The Cape Ann Association

The Late Americans and the Irish

The List of Late Americans by Year

The List of Irish Immigrants by Year

Introduction

The Loyalists were just the first of three groups of immigrants into St. David Parish and other nearby areas. As soon as the war was over, the international border meant little, and individuals and families moved freely across it. Then beginning at the end of the Napoleonic Wars (1815) the Irish immigrants, principally Scots Irish in the case of St. David Parish began arriving.

Remember that these immigrantions were something of a 'flow through' situation. Some remained, but many others lived here for a few years then moved on to other destinations. Beginning in the post civil war period, increasing numbers headed either to the Boston region for jobs, or out to the midwest for better land.

The American Immigration

Quite a considerable number of US individuals and families from New England arrived here in the period between about 1790 and the 1830s. There were attractions of timber, of jobs in the shipbuilding industry and other trades, and also relatively stable and low-cost land. Some had relatives here and others did not.

From the 1851 census is drawn a list of American Immigrants of this period, arranged by the DATE they arrived, which was conveniently asked for in the 1851 census returns.

Click here for list of the late US Immigrants that were mentioned in the 1851 census

The Irish Immigrants to St. David

Click here for a list of the IRISH Immigrants to St. David Parish, as mentioned in the 1851 census, arranged by year.

 

The Irish Immigration has its beginnings not in the famine which ravaged Ireland in the late 1840s, but in the Napoleonic Wars of 1790 to 1815.

 

During that war the price of foodstuffs rose, and Ireland prospered as a result, most especially the Protestant Scots Irish families. Many became substantial farmers, and not just with crops. During the wars with Napoleon there was an ever-greater need for horses - remounts as they were called. Many families made a handsome living while raising horses, an occupation dear to the hearts of these people.

 

Then peace struck in 1815, and the prices for food products dropped, never to recover in the 19th century. As well, the need for numerous horses declined, turning the breeding farms into losing propositions.

 

For a few years the Irish believed that things would turn around. But increasingly after 1817, those who could afford to leave with some resources to make the journey did so. These were principally the Protestant families of former Scots-Irish extraction.

 

As the 1820s proceeded, the modest trickle increased, and by the 1830s it was a torrent of people who had now given up on the Irish economy, especially as the population ever-increased.

 

St. David never did see the full impact of the wave of immigration at the time of the famine - those immigrants went elsewhere. In this region some ships did dock in St. Andrews, and some of these families joined the working people of Milltown and St. Stephen. A very few found a niche in the rural St. David Parish.

 

By the 1860s St. David was beginning to see a downturn in the overall population, as good land was fully taken up, and industries thrived elsewhere.