maiming, riots and arsons became commonplace.

     The defaulter lists for Ricketstown and Ballyraggan no longer exist, so it is impossible to say if Michael Hore and Daniel McGarr refused to pay their tithes, but resistance in their area was high. In County Carlow, the protestant minister Rev. John Whitty, who was the beneficiary of the tithes collected locally was especially disliked by Rathvilly Catholics. Years earlier he had ordered the seizure and sale of the cattle of a tithe defaulter, so enraging Catholics that 5,000 of them stormed the sale and carried off the cattle.

     This time around, the residents of Rathvilly Parish were no less determined to protect their property. The following excerpt from The Pilot, a Dublin newspaper, details how they outwitted the troops sent to distrain the livestock of defaulters--

August 1834-- Mr. Whitty has a tremendous force at present…they have been out every day this week and were not able to effect a single seizure in the entire parish. The moment the troops are drawn out in marching order, a person on top of a hill lights a faggot of furze, and two minutes after, every person in the parish is out and not a four-footed animal is to be found in it by the time the troops arrive. When the troops come up, they are always received with, ‘three cheers for the King and the British Army.

     The situation had not changed a great deal when two years later this headline appeared in a less sympathetic newspaper, The Wexford Conservative—

Desperate Attack On Sheriff Police And Military At Rathvilly By Mob

Yesterday, the Sub-Sheriff, chief constables Fitzgibbon and Traunt, forty of the constabulary and twenty of the 23rd Fusileers proceeded to post tithe notices on church and chapel doors. At Rathvilly, large masses of men lined the walls enclosing the chapel yard, armed with pitchforks, scythes, bludgeons and stones while the women had a plentiful supply of boiling water. Finding the gates locked the sheriff proceeded to the house of Priest Gahan for the key, but he was not to be found. The Sheriff next ordered the police to scale the walls to post the notices on the chapel, upon which the party were assailed by a general volley of stones and missiles.

     Both Rathvilly and Baltinglass parishes were blessed with what would today be termed activist priests. Father Gahan in Rathvilly, as we have seen, made himself unavailable when the British came looking for the churchyard key, and Father Lalor in Baltinglass was just as supportive of his parishioners. When Daniel O’Connell came to Baltinglass in 1843 for one of his public anti-tithe meetings, it was Father Lalor’s curate Rev. John Nolan himself who helped arrange the details.

     In 1836 Father Gahan delivered a report to the local Poor Law Commissioners declaring it unrealistic to expect disturbances related to the tithe to halt as long as such was demanded. He added his belief that the condition of the “poorer classes” had greatly deteriorated over the past two decades as to their food and raiment, with most of his parishioners being poor farmers who lived in houses of mud or sod. In about twenty instances in the parish two or more families shared a cabin.

     When it was finally realized that the costs associated with collecting the tithe were far greater than the benefits it brought -- one officer noting, “It cost a shilling to collect tuppence” -- the collection was suspended. From then on, the rate was reduced and included in rent payments, bringing at least partial relief to the long-suffering Catholic population.

A Tale of Two Cemeteries

     

Entrance to Saint Anne's in Palmyra, NY

     Thursday afternoon the Rochester, New York area broke the record with a daytime temperature of 65 balmy degrees!  It's doubtful we'll see that sort of warmth again for a very long time, so I took advantage of the day to visit the Catholic cemetery in Palmyra.  Besides being good exercise, it's enjoyable to get out of the house and visit some old, (deceased), relatives.  I recently read a blog by Irish genealogist John Grenholm in which he observed, in speaking of the Irish, "Apparently we find it very hard to let go. Maybe that’s the reason we have such a thing about graveyards. Because we certainly do have a thing about graveyards".  If I'm any yardstick, that is an indisputable truism. 

     Being such a nice day, I was loathe to leave after making my usual rounds so I decided to take a stroll through the much larger village cemetery that abuts Saint Anne's as well.  The village cemetery has some very old and unique graves while Saint Anne's cemetery, being created sometime after 1850, lacks really old burials.  Come take a walk with me...

   

     Entering Saint Anne's, one is greeted by a life-sized angel.  The gravestone behind her left wing is that of my 2nd great-aunt Ellen Power from County Waterford and her husband Thomas Mahoney born in County Kerry. 

     The shot below is no man's land, the road dividing the Catholics from everyone else. Saint Anne's is on the left.

     As I left Saint Anne's and walked on into the village cemetery, I saw on a rise what looked from a distance to be palm trees on the side of a large monument.  That was odd, palm trees are definitely not native to New York but there they were.  On viewing the front of the marker, the explanation for the presence of palm trees became clear.  It read, "Dr. Henry Pebbine born Brooklyn 1797 Killed by the Seminole Indians at the massacre of Indian Key Fla. Aug 7 1840 Aged 43".  I had never heard of this massacre nor the doctor before, and I was somewhat doubtful he had been brought from Florida to New York for burial, (in August yet), so I googled it.  One website that came up contained an article written in 1912 that described the terrible events of that summer's day and mentioned a Dr. Henry, but his last name was Perrine.  A closer look at the picture I had taken of the stone showed it was indeed Perrine, not Pebbine as I had first thought.  The article concluded by noting Dr. Perrine's remains were recovered from Florida many years after the tragedy and interred in the family plot at Palmyra.  Another site claims the doctor's remains could not be located in Florida, making the monument in Palmyra a cenotaph.  I tend to believe the second site.

     In the photo below is one of the several zinc markers that dot the village cemetery.  Erected in 1886 this monument looks as though it could have been put up yesterday, the inscription is that clear.  I wish all my ancestor's markers were made of this blueish grey metal.  Their production began in 1875 and being hollow, they were actually an inexpensive option.  Unfortunately, they never gained in popularity with some cemeteries banning zinc markers on the grounds maintaining them would be costly and they might not hold up... the opposite has proven true.

     

Charles H. Kingman M.D.

     

     The marker on the right below is exactly what it looks like, a boulder set on a base memorializing the Chase family.  The other is erected entirely from cobblestones for the De Chard family.

Left, De Chard - Albert 1842-1933 and Cordelia 1842-1923

     The small oval stone below struck me as unusual, I haven't seen many of these but there are a few in the village cemetery; none are found in Saint Anne's. This one was placed in remembrance of Little Cornelia who passed away in 1836 at the age of three.

 

     While Saint Anne's Cemetery is all on level ground, the village cemetery behind it contains both level and hilly sections. One prominence is pictured below.  There are some uneven, timeworn steps placed at intervals on the hillside, but it's still steeper than it appears in the photo.  From the top it does offer a panoramic view of the two cemeteries though...

     

     Looking down from the top of the hill, Saint Anne's cemetery is the farthest section seen in the above photo.

     Three hours have slipped by, the temperature is beginning to drop now and the clouds are lowering; rain is expected before sunset.  It's time to get back to my car parked at the end of that far road.  I hope you enjoyed this brief look at Palmyra where I spend a good deal of my free time.  To be continued...  

(In May)

The Mystery Couple

  

     Shortly before an older cousin of mine died a few years ago, he entrusted to me a stack of old photos. His reasoning was his daughter, who had no interest in family history, would merely discard them upon his passing. Especially since a few of them were older and the persons in them unidentified.  I expect he was correct in his assumption; I fear the same for my genealogy efforts which is why I’m posting all I can to Ancestry.  An imperfect solution to be sure, but until a budding family historian appears in my clan will have to suffice.

    The photograph above has intrigued me since it first came into my keeping. The young lady on the right is my teen-aged grandmother, Mary O’Hora. The names of the couple holding the poodles are unknown to me, (as are those of the poodles). They are in one or two other pictures I have from approximately the same time, so I believe they are most likely relatives, but who they are continues to confound me. The obvious first step was to date the photograph. Grandma was born in 1912, it appears to me she looks to be about 16 years old in this picture give or take. That suggests it was taken around 1928.

     If they are indeed family members, I’ve narrowed the obvious possibilities as to their identities.  My grandmother’s father, Edward O’Hora, died in 1920 when Grandma was eight years old. Edward’s oldest sister Mary passed in 1907 as did his sister Anna; his brother James died in 1881. The next, Michael, never married, and Sarah Jane died in 1902. That left Winifred, who lived until 1939, and her husband Andrew Fitzpatrick who survived until 1928 and lastly, Edward’s brother Daniel who lived until 1951 and his possibly common-law wife who passed in 1937.  I tend to discount Daniel as there was some bad blood between him and the family and too, the gentleman in the photo seems shorter than what the O’Hora’s were from I’ve seen, but Winifred and Andrew are a real possibility. 

    On the other hand, the photo may be of relatives of Edward’s wife Ellen White. Ellen survived Edward and lived at the family farm until the mid-1930’s. Her siblings Margaret, William, and Julia were all deceased by 1923. Of those remaining, her brother Thomas never married, Cornelius disappeared, and John lived in California, leaving Mary, who lived until 1939 and her husband William Stevenson who survived until about 1937. 

    Census records show the Stevenson's living at 17 West 11th Street on Long Island in 1925, but they did visit Ellen on the farm occasionally.  In fact, the local newspaper published this line the first week in October of 1928, “Mr. and Mrs. William E. Stevenson of Long Island are visiting Mrs. Nellie O’Hora and family!” That’s quite interesting, I had forgotten the date of that short notice in the paper until I was looking at my notes for Mary while writing this blog. It certainly places her at the farm in 1928.  I don’t know if they would have brought their pets all the way from Long Island but they were childless...who can say? 

     So which couple could it be, Winifred and Andrew or Mary and William?  I dug out the other photos I had of the possible Mary and William and gasped, the lady who appeared in the photo was seated on the front steps of, get this, number 17!

     Here is "William" in front of the same house.  The two appear younger here than in the picture at the top of this blog, but I'm sure it's the same couple.  I may just have answered my question!  This is why I blog, I figured this whole thing out just now, while blogging.  It makes me focus and think things through like nothing else, I highly recommend it.

Of Immigrant Ships and Shell Games

 

The Barque Star Queen

      Looking around the net today I stumbled across an article titled, "How To Find Your Australian Ancestors". It wasn’t particularly helpful and linked to mostly pay sites, but it got me thinking about my cousin Alice Dwyer/O’Dwyer who left Tipperary in the spring of 1875 to begin a new life in Queensland. I wrote about Alice earlier, and reading through that blog I remembered I still hadn’t figured out who in Australia had paid her fare. I didn’t figure that out today either, but I did find the incredible details of her journey.

Alice O'Dwyer

     One free site I found useful was that of the State Library of Queensland, where I ran a search for Alice’s ship, Star Queen. Among the first hits was this manuscript-- "Isaiah de Zouche Diary, 1875". Hoping it was digitized, I opened the description to find that this man was the ship’s surgeon in 1875! While not digitized, it apparently could be borrowed. The cost for an international interlibrary loan was $45, not bad but I had my doubts the library in Australia would just ship an almost 150-year-old manuscript to New York. Maybe there were excerpts online? I tried a google search which didn’t produce the diary, but something almost as good did come up. That something was the website, Trove, a free Australian newspaper site that is very easy to search. I typed in, Isaiah de Zouche 1875, and flung open the door of the rabbit hole.

Dr. de Zouche

     One of the first hits began with news that on September 14th officials had signaled the Star Queen to stop at Cape Moreton, Australia, short of its destination of Maryborough, but its Captain Downing had refused to comply!  It went on to say the Colonial Secretary’s Department in Australia had received a telegram from Dr. de Zouche and as a result of its contents had ordered the ship brought to Moreton Bay.  Part of what Dr. de Zouche had written:

There should have been provisions on board for 140 days. Our biscuits were exhausted on the eighty-ninth day, when in longitude 65 E., with the exception of three and a half bags reserved for the crew. On the 31st, of August the date of our arrival, [at Melbourne] having been out 110 days from Gravesend, we had no biscuits, no preserved fresh meat, no potatoes, no molasses, and only six day's supply of salt meat and eight day's flour for passengers and crew. The passengers have conducted themselves throughout the voyage in the most exemplary manner.

     No wonder Captain Downing didn't want to stop in Moreton.  At the time Alice left Tipperary a program was in place to aid emigrants relocating to Australia, with the Colonial Office there and its counterpart in England sharing the cost. A look at the passenger manifest of the Star Queen shows that only twenty-six of its 322 passengers paid their own way, the rest were assisted or free. The Star Queen had left England on May 13th, supposedly stocked as required for 140 days at sea. That is where the trouble began. A fraud was hatched between the ship’s captain, the purser and the third mate to line their pockets using supplies intended for their passengers. 

     Conditions became so bad that on August 31st the Star Queen was forced to put in at Hobson’s Bay in Melbourne to take on provisions, this must have been when Dr. Z was able to send his incriminating telegram to officials.  In his testimony at the later enquiry, Dr. Z added that the captain was intemperate and had used threatening language in addressing him. The press had a field day with the story, Trove found far too many articles to read them all, but a common theme came through. Only a single newspaper, The Age, attempted to downplay the incident asserting the ship had, “merely put in to replenish supplies then continued on its way”, but that was early on before all the facts had come to light.

     Further testified to at the enquiry, and indeed verified by Australian officials, was the existence of barrels marked bread on one side and split peas on the other in order to deceive inspectors in England into believing the proper number of stores were onboard. Mr. Bellamy, the third mate, testified that before sailing, biscuits that had been counted and stowed were surreptitiously brought back on deck by him to be counted a second time. It was further found that Mr. Wright, the purser, had weighted the scales on the ship, the buckets supposedly holding 30 pints of water in fact held only 20, the ship was “disgustingly dirty”, there was insufficient deck space for the number of passengers, and incredibly, nineteen men from Wales and County Clare had emigrated under assumed names provided to them by crew members. The skullduggery didn’t end there, as supplies dwindled the captain ordered provisions intended for the assisted passengers be diverted to cabin passengers.

     Nor did Mrs. Currie, the ship's matron, have anything good to say for the Captain, accusing him of not supporting her in the performance of her duties and complaining of the short rations that left all the "girls" hungry, as well as the lack of water for them.

     Captain Downing was found culpable and given the choice of paying a fine of 211 pounds or spending three months in prison for breaches of the Passenger’s Act. He chose the fine. Oddly, no mention was made in the newspapers of any charges against the purser or third mate being pursued. After slogging through more articles, it came to light Dr. Z had promised to request immunity for the pair if they revealed to him all they knew of the scheme, which the Colonial Secretary agreed to.  As a result, they were never charged. It’s well known that this sort of embezzlement went on during the years of famine immigration, but with the passage of various passenger acts such flagrant violations became thankfully, not as common. The outrage over the events on the Star Queen was universal, inspiring the song below within months:

     The writer of this amusing ditty, cursing the Star Queen’s beams, would get his wish a few years later when at the end of July in 1878, the ship ran aground on the treacherous Murray Reefs located off the coast of southwestern Australia and was wrecked, fortunately with no loss of life.  I would imagine Alice and her fellow immigrants, who were unfortunate enough to have been passengers on the horrendous voyage of 1875 aboard the Star Queen, shed  few tears.  As for Captain Downs, his name appeared on the passenger list of the ship Ramsey, bound for London on the 12th of November in 1875.  A few names away from his in second cabin was that of Mrs. Currie. That must have been an interesting trip.