James the Immigrant

James Black was born May 11, 1844, on a small farm in County Down, Ireland, near a public bar called Eden Ordinary. The nearest town the site of a bridge over the Bann River, was naturally called Banbridge. His family was descended from Scots Presbyterians, resettled into Northern Ireland by the English. In 1861, at the age of 17 he took a ferry to Liverpool and immigrated to the New World. His last touch of home was a loaf of home made bread his mother gave him to sustain him on his journey to Liverpool. He never saw his family again. The voyage from Liverpool to Ogdensberg, NY took seven weeks in a sailing ship.It reached Montreal and off loaded the passengers at the north end of lake Champlain, on the Canada-US border in Ogdensburg, NY. Landing immigrants at Lake Champlain was cheaper than sailing to New York City. The great circle route from Liverpool to New York City skirts the east coast of Canada 1000 miles before reaching New York harbor. Immigrant ships could save several days by sailing down the Saint Lawrence River to Montreal, then up the Richelieu River to the north end of the lake. The west shore of the lake was New York; the east shore was Vermont and the north end led to Quebec. The shipping agent could tell complaining passengers that they were in New York, although it was upstate New York instead of New York City. The ship could make more trips each year, bringing more profits for the ship owners. A second point was the US Civil War. Southern troops (mostly Citadel Cadets) had fired on Fort Sumter April 12, 1861. The US was involved in a civil war. England was supporting the rebels; so English ships were not welcome in US harbors.Some Burke cousins who lived about twenty miles north in the large Irish settlement in Hemingford, Quebec, met James. Possibly because the Civil War had started in the US he went to stay with the cousins in Hemingford. An Irish immigrant family named Meehan had landed in Hemingford about 20 years before. Several had taken up farming, others worked in the woods, and one ran a boarding house for new arrivals. One of the Meehan boys remarked to his family, including a little girl named Catherine (born 10-26-1851) that he had just met a “new greenhorn”. Named James Black. James worked in the area for about two years, and then decided his future was in the United States. James and a cousin went to Chicago where they became teamsters on the horse cars. Some time later the Irish lads in Chicago heard about the good wages Wisconsin lumber companies were paying to work in “the Pineries” as lumberjacks. James and some others came up the Mississippi by boat to find work. He ventured up the Chippewa and Red Cedar rivers, first to the area around Eau Galle and then found work in Cedar Falls with the Knapp-Stout lumber company, located in Menomonie, Wisconsin. James found that many of the men he had known in Hemingford had followed the ring of the axe, including several Meehan’s. The Meehan boarding house had also moved to Cedar Falls. He took lodging with them and became acquainted with their daughter Catherine Isabella who was helping her parents operate the boarding house. James was a tall well built young man, well muscled from his work as a lumberjack. She liked him even thought he was an Orangeman from Ulster. The religious differences were too great for a church wedding, so on November 9, 1869, and they were married before a Justice of the Peace. He was 26 and she had just turned 19. The newlyweds rented a small house in Cedar Falls for first year or two of the marriage. The house was still standing in 1991. With one son and another on the way the parents decided they needed a permanent home. The lumber companies logged pine trees and were selling off the “worthless” hardwood tracts in the Eau Galle and Arkansaw valley areas. James and Catherine moved to Eau Galle so he could search for a good farm site. In early 1872, he bought 80 acres of rich soil of the Big Arkansaw valley. Several Meehan’s also located in the area. The farmers cut and burned thousands of hardwood trees to clear land for planting. A furniture factory sprang up in Arkansaw to utilize choice maple, oak and other hardwoods; free for the hauling.were used to build a one-room cabin on the land, adding a second room the next year. This two room cabin served Jim and Catherine until the fifth son was born, when a loft was added to provide bunks for the older boys. Then three daughters arrived. About 1898 the loft was expanded into a full second floor. Several years later a frame extension was built to provide a new dining room and kitchen. The log structure was covered with clapboard to match the new addition. The house was resided with vinyl siding in 1996-97. The Catholic community in the Big Arkansaw and Eau Galle valleys joined to build St. Henry’s church in Eau Galle. The Meehans and the children of Catherine Meehan Black walked over the Gap Hill pass to Eau Galle for Mass, Catechism classes, shopping or dances. Grace Black Severson said that Grandpa James Black would hitch the team up every Sunday morning so Catherine and the children could go to Mass. In the 1920’s the Catholic farmers in the Big Arkansaw Valley were numerous enough to establish their own parish and built St. Joseph’s church about a mile west of the village of Arkansaw. James Black Sr. became a Catholic in 1909. He and Catherine were remarried in the church. He died February 18, 1910, at the age of 65, from cancer of the lip and cheek. He is buried in the cemetery at St. Henry’s church in Eau Galle. Catherine, 7 years younger that Jim outlived him by seven years. She died at age 65 on Feb. 21, 1917. Her obituary says she died of heart failure. Her daughter, Ruth Black Doughty said she was a victim of the great influenza epidemic that swept the world in 1917-18. She is buried beside her husband at Eau Galle.