Ellis Island opened for business. The first immigrant of millions to pass through was a 15 year old Irish girl from County Cork named Annie Moore. Three large ships waited to land on that day, and eventually 700 immigrants entered the country on that first day. Annie Moore was given a 10 dollar gold piece, and welcomed to America.<\/p>\n
I found this animated image on The History Channel <\/a>– a view of Ellis Island from the boats, as they approached. Kinda gives me chills – imagining that this is the view my ancestors got, as they came over from Ireland. This is what they saw.<\/p>\n To those of you who ever visit New York – I highly recommend taking a trip over to Ellis Island. It’s strangely emotional – you just can feel the ghosts of the millions of people who passed through. They are all still there. Here’s an image of the Inspection Room – where each immigrant would be screened by doctors for any signs of illness, physical ailments, disease. This was also where their documents would be checked and double-checked. If they were healthy, and if their papers were correct – they would then be allowed to enter the United States.<\/p>\n And so today, let’s take a second to remember Annie Moore, the 15 year old Irish girl, the first name on the long long rolls of immigrant records at Ellis Island. There’s a statue of Annie Moore at Ellis Island – a bronze statue – which was unveiled by Ireland’s president Mary Robinson in 1993.<\/p>\n Here’s some more information about Annie Moore.<\/a> My favorite excerpt from that piece comes at the end:<\/p>\n So what\u0092s really important about Annie Moore is not so much that she was born in Ireland, but that she came to America. Someone had to be the first immigrant to land at Ellis Island and as fate would have it she was the one. It might just as easily been someone named Rebecca Schimkowitz or Maria Parmasano. In somewhat the same spirit of commemorating an Unknown Soldier as a symbol of patriotic sacrifice, the story and statues of Annie Moore are intended to remind people of this and future generations of the courageous journey made by countless millions of nameless, faceless immigrants who set out to make a new life for themselves in a strange and distant place called America. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Ellis Island opened for business. The first immigrant of millions to pass through was a 15 year old Irish girl from County Cork named Annie Moore. Three large ships waited to land on that day, and eventually 700 immigrants entered … Continue reading