Prindiville Genealogy

Most American Prindivilles, and those with closely spelled names, want to know if we are all related. The answer is maybe. If we go back to County Kerry, Ireland, most probably, we were related at some point in our centuries of Irish history. A number of Prindiville individuals came to America during and after the Great Famine. This was a period, 1845-1852, in Ireland of mass starvation, disease and emigration.

The Prindivilles, and millions of others, lost their property, position and lives as a result of political and religious issues imposed by the British beginning two centuries prior to the famine. More than a million and a half people died. "Dennis Clark, an Irish American historian, claimed the famine was the culmination of a generation of neglect, misrule, and repression. It was an, ‘epic of English cruelty and inadequacy. For the landless cabin dwellers it meant emigration or extinction….”* To this day, there are debates as to whether or not the response of the British government constituted genocide.”**

Our Prindivilles and a million or more of their closest friends emigrated from Ireland to America. Life in America was hard, but better than in Ireland. Here, there was opportunity with hard work, smarts and initiative. The Prindivilles came to Boston, New York and Chicago. Maurice Denis Prindiville and Hannah O'Sullivan arrived in Boston in about 1858. The story handed down by word of mouth was that he came from, at one time, a family of wealth and power. However, he had had no skills for the new world. No one needed an equestrian.

In Boston, Maurice and Hannah worked hard doing manual labor and started a family. First child was Denis Joseph and then James Francis. They chose not to be caught up in the American Civil War. They had just escaped the horrors of the Irish famine. Maurice had a friend in San Francisco, California, Cornelius Manning. Cornelius sent money to Maurice so he and Hannah could come out West. Maurice put Hannah on a ship to New Orleans, and then on to Colon, Panama. This route to San Francisco was thought to be the easiest and safest passage. She rode a mule with two babies through the jungles of the Isthmus of Panama. She lost everything to natives, and then walked to Panama City, (on the Pacific side of the country). There, a ship captain gave her and the babies, cash on delivery passage, to San Francisco. Cornelius paid the fare again. Maurice, with his horse knowledge, got a job on a wagon train going across the country. The family was reunited in San Francisco. Manning got his friend a job as a stone mason at the San Francisco Calvary Cemetery. They had three more kids in San Francisco. Then, in 1874, Maurice started the Calvary Cemetery, in San Jose, California, where they had two more kids.

* Dennis Clark (1982), "Dennis Clark: "The Irish In Philadelphia," Temple Univ. ISBN 0-87722-227-4 retrieved Sept. 24, 2010.
** Wikipedia, "The Second Great Famine," (Ireland, 1845-1852 (An Gorta Mor), 2011.