Series 41 - Samuel Fleming Sinclair memoir

1p and 1 microfilm reel

Kerby A. Miller was provided with a microfilmed copy of the autobiography by the Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley.

Microfilm copy of Sinclair, Samuel Fleming The Life and Travels of Samuel Fleming Sinclair, 1830-1895, plus Kerby A. Miller's abstract of the autobiography.
Per Miller: 'Young Ulster Protestant, 1848: decision to emigrate out of a desire for adventure and aspiration to get rich. Read about U.S. in a book. Born, 1830, in Sixtown, Co. Derry. Father held a freehold farm of 50 acresof arable and 50 acres of mountain land. Presbyterians.Attended National School, in winters, from age 5 to 12; at 12, he was sent to a "clothshop", a dry goods store in Draperstown, owned by a family friend and Presbyterian elder. Lived there, as an apprentice in the shop, for 4 years. A fellow boarder, a young minister, was an avid reader, and Sinclair borrowed and read Baird's History of the Presbyterian Church of the United States of America ("Boy like, I read this book with great interest; my young mind was excited about the great United States, and I resolved to go to that land and become rich. I left the village store of Mr. Getty and went to my fathers home and worked hard for one year.") On Ap. 10, 1848, at age 17, he sailed from Belfast for New York, arriving after a "pleasant passage" on the 1st of June. He went on immediately to Pittsburgh, travelling by train and canal, and enjoying himself in his new adventure. The beauty and the wildness of the countryside "filled my mind with admiration and awe." He found Pittsburgh filled with north of Ireland people, and a stronghold of Presbyterianism. Was befriended by wealthy Irish Catholic family from Tyrone, named McCullough. In Pittsburgh, he worked in a dry goods store, at $20 per month. Also found relatives who had emigrated 30 years before.'