In 1855, the Maxwell household on Gold Street included Alice, a 61-year-old widow, and her three grown sons — Thomas, George, and Patrick – all nailers. The family, who hailed from Carrickmacross, Co. Monaghan, had been in Brooklyn just four years. [1]  Alice, Thomas, and Patrick emigrated in 1851 on the Richard Alsop, built in 1848, from Liverpool. They were among the 326 passengers landed in New York on November 3, 1851 by Captain Ezra D. Post.[2] Prior to moving in with their mother, Thomas lived nearby on Little Street near Plymouth and Patrick lived at 258 John Street.[3]

The year the state census was taken, they lived in Irishtown in a brick building above a grocery run by German-born John Laring and his Irish wife, Mary. In addition to the Larings, the Maxwells’ neighbors in the building were other Irish immigrants: James Matthews, a seaman, his wife Maria and their American-born infant son Thomas, as well as a middle-aged couple, John and Margaret Cullen. At age 40, John Cullen worked as a laborer.

On this stretch of Gold Street, on either side of the Maxwells, were smaller frame buildings with mainly Irish-born families like the Logues, the Conollys, the Doughertys, the Porters, the Jacksons, and the McCaffertys. Of the 57 people who lived in the seven buildings examined, more than a third (39%) were children (age 12 or under). Their average age was 5. All but 6 of these children were born in Brooklyn.

Source: New York State Census, 1855, Brooklyn City, Ward 5, ED 1, pages 17-18. Chart by Marion R. Casey, Fall 2024, New York University.

Among the couples who were neighbors of the Maxwells, there were only two that were exogenous: the Larings were German-Irish and the Morrisons were Scottish-Irish.

Gold Street Building Sample, 1855, by Nativity of Household Heads

Key: Irish (green), German (orange), American (blue), Scottish (red), English (pink).  Source: New York State Census, 1855, Brooklyn City, Ward 5, ED 1, pages 17-18. Chart by Marion R. Casey, Fall 2024, New York University.

The most recent arrivals among the neighbors were Alexander Porter, a laborer, only 1 month in Brooklyn; Edmund (also a laborer) and his wife Ann Conolly, as well as boilermaker John and Mary Tyburn, all only 3 months in Brooklyn.  In contrast, John Jeffers, a fifty-year-old Irish carman, had been living in Brooklyn since 1825; his household included two boarders: 30-year-old Elizabeth Kenney from New Jersey and her one-year old daughter.

The only other household to include boarders in this small slice of Irishtown were the English Tyburns. Catherine Ryan, a 20-year-old servant, who had been born in England probably worked for the Tyburns, who had a one-year old son. The other Tyburn boarder was 57-year-old Daniel Ryan, an Irish laborer, perhaps Catherine’s father?

Alice Maxwell’s neighbor included another widow, 33-year-old Ann Mackey and her four children, ages 7 to 14. [4]

The profile of these seven buildings on Gold Street in 1855 suggests a working-class neighborhood full of Irish families with young children.

[1] 1855 NYS Census, Brooklyn City, Ward 5, ED 1, page 18

[2] EISB account 8707; Manifest for the Richard Allsop, November 3, 1851, page 3, New York, U.S., Arriving Passenger and Crew Lists (including Castle Garden and Ellis Island), 1820-1957, Ancestry.com; Cutler, Queens of the Western Ocean, p. 397.

[3] Hearne’s Brooklyn Directory for 1853, pages 337-338

[4] 1855 NYS Census, Brooklyn City, Ward 5, ED 1, pages 17-18