The McCarthy family emigrated to America from Ireland, with an initial sojourn in Oldham, England. They arrived in Lancaster County at about 1850, having left their home in Ballindine, County Mayo, following the worst years of the Famine. Patrick McCarthy (Carty) was born 17 March 1801, the son of Martin Carty. Patrick's mother's name is not known at this time. There were Carty's in Kilvine Parish, which includes the town of Ballindine, but church records do not commence until the 1850s, too late for any marriage or baptismal information. An adjacent parish with much older records, Crossboyne, has Carty births and marriages, but none specifically documenting this family.
Patrick Carty married Rose Keely about 1829, probably in Ballandine. Keelys did live in the Town, although there were other Keely families in the surrounding area, particularly in Galway which is less than one half mile from the town of Ballindine. Rose's parents are not known. At least 6 children were born in Ireland to this couple, Jane c. 1830, Sarah c. 1832, Mary c. 1833, John c. 1834 ( my great grandfather ),Thomas c. 1836, and Patrick c. 1841.
Patrick and Rose brought their children to Holt Street in Oldham, an area near Waterhead Mill, a water source for manufacturing in Oldham. The community, known as Greenacres Moor, is situate a few miles East of the town of Oldham proper. Rose's brother, Anthony Keely, also came with part of his family to live with his brother-in-law's. Anthony had married Mary Prendergast in Ballindine about 1838 and they had three children, Jane c. 1839, Thomas c. 1841, and Bridget c. 1846. ( Bridget would later marry William Kelly in Nashua NH and would be the mother of Mary, Catherine, and John. Catherine became a physician and John became an attorney and later a New York City Supreme Court Judge in the New York City Domestic Relations Court.) Apparently, Mary Prendergast died in Ireland. Soon after his arrival in Oldham, Anthony married Mary Wills [Waals]. This couple had additional children in England-- Sarah c. 1852, Honora c. 1854, Anthony c. 1856, Ellen c. 1858, and Rose c. 1860.
In 1860, Oldham was a market town principally engaged in cotton textile manufacture and coal mining. The presence of water, freely available for manufacturing needs, and the local abundance of coal made this town an ideal location for the manufacture of cotton textiles for use all over the world. The presence of the cotton industry had attracted workers from Ireland in large numbers, particularly around the time of the Famine in Ireland in the years 1847-50. Patrick McCarthy and Anthony Keely came as an extended family and put down roots in the community. They were present as the renascent Catholic Church in Lancaster emerged and appear to have planned to stay in England.
During the 1840s, the Roman Catholic people of Oldham had first organized a meeting place to celebrate the Mass in a room over a pub, with priests traveling from the Parish of Salford in Manchester to administer to the people. They used the Unitarian chapel for a time and finally they raised enough capital to construct the church which still stands on Shaw Street. By the 1860s. This church was prosperous and growing, causing a great deal of friction with the local non-Catholic townsmen. In fact, the year the McCarthy and Keely families left England, a riot errupted during a Church procession setting off general mayhem resulting in the destruction of the stained glass windows in the church and injury to children in the procession and to the adults who participated in the pitched battle.
The Mullin family who had also come over from Ireland, but prior to the Famine years (c. 1830), lived in the center of Oldham on the lanes directly adjacent to the old Anglican Church of St. Mary's. These two families, the McCarthy's and the Mullins would intersect even before John McCarthy married my great grandmother, Ellen Mullin. In 1858, Thomas McCarthy, younger brother of John, married a local English girl, Margaret Bates. One of the witnesses at the wedding was Michael Mullin. It is likely that Michael is a cousin of Ellen Mullin
Here is a photograph my mother, Edna McCarthy MacAvoy, always identified as a picture of the "four" McCarthy brothers. In fact, there are only "three" McCarthy brothers. A close examination of this photo yields to a different interpretation.I believe this to be a photo of Patrick McCarthy Sr. sitting to the far left and proudly facing his three grown sons. If the photo was taken in Oldham, England, just before the family scattered to America, it was taken about 1863 when Patrick Sr. was about 55. He had been a widower for a few years and married Bridget Murphy, a widow, in October of 1863 a few weeks after his son John married Ellen. The three brothers, Thomas, age about 27, John about 28, and Patrick about 24, pose beside their father. I believe John, my great grandfather, is seated and his brother Thomas stands to the left with the youngest McCarthy, Patrick, standing on the right.
This photo probably represents the last time these four men were together. The McCarthy family split into two groups, the Nashua McCarthy's and the Brooklyn McCarthy's. The only daughter in the family, Mary, seems to have emigated to New York and may have married before she left England. Her husband was Martin Donohue.
The brothers Thomas and Patrick McCarthy appear in a City of Nashua Directory in 1867 as mechanic and pipe layer. In 1868, the directory entry adds father, Patrick McCarthy, to the roster, listing him as a laborer and his two sons as machinists. Thomas McCarthy had married Margaret Bates in Oldham England on 1 October 1859. They already had two children, Rose born 22 November 1861 and William born 20 January 1864,when they left England.
Patrick McCarthy Sr. worked in Nashua until his death on 10 April 1874 age 73, having been born in Ireland 17 March 1801. His second wife, Deborah, died on 20 March 1885 at age 70.
Patrick McCarthy,Jr., married Caroline Timoney sometime before 1870. Their first child was not born until 1883, Mary Catherine, born in Nashua on 3 November. There is an indication that a second daughter was born to this couple, Rose, who died early. Patrick became a merchant in the town and was evidently prosperous. He died young, age 50, in 1891. His death certificate indicates that he was born in Galway, a contradiction to other information about this family. But Ballindine is located less than a mile from the Galway/Mayo border and it is possible the family actually came from a village in Galway County.
Patrick and Caroline's daughter, Mary C., ultimately went to live with her Uncle Thomas and his large family, thus contributing to the interesting obituary for Thomas in 1907 when he was killed in a tragic accident. He was listed with two daughters named Mary--Mary T. and Mary C.
The bare facts concerning this branch of the family are less interesting than what has become known about them with the help of the Nashua Public Library, the Nashua Historical Society, and the New Hampshire State Library. Piecing all of the information together, the McCarthy family were joiners, strivers, achievers, ground breakers. Of Patrick Sr. and his civic involvement, little is known, but his sons were ambitious and idealistic.
Patrick Jr. spent a longer time with just himself and a wife to support and thus had the opportunity to become established as an entrepreneur in the City of Nashua. The exact type of retail establishment is unknown. His daughter, Mary C., attended local schools in Nashua and graduated from Nashua High School in 1905, 14 years after her father Patrick had died and probably while living with her Uncle Thomas. Mary went on to graduate from the New Hampshire Normal School in 1905. As a teacher in the Norwalk Public Schools in Connecticut, where she moved in 1919, she became the Suprintendant of Music. While in Norwalk, she took extra course work at Columbia and Boston Universities and also completed a course for supervisors at the Institute for Music Pedagogy at Skidmore College in Saratoga NY. She died in Norwalk in 1951 after 33 years at her post At her funeral in Norwalk, the whole town turned out, including 150 of her colleagues. She is buried with her parents in St. Patrick's Catholic Cemetery in Hudson NH, the cemetery which serves the parish of St.Patrick in Nashua. It is notable that her cousin, Mary T. came to live with her in CN and died there in 1935
The most flamboyant of the brothers was Thomas, the middle son. Born about 1837, he was, like many of his contemporaries, at work before he was 15 years old. In Oldham, he and his brother John and sister Mary worked in the Oldham cotton mills. According to the newspaper accounts of the railroad accident which killed him, Thomas was a Fenian and involved in Republican matters in Lancaster. In about 1866, he traveled with his family to Dublin, Ireland, and was involved in the Fenian Uprisings of that year. His third child, Mary T. McCarthy, was born in Dublin in 1866. Some short time thereafter, Thomas and Margaret left for America. In Nashua, two additional children were born to Thomas and Margaret--Thomas in 1869 and Harriet in 1873.
Family lore states that the McCarthy's were "Bobby's" in the town of Oldham. Since Bobby's were unknown excepting in The City of London, when pressed, my mother elaborated that the family had connections to police work. It seems obvious that the connection was as the policed, not the police.
Brooklyn McCarthys
John McCarthy, age 28, and Ellen Mullin, age 24, married on 4 August 1863 in the newly built chapel of St. Mary's on Shaw Street in the town of Oldham. Sponsors at the wedding were Patrick McCarthy and MaryAnne Mullin. John's occupation was listed as weaver and Ellen's as dressmaker.
John McCarthy arrived from Liverpool on October 14, 1863, in the Port of New York on the Ship Neptune. With him was his bride, Ellen Mullin, and her immediate family--Mother-in-Law Judith Mullin, and Ellen's sisters MaryAnne and Sarah. Ellen's younger sister, Eliza, was not with the family. She may have married and remained in Oldham or she may have died.
Upon arrival in New York, John and Ellen settled in Williamsburg, Brooklyn at 48 N. 4th Street where, on 25 Dec 1864, their first child Ellen was born. Her birthday was always celebrated on February 25, probably to avoid the Christmas upstaging. The baby was baptized in the Church of St. Vincent de Paul on 26 December 1864 with Patrick Connel and Mary Donohue as sponsors, Mary being sister to John. John is listed in the 1868 City of Brooklyn Directory as a Cooper by trade. He would continue in that occupation until his death. Cooperage manufacture was endemic to the Brooklyn waterfront, a need of the brewery trade as well as a number of other businesses. In their location on 4th Street, the McCarthy's were within walking distance of the piers and wharves of the East River.
In 1867, Rose Geraldine McCarthy followed by Sarah Matilda McCarthy .