Kathleen Snider wrote, “I’d like to find out about my grandparents, Arthur J McCauley and Bridget Barry who were married on 1st March, 1880 in Blantyre, Scotland. He was 24 years old and she was 21 years old. “
Looking into this in some detail given the Blantyre connection, I was able to respond with:
Born on 20th July 1855 in Belfast, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, Arthur Joseph McCauley was the son of Charles McAuley (b1835) and Jane McDivett (b1836). Almost right after his birth in either 1856 or 1857, the family moved from Northern Ireland to Lanarkshire, Scotland. This could very well have been due to the famine years in Ireland and the depths of poverty and hardship it had created. The 1861 census confirms the family at Langloan, Lanarkshire.
Sometime in the late 1860’s the family moved to Bothwell and were still there in 1875, likely due to employment opportunities. The deaths of 215 men and boys in the Blantyre Pit Disaster of October 1877 created many employment vacancies for coal miners and it appears Arthur living nearby in Bothwell, came over to Blantyre to fill one of those vacancies. We see him living in tied cottages as a coal miner at Dixon Street, Blantyre, confirming his employers were Dixons Coalmasters.
His bride was Bridget Berry (not Barry) a cotton weaver who was born in 1858. I need also to correct the 1880 date of their marriage to 1st March 1881, as confirmed by my free retrieval of their marriage certificate here. Bridget could not write, nor could her witnesses, who all signed the certificate with a mark ‘X’. There may also have been a haste to get married as Bridget was 6 months pregnant at the time of her marriage.
The couple’s mothers would have attended the wedding but both the couple’s fathers were deceased by that time. Arthur’s father died just a couple of years earlier in 1879.
Arthur and Bridget’s first child Mary Ann McCauley was born on 31st May 1881 shortly after the wedding. However, now with a family of their own, the McCauley’s time in Blantyre was short lived and by 1883 they had moved to Scotland’s West coats to Sorn, in Ayrshire. They had been in Blantyre for no more than 5 years.
Three children were born between 1883 and April 1886 in Sorn, but it was never a place the family would settle at. Instead in August 1886, Arthur took a ship SS Ethiopia across the Atlantic to New York City in search of work and a better life. Bridget did not go, as she was pregnant at the time. It appears Arthur was on a ‘scouting mission’ for work and would call the rest of his family shortly after work was secured.
The last child born in Scotland was Catherine in March 1897 and the family must then have sailed to America too for little daughter Jane and subsequent children were born in America in 1890 and afterwards. Indeed, this was a big family. Arthur and Bridget had 13 children in 21 years!
Their first residence in America was in Morris Run, Tioga, Pennsylvania, United States, but they were only there for a couple of years, moving to Ohio by 1892. Arthur’s mothers passed away in Blantyre in 1908.
By 1930, the family were living at East Palestine, Columbiana, Ohio, USA. The family did experience some tragedy. Two of Arthurs children died fairly young. Margaret at only 47 in 1921 then Peter at only 39 in 1933. This must have been deeply upsetting for the whole family.
Arthur didn’t live to see WW2. He died on 22nd December 1936 at Columbiana County, Ohio aged 81. He was buried on Christmas Eve in St Mary’s Cemetery, in East Palestine, Ohio, USA. His wife, Bridget outlived him living a long life until her death in 1949. They are buried together in the same lair, their gravestone pictured.
There must certainly be a large family derived solely from this couple living within the USA today. Arthur also had 3 brothers and sisters whilst in Scotland and may still have distant McCauley relations in Blantyre.
The family tree is mapped out here.
On Social Media, the following comments were received on Facebook about this article:
Carol King A lovely story with sad parts as was so so common – hunts ancestors over after the great hunger -later on uncles went to Canada (the Canadian papers came in first as opposed to Australian ones !) the large amount of Irish names in Blantyre and the west tells you that in the past many came over – McCauley is a name still known here so likely relatives I’d think – good luck