Merl Schiffman, Memoirs:

SUPPLEMENT to MEMOIRS

(and random recollections)


June 1978---In "Irish Families" by Edw. MacLysaght (publ. Figgs, Dublin, '72) it reads: Joyce---barony of Ross---in Mayo called Shoye (Gaelic: Seoighe) - once Archbishop of Armagh (1307-1374)
O'Moroney (Mulgooney) (Gaelic: O Maolruanaidh) i.e., descendants of the follower of Ruanaidh or Rooney. Powerful in Fermanagh before the rise of the MacGuires, survives today as Mulrooney. West of Shannon---Moroney - Almost exclusively County Clare.
October, 1878---Chicago Historical Society, Telephone Directory, 1928: "Alex Kaptuller, Latham Machinery Co. 2043 No. Clark St., draftsman."
October, 1978---Talked with Josephine Nappar (Rahn) (my mother's cousin) in Fredonia, NY. She said Bridget Joy's sister Mary Higgins was residing in Buffalo in our day. (Not Brocton). - She also said the four sisters came to America by sponsorship (she thought) of a brother who lived in Boston, Mass. (David Sullivan in Ireland refers to this Brother as being in Canada). Why the sisters came to Dunkirk alone and at their early age, she did not know. - Josephine also said that she was at the Joy's home often and never saw or knew of Bridget drinking. She was disturbed that Ruth Joy said Bridget drank heavily.
October, 1978---Visited Charles Schulenbergin Dunkirk, NY, aged 90, my father's cousin. He had few recollections but said his father Gustav, my Grandmother Schiffmann's brother, came to America after 1886 from Bassum, Prov. Hanover, Germany to the William Saxe farm in Westfield, NY. After two years he sent for his wife and children. He later worked at a livery stable in Dunkirk and then in the Frame shop of ALCO the rest of his life.
October, 1978---Chicago Historical Society, Chautauqua County Histories: "In 1913, 3,673,760 pounds of fish were shipped via Dunkirk fisheries". - The Town Clerk of Dunkirk, NY reports of births, deaths and marriages are in the Mayville, NY County basement storeroom. - I was looking for a lead to find a judgment against John Joy on the railroad car theft episode. I will have to go to early newspapers to get the first lead . . .if I can first find a time frame in which to start looking.
MORE RECOLLECTIONS:


My father was paid in a small, brown envelope every Friday night until the late 1920's (?) He sat down at the supper table, tore open the envelope, kept whatever change was in it and gave the bills to Mother. With that small change, he often bought some candy at Woolworth's on Saturday night and kept it on the top shelf of the pantry.

Every summer, the Saturday after school was out, Dad clipped our hair---all of it came off---and we went through the Summer letting it grow out again to schooltime. Dad was "Allie" to everyone all of his life.

Every Saturday night at 733 Main street, Mother served brown bread (which she baked that day in one pound coffee cans) and home baked beans.

We went to the 5 cent movies on Saturday afternoon. The shows were usually Tom Mix, Hoot Gibson, Pearl White, Fatty Arbuckle. Besides the full length show there usually was a serial, brief, the end of which was a very suspenseful moment which thus brought us back the following week to see what happened. We paid such close attention to movie detail that, when one buddy attended, and the rest of us didn't, he sat with us on the curb for a whole evening and related every moment of the show.

When we were in Detour, Maryland, the food was good and different, such as scapple, hominy and rote ruwe oyer (hard boiled eggs pickled in beet juice). Corn syrup was always on the table and went on our bread three times a day and on our cooked breakfast cereal. These items were on the table in Dunkirk for some time after Dad married Estella.

Joel says I am not quite clear on how the trains picked up water east of Dunkirk at a speed of sixty miles an hour. The pans were between the tracks, about a mile long, about 3 and a half feet wide, welded and smooth inside, sloping at each end. They were automatically fed from a line next to the roadbed. As the engine arrived at the water-bed, the fireman hit a lever which dropped a scoop, about three feet wide, under the coal tender, (which also had the water tank) and the water in the pan shot up the scoop into the tender-tank. But at that speed and manner, water also flew out each side of the tender in a wide spray. At the end of the run the fireman levered the scoop back in place under the tender. Before this was installed, engines had to stop at water tanks for refills. In fact, freights always had to---they didn't travel fast enough to scoop the water.

At house-cleaning time each Spring, we had to take all the rugs, 9 X 12's as well, hang them on the clothesline and beat them with a carpet beater---like all day Saturday! June 6, 1991

Glenn received Frequent Flyer coupons from Joel to go to a Conference of "Peace Elders" at the Seneca reservation in Brandt, New York. So I asked Joel if I could have FF coupons to meet Glenn after the meetings and tour my home country. Joel did so.

Glenn left on May 23, rented a car and met me at the Buffalo airport on Memorial Day, May 27. We drove to Dunkirk and stayed at the Vineyard Inn. The next morning we started by visiting St. Mary's cemetery where my Mother (Mary Joy) and sister Irene are buried. Also my grandparents, Joy. Then we went to the Dunkirk OBSERVER, the daily paper, to ask them if they had a "morgue" where we could look up the Joys and Schiffmanns. They didn't and sent us to the Public Library. The Library has the OBSERVER on microfilm in three month sections since 1886. The library is open weekdays and evenings. However, we did not know where to start so we put this search off til later.

Then we briefly visited George and Mary Ellen Fitzer at their Insurance Agency. They are my second cousins. Their grandmother and my father are brother and sister (Alexander and Johanna). After lunch we headed for Brocton.

All records are carried in the Town of Portland office which is in the basement of the Brocton Library. The Clerk immediately found my great-grandfather William Joy's death record. It was:

"June 24, 1898, William Joy, 76 yr, 7 mo. Retired, Co. Kerry Ireland, here 43 years, father Morris Joy, mother . . . . .Maher, died Brocton, Heart disease, 18 ds ill, H.J. Dean, M.N., burial Dunkirk".

This helped in these ways. He was born in County Kerry (always wondered where my grandpa Joy was from), he lived in Brocton 43 years coming from Port Colborne, Canada where he arrived in 1847 or before. So he came to Brocton in 1855 and was in Canada 8 years or so. I have always believed he came over during the Great Famine which was in 1845-50 in Ireland. Also I now have my Great-great-grandfather's name, Morris and his wife, last name Maher. (This I believe I can now pursue through a Researcher in Ireland because I have county, and names and approximate dates.)

Ruth Joy told me years ago that when I was 6 or so Mother took Jack and me on the street car to Brocton to visit Jim and Maggie Joy who lived with James and Minnie Kelly. Jim and Maggie Joy are brother and sister to John Joy, my mother's uncle and aunt. I remember little.

So we inquired and got some Kelly and Joy names and headed for the hills. We talked with a Mrs. Frank Joy but she identified her husband's folks as coming from Italy. (When we were young there were Italian Joys in Fredonia and Irish Joys in Dunkirk.) But she remembered a man Jim Joy who lived near her parents farm when she was a little girl. She sent us to an elderly neighbor but he only vaguely remembered Jim Joy before 1930. So we looked up some Kellys but they came from Virginia.

Off to the Dunkirk Cemetery to find William Joy's grave. The manager told us all records before 1905 were destroyed by fire. He showed us the area of early burials so we started in each of two sections and looked at every old gravestone. No luck. Most of the standing stones had gaps of graves without stones around them so our chances were poor. This is also the area near where my father's brother was buried in 1891, and "Milwaukee-bound" Schiffmann babies were buried---but no stones.

CORRECTION---above, after we went to the Library we stopped at the Dunkirk Museum. I was looking for information about Grandpa Joy's "shooting a man who was a rail car thief when Grandpa was a detective", and also anything about the "Scoop-Up" east of the Sheridan road bridge. We looked through Police records and Erie railroad files but they were scant and no help. But she put me in touch with the vice-president of the Museum who is a "railroad buff" and he had pictures and files about the "Scoop-up" which he copied for me and I picked them up on Thursday morning. An almost complete picture of how it worked. (More later).

The next morning, Wednesday, we went to the Fredonia Forest Hill Cemetery office. The previous evening after dinner we went to the Cemetery and had a hard time finding the Schiffman graves. Eventually we did. The Secretary gave me a map of the cemetery and marked on it the location of our grave which is on the John Schiffman plot. I verified that two Cremains could be put on one lot. Twenty four notice is requested. We also checked the names which we had cut on the monument last year.

The Museum director had suggested that we go to the Archivist at Fredonia State University where there was good Dunkirk History. This we did next and were furnished notebooks of subjects and related notebooks of all that was recorded on the subject. But nothing we wanted on Erie or New York Central railroad or Joys. Or Schiffmans.

The Curator arrived and we told him of our search and immediately he advised us to go to the Dunkirk Catholic Church to find out when John Joy transferred property to St. Mary's Church probably before 1910. When we had that information, we could then look at the headlines prior to that period in the OBSERVER, and check the John Joy Detective story. We went to the Church. They told us that since Sacred Heart Church had merged with St. Mary's and became St. Elizabeth Seton, all records of St. Mary's are with the Archivist in the Diocesan Office in Buffalo. I have written them. The Curator gave me the name of a Researcher in Silver Creek. I talked with her on the phone and agreed that when I get a favorable response from the Diocese, or not, I'll have her do some searching both in the OBSERVER and the County Court House.

We then went out to the Conference Grounds. There was a meeting of women and we met the Minister's wife from Gowanda. He is retiring after 27 years. Carl Witt is now living with Howard. Somebody by the name of MacDonald left $100,000 to the Church.

After the DCG we drove down to the Sheridan road bridge where I showed Glenn how the Scoop-ups were installed. We returned by way of Sheridan at noon to the Motel I had made a lunch date with Frank Schulenberg and his wife. Dolores had written him that I was coming. Frank's grandfather and my grandmother Wilhemine Schulenberg Schiffman are brother and sister. Frank retired as an engineer on the New York Central. We had a very pleasant visit. He told me how the Scoop-up worked.

Early on they had to be traveling at least 40 miles an hour. Later it went up to 60 to 80. As they approached the water, there was a blue signal light at the start of the scoop. The engineer would yell "NOW" and the fireman would throw a lever which dropped the scoop at the rear of the tender and the water would shoot up into the tender. There was a purple light at the end of the scoop and the Engineer would yell and the fireman would lift the scoop. The scoops were located about 100 miles apart and they enabled the fast trains to cut 4 hours time from the New York to Chicago run. They only had to stop twice for coal and dump ashes and change crew. I have pictures of it at Sheridan on the fly. With water showering out both sides of the engine. The scoops held from 14,000 to 16,000 gallons.

In the afternoon we visited Pearl Deering at her nearby farm. The Deerings were long time family friends and Pearl looked after Mother Stella in her last days in Dunkirk. She still looks after the Schiffman grave. I also visited a friend of Jim Schiffman's who worked with him at ALCO. We had long talks about Dunkirk in the old days.

That evening we drove to 733 Main Street. The house is for sale again. I took Glenn on a stroll up and down the street remembering my boyhood days. Then we drove to 709 Grant Avenue and strolled there a bit. These houses are both over 100 years old. ADD TO MERL SCHIFFMAN MEMOIRS - June 29, 1996

For a long time I have wanted to clear up two things in our Irish family history.

One was the story that my grandfather, John Joy, was a "railroad detective" at the Erie R.R. freight barn in Dunkirk. My father told me that Grandpa shot a man, a car robber, who was fleeing, and killed him. He was exonerated from blame but the family of the man threatened suit.

Grandpa John sold properties he owned to prepare for the suit. (?) I have a record of the sale of 5 lots in Dunkirk in 1889 and 1891. My father told me that Grandpa also gave the Catholic church 3 lots across the street from his house at 312 Park Avenue which became the parish gardens.

Second, I wanted to go to Port Colborne, Canada to find out why my great-grandfather William Joy and his wife Mary went there from Ireland and how they got there.

Joel gave me first class frequent flyer round trip tickets to Buffalo so I went there last week, 7/23 to 7/27. My brother James was there that week and he drove me around, paid the motel and his W.W.II buddy paid the meals.

On the first day we went early to Port Colborne, located on the north shore of Lake Erie about 15 plus miles west of Buffalo. A town of about 15,000.

Our first stop was at the City Hall. The clerk was very pleasant but said all records were stored temporarily before being transferred to a new city hall now being built. She took my name and promised to look for any records of William Joy between 1848 and 1861. (These are the dates of births recorded in his prayer book of the births of children. She declined to accept any fee).

We then went to St. Patrick's R.C. Church, the oldest in town. The secretary got out a few faded books but there was nothing between 1848-1861. She gave me the names and addresses of O'Donohough and Hennessey, two god-parents listed in the diary, in case we wanted to write to them.

Then we went to the Library to the reference desk. The lady pulled out a card from the census file, the only one on Wm. Joy:

Joy, William
Census, 1861---Hamberstone (a section of Port Colborne)
Wiltram 39 Ireland, R.C. labourer
Mary 35 Ireland, R.C.
Mary 6 Canada RC
Margaret 2 Canada RC
Isaac (?) Canada RC



I put the question-mark on Isaac because he is not in the diary-book. Perhaps he died, since no age is listed, thus under one. The diary had Mary at 8 and Margaret at 4 in 1861. But this gives us a firm date-time for William and Mary being in Pt. Colborne between 1848 and 1861. Also, he was 26 years old or less and Mary was 22 or less when they left Ireland.

I asked the Librarian why the Irish came to Pt. Colborn. To work on the WELLAND CANAL! The canal was built in the 1830's and 40's and 50's by horse and manual labor. She suggested that the Canal contractor sent an agent to Quebec Island where immigrants were processed. He hired able bodied young men and shipped them to Pt. Colborne to work.

I asked her and the RC secretary about the local Irish population and they said there weren't many Irish in P.C. anymore. Although it was known that at one time there were many.

We had lunch in Ridgeway, Ontario, on our way home and the owner of the cafe sat down to talk with the Yankees. It turned out he was searching his family history and, listening to me, he supported the fact that the canal work brought laborers to P. C. which was at the west end of the Canal. He took my name and address to look up anything on Joy.

Getting to the motel I had a brief rest and then went to the Dunkirk library. I wanted to look at the micro-film of the Dunkirk Evening OBSERVER between 1886, when it was first published, and 1889, the date of the first sale of 2 lots. The librarian installed 1888 and soon I came upon an item:
DUNKIRK OBSERVER, MARCH 27, 1888 LOCAL NEWS


"Mr. John Joy has resigned his position as night-watchman at the Lake Shore (later Erie) Yards. He did it to give greater attention to other business. For over 13 years Mr. Joy has been in the service of this road, over 9 of them a night watchman in th e freight office and for 3 years at that target (?) giving satisfaction and being faithful to every trust".

With that date I knew I had to back up to 1887 and 1886. For two days I stood before that screen moving the news. It was difficult because most of the items were gossip and sale items. I learned a lot about wrecks and fires, and riots and Grover Cleveland but nothing about John Joy.

Just as I quit I picked up a genealogy book of the "Grape Belt" newspaper, Chautauqua County paper dated July 2, 1898:

"Joy, William, age 76, resident of Brocton more than 30 years, died June 24, 1898, funeral and burial at Dunkirk Catholic, wife Mary and four children James and Maggie of Brocton, Mary MacKhany of Stockton and John of Dunkirk."

Now, deducting 30+ years from 1898 gives us 1868 or lower, so William and Mary came to Brocton between 1862+ and 1868/7/6.

I enjoyed the search, good luck and poor luck. And my last trip to my old home town.



haroldfs@gmail.com last modified 12/31/96