Series 9 - Edward M. Morphy memoirs

215pp

Photocopies of the memoirs were provided to Kerby A. Miller by Archives and Special Collections, Western Libraries, University of Western Ontario.

"Materials relating to the memoirs of Edward M. Morphy, a native of Monaghan town born circa 1820. The son of a coach manufacturer, Morphy emigrated to Toronto at age 15 in 1835 with his employer, a master jeweler and watchmaker. Morphy wrote two short memoirs at the end of the 19th century which he self-published: A York Pioneer's Recollections of Youthful Days in the Emerald Isle; also, of his Emigration and First Impressions of Canada, especially Toronto (late York) and its Inhabitants when the City was only One Year Old, and its Population 9,000. (Toronto: Daniel Rose, 1893), and A York Pioneer Looking Back, 1834-1884, at Youthful Days, Emigration, and the Drinking Customs of Fifty Years Ago... (Toronto: self-published, 1884).
Per Kerby A. Miller: 'Irish background: Coverage is adequate, although Morphy clearly romanticizes his childhood and was of a much higher socioeconomic status that the great majority of Monaghan Protestants as well as Catholics. Emigration: In the 1830s, Ulster (and southern Irish) Anglicans comprised a large proportion-perhaps a majority-of Irish emigrants who settled in Canada. In that respect, Morphy is representative, although most Irish Protestant settlers in Ontario became farmers like Wilson Benson. Good on Morphy's first impressions of Canada, although this reads a bit like a traveler's guide. Canadian career and adaptation: Morphy notes how he felt acutely at first the "strangeness" of his new surroundings. However, he seems to have adapted easily-partly through the local Methodist churches; partly through his sociocultural affinity to the dominant Protestantism and loyalism; partly through joining associations, such as the St. Patrick's Society and the volunteer companies that helped suppress the 1837 Rebellion; and partly through the arrival of his parents and siblings to join him in Toronto. Wealth and connections made his path to success vastly easier than for poor Wilson Benson. General: Morphy's memoir provides an example of bourgeois Protestant loyalism.'
The series consists of Miller's introductory notes on Morphy, Miller's transcripts of Morphy's memoirs, and photocopies of the original published memoirs."