The Cosgriffs

Cosgriff

The Irish Potato Famine

There was plenty of food in Ireland during the famine. The only crop that failed was the potato crop, and Ireland actually was exporting food to England while the people were starving. It was just that those who depended on the potato crop for subsistence, and they were many, had no money, so they couldn’t buy food, and they starved, unless they could somehow get a boat ticket to the New World. Rather than give their starving tenants money for food, which would only feed them for a while, many of the prosperous landlords gave them tickets to somewhere where they could eat for the rest of their lives, where there were jobs, good farmland, and opportunity. Hearing good things from those who had escaped from Ireland, many people who were not starving paid their own fares across the Atlantic. I do not know which category the Cosgriffs were in. I do know that a large number of Cosgriffs left Tipperary for Montreal at the time of the famine. It was cheaper to go to Montreal than Boston or New York, because one had to pay less in the way of fees to travel within the British Empire.

The Coffin Ship

The Coffin Ships, as they were called, that carried the Irish to the New World, were ships that had been used to carry slaves until the slave trade was outlawed. The refurbishment was minimal. Not as many passengers died on the way across, but many did. The Cosgriffs suffered greatly, and their mother died on the voyage and was buried at sea. They spent about six months in Montreal, recovering and deciding what to do next. Finally they took ship down Lake Champlain and settled in Burlington, Vermont. From there some moved on to Boston or Wyoming.

41 Linden St. front view from an angle

41 Linden St., Dorchester

Mumma, (My grandmother, Alice Jeanette Cosgriff Moakley) was of the part of the family that settled in The Town of Dorchester, before it became part of Boston. She grew up at 41 Linden St., one of 13 children: Mamie (Mary), Annie, John, Thomas, Joseph, Kitty (Katherine), Emma (Margaret Ellen), Nellie, Gussie (Augusta), Alice, James (Uncle Jimmy), William, and Bessie (Elizabeth). These pictures of their house were taken March 23, 2008. It is still a very nice house. The Cosgriffs did not come to America penniless. They had money and they invested it wisely.

Two Uncle Jimmies

That Uncle Jimmy was my mother’s Uncle. Mumma also had an Uncle Jimmy, who fought to set the poor slaves free, was captured by the dirty Rebs, and caught pneumonia in prison camp. He recovered and came home after the war. One of the family’s favorite songs was If I had the Wings of an Angel, over these prison walls I would fly, about a prisoner of war longing to come home to his loved ones. Another, of course, was When Johnny comes Marching Home and another was Marching Through Georgia. We used to sing these songs, sitting around the living room of the cottage in Wessagusset.

We have an iron bound trunk in our basement with the initials JHC, for James Henry Cosgriff. I think that was Mother’s Uncle Jimmy.

Mother’s Uncle Jimmy worked for the Boston Gas Company, as a day laborer. A day laborer was one who showed up in the morning, and if they had work for him, he could earn a meager day’s pay. (There was no A.F.of L. in those days.) One day they had no work for the guys because the engineer hadn’t been able to survey where they were to put the gas main they were running out to Dorchester. Uncle Jimmy said he could measure the stretch of ground. They said “How can you do that?” He said, “I’ll pace it off.” He did, and they got to earn a day’s pay that day. The engineer found that he had measured it correctly.

Photo of Uncle Jimmy, taken inside 41 Linden St.

Uncle Dave

On the wall of the South Burlington, VT City Hall there is an old map of the city. It shows “Cosgrove’s Mill” at the location on Red Rock Avenue, where the Potash Brook enters Lake Champlain. That is where I remember Uncle Dave’s farm being. Apparently the farm included a mill at one time. The farm is no longer there. Red Rock Avenue is no longer there, either. It is all part of Queen City Park now.

Uncle Dave had a pistol given to him by Buffalo Bill, probably as a result of a trip to visit the fabulously wealthy Wyoming branch of the family. He was a sad and lonely man when we knew him. His wife had died, and his son had run away and never been heard from.

My parents, grandparents, Uncle John, Uncle Dave, and me on Uncle Dave’s front steps, 1930

Mumma’s sister, Bessie

The Boston Cosgriffs kept in touch with the Vermont and Wyoming ones, and visited back and forth, at least between Boston and Burlington, when they could. Aunt Bessie went to Vermont to visit Uncle Dave, and met a young man named George Saint Peter, whom she married. We used to visitthem at 14 White Place, South Burlington, every few of years, in the summer preferably.