The Butler Library at Columbia University, New York, NY, has four manuscripts of interest to Irish genealogists:
1. Montgomery Ms. 88. Vesey, Agmond. Account book showing receipts and expenditures of the Vesey family at Lucan, near Dublin, 1710-1727. Lucan, Leitrim County, Ireland, 1708-1727. 82 pp. Accounts of a rather large estate. Many loose leaves laid in, some with scraps of accounts. On p. 1: “Jane Butler, her book, given her by her dear husband, Mr. Vesey, 17th June 1708.”
2. Montgomery Ms. 80. Reeve, Caleb. Caleb Reeve, his book of rents received in his life tyme out of his estate lyeing in the barony of Slaine and county of Meath in Ireland(1695-1698). County Meath, Ireland. 1695-1721. 35 pp. “Rents received by Caleb Reeve in his life tyme since his father dyed in 1695.” Also contains the record of leases, etc. made during his father’s lifetime.
3. Montgomery Ms. 62. Estate account book of the Colclough family, Co. Wexford, Ireland. Title page is “Frances Colclough Her Booke of Rents, 1668” but the accounts, for rent, labor, hearth taxes, etc. are from 1733 to 1751. Many tenants mentioned, townlands include Ambrosetown, Pewtown?, Bridgetown?, Balleneglaugh(Ballynaglogh), Rathronan, Bryenstown, Maxbooly, Ballytarsney (Ballytarsna), Cashelgenan, Carrick, Kiletra, Gragenboy, Irishtown, Tollabarge or Gollabarge, and Killbreny. These appear to be in the parishes of Bannow, Owenduff, Ambrosetown, Mulrankin and Ballyconnick, in the baronies of Bargy and Shelburne.
This last mss, for the Colclough estate, I have examined in detail since a great-grandmother of President John F. Kennedy, Bridget Murphy, was born on that estate about 1825. Although her family’s townland(Cloonagh, in Owenduff parish)wasn’t included in it, there are two other large collections of Colclough estate papers, at the National Library and the National Archives respectively, in Dublin. Those contain rentals and tenants’ accounts from the 1740s to the 1850s.
So, if one’s ancestors lived on the Colclough estate, especially in the townlands covered by the above mentioned Butler Library ms, they can likely be traced back to people born about 1700. The other Butler Library ms. is:
4. Passage receipt book [manuscript] Author: Harnden and Co. (Firm)
Title Passage receipt book [manuscript].
Production Liverpool, 1845-1848.
Description: [150] leaves ; 24 cm.
Notes: Manuscript on paper.
Deals with U.S. immigration; British, especially Irish emigration.
This is actually a detailed record of Irish passengers arriving at the Port of New Orleans in those years. I copied it in its entirety. The passengers’ ages (by family), and their addresses both in Ireland and in New Orleans, are given.
Hope the above is all useful in the advancement of Irish genealogy. Andre Pierce is a friend of Ancestor Network and a Boston area professional genealogist who travels to Ireland every September to look at that “final (non-digitized) frontier”, landed estate records.
Andrew Pierce
apgen@earthlink.net
