History, Natural History & the Arts
William Gilliland was born in 1734 in Caddy, Northern Ireland. His father died while he was a boy and his mother re-married. He was said to have been talented and ambitious and initially sought to establish himself in business and society in the city of Armagh.
However, a frowned-upon liaison with the daughter of a local upper class family caused him to seek his fortune elsewhere. [Read more…] about William Gilliland: An Irish Immigrant Lake Champlain Settler
In August 1829 the passenger ship Emily arrived from Liverpool and anchored in New York Harbor. Like many 19th century ships entering New York’s bustling port, Emily carried migrants intent on making a new life in the city. Passages such as the Emily’s were commonplace but the actions of her master, William Thompson, proved exceptional.
Thompson, likely on the order of shipowner George Miln, flagrantly ignored an 1824 New York State law intended to regulate the flow of migrants into the metropolis. [Read more…] about 19th Century NY Law and Birthright Citizenship
Located on the River Scheldt (Schelde), Hoboken is a southern district of the city of Antwerp in Flanders. The name originates in the medieval Dutch phrase Hooghe Buechen (Hoge Beuken, or tall beech trees). Today there is a geriatric hospital in Hoboken named Hoge Beuken. The first historical records of the place date from the year 1135.
The New Jersey area of Hoboken on the western shore of the Hudson River was inhabited by Lenape indigenous people who called it Hopoghan Hackingh (Land of the Tobacco Pipe) for its green-veined rock from which they carved their pipes. [Read more…] about Hoboken: A Tale of Immigration & Frank Sinatra
Chauncey Olcott (1858-1932) celebrated his 71st birthday with a legion of friends at his home in Saratoga Springs, Inniscarra, on July 21st, 1931. Greetings arrived by mail, telephone and telegram. Less than a year later Chauncey passed away leaving his wife Rita with a house full of memories and mementos that told the story of his life.
Rita’s book Song in his Heart: The Story of Chauncey Olcott’s Life was published in 1939. In 1947 the biography was adopted as the film My Wild Irish Rose. [Read more…] about Chauncey Olcott: Saratoga & A Song In His Heart
St. Vincent’s Hospital in Greenwich Village began in 1849 with a simple, but radical mission: to care for all those in need regardless of race, creed, or financial means. For more than 160 years, the hospital carried out that work, serving notables and the nameless alike, from impoverished immigrants and those stricken by devastating nineteenth-century epidemics to AIDS patients and the victims of the attacks of 9/11.
Part of the former Saint Vincent’s Catholic Medical Centers healthcare system in New York City, St. Vincent’s closed on April 30, 2010, was demolished two years later and has become luxury condos. [Read more…] about St. Vincent’s Hospital: New York City’s Other ‘Ground Zero’
The late Judge John Austin’s unrivalled collection of books and documents related to the history of Warren County, its towns and families has been reassembled as a reference library in the Warren County Clerk’s Office. There, hundreds of books, folders and much more, including documents that are particularly useful for those who research genealogy, are accessible to researchers by appointment. [Read more…] about Featured Collections: Warren County’s Austin Historical Collection
Albany’s proximity to the Hudson River made it an ideal trading center, beginning with Native American-Dutch fur trading in the early seventeenth century.
By the late eighteenth century, the city had cultivated a small lumber market consisting of a half-dozen wholesale lumber merchants, clustered just south of the neighborhood around Columbia Street and present-day Clinton Avenue (to the south of what would later be considered the “Albany lumber district” proper). [Read more…] about The Rise & Fall of the Albany Lumber District (1810s-1910s)
Launched in July 1900, the transatlantic liner S.S. Vaderland (Flemish for fatherland) sailed the route between Antwerp and Hoboken on behalf of the Red Star Line. Catering for 340 first-class, 200 second-class, and over 600 third-class (formerly steerage) passengers, the liner was one of “mid tier” elegance rather than opulence and designed to compete with its rivals of the Cunard and White Star lines. She played a key role in the early history of mass emigration from Europe to the United States.
On May 25, 1912, the liner left Antwerp, arriving at Ellis Island for immigrant inspection on June 4th. On board was a talented twenty-year-old Polish woman keen to break free from traditional Jewish domestic constraints and find intellectual and sexual freedom in Manhattan. [Read more…] about Lesbian History: Eve Adams, Monocles, Tearooms & Deportations
America has been the world’s most diverse nation since its founding 250 years ago. New York has been the nation’s most diverse city. New York has led the way in welcoming immigrants, integrating them into American life and, at the same time, enabling them to retain something of the culture that they brought with them from abroad.
New York City’s America’s Making Exposition just over a century ago undertook to demonstrate the contributions of various national and ethnic groups and to show how they contributed to and enriched American society. [Read more…] about Beyond ‘Americanization’: New York’s 1921 Celebration of Diversity
Between 1840 and 1860, a great wave of Irish immigrants washed up on the shores of Lake Champlain. So many, in fact, that the inland sea was nicknamed “the Irish lake.”
The reason, of course, was poverty and job opportunities. Although Irish Catholics had started arriving in New York and Vermont in numbers by 1820, Champlain truly became the Irish lake in the mid-1840s during the Great Famine. [Read more…] about Lake Champlain: The Irish Lake
The rampant industrialism of the Gilded Age and early Progressive Era eventually took root in Little Falls, NY. The city and the surrounding Mohawk Valley had served as a hub for immigrant and migrant labor for a significant time. The construction of the Little Falls Canal and the Erie Canal during the 18th and 19th centuries attracted a multitude of predominantly Irish laborers.
In the latter half of the 19th century, as industrialism took hold, the mass construction of railroads attracted even greater numbers of immigrant workers to Little Falls in search of jobs within the burgeoning factory apparatus. [Read more…] about Immigration and Labor in Little Falls, New York
Consider the story of Mary Jemison. She was born in 1743 aboard a ship as her Scots-Irish family journeyed from Dublin, Ireland, to Pennsylvania. They settled on the frontier just north of Gettysburg. She and her five siblings enjoyed a happy childhood on the “little paradise” of the family farm.
One April morning, when Mary was fifteen, a party of six Shawnee and four French warriors attacked their isolated home. Her two older brothers escaped, but the raiders captured the rest of the family. They forced the prisoners to march westward. After two days, Mary was given a pair of moccasins to replace her shoes. [Read more…] about Mary Jemison: ‘The White Woman of the Genesee’
Today the state of Minnesota is engaged in the first General Strike in nearly 80 years. There have been thousands of strikes in American history, but only about a dozen General Strikes. One of the first strikes took place in the city of New York in 1677. Afterward a dozen cart-men (one-horse cart operators) were criminally prosecuted “for not obeying the Command and Doing their Dutyes as becomes them in their Places” and fined.
About 80 strikes in the U.S. have involved over 100,000 workers. Here are 13 strikes every New Yorker should know about: [Read more…] about Strike! 13 Strikes Every New Yorker Should Know About
The Palmer Raids are generally understood by professional historians to have been unconstitutional, aggressive and abusive mass arrests and deportations of political enemies in 1919 and 1920. The raids and deportations in 36 cities, but especially in New York State, provoked a national reaction focused on protecting the human rights and civil liberties won during the American Revolution.
The Palmer Raids, in conjunction with raids conducted by New York State’s Lusk Committee, were some of the most egregious constitutional violations in the era now known disreputably as “The First Red Scare.” At the time the American understanding of the social contract was being intensely debated as part of a great international war between the haves and the have-nots. [Read more…] about New York State Deportation Raids & The First Red Scare
Richard Montgomery (1736-1775), son of Irish aristocracy, had become a professional British soldier who served in North America during the French and Indian War.
After that service, in which Richard had proven himself in combat and as a gifted leader of men, he was promoted to Captain. [Read more…] about Richard and Janet Montgomery and 1775 Invasion of Canada
The records I have found for my family in Ireland, England, and Montreal paint a picture of the challenges that all immigrants face. Arthur Sherry (1799-1846), my great-great-grandfather, grew up on a flax farm in Northern Ireland, his father Cornelius (1769-1869) struggling to make ends meet as cotton replaced Irish linen.
Arthur moved to Ireland’s port city Dundalk to become a merchant. He married Elizabeth Callan in 1821, having five children in nine years. A Dublin news source puts Arthur in Debtors Court shortly before his decision to immigrate. [Read more…] about Immigrant Stories: The Sherrys Arrive from Ireland in 1834
It seems to have been forgotten, or ignored, but the vast majority of Americans have an immigrant family history story – often of struggle and sacrifice. New York Almanack wants to publish them.
In 300 words or less, tell us the story of your immigrant ancestor(s) and their earliest experiences in New York and we’ll share them with our readers.
Here’s how: [Read more…] about Send Us Your Immigrant Family History Story
Born in Brooklyn in 1810 in a family of Irish immigrants, John McCloskey became the first American-born Archbishop of New York. When he died in October 1885 after two decades of leadership, the Catholic Church had seen major changes in its place in society. He oversaw the construction of eighty-seven new churches, including the first parish for Black Catholics, and doubled the number of Catholic schools. The Roman Church had gained a voice in society. [Read more…] about Catholic Converts & Rose Cleveland’s “Boston Marriage”
Just in time for the 200th anniversary commemorating the completion of this engineering marvel, Many Voices: Building Erie, the Canal that Changed America (Holiday House, August 2025) investigates the untold stories of men, women, and children from all social classes and national origins who helped create and work on the Erie Canal.
Award-winning author Laurie Lawlor’s full-color narrative nonfiction explores how this monumental, 363-mile canal was built across a daunting upstate New York landscape at a time when America had no trained engineers, no idea how to make water-proof concrete, no modern mechanical tools, and no reliable source of workers. [Read more…] about Many Voices: Building the Erie Canal
The John J. McGraw Monument in Truxton, New York is a nice sculpture, dignified and uncomplicated.
Yet it captures a great deal of what might be described as the essence of baseball, with the man himself portrayed in bas-relief on a truncated obelisk wearing his New York Giants pinstriped flannels and cap. [Read more…] about The John McGraw Game: ‘Greatest Sporting Event in the History of Cortland County’
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