Luck

Last week was the week that Covid-19 isolation hit North America for real. We were supposed to be in New York for March Break, and we cancelled the trip just in time. As I finish and publish this, Toronto and many other places are in a state of emergency. New York is suffering and we are thinking constantly of the people there, and throughout the world.

Most of the things we were planning to do last week are in lower Manhattan. It’s been a long time since I was last a tourist in New York, and the Smithsonian Institution now runs the National Museum of the American Indian – New York there. The Lanape were living on the island of Manahatta when the Dutch arrived and allegedly purchased the land, and certainly occupied it. A 2018 article in Smithsonian magazine, “The True Native New Yorkers Can Never Truly Reclaim Their Homeland” talks about how the Lenape were forcibly dispersed, and today are working to preserve their culture in New York and also to save the highly endangered Lenape language.

Part of the work by some Lenape who still live in New York is a movement to bring forward a century-old proposal to build a monument for Native Americans on Staten Island. This was first pitched in 1911 by the department store owner Rodman Wanamaker, who wanted to erect a colossal statue — taller than the Statue of Liberty – with a museum. The campaign fizzled after a ground-breaking ceremony in 1913 – World War I helped sideline the project — but the U.S. Federal Government retained the land. In 2017, a new proposal was made to President Donald Trump and the National Parks Service, led by Margaret Boldeagle. It doesn’t seem to have moved forward, and now we have the incredible disruption of COVID-19.

I started writing this post on St. Patrick’s Day, trying to get back to blogging after slipping a few weeks behind in my #52Ancestors posts. Like just about everyone in the world, we had other plans for this day, but instead we’re making the best of things at home and honestly feeling lucky to be here.

In preparation for the trip we didn’t take to New York City, I also spent some time gathering together a few facts about two Irish ancestors I hoped to learn a little bit more about while we were there. They are my three-times-great grandparents Murtha and Margaret Fleming. Originally from Arles, Queens County (Co. Laois), they emigrated to the United States sometime after 1852 [1]. They settled in lower Manhattan, where Murtha became a produce dealer in Gansevoort Market (now called the Meat Packing District).

I don’t have any information that was passed down in the family about Murtha and Margaret Fleming, so everything I know about them is pieced together from records. I am really looking forward to someday walking around their historic market neighbourhood , visiting the National Museum of the American Indian, finally seeing the Tenement Museum, and checking out the Museum of the City of New York.

According to two obituary notices (one a brief article, one a death announcement) published in the New York Sun on October 7, 1894 and October 8, 1894, Murtha Fleming was 75 when he died at his residence at 419 West 33^rd Street. I find it interesting that this is the address today of the Sisters of the Presentation and I wonder what connection there is, if any.

Based on the obituary, he was born about 1819, and was in his 30s when he and his family came to America. I think it’s fun that my husband’s great-grandparents came from Co. Laois as well. Google tells me it would take a full work day to walk from Arles to my husband’s family village, Ballyfin.

Like my husband’s family, the Flemings were Roman Catholics. Murtha, who often gets transcribed on Ancestry as Martha, sometimes making him hard to find, married Margaret Hayden and they baptized their daughter Maria at the Catholic church in Arles on September 4, 1853. Maria (who later was known as Maria Catherine) had at least three brothers, and so far, I know the name of one son, James, who was born in New York City in 1861.

The Sun obituary says, “Mr. Fleming came from Ireland about 33 years ago and embarked in the produce business, afterward establishing the firm of M. Fleming & Sons.” I found him listed in the New York City directory, 1870/71, digitized and hosted by the New York Public Library, as a Merchant located at 360 Greenwich. He was living at 469 West 32^nd. In the New York City directory, 1872/73, the business is listed as John and Murtagh Fleming, Produce, at 163 Reade. The Flemings had moved house and were living at 433 West 33^rd. Google Maps sort of helps, but I don’t think it is possible to really grasp their geography without a visit.

In the 1880 U.S. Census, Murtha & Margaret Fleming were living at 428 West 35^th. Only James was still living with them, and both he and Murtha worked at the “Produce Commission” (The Greenwich Village Society for Historical Preservation has more about Gansevoort Market but it says the market was formally sanctioned by the city in 1884. There is a lot more to learn about the trade there, and some very interesting facts, such as the introduction of distributed refrigeration. By the time of the 1880 Census, Maria Catherine Fleming had married a liquor salesman named Michael E. Carley and had given birth to my great-grandmother’s two older siblings, Katherine and William Merwin Carley. Agnes, the grandmother we know as Nana Murphy, was the baby of the family, born in 1892.

Before our trip, I was feeling frustrated to not have more time to comb through directories and hunt for clues of Murtha and Margaret’s lives that I could take to New York City. Today, I feel lucky that we didn’t get there only to have to turn back to Canada, and also lucky that I have so many gaps left to fill in on a very interesting ancestor. Genealogy must be one of the most calming distractions possible, and the fact that I can rely on it now is the luck of the Irish, indeed.

[1] Their daughter Maria Fleming (Later known as Maria Catherine Fleming) was baptized in Ireland on September 4, 1853 and is found in the Irish Catholic parish registers for Arles in the Diocese of Kildare and Leighlin. I can’t quite make out the writing for the Townland. Another job to add to the list!

[2] According to Murtha Fleming’s Sun obituary, he was survived by his wife, three sons and a daughter.