Identity area
Reference code
Title
Date(s)
- 17/12/2004 (Creation)
Level of description
Extent and medium
21pp
Context area
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Immediate source of acquisition or transfer
Content and structure area
Scope and content
Essay written by a student of Kerby A. Miller in December 2004 entitled 'The Unheard Story: Presbyterian Irish Immigrants to America during the Great Famine. The Life of John Campbell Bailey.' The essay contains excerpts from Bailey's diary written between 1867 and 1924.
Born in 1833 in Whitechurch, County Down, Ireland, Bailey came from a Scotch-Irish Presbyterian family whose ancestors likely arrived during the seventeenth-century Ulster Plantation. The family lived as small farmers and domestic weavers, occupations increasingly threatened by economic change before and during the Great Famine.
Although County Down was less severely affected than some regions of Ireland, the potato blight, rising unemployment, and the decline of domestic weaving created significant hardship. Like many Ulster Presbyterians, the Bailey family experienced economic insecurity despite later claims that Protestant communities were relatively insulated from the famine’s effects. In 1849, Robert and Jane Campbell Bailey emigrated with their children, including fifteen-year-old John, to Rock Island County, Illinois.
In Illinois, the family became part of a growing Presbyterian immigrant community and helped establish the Homestead United Presbyterian Church. Bailey worked as a farmer, married twice, raised seven children, and became a respected community member. He maintained a diary for fifty-five years, documenting local events, church activities, agricultural life, and national developments.