Saturday, March 9, 2019

Immigrants Before 1865: Department of Finance - Emigration Service Fund

While searching the Library and Archives Canada collection of  Immigrants Before 1865, I came across an entry for Catherine Brennan on the "30th of September 1844; From Toronto to Sandwich" so I requested to see the document.

I later learned the good news that the LAC had digitized the records Department of Finance, Emigration service Fund (RG 19, volume 2532) and the digitized links had not yet been added to the LAC website.

The Department of Finance, RG 19 records involve the accounts for payment to teamsters and boat captains for transporting indigent immigrants to inland destinations by wagon or boat. It also includes receipts for making coffins. (Search this database here: http://www.bac-lac.gc.ca/eng/discover/immigration/immigration-records/immigrants-before-1865/Pages/search.aspx)

Record item 740 for Catherine Brennan in 1844 

Source: Department of Finance, Emigration service Fund (RG 19, volume 2532)

This one small piece of paper contains a wealth of information: Edward McElderry (the Emigrant agent in Toronto) paid to send 11 "indigent" Irish emigrants (including Catherine Brennan, the Collins and McNally families ) from Toronto to Sandwich on the 30th Sep 1844 by way of stagecoach driven by Nelson Frink ....

"Indigent Emigrants"

An indigent person is extremely poor, lacking the basic resources of a normal life. Often the indigent lack not only money but homes.
Indigent comes from a Latin word meaning wanting, which we used to use to mean “lacking” and not just to describe desires. Homeless shelters, soup kitchens, free medical clinics and court-appointed lawyers are all institutions that our society has developed to help indigent people. (Source: Vocabulary.com)

Edward McElderry - Emigrant Agent Toronto
  
This incredible man, Edwards McElderry, is one of Toronto's best kept secrets. In fact, the monument to honour him is far away from Toronto in Guelph, Ontario.
Edward McElderry "was active in the civil service in Toronto, and was one of the few Roman Catholics to be so. He would have been a member of Bishop Michael Power’s congregation. Power would have known him. Bishop Power trusted him, and Power recommended him for the top job of being the Emigration Agent in Toronto.

McElderry’s role is extremely important. He’s the one who has to triage migrants as they arrive at the docks in Toronto, specifically Reeses’s Wharf. " (Source: Virtual Museum)
"The vast majority of emigrants received by McElderry had already passed through Grosse Ile, had taken sailing craft steamers from the Upper St. Lawrence, and then had departed Montreal with the intent to survey settlement possibilities at Kingston, where many elected to board new vessels in order to investigate other Lake Ontario ports. 

There they would be processed at a make shift shed by Edward McElderry, the local Emigration Agent and representative of the Government of the Province of Canada (the union of what is now Quebec and Ontario) and Constable John B Townsend, who was the Clerk of the Toronto Board of Health." 

Source: Toronto: Reese's Pier

Teamster Nelson Frink

Five pounds ten shillings was paid to Nelson Frink to carry the eleven emigrants from Toronto to Sandwich. It is written:

"Eight Full Passages ... 11 in all"
  • Catherine Brennan 
  • Mary Collins and family
  • John McNally and family
  • Thomas Collins and family

Source: Stagecoach Days Blog

Is This My 3rd Great Grandmother Catherine Brennan?

This piece of paper is significant because it is sending a group of indigent emigrants from Toronto to Sandwich where my Brennan ancestors settled in the mid-1800s. Looking through all of the records in this series, most emigrants triaged in Toronto were sent to nearby townships that were shorter distances away and NOT to Sandwich, Ontario (368 km away!)

All of the evidence that I have collected on my Brennan and Bowler ancestors' emigration from county Kerry Ireland suggest a date of arrival around 1853 when my 2nd great grandmother Mary Brennan (daughter of Catherine Brennan) was twelve years old.

A new search of the Sandwich census records also failed to locate a "Catherine Brennan" or any Brennans at all in 1851. 

I must conclude that this likely has no connection to "my Brennans" directly. But given the facts that emigrants came to Canada through a process known as "chain migration" and given the geographic connection to Sandwich, this record is an important one not to be dismissed or overlooked.

 Immigrants Before 1865 Links

Here is a list of the "Emigration Service Fund" pdf documents on the LAC website that are NOT yet linked to their online database.
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5 comments:

  1. ToniMarch 10, 2019 at 6:58 AM

    These are superb!! I wish someone on there was mine!

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    Replies
    1. CindiMarch 10, 2019 at 9:28 AM

      Thanks Toni! So many lives captured on these pieces of paper. I am happy to share them in the hope that someone will find their ancestor.

      Delete
  2. UnknownJuly 7, 2019 at 4:58 PM

    My great grandfather is Patrick Moynahan (immigrated from Ireland) who married Martha Brennan, they resided in Utah. He died in 1901. She remarried a Michael Moran several years after.

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    1. CindiJuly 9, 2019 at 9:09 AM

      Thank you so much for posting your comments to my blog. I would be very interested to know from where in Ireland Patrick immigrated from ?

      Delete
  3. CindiJuly 9, 2019 at 9:09 AM

    Thank you so much for posting your comments to my blog. I would be very interested to know from where in Ireland Patrick immigrated from ?

    I am researching an area in Ireland around Rathmore (east of Killarney) in Co. Kerry

    ReplyDelete

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