Prendergast, James
Biographical Note
James Prendergast (circa 1785-1848) and Elizabeth Hurley Prendergast (1786-1857) had six children: John, Maurice, Michael, Julia, Jeffrey, and Thomas. The family lived in Milltown, County Kerry, Ireland, a market town with a population of 1,427 in 1837, which by 1848 was reduced to 797 inhabitants. In May 1840, Thomas and Jeffrey emigrated from Ireland, arriving in New York, then settling in Boston. Their sister Julia and her husband Cornelius Riordan either emigrated with them or had arrived in Boston before them. The children in Boston provided the financial support to sustain their family members remaining in Ireland through the famine years, regularly sending money and assisting them to emigrate. John, Maurice, and Michael each were married and remained in County Kerry near their parents. John died in 1847, leaving a widow and one young daughter. That same year Michael emigrated to America, sailing from Cork to St. John, New Brunswick, then joined his siblings in Boston. Maurice's son, James Maurice, was also brought to Boston by his uncles there, sometime before November 1849. James Prendergast died in December, 1848, and in 1850 Elizabeth Prendergast, accompanied by John's orphan daughter Elizabeth, then age eight, and Cornelius Riordan's brother Florence, sailed to New York on the ship Niobe, to reunite with her children in Boston.
Found in 1 Collection or Record:
James Prendergast family correspondence
The collection consists of correspondence from James and Elizabeth Prendergast in Milltown, County Kerry, Ireland to their children in Boston, Massachusetts. It also includes a few letters from other members of the family in Ireland to their relatives in Boston. Much of the correspondence concerns life in Ireland.
Collection is open for research; a portion of the collection is available digitially.