Series 3 - McHenry-Moore letters

3 sub-series

Eleven of the original manuscript letters are located in the William R. Perkins Library at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. The remaining six are in the South Caroliniana Library at the University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina.

The McHenry-Moore letters consist of transcripts of, and notes on, 17 letters dated 1817-1818, all but one of them written to Thomas Moore, an Irish immigrant from County Antrim, primarily resident in or near Baltimore, Maryland. Eight letters were written in and sent from County Antrim by Moore's kinsmen and kinswomen, especially by John Lough of Larne; and the rest were written by Irish immigrant relatives and former neighbours now in the United States-primarily by James McHenry of Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania, and by Thomas Moore's brother, David Moore, who emigrated in mid-1817 and settled in Darlington County, South Carolina.
The series also includes: correspondence between Kerby A. Miller and various libraries and archives, primarily in South Carolina; research notes, primarily from Irish primary sources, taken by Miller and colleague Bruce D. Boling; and photocopies of published sources of information about the American residences and employers of Thomas Moore. David Moore, and James McHenry.
Per Professor Kerby A. Miller, the McHenry-Moore letters illustrate:
'1. The post-Napoleonic War depression's devastating impact on Irish agriculture and industry (the latter especially in Ulster), which, coupled with unusually harsh weather and poor harvests in 1816-17, stimulated mass emigration, especially by Ulster Presbyterians, to North America and Britain.

2. Emigration from Ulster, especially by Protestant (primarily Presbyterians Ireland) members of the middling classes-tradesmen, manufacturers, and skilled workers, particularly in Ulster's formerly flourishing cotton industry. Once wealthy individuals now fled Irish bankruptcies, legal actions by creditors, and the threat of imprisonment for debt.
3. The letters reflect their class's despair over Irish economic and political conditions, coupled with their enthusiasm for what they perceived as the economic opportunities, social fluidity, and republican liberty available in the United States. Those sentiments were especially common among emigrants attracted to the US during the boom years between the Anglo-American War of 1812-15 and the Panic of 1819 Employment on public works, such as canal and dock construction attracted ordinary immigrants, but those with capital, literacy, and/or skills, and commercial, industrial, and managerial experience, were especially advantaged.
4. Despite the prevalence of slavery, which would discourage later Irish immigrants, in this period-as in the late 18th century-the Old South (especially trade and cotton manufacturing) was a major magnet for these skilled immigrants (such as David Moore), thanks to soaring cotton prices and a wave of Southern industrialization (primarily cotton manufacturing), stimulated by the US Tariff of 1816.
5. Finally, the letters illustrate the phenomenon, much more common in this period than later, of emigration by entire families, either together or in stages (e.g., James McHenry), whose household heads were older than most immigrants who were poor and journeyed alone. E.g., the Moores were in their thirties and forties when they left Ireland. Usually, only emigrants with some capital, brought from
   Ireland, could afford family migration.'