All Standing

by Kathryn Miles

  It was Easter Sunday. The sunrise was a brilliant red and sent rosy light into the hold of the Jeanie Johnston. Daniel and Margaret were reunited. He stared at his new son while she recounted her harrowing experience. Their lives, she insisted, were spared because of the kindness of Nicholas Donovan. Who else would have ensured a ship so clean? And one containing a doctor with the skills of Richard Blennerhassett? Not to mention the kind crew. She wanted to call the baby after the people who had shepherded his fate. And so they settled on a name to end all names. This baby—this miraculous boy—would be named Nicholas Richard James Thomas William John Gabriel Carls Michael John Alexander Trabaret Archibald Cornelius Hugh Arthur Edward Johnston Reilly. And because having seventeen middle names would no doubt prove cumbersome at times, they’d call him Nicholas Johnston Reilly for short.

  Later that day, and at Margaret’s request, Captain Attridge dispatched several crew members to shore to collect Reverend Moore to baptize the baby. Moore was the rector at Ardfert, a town whose name means “hill of miracles,” and which was the birthplace of St. Brendan the Navigator, an apt patron saint for a child about to make a miraculous journey of his own. The men rowed the priest in a dory to the barque; no doubt it was the first time he had performed a baptism in front of a crowd of two hundred in the dark steerage of a ship.

  Only after Moore was returned to shore and the Reillys appeared to be resting comfortably did Attridge call for the crew to raise the anchor and set the Jeanie’s mainsails. Seventeen men sprang into action, dividing themselves among the ship’s three masts. After all of the emotional drama over the past several days, they were eager to have familiar work to do.

  Attridge kept a close eye on the men. Seeing them in action would tell him a lot about what the next forty-five days would bring. The last thing he needed was any surprises from his crew. There had already been plenty of those below deck. He also knew that their opportunity for a safe departure was rapidly diminishing. That day, heavy weather put back two immigrant ships attempting to depart from the west of Ireland. A third, the Omega, foundered off the west coast. Not far from land, she was soon overtaken by the Barbara, whose crew staged a brave rescue, saving the more than three hundred passengers, who were certain that Providence and good luck had shone upon them. But no sooner had they settled into the rescue vessel for their return to Ireland when it too was beset by rough seas and gale-force winds. Less than a day after their lives had been spared, the immigrants faced another wreck. By the time splintered portions of the Barbara washed ashore, two hundred of her rescued passengers had drowned.2

  Stories of their perishing were traded among the crew. Lying in her bunk below, Margaret didn’t hear any of this talk, but Daniel heard plenty. As Attridge called all passengers above deck for their final roll call, whispers of the drowned immigrants filled the air. So too did speculation about the true nature of the passengers on board this and other vessels. Just weeks earlier, two young men robbed £1,900 from a bank in Manchester, then made their way to Ireland. Nationwide rumors had it that these two criminals were now boarding an immigrant ship destined for Canada, leading many to wonder if they might be among the passengers now standing on the Jeanie’s broad decks.3

  Attridge was frank with the emigrants. He had little time for such speculation; the well-being of these individuals now rested firmly in his hands, and he would be required to submit his own certified list to immigration officials in North America. He was also required to supervise a second medical inspection for Donovan, who would face stiff fines if any of the emigrants arrived at the quarantine station showing signs of sickness or disease.4

  Attridge then turned his attention to the mammoth task of readying a four-hundred-ton barque for departure. Even with the beating winds that day, he would need to rely on the departing tide to cast his flat ship away from the shore and the dangers that lay there. As the Jeanie cast off, Attridge made the first entry in the ship’s logbook, marking their precise position and the point from which all subsequent bearings would be taken.5

  The winds continued to strengthen from the west, forcing Attridge to beat the ship on a hard course north toward the open Atlantic and away from the deadly rocks off the coast. With night falling around her, the Jeanie slipped unceremoniously past the Samphire Islands, two small outcroppings rising out of Tralee Bay. It would be the last land those on board would see for some time.

  The Jeanie Johnston was one of nine vessels that managed to depart the west of Ireland that day. Each was loaded with hundreds of famine emigrants, though no other ship could claim a newborn baby boy. As the ships entered the open water of the Atlantic, the weekly issue of the Tralee Chronicle appeared throughout the town. Included among the news was an enthusiastic account of Nicholas Reilly’s birth and the fine ship on which he now journeyed. The story described all aspects of the departure in good detail, noting that “very great satisfaction was expressed by the emigrants” about the conditions on board. “Indeed,” the story continued, “the friends of the emigrants who had visited them, ere they sped on their watery course, speak with an affectionate enthusiasm of the paternal care paid by the Messrs. Donovan on board.”6

  It was precisely the kind of story Nicholas Donovan had hoped for. At least for the time being, he was a local hero. But as the Jeanie Johnston left for her watery course, her crew, doctor, and passengers knew the real test of this vessel still lay ahead.

  SILVER CREEK, MICHIGAN

  FEBRUARY 25, 1879

  Cecilia Bunberry was just twenty-one when she married Nicholas Reilly. It was cold, blistering cold, on that February afternoon. Still there was plenty of warmth in the Reillys’ sod house, and Cecilia had laughed when Nicholas printed his middle name as “J.J.” on the marriage certificate—a much less cumbersome designation, he explained, than his seventeen middle names. There was something delightfully girlish about Cecilia, almost a decade his junior—the easy way she had about her, her sense of humor.

  The two had met nearly nine years earlier, when the Bunberrys moved to Silver Creek. The Reillys were already well settled by then, having established their farmstead in 1854. It had taken Daniel Reilly six years of toiling on the Indiana railroad to save enough money for their land. Since then, he had worked the rich black soil of Michigan’s western counties, coaxing from it more grain than he ever could have imagined back in Ireland. The Silver Creek harvests were good to him, and he now owned three large parcels of land—plenty to till and on which to support a family. That family had grown to include seven children. Still, they remained one short. Margaret’s beloved brother John, whom they had promised they would send for, had never arrived.

  Twenty years had passed since Daniel sent passage money to the Tralee Bank. John had written that he would arrive later that year and would meet them in Silver Creek. As the months bled into one another, Margaret became increasingly apprehensive. Daniel took out missing person ads in East Coast papers, hoping John might find them. Still, they did not receive word. They took out more ads, asking if anyone had any information about the quiet steward from County Kerry. They never received a response.

  Without her younger brother, Margaret, always a dedicated mother, became even more so. She kept their house immaculate and taught the girls—Mary, Margaret, Julia, and Nellie—how to read, make griddle cakes, and knit wool socks. Mary and Margaret married, settling nearby with families of their own. The eldest Reilly son, Robert, had long since decided that farming was no life for him and had moved to Chicago, where he found work as a carpenter and married a woman named Jane. But Nicholas and his younger brother Eugene had remained on the farm, working its ever-growing acreage each year alongside their father.

  Silver Creek was a quiet, rural community with a strong Quaker foundation. Once a stop on the Underground Railroad, it had since become one of the Midwest’s largest African American settlements. They were joined by a steady stream of German and Irish immigrants, who arrived each year hoping to cultivate their own plot of land. That was
what brought the Bunberrys to Silver Creek, all the way from Pennsylvania. Like the Reillys, they were a large Irish family eager to work.

  All of them, that is, except for Cecilia’s brother-in-law, James O’Brien. Jim swooped into Cass County full of bravado and mystery and promptly settled on Cecilia’s older sister, Harriet, for his bride. Harriet was easily wooed by this man and his larger-than-life tales. He owned a hotel and saloon in Kalamazoo and seemed to hold the whole world in his hands, talking about life in places like Chicago and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, which seemed very much a wild frontier. Jim, it seemed, had lived just about everywhere.

  And he was still on the move. He had a new plan—this time, to open a saloon out on the Minnesota prairie. They invited Nicholas and Cecilia to join them.

  Nicholas didn’t know what to make of his new brother-in-law. Jim bragged that he had served as a decorated colonel in the Civil War, though he was vague about where and how he came by that rank. He was even more mysterious about why he abandoned the bar he owned in Houghton, a tiny copper-mining town on Michigan’s Upper Peninsula said to be occupied only by thieves, crooks, murderers, and Indians. None of that sat well with Nicholas. But the promise of a new life in Fergus Falls, Minnesota, did. Truth be told, Nicholas had never fallen in love with farming the way his father had, and the idea of tending bar in a bustling town was exciting. Plus, Cecilia wanted to be near her sister. So the young couple agreed to move.

  Cecilia had just given birth to their first son, William, when they made the trip. Margaret must have worried for her, having made more than one long voyage with an infant. Though heading to Fergus Falls was a far cry from weeks below the deck of an immigrant ship, it was plenty taxing as the family made the long trek around Lake Michigan and into Chicago before heading west to Otter Tail County.

  Nicholas and his family arrived at a town very much on the rise and that seemed to have been built overnight. That wasn’t far from the truth. A Scottish trapper named Joe Whitford had claimed the falls and named them after James Fergus, an enterprising mill owner and politician, in 1856. In 1879 the town was flourishing, growing faster and faster as wooden houses and storefronts appeared on every lot. By the time Nicholas and Cecilia arrived, the town even had a roller-skating rink. But what they saw first as they arrived at their new home was the grand Fergus Falls School, set on a commanding knoll that was visible from the prairie miles before you could see the city itself. With its enormous white edifice and coppiced top, the school really did seem like a city on a hill. Nicholas and Cecilia couldn’t help but be impressed by that.

  • • •

  Jim O’Brien’s new saloon wasn’t nearly so grand, and it was crowded upstairs, where the two families, along with an eighteen-year-old domestic servant named Katie, vied for space in the two-room quarters. Nicholas, Cecilia, and William slept on a mattress in the living room. Katie spent her nights in the cramped kitchen. Jim, Harriet, and their four children crammed into the apartment’s single bedroom. Harriet was pregnant yet again. Nicholas couldn’t imagine how they’d ever find room for the baby. It was claustrophobic, and tensions between the two families were beginning to grow.

  Downstairs, though, Jim had created a place where everyone in town wanted to be. His saloon was a dimly lit place with a large bar that ran the length of the room, with plenty of stools—and taps—for patrons. If they preferred, customers could purchase a bottle of their favorite spirits from the casks behind the bar. Sawdust from the local mill caught the drips and hid indiscretions, and the first billiard table to grace the town kept everyone busy. A newly arrived player piano made it that much more fun to spend evenings at O’Brien’s Saloon.

  Nicholas rarely saw Jim in those days, but it didn’t matter. His brother Eugene had joined them from the farm and was working his own shifts at the bar. Cecilia and William were well, and she had her sister for company while Nicholas ran the till. They would need to get a place of their own soon, but Nicholas was sure that wouldn’t be a problem. Jim had promised Nicholas that he would be running the bar soon. Maybe one day he’d buy it outright. After all, in Fergus Falls anything was possible.

  15

  At Sea

  1848

  ABARQUE IS BUILT neither for speed nor comfort. The noted contemporary naval writer Alan Villiers describes the vessel as “heavy, sluggish in anything short of half a gale, fat in the buttocks and full of drag but powerful as a 3,000-ton elephant.”1 Sailors describe barques with adjectives like “rolly” and “chunky.” Still, for nearly a century they were the dominant workhorses of the sea. Their wide hulls, flat bottoms, nubby bows—the very attributes that make these vessels such brutes for their passengers—made them ideal for hauling impressive loads of cargo in harrowing conditions. Little wonder, then, that builders like John Munn dedicated their lives to churning out these behemoths year after year, or that the docks of Liverpool, Calcutta, and Havana were filled with them.

  The characteristic rigging for this vessel—two forward masts set with square sails, a third (mizzen) mast set with a fore-and-aft spanker and topsail—makes it easy to spot. In optimal conditions (which is to say, with the wind blowing from its stern or nearly so) they can maintain speeds of 6 or 7 knots: that’s not very much speed compared to a schooner from the same era as the Jeanie, which regularly made 10 knots, or one of today’s giant cruise ships, which cruises at 20 to 25 knots. What a barque lacks in speed, though, it more than makes up for with what sailors call “stiffness,” meaning a hull shape that creates good stability. Whereas a schooner or racing vessel wants to heel—to rise up onto one side of its hull, thereby sailing pitched at an angle—a barque wants to lie flat in the water. When faced with wind, wave, and overpowered sail, a barque will struggle to return to this flat position by shifting from side to side.2 In other words, it pitches, rocks, and rolls. As Nicole Gardiner, the former first mate of the re-created Jeanie Johnston puts it, “She wallows. There’s not much else to say.”3

  “Wallowing” is sailor language; to the uninitiated, it’s more than a little euphemistic when it comes to describing the sensation of being at sea aboard a barque. A sailing novice would probably be more inclined to describe the experience as one filled with violent dips and corkscrews, bucking bows, and the disorienting sensation of pitching from side to side. Aboard a barque, motion comes from every possible angle, and in a stormy sea, it is as irregular as it is pronounced. That motion is also exacerbated by the vessel’s relationship to the wind. Wind from behind or pushing on the side of the vessel can make for fairly calm sailing, but as soon as the vessel encounters a headwind (what sailors call beating to windward), the ship takes on added strain. This strain can shear away masts, ripping holes in the deck floor. It can also create fissures in the seams of the boat, allowing in water. That, in turn, creates additional strain on the crew, who must then pump the water out of the bilge and monitor the open seams. It also tends to create unease if not outright terror in the passengers, who find themselves surrounded by a moaning, shuddering ship. In fact the only sound louder than a wooden hull toiling against wave and wind is the sound of that wind tearing the vessel’s heavy canvas sails.

  Such conditions wreak havoc below the decks of cargo ships, where even well-stowed items like chests and cookware become missiles as the vessel heaves, rocks, and crashes from swell to swell. Privy slop pails overturn; pots of half-eaten porridge and rice tumble to the floor. In addition to the resulting muck, the planked subdeck poses dangers as well, most notably, writes Edward Laxton, author of The Famine Ships, from the deck itself. There a sea of constantly shifting boards creates slits and crevices capable of snaring a foot or clothes and trapping a person for hours, or at least until another passenger can free him or her.4 That kind of peril and vigilant care required of fellow passengers is the sort of thing that turns total strangers into kin. Quickly.

  Such was Margaret Reilly’s reality for the forty days it took the Jeanie Johnston to travel from Tralee to Quebec. From her bunk below
deck, Margaret could hear the reverberating workings of the Jeanie as she entered the open ocean. Still weak from Nicholas’s delivery, she had not ventured far from the wooden platform she and Daniel shared with at least one other couple. From there, the sound of the shrieking wind and the violent convulsions of the hull must have been unimaginable. With no opportunity for air or exercise, her seasickness would have been more difficult to recover from than it would be for other passengers.

  She and the other passengers were visited daily by Richard Blenner-hassett, who kept a close eye on the young mother and her newborn son. The doctor got to know both well during the journey. That the infant not only survived but appeared to be in good health was nothing short of miraculous. Seeing their continued good health was a rare moment of delight for a man who, in his thirty years, had already witnessed great suffering.

  As a member of the landed gentry and an Edinburgh-educated physician, Blennerhassett was distinguished from the crew by his class, even without the indicators of dress and mannerisms. He was considered an equal in station to the captain. The two men divided their governance of the vessel between what happened above deck and below, and they consulted one another regularly. When the weather allowed, the doctor insisted on open hatches and full air circulation in the hold, even though doing so flew in the face of reigning theories on disease transmittal and the prevalence of miasma as an infecting agent. He also mandated daily walks above deck for those well enough to take them and the weekly airing of bedding to avert lice infestations and unhygienic living conditions.