GO WEST YOUNG MEN

(This account of Loughlin and Michael Mac Donald's trip from Nova Scotia which follows was taken from interviews with and the writings of the late John Kemble of Pomona College, a foremost expert on the Pacific Mail Steamship Service)

In October of 1868, Loughlin and Murdock, at the ages of 23 and 24, traveled to New York City, probably by ship, from Halifax. Ships sailed out of New York four times a month on the 1st, 16th, 19th, and 24th. Sailing day was always exciting, with the entrance to the docks clogged with drays, shouting porters and wide-eyed passengers. During this year 40,000 people would travel to California in this manner. This was nearly half of those who came west; the remainder came overland. By water, the trip averaged 21 days, contrasted to three months overland. One hundred pounds of luggage could be carried for free by each first class passenger. As a shipping company ad said in the New York Times at that time, "Medicine and Attendance are Free."
The two Canadians (technically. Englishmen) sailed Captain King's Ocean Queen from New York on October 16, accompanied by Hugh Gillis, their 46-year old uncle of Canadian birth.
The Ocean Queen was a 2,715-ton vessel which was built in New York in 1857 for $450,000. It was originally christened the Queen of the Pacific. It was first owned by the San Francisco/Nicaragua Steamship Company and was 327 feet in length. Later it was sold to PMSS. The Queen was a wooden side-wheel steamer with three decks, two masts, two stacks, and an eagle figurehead. It was used as a troop ship during the civil war. It carried 804 passengers on this trip and it was owned prior to 1865 by Cornelius Vanderbilt, at which time it was used in the trans-Atlantic service. Ships of the middle 19th century were fitted with sails as a matter of course and sometimes the sheets were helpful in augmenting the engines as well as providing a means of getting into port should the engines or coal supply fail. Their journey took place a little over a year after Canada had achieved its liberty on July 1, 1867.
Upon leaving New York Harbor, the boys would have heard the firing of three or four guns at Fort Lafayette. From New York, the ship sailed to Charleston and then to Tybee Light below Savannah. In both ports, it hoved-to, rather than entering the harbor. Passengers and mail were brought out to the ship. The reason the ships hove to was for had they entered the harbor, state laws required that their colored crew members be bonded. They then sailed to Havana, New Orleans and back to Havana. After circling the western tip of Cuba, they headed directly for Aspinwall, Isthmus of Panama.

FROM ASPINWALL TO PANAMA, A TRAVELOGUE

AT 10 o'clock, A.M., July 14, we stepped upon the pier at Aspinwall, as the Americans call it, though its original name was Colon, until the formation of the Panama Railroad Company, when the town was re-christened after Joseph Aspinwall, one of the leaders of that enterprise. We walked up the pier, passed a gate guarded by a soldier on either side, and came out in the city of Aspinwall, U. C., as it was printed on the hotel cards. After consultation of maps, we came to the conclusion that "U. C." stood for "United Colombia," the nation whose President our University has just honored with the title of LL. D.
I must confess that I was not particularly pleased with the appearance of the subjects of "our youngest alumnus." The first impression of them was derived from three of them in a boat, whom we saw as we were approaching the pier. Each was elegantly clad in a very dirty shirt, sans culotte! I saw enough afterwards to convince me that this picturesque costume is quite a favorite with the loyal people of United Colombia. On the road between Aspinwall and Panama there were plenty to be seen whose dress was the same, minus the shirt.
The uniform of the army of United Colombia has the merit of variety, at any rate. The soldier on the right as we passed through the pier entrance, was a negro clad in a sort of half naval suit of blue, while the one on the left was an Indian, dressed in a suit that was probably once white, but now so black with dirt that one would hardly care to risk a very heavy wager on its original color. A detachment of eight or ten passed us afterwards along the street, and no two of them were dressed alike. The only article of apparel with respect to which they were uniform, was their shoes. Uniformity in shoes is secured by the fact that they are all barefoot!
We passed the gate of the pier and came out between two rows of citizens, who forthwith besieged us with the kindest offers to carry our baggage. There was a babel of voices that would have done no discredit to a cabman's stand in New York. But we found a greater confusion when we reached the hotel where I required to write a practical catechism for the use of Aspinwall Sunday Schools, it would run somewhat in this way:
Q. What made that part of the world called Aspinwall?
A. California travel.
Q. What is the chief end of man in Aspinwall?
A. Man's chief end is to sell rum, brandy and cigars to California travelers.

It is a circumstance not at all flattering to Americans that so many of the citizens of the goodly city of Aspinwall devote themselves to the sale of rum and brandy. I believe that at least fifty persons were walking around with a bottle in each hand and another under each arm, trying to sell rum, brandy or wine. I stood at the hotel door, and kept up a steady conversation for an hour or two with these venders:
Citizen No. 1. Have some rum, sir?
Answer. Don't drink
Citizen No. 2. Brandy, sir? Pure Jamaica rum, sir? Wine, sir?
A. Don't drink.
Old negress. Buy some cigars,honey?
A. Don't smoke.
Young negress. Here's your brandy, sir. Buy a bottle? Only one dollar.
A. Don't drink.
And so on through a long list of commodities, oranges, lemons, limes, palm-leaf fans, Panama hats, bananas, and pineapples
At about 8 P.M.. we took the cars, and set out upon our winding way toward Panama over the most crooked railroad I ever saw. The cars are furnished with cane-bottomed seats, and there are blinds instead of windows; but there is little danger of suffering from cold. The road is smooth and not uncomfortable.
The Panama Railroad is a monopoly, and charges accordingly. Its length is forty-seven miles, and the fare over it, twenty-five dollars in coin! This, with the immense amount of travel between New York and California, renders it perhaps the most profitable road in the world. Its stock is never quoted in the market reports, for the reason that it is never offered for sale, so there is no way of as ascertaining its real value.
We arrived at Panama about 7 P.M., after one of the most delightful rides I ever enjoyed, through the rich tropical scenery of the Isthmus. It is utterly impossible to describe the luxuriant vegetation, the dense mass of flowering and fruit bearing trees and shrubs to be seen on the ride to Panama.
The botanist who should be bold enough to brave the miasma of the country, and fortunate enough to escape its effects, would find a source of endless delight in the dense mazes of this tropical labyrinth.
If the reader will take the map of the Panama Railroad, he will find two places marked on the route with the names of "Gatun" and "Gorgona." A man who draws his knowledge of geography from the map, would naturally suppose that there were towns there. An enterprising Yankee family,with a jack-knife or two, could build either of them in a fortnight, and furnish them too, if the interior arrangements of all the houses are modeled after those of one or two into which I peeped. They are mere collections of huts, with walls of reeds and roofs thatched with leaves of the palm-trees that grow so abundantly there. A few only have walls of rough boards. They serve as shelter from the rain; as for a house to keep warm in, no such thing is needed there.
The inhabitants of these rustic habitations are as much of a curiosity as their houses. A condensed description of them would read thus; Nationality, Negro; Language, Spanish; Dress, various; Employment, selling eggs and bread to passengers.
I have described their dress as "various." The women wear a single garment of cotton cloth. Of the men, some wear a shirt only, some pants only, and I saw one with neither, only a cloth about the loins. The smaller children wear absolutely nothing, being as nude as when born.
The Panama bay being too shallow to permit ocean steamers to run up to the wharf, we were taken out to the "Nevada" on a small steamer used for this purpose. We saw nothing of the city of Panama, except the wharf where we went aboard, and this was crowded, as at Aspinwall, by fruit-venders, who plied their trade vigorously while we waited for the turn of the tide to enable us to leave. At length we set out, and soon saw the "Nevada" looming up before as through the darkness. We walked across the gang-plank, took lunch and retired, to find ourselves in the morning on the broad Pacific, westward bound."
F.A. Blackburn
1867

Because the passenger list reported in the newspaper didn't carry their names, but did carry this notation at the end of the roster: "and a large number in second class and steerage," (Steerage is a tiny suffocating space below and forward of the poop deck) it is assumed that one of the latter categories is how the boys and their uncle traveled. (If so they would not have the free medical service.) Steerage cost $125 each for the entire trip. Berths were arranged in threes, with one above another. Each berth was built to accommodate three persons. The inner occupant had to climb in and out over his two berth mates. Did Loughlin and Murdock let their uncle have the outer spot?

SHIPS' SLEEPING ACCOMODATIONS

Food was served to the steerage passengers in the galley. Tables were not served in steerage, the passengers being divided into masses of four to twenty-four members who chose one of their members to go to the galley where the food was served and bring it to them in buckets.

SHIP'S DINING FACILITY

They then proceeded to eat as a group off a clean spot on the deck. Some passengers bitterly described the pushing and shoving that were involved when the steerage folks vied for their share of the food from the galley. Meals consisted of salt beef, pork, yams, rice and sea biscuits with soup occasionally, fresh meat on Sunday and Thursday, coffee for breakfast and tea for supper. One needs to put in perspective the significance of two historical events in order to better understand Michael and Loughlin's wanderlust: the end of the Civil War in the East and the conclusion of the gold rush in the West. As one author stated:
�When the dust of the gold rush had settled and the formalities of Appomattox were over, America suddenly found itself straddling a continent. A generation of Americans were eager to put the bitter lessons of Shiloh and Gettysburg behind them, and the words Oregon and California offered hope of a fresh start in a new land. And what a land! As early as the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1804-06, tales had been trickling back of mountains that dwarfed even the Rockies, of canyons without bottom, giant trees poking holes in the sky, muscle-bound salmon tail-walking up cataracts, game animals practically falling into the stewpots in Schmoo-like ecstasy, grazing ranges stirrup-deep with grass and rich bottomlands just waiting for the bite of the plow. The incredible tales recounted by the early 19th century explorers and trappers turned out to be accurate.�
Even yet a third factor intervened soon after Loughlin and Michael's departure West. It was not until the Big War was over and the work on the Transcontinental Railroad resumed that any real effort was made to bring "civilization" to the raw new state. However, with the completion of the first railroad linking the Atlantic Seaboard with the Pacific Coast in 1869, a new era was underway. Once again men "back East" looked to California; but this time they saw in California more than just the gold of the Mother Lode Country.
Although a post-war depression was slowing the economy back in "the States," for California the 1870s was a time of healthy growth. More settlers headed for California and now the newcomers were of a more substantial breed than so many who had come during the gold rush era, men looking to develop the state rather than to exploit the quick riches of the gold fields. Enter the era of expanding industry for the West Coast. Little did they imagine at that time that they would become agricultural giants themselves.

THE FENIANS PLACE IN IRISH HISTORY

from a web page entitled,"Irish History and Culture"
If you are an old time subscriber you will remember a piece I wrote in the summer of '93' entitled, "The Little Mouse that Roared" after a delightful Alex Guiness flick of the same name in which a very small nation tried to invade the US in Vicking-like ships and armed with long bows. Like the Fenians in this story, they were unsuccessful.
Fenian Add

You should be interested in the Fenian Raids for Donald's sons, Laughlin, Michael and Ronald Mc Donald were conscripted into the Canadian militia that was formed to resist this Irish brotherhood which was the forerunner of today's IRA.

"With the reduction of Montreal, a demand will be made upon the United States for a formal recognition of Canada, whose name will be changed at once to New Ireland."
Fenian Manifesto

Fenian Add

Fenian Statue in Dublin Park
During the middle of the 19th Century, a series of factors combined to create a new Irish patriotic movement. This organization was a revolutionary group dedicated to the overthrow of British rule in Ireland. It had its roots in both the United States and Ireland and was popularly known as The Fenian Movement, in honour of the Fianna, the ancient Irish warriors.
Fenian Add

The origin of the term Fenian comes from Irish folklore. It described an ancient group of Knights who were self-reliant and had a passion for Irish land. So great was their passion according to the legend, they gave up a chance for world dominion to keep Ireland. This fit very closely with the beliefs of the modern movement and was taken as the organization name.
Times were hard for the Irish, and had been since England took control of the land. In the middle of the 1840's, however, things got much worse. The potato famine of 1845-1848 was a great disaster to the Irish population. In the space of three short years, the inhabitants of the country declined by over two million souls. Some of these two million people immigrated to America while most starved to death or died of disease.
After the famine ended, times remained very hard for the Irish. They never completely recovered from the disaster and many more Irish immigrated to America during the 1850's. Most of these people were of a very strong patriotic belief in their home country, and only left because they had to survive.
On St. Patrick's Day, 1858, James Stephens and Thomas Clark Luby started the Fenian organization in Ireland as the Irish Republican Brotherhood when they swore each other in as members. James had been a participant in the Young Ireland Movement of 1848. A friend of James Stephens, John O'Mahoney (also of the Young Ireland movement) started the Fenian Movement in the United States at about the same time. Both portions of the movement gained supporters rapidly, especially during 1861. This influx was largely contributed to the death of Terrance Bellew MacManus, a hero of the Young Ireland movement who died in this year. Upon his request, his body was shipped from San Francisco to Ireland for burial, and all along the route patriotic Irish paid their respects.
In Ireland the movement was largely unsuccessful, as the British clamped down on it quickly in a successful effort to stop the problem. They did, however, manage to get the attention of Parliament to focus for a short time on the "Irish problems".
In the United States however, the organization continued to grow quickly. Many of the American members gained military experience during the American Civil War and therefore were becoming a force to be feared. Rumors spread that the American Fenians were going to invade what is now Canada. The rumours were not unfounded, as the American group was quickly gaining arms, money, and various other kinds of support including that of the US government.
Location Certificate issued in 1905 Support for the Fenian Brotherhood's Invasion of Canada leveled out and there was no real threat of any more raids after the 1890s. The raids, however, did have a large effect on Canada-U.S. relations for years after the last raid. There was a great deal of anger in Canada with the U.S. government, who Canadians felt had looked the other way and failed to prevent the raids on their end. There is even some indication that U.S. President Andrew Johnson may have given his blessing to the early raids, saying that he would "recognize the accomplished facts,"[2] implying that if the Fenians were successful, he would support them. Canada-U.S. relations remained strained until Anglo-American rapprochement in the first decade of the 20th century. However, though relations markedly improved after this period, Canadian-American relations remained considerably distant until co-operation during the Second World War. We are the Fenian Brotherhood, skilled in the arts of war, And we're going to fight for Ireland, the land we adore, Many battles we have won, along with the boys in blue, And we'll go and capture Canada, for we've nothing else to do. -- Fenian soldier's song According to Donald MacKay, author of Flight from Famine, the Fenians planned three separate invasions:
"The one aimed at Campobello Island in New Brunswick never materialized; that at Fort Erie and Ridgeway in Upper Canada was driven back after some initial success; and the effort to invade Quebec's Eastern Townships near Frelighsburg was thwarted by Montreal militia, among them Patrick Devlin, president of the St. Patrick's Society, and other Catholics of the sort the Fenians had hoped to recruit."
Flight From Famine, p. 320,

The goal of the invasion was to attain control of what is now Canada and hold it in ransom for the freedom of Ireland. Their initial efforts were somewhat successful, but were quickly tempered by the American government, which stepped in to stop the raids.
The Fenians were a ragtail bunch

Seumas McManus, author of The Story of the Irish Race, says the withdrawal of American governmental support for the Fenians dealt a serious blow to the movement:
"The invasion of Canada, which would undoubtedly have been a successful move, and a severe blow to England, was stopped by the unexpected action of the American Government, which, having tacitly encouraged the scheme, and permitted the plans to be ripened, stepped in at the last moment to prevent it."
Had it not been for this American assistance to the British cause, the raids might have been successful and the history of Canada could have been quite different. The raids continued through 1871, although the organization was now full of spies, which reported and therefore spoiled all remaining efforts.
It has been suggested that the threat of the Fenians was a major cause for the union of provinces into the confederation that became Canada. This appears to be at least partially true. While the Fenian Brotherhoods did not actually achieve their goal of a Free Ireland, they did successfully pass the flame of liberty to the next generation. It was this generation, including Michael Collins and many more, which actually achieved the goal so long striven for: the freedom and independence of Ireland."

Lauchlin served in the 4th Cape Breton Regiment. Michael in the 1st and Ronald in the 5th Regiment and because Cape Breton was not invaded they did not see action but they did receive a $100 pension each for the rest of their lives. They also earned the handsome medal pictured below, but whether they ever applied for it, we are not certain.

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Many thanks to cousin Pat Katz in San Diego County for this one:

"I heard a story recently about a student named Donald MacDonald from the Isle of Skye (in Scotland) who was admitted into the prestigious Oxford University and was living in the hall of residence in his first year there. His clan was so excited that one of their own had made it into the upper class of education, but they were concerned how he would do in "that strange land." After the first month, his mother came to visit. "And how do you find the English students, Donald?" she asked. "Mother," he replied in his thick brogue, "they're such terrible, noisy people. The one on that side keeps banging his head against the wall, and he won't stop. The one on the other side screams and screams and screams away into the night." "Oh, Donald! How do you manage to put up with those awful noisy English neighbors?" "Mother, I do nothing. I just ignore them. I just stay here quietly, playing my bagpipes..."

================================================================================ Scottish Piper

MULL OF K REVISITED

I don't know if you have ever caught the story behind the tune "Mull of Kintre" on my home page but I would like to retell it because it is one of my favorites and it should be playing on your PC right now, unless you use the Mozilla browser This is a response from some UK relatives to cousin John Frye who was asking for some background on the song "Mull of Kintyre"
"So - the Mull of Kintyre has caught up with you - my family wants to know where you have been for the past 20 years! I guess it seems odd because the events of 1978 were so much a part of our lives. I shall give you a little of this story, but am sending you (by "pigeon post") some very old printouts from our local newspaper of the time, which I have kept in my scrap book. Please excuse the quality, but it gives you some idea of what was going on. Firstly, a "mull" is the end of a peninsula, and there are hundreds of them all round the Scottish coast. Kintyre was our bit of Argyll, and Campbeltown the nearest town to the mull. We lived on a hillside overlooking the loch, and in the 1970s Paul McCartney bought an old farmhouse across another hill at the back of our house. He converted some of the out buildings into a recording studio, and when he married Linda they did up the house and employed a farm manager to run the estate properly. They used to spend every summer up there when the children were small, saying it was the one place in the world they could feel free to "be themselves". Our eldest daughter Kate used to collect for the local Lifeboat, and she and a friend would walk over the fields to collect a contribution, and have coffee in the kitchen with Linda. (It was a very long walk round on the road.) Paul was always very generous to local charities. The idea of the "Mull of Kintyre" came to him on a walk by the sea - and the mist really does come rolling in from the sea! He got the local Pipe Band together for a backing session and had a great barbecue on the beach after the recording had been made. We knew it was good, but it was a surprise that it became the longest running hit Single in British history! It is interesting that we heard it several times a day at the time, and were fed up with it, but Alison said when she heard it many years later on a hot day in Florida, she was crying buckets! Paul still owns the farm, which is managed for him, but I don't think he has been there since Linda died. All the best for now (bright and sunny on the south coast of UK!)
Evanne. Graham & Evanne Woodley"

A few time before the closing sessions of London Town, Paul issued Mull Of Kintyre as a single. This title, written with the help of Denny Laine, was not included in the final album. This song is a beautiful ballad about the Scottish peninsula of Kintyre and it's probably the biggest hit performed by Wings. The recording sessions took place in Paul's scottish farm in August 1977. During these sessions, Paul was helped by a local Scottish group, the Campbeltown Pipes Band, who plays all those fine and famous bagpipes lines in the song.
As Modified from a Web page
################################################################################ OUR RICH HERITAGE

When I began genealogical research in 1976 (Wow! almost thirty three years ago) one of the first clues I found to our heritage was this biography in a book entitled� The History of San Luis Obispo County� by Annie Morrison, 1917. These pages opened up pandora's box for me for I was able to follow up and contact sources in Nova Scotia that told me much more about our heritage. As you can see, we come from a rich and illustrious tradition.

. �MICHAEL McDONALD.�A resident of California since 1868, and a man who, by energy and application, has accomplished much since first he located in the frontier country along the Estrella, "Murdoch" McDonald, as Michael McDonald is familiarly known by everyone, enjoys to an exceptional degree, as the oldest settler of that region, the esteem and good will of his fellows. Born in Sydney, Cape Breton county, N. S., March 15, 1844, Murdoch McDonald is descended from the McDonalds of Inverness-shire, Scotland, the famous and doughty Lords of the Isle, the mention of whose name and deeds makes the blood of the patriotic Scotchman tingle. The McDonalds are, in fact, a part of the royal line from Somhairle Mor MacGille Bride, a brave warrior who ruled the greater part of Argyleshire and the western part of Inverness-shire. There is a statement that Somhairle was descended from Conu Cued-Chatbach, a king of Ireland, who is said to have reigned about the year 125 ; but this has not been authenticated, and it may be an unfounded fable. What seems to be certain is that Somhairle was slain in battle at Renfrew in 1164, and that his eldest son, Dougall, was a progenitor of the McDougalls, of Lome, whose fourth son, Ronald, had a son, Donald, who became a very distinguished person, so much so that from him the surname of McDonald was adopted. His grandson, Angus, fought with Bruce at the Battle of Bannockburn. It was one of his sons, Ronald, who was the ancestor of the clan Ronald McDonald, and he was succeeded by his eldest son, Allan, and his son, Donald, had two sons. From Alexander, the youngest, the McDonalds of Glengarry are descended, and as Murdoch McDonald is a lineal descendant of this clan, it is not surprising that he has named his ranch the Glengarry. Murdoch�s father was Donald McDonald, of Inverness, Scotland, who migrated to Sydney, N. S., where he became a prosperous farmer. His mother, on the other hand, was a native of Nova Scotia, whose maiden name was Theresa Gillis. Both father and mother died in that maritime province. A brother of Murdoch is Laughlin McDonald, now living at Hanford.

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Should Have Been a Travel Agent

I found this message from my late cousin Shyrl Hacker (on the left above with my sis and I) in my files. It makes one want to pack their bags and make a visit to N.S. She could sure turn a phrase.
"Nova Scotia juts out into the Atlantic in the shape of a lobster's claw. And, as we journeyed around that claw last September, every restaurant offered lobster along with delectable shrimp, scallops and just about everything else except Siamese fighting fish.
To watch the scallop fleet return may introduce a game for tourists. The small boats flash brilliant colors, and the game is to match up boats with houses along the shore.
"Boats are painted first, "our tour guide informed us." Houses receive paint that's left over. Makes an address easy to locate except when a fisherman has to borrow paint from a neighbor to finish a wall. "
Scenery changes rapidly as the soaring, dipping, winding road falls behind the bus. The sea, cobalt to turquoise, gives way to a sea of grass; the vast Tantramar marsh, a green expanse broken only by an occasional weather-grayed barn. Early fall rain curtains the marsh with a warm mist as the sun returns to toast the silvery fur of pussy willow along the dykes.
Here comes the wind to funnel up Fundy Bay, to wave acres of grass tops, to waft the scent of wild roses and pine needles, to toss the gulls swarming in when the tides go out.
Here, in this province supported by lumber and fishing, here in this sea-haunted land, the pace of past centuries adheres to each day like barnacles to boats. Sturdy people reveal a strength of character earned by living in isolation and by living to the rythm of earth and tide.
Perhaps even more than the grandeur, history and sheer beauty of battering sea, is a sense that here there is depth and meaning to life. Like the Arcadians, like the symbolic butterflies and the migrating geese, we plan to return."

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