Irish Immigration To New Jersey
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In the nineteenth century the people of Ireland emigrated from their native country and flooded into the English speaking countries of the world such as England, Wales, Canada, Australia and New Zealand in great numbers. The great number of Irish immigrants from this period, however, decided to try to make their new life in the United States of America, especially the American Northeast. Millions of Irish came into the United States during the nineteenth century with a vast percentage of them arriving in New York City; from the year 1852 to 1857 there was 582,140 Irish that emigrated to the United States and of them 444,960 arrived in New York City, which is over 76% of all Irish immigrants during this period. In fact a staggering number of 8,154,930 Irish would come to America in the second half of the nineteenth century from 1850 to 1900 alone. During the nineteenth century close to a million of these Irish immigrants would venture a short distant south and settle their families in the state of New Jersey; and a rich Irish and Catholic tradition still persists in many part of this state to this day. With so many other places as a possibility to start a new home and life, did so many Irish emigrants decide to settle in New Jersey? The fact is that these Irish were willing to take on the great challenge and risk of a trans-Atlantic journey, in usually horrible conditions, to try to obtain a better life for them and their family. Many of the Irish came to American through New York eventually would settle down in the area between the two great American cities of Philadelphia and New York. Once arrived at their destination these immigrants would join together in communities in order to look out for their common goals, especially because of the harsh prejudice against them from their nativist neighbors. As these Irish immigrants settled more and more of their relatives and friends would join them in their new home away from the Emerald Isle, this trend would continue in the cities of New Jersey throughout the duration of the nineteenth century. As the number of Irish that settled in New Jersey continued to increase it was only a matter of time until they would become a mainstay in the life and politics of the state of New Jersey. As will be seen, as the nineteenth century continued more and more Irish would make New Jersey their home and therefore exert more influence in politics and religion throughout the state, greatly affecting the future of the New Jersey.
The following two selections both reflect the common idea that pervaded in Ireland during the nineteenth century regarding their view of America as the ultimate destination for their survival and benefit. The first was a fairly common immigrant song depicting some of the reasons for leaving Ireland and the second was a quote from an Irish immigrant recently arrived in America describing what benefits lie in wait for them upon their journey here.
“Farewell to the land of the shillelagh and the shamrock,
Where many a long day in pleasure I spent;
Farewell to my friends whom I leave here behind me,
To live in poor Ireland if they are content;
Though sorry I am to leave the Green Island,
Whose cause I support both in peace and in war,
To live here in bondage I neer can be happy,
The green fields of America are sweeter by far.”
“The young men of Ireland who wished to be free and happy and come here as quick as possible. There is no place in the world where a man meets so rich an award for good conduct and industry as in America.”
During this period of time there was an exodus from the Emerald Isle that had yet to be seen and that has not since been seen to this day. It is possible, however, to separate this century of Irish immigration into two distinct categories: The Pre-Famine immigration of the early 1800s, in which people were not motivated by desperation but by the belief that the financial future would be much brighter in America than in Ireland; and the migration that began with the onset of the famine, where people left Ireland not for the hopes of social or financial mobility but merely as a way to survive and find a place where there would be ample food and land to support their families. These immigrants upon their departure from Ireland probably did not intend to settle in New Jersey upon their arrival to America, yet hundreds of thousands of them would end up calling New Jersey their home. Throughout the entire nineteenth century, before, during, and after the famine, as well as for the century before, the vast majority of Irish immigrants arrived in America at the port of New York City. Not all of these millions of immigrants could find work or residence within the city and were forced to try somewhere else, for many of them the next easiest, and less expensive choice was to make the short journey south into New Jersey. Another reason that New Jersey would end up as a large settlement area for all immigrants, especially the Irish, was its location between two of the largest American cities of this time period: New York and Philadelphia. As Benjamin Franklin once said of New Jersey, “It is a barrel tapped at both ends,” implying that everything in it drained towards New York or Philadelphia. But not all things drained completely between the two major cities, many people would settle in the northern portions of New Jersey and make this area one of the leading cultural centers for Irish Catholicism for generations to come.
At the beginning of the nineteenth century much of New Jersey was still, like much of the rest of America, mostly rural, with much of the population being self sufficient with farming. It was for this reason that many of the Irish that emigrated during the early 1800s came to New Jersey, the availability of land to own and the ability to support a family from the land made this area very desirable to an average Irish family. In Ireland, there was much land shortage and tenant farming was becoming a common practice, meaning that not many Irish actually owned the land they worked. This led to many being upset at not having any opportunities for advancement or to make any money from their work because from their small tracts of land they could only produce enough food to feed their own families. Upon arrival to New Jersey, however, these Irish families could afford their own plot of land many times the size of anything they had experienced in Ireland and thus earn more household income because they could produce more as well as not have to pay any of their earnings or crops