Page:Women of Ohio; a record of their achievements in the history of the state (Vol. I).djvu/67

Rh lasted only 23 years, the inn conducted by her husband remained famous for more than a century. Almost, indeed, to the present day.

Back in 1830, when Daniel O’Connor was striving to free Ireland from the domination of English landlords, when Orangemen and Catholics of North Ireland fought at the drop of a hat, there occurred a seemingly trivial incident in Baileborough County, Ireland, which had yet a profound influence on the destiny of America. Three young people, John and MARY SHERIDAN, and Jimmy Minaugh, brother of Mary, were having a holiday at an Irish fair. All three were in high spirits ; Mary and Jimmy were dancing 'on the village green, when suddenly a taunt thrown at Jimmy by an Orangeman started a fight. Mary, fearing that her brother was getting the worst of the combat, quickly removed her shoe and stocking; thrust a stone into the toe of the stocking, and tossed it to her borther. With this improvised weapon, Jimmy lambasted his tormentor quickly and effectively. Having done so, and being therefore in great danger of the law, he made his escape.

No more was heard of Jimmy Minaugh for some months. But finally one day a letter came for the Sheridans—a letter from Jimmy in America. Jimmy wrote that “money grows on trees here” and that there was a job waiting for his brother-in-law on the Erie Canal if only he would sell his few possessions and bring his wife and children to Albany.

It took some months of persuasion before John Sheridan could get Mary’s consent to leave her beloved Ireland. However, she was persuaded at last; and with her husband and her two children set sail in the winter of 1831 for Boston.

The voyage was marked by suffering and tragedy. There was not enough money to pay for cabin passage, so the Sheridans were herded together with others of their kind under a make-shift protection on deck. The deck passengers had to do their own cooking ; and the food was for the most part so mouldy or so infested with weevil that even the most skillful cooks among them could not have made the stuff palatable. There was no privacy on deck; even the more personal affairs had to be performed in the presence of strangers. Everyone was seasick ; and everyone was in hourly fear of death. For the wintry winds tossed the little packet about as if it were an eggshell.

But the tragedy that came on their third week out made all of their other suffering seem as nothing by comparison. For cholera broke out among the deck passengers taking as one of the first of its victims Rose, the small daughter of John and Mary Sheridan. In vain did Mary Sheridan plead with the captain to let her keep the body of her child until the packet landed in Boston where a decent land burial might be given.

The captain pointed out as gently but as firmly as he could that to do so would only endanger the lives of other passengers. So Mary herself sewed the frail body of her child into some of her own homespun linens and stood by while the captain intoned the burial service and then plunged the pathetic bundle into the sea.