The Story of James Hoy from Ireland to America

 

The Tithe War

James Hoy left County Louth for America in 1830, just as the Tithe War was beginning. His Naturalization Papers indicate that he was bound for Phillipsburg, New Jersey, which is just across the Delaware River from Easton, Pennsylvania, but he stopped in Newark NJ for 15 years first. His believed home was a tiny townland called Newragh which has only 3 families living there in 1800. The next date when we know of inhabitants was 1850 when 3 other families lived there and one of which still lives there. We must think that James was forced to emigrate because his family lost their home due to the War.

The Tithe War in Ireland lasted from 1831 to 1836 and refers to a series of periodic skirmishes and violent incidents connected to resistance to the obligation of Catholics in Ireland to pay tithes for the upkeep of the Church of Ireland which was the Protestant denomination supported by the English Government.

As a consequence of the Tithe War, many Irish people were forced to leave their homes. This was the period when many Irish people began to arrive in America and establish churches and schools. It was the work done by the Tithe War immigrants that made it possible for the Famine immigrants to find a home in America ten years later. (From wikipedia.com. and johngrenham.com)

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The Ship Gardiner

The Irish who emigrated in the Tithe War era generally went through Liverpool and James Hoy found such a ship named 'Gardiner'. The Gardiner arrived in New York from Liverpool on April 20, 1830. There was a passenger names James Hay or Hoy aboard. He listed his age as 25 and his occupation as none.

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St. John's Roman Catholic Church, Newark New Jersey

Newark is nine miles west of the Eastside Manhattan docks where immigrant ships docked and one of the first destinations of the Irish who moved on from NYC. Among the Irish people who settled there in the 1820's were several Louth (and also Kilkenny, the county from which James's wife hailed) names whose connections through marriage and baptisms help us understand the families. James Hoy and his wife Margaret Phelan appear in these records in early 1834.

St. John's church was the first Roman Catholic Church to be built in Newark. Its origin provides an interesting story. At the time (1820) Catholics were not welcome in the area. The building of the Morris canal, along with the newly opening factories, brought many Irish workers to Newark. After holding services in private homes, they decided, in 1826, to build a church. The following homes held these meetings: Charles Durning, Martin Rowan, Christopher O'Rourke, John Shelock, Jean Vache and Anseim Fromeget. A lot at 14 Mulberry Street was purchased. The foundation was laid and the church funds ran out. At this time the First Episcopal (Trinity) church allowed the builders to use their church for a lecture by a Catholic clergyman from St. Peter's Church in New York City. This "fundraiser" put $300.00 in the coffers of the builders. Unfortunately, the building treasurer ran off with the money, putting the parish back in the red. This turn of events made the church members willing to underwrite the building costs. The church was finished in 1828 but the building debt almost forced the sale of the church. At the last minute the Propagation of the Faith in France contributed 22,960 francs to pay the debt. By 1848, under the guidance of Father Patrick Moran, the church was enlarged three times. (From oldnewark.com.)

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The Records of James Hoy and Margaret Phelan in Newark 1834 - 1845

James Hoy married Margaret Phelan in Newark and they had three children in the period from 1834 until 1845. The church records from this period are from Ancestry.com.

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James Hoy drowned on the Lehigh River at Glendon, PA in the Aftermath of the Great Flood of 1862.

James Hoy was born in the County Louth, Ireland about 1794 and came to America in the first wave of Irish immigrants in the early 1830s during the Tithe War period. He arrived in New York on April 20, 1830 on the ship Gardiner and lived in Newark, New Jersey until 1845 when the family moved to Easton, PA.

His naturalization papers filed in Easton PA in 1860 state that his "Intended Place of Settlement" was Cooper's Furnace in Phillipsburg NJ, across the river from Easton PA. We know from the census of 1850 that he lived in Glendon PA, a tiny village south of Easton, and worked in the furnace there called the Glendon Iron Works.

By his death in 1862, he was working on the connection between the Lehigh Canal from the Pennsylvania Lower Coal Region and the Delaware Canal which took the coal to Philadelphia. This connection was also in Glendon which was also the place of the 'Change Bridge' where the Lehigh Canal switched from the north side to the south to match the Delaware Canal going south. Near the bridge and the connection locks was a weir across the river to slow the flow of the Lehigh and make it safe to cross.

There was a great flood on the upper Lehigh in the Spring of 1862 bring torrents of water and large amounts of debris down the river towards Glendon which threatened the bride, weir, and locks and ultimately the supply of irreplaceable coal to factories in the second year of the Civil War.

Read more about the drowning death of James Hoy