So you want to know more about Annie Moore??
January 1, 1892, Annie Moore stepped off a ship at Ellis Island and into the history books. Early that cold winter morning she’d stood among several hundred immigrants aboard a ferry docked at Ellis Island. When the gangplank was lowered, she was the first to head down it. To her surprise she was greeted by a host of city, state, and federal officials who presented her with a certificate and a ten-dollar gold piece. All this occurred not because Annie Moore was the first off the ferry that day, but because she was the first immigrant to set foot on Ellis Island, the brand new federal immigration processing center.
Annie Moore arrived from County Cork, Ireland, aboard the steamship Nevada on January 1, 1892, this date was also her fifteenth birthday. Can you imagine, a new country, alone with your two brothers and only 15! Annie was accompanied by her brothers Phillip and Anthony.
Here is the ships manifest for Annie.
Annie Moore’s story was typical of many Irish immigrants. She was born in 1877 in Cork, the second child and only daughter of Matthew and Mary Moore. Seeking a brighter future for their family, her parents had decided to immigrate to America in 1888 and were living at 32 Monroe Street in NYC. Like many immigrants they didn’t know what to expect in America (or, quite likely, if they’d want to stay), so they left Annie and her two younger brothers in the care of an aunt. After years of hard work establishing themselves, they sent for their children. The three boarded the ship Nevada in Queenstown (Cobh) and spent 12 days at sea before arriving in New York harbor.
Annie married German immigrant Joseph Augustus Schayer, an employee at Manhattan's Fulton Fish Market, with whom she had at least eleven children. She died of heart failure in 1923 and is buried in Calvary Cemetery, Queens, N.Y. Her previously unmarked grave was identified in September 2006. On October 11, 2008, a dedication ceremony was held at Calvary which celebrated the unveiling of a marker for her grave, a Celtic Cross made of Irish Blue Limestone.
Moore is honored by bronze statues at the Ellis Island Immigration Museum and in Cobh, the Irish seaport town from which she sailed. If you ever get to Ireland make sure to see the museum in Cobh, it is very moving. It was also the last port of call for the Titanic, before her last voyage.
This is an image from Cobh.
Here are a Lyrics to one of my favorite songs! Written about Annie, I have enclosed both the lyrics and clip from YouTube. Enjoy!
Isle of Hope, Isle of Tears
Author: Brendan Graham
On the first day of January
Eighteen Ninety-two
They Opened Ellis Island
And they let the people through.
And the first to cross the threshold
Of the Isle of hope and tears
Was Annie Moore from Ireland
Who was all of fifteen years.
CHORUS
Isle of hope, Isle of tears,
Isle of freedom, Isle of fears,
But it's not the Isle
I left behind...
That Isle of hunger, Isle of pain,
Isle you'll never see again
But the Isle of home
Is always on your mind.
In her little bag she carried
All her past and history
And her dreams for the future
In the land of liberty.
And courage is the passport
When your old world disappears
’Cause there's no future in the past
When you're fifteen years.
CHORUS
When they closed down Ellis Island
In Nineteen Forty-three
Seventeen million people
Had come there for sanctuary.
And in springtime when I came here
And stepped onto its piers,
I thought of how it must have been
When you're only fifteen years.
CHORUS
But the Isle of Home
is always on your mind.
