From Clones to Brooklyn

John Smith and his wife, Margaret O’Neill Smith, my 3^rd great grandparents, were Irish immigrants who settled in Brooklyn, New York in 1849.  The Irish people and the Irish economy had suffered for several years with famine.  The Smith family boarded the ship “New World” in Liverpool along with over 400 other passengers.  The ship arrived in New York City on September 21, 1849.  According to the ship’s manifest, the Smyth family group included:  John 60 years, Margaret 40 years, Ellen 20 years, Robert 19 years, Joseph 18 years, Francis 16 years, Margaret 15 years, Mary 10 years, and Elizabeth 1 ½ years. 

Before the family emigrated, they had for many years resided in Clones, County Monaghan, Ireland.  John is included in the 1846 local Ireland commercial business directory where he is listed as “John Smith, coach & car maker, Cara St, Clones.”  The 1849 ship manifest also listed John with the occupation of coachmaker.   And after arrival in New York, John appears in the census and the 1850-1851 Brooklyn City Directory as a coachmaker.

The family evidently had enough early success to place advertisements in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle newspaper in 1854 for Carriages from Smith & Sons, Carriage Factory.

“Carriages – On hand at SMITH & SON’S Carriage Factory, Myrtle Ave, East Brooklyn, a number of superior light wagons of the newest styles and best material selling 20 per cent cheaper than Broadway and warranted thirty per cent better.”

By 1860, the Smith family business appears in the U.S. Federal Census Non-Population Schedule as a "Carriage Manufactory that produces 30 Light Waggons annually and employs 12 men." 

While the family appears to have enjoyed success during their early years in America, there was also sadness.  In 1854, one of the sons, Francis, died after a lingering illness. He was only 20 years old.

The first half of the 1860’s and the years of the Civil War proved very hard for the Smith family.  Ellen, the eldest daughter, died in 1862 at 28 years.  Only a year later in 1863, John Smith, the family patriarch, died at 70 years.  And in 1864, the husband of another daughter, Margaret Smith King, died after being wounded in battle, leaving her with four young children.  Margaret’s husband had been a carriage painter in the family business prior to joining the Union effort.

By the end of the Civil War, it appears that the family business was gone, and I don’t believe that the Smith family ever recovered.  One son, Joseph, died in 1889 in a Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged in Brooklyn, and I believe that Robert, another son, also died in 1889 in a Little Sisters of the Poor Home.

My family line descends from the youngest child of Margaret Smith King, the young Civil War widow.  This child was only 2 years old when her father died in the War.  The 1870 Census shows Margaret Smith King as a widow with her four children and notes her occupation as “ironing & washing.”

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Key Individuals:

     John Smith  (1790 - 1863)

     Margaret O’Neill Smith  (1802 – 1881) 

        Ellen Smith  (1834 – 1862)

        Robert Smith  (1827/31 – 1889?)

        Joseph Smith  (1828 – 1889)

        Francis Smith  (1830/33 – 1820)

        Margaret Smith King  (1834 – 1862)

Notes: 

As you can imagine, with a name like John Smith, this family has been very difficult to nail down in my genealogy work.  Also, the birth dates for the Smith family are a mess to figure out.  The ages on the passenger manifest, subsequent ages on censuses, and ages in obituaries and death certificates all have a wide variance.  In the end, it is only a guess.

For more information on the family of Margaret O’Neill Smith, see my May 6, 2020 blog post “Obituary Clue.”

A future blog post will share the story of Margaret Smith King’s husband and his Civil War experience.

- Jane Scribner McCrary