Series 16 - James Sheehan letters

157pp

Kerby A. Miller created his transcripts of the Sheehan and Foley letters from the original letters held in the National Library of Ireland [call number MS 24559, accession number 3963].

Materials pertaining to letters received by James Sheehan, an emigrant from Deerpark, County Kilkenny who emigrated to Newfoundland in 1858 and eventually settled in Iowa in the early 1870s. Per the letter donor, 1979: 'James Sheehan, son of Philip and Mary Sheehan, was born on February 15, 1837, at Deer Park, Mullinavat, County Kilkenny, Ireland. He was apprenticed into the coopers' trade at an early age, and at the age of twenty-one, left a blighted land to seek his fortune. The letters reproduced on the following pages were received by him between the day he emigrated to the New World, landing in Newfoundland ca. 1858, and April 16, 1892, the day he reached his final resting place in Corpus Christi Cemetery in Fort Dodge, Iowa. It is possible to construct a rough chronology of his travels in the New World. He lived in Newfoundland approximately four years, first at St. John's, and later at Harbour Breton. He migrated to Boston in 1862, where he had relatives at Ipswich. Next he went to Albany, New York, and later to nearby West Hebron. In 1868 he arrived in Dubuque, Iowa, at the invitation of another cousin. Finally, in 1871, he arrived at Fort Dodge, where he was united in marriage to Catherine Loftus, of County Mayo, on November 25, 1873, To this union five sons were born. The original letters are faded and stained, and sometimes in a hand that is nearly illegible. Many words are only guessed at, especially surnames and place names. They seemed to be rather casual about the spelling of names. The surname appears as Sheehan, Sheehy, or Sheahan. Philip is sometimes Phillip, Bridget is often Briget.' Patrick Foley, an acquaintance of James Sheehan, was the author of one of the letters in this series.
The series consists of: the original transcripts of the 22 Sheehan letters submitted to the National Library of Ireland in 1979 alongside the manuscripts; Kerby A. Miller's correspondence with researchers, historical institutions, and Sheehan family members regarding the Sheehan family; Miller's research on the family in Ireland and on James Sheehan in North America; Miller's own transcripts of the letters; and relevant photocopied excerpts of Anderson, George Baker (1899), Our County and Its People: A Descriptive and Biographical Record of Saratoga County, New York (Boston: Boston History Company).

Some additional research on the Sheehan letters is located in P155/31/13.