ANCESTOR 17: JEREMIAH QUINLAN (1837-1865)

 My grandfather was named Leo Jeremiah Kirner when he was baptized. His middle name was for his grandfather, Jeremiah Quinlan, who died an unusual death in the Civil War, but not on a battlefield.

Alexei Bogoliubov, Ship on Fire, 1888; image, Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Alexei_Bogoliubov_-_Ship_on_Fire.jpg: accessed 15 Dec. 2025).

Jeremiah’s parents, Sgt. Patrick Quinlan and Mary Caulfield Quinlan, had him baptized at St. Paul’s Arran Quay Church in Dublin, Ireland, on June 23, 1837.[1] Irish Catholic babies were usually baptized a few days after birth, so he was probably born in Dublin. Jeremiah’s father was a sergeant in the British Army and served all over the world. He was stationed in Gibraltar a few months later, where Jeremiah’s brother and sister were born and, unfortunately, buried in 1842.[2] After that, his father was stationed in the Caribbean in early 1842; and Boyle, County Roscommon, Ireland from 1842-1843. His father left the Army at Newbridge, County Dublin, Ireland, in 1844, due to injuries, just before the great Famine started.[3] Jeremiah’s father died at Downpatrick, County Down, Ireland, in March 1851, when Jeremiah was 14.[4]

We don’t know when Jeremiah came to New York City, or if he traveled alone or with his mother or siblings. We just know that he married Mary F. Cusick in New York City on February 15, 1862. They married at the Church of St. Joseph, on the corner of Sixth Avenue and West Washington Place.[5] Today that’s in Greenwich Village, a long block west of Washington Square Park. Catholics married in the parish they lived in, especially so for the bride, so probably one or both of them lived in Greenwich Village. This was not the part of the city full of slums of Irish immigrants. It’s likely Mary and/or Jeremiah worked and lived with American families in this neighborhood; perhaps Mary was a live-in maid.

After their marriage, they appear to have moved to Staten Island, New York, where Jeremiah and Mary’s only child, Mary Ellen, was born on October 9, 1863. She was baptized at St. Mary’s Catholic church there.[6]

On August 5, 1864, Jeremiah enlisted as a private in the 90th New York Infantry. At the time, the Union so needed soldiers, that it paid very generous sign-up bonuses. Also, it was legal for people who didn't want to be drafted to pay someone else to enlist in their stead. Could it be that Jeremiah could not find work, and this was the only way he could support his wife and child? Mary Ellen was not even a year old.

New York state has recorded his service on a card which also gives us a physical description of him, although it says he was 19, which is unbelievable and conflicts with his baptism date. It says he was a carpenter, had blue eyes, dark hair, a fair complexion and stood five feet 9 ½ inches tall, which was not short in those days. We know this was our Jeremiah, not someone else of the same name, because our Mary Ellen Quinlan was named in the pension file of the Jeremiah who died on the ship as shown on this card.

New York State Archives, “Civil War Muster Roll Abstracts of New York State Volunteers, United States Sharpshooters, and United States Colored Troops [ca. 1861-1900],” Box # 21, no. 1729, Jeremiah Quinlan, Pvt. 90^th Infantry, 4 March 1867; “New York, U.S., Civil War Muster Roll Abstracts, 1861-1900,” database with images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 25 June 2022) > 90^th Infantry > M-SEYM > 21 > image 346 of 507. 

In the fall of 1864, the 90^th New York fought in the battles of Opequon (Third Winchester), Fisher’s Hill, and Cedar Creek, all in northern Virginia.[7] The last one helped the Union gain control of the Shenandoah Valley. Jeremiah was probably involved in all of those battles. Union forces seized the important Confederate port of Wilmington, North Carolina on February 22, 1865, as part of operations against Fort Fisher and the Cape Fear defenses. Wilmington had been the last major port open to Confederate blockade runners and its capture was strategically critical to cutting off supplies and supporting Sherman’s Carolinas Campaign. Jeremiah was probably transferred to some regiment that went to Wilmington, or was hospitalized there, because he was on the troop transport ship General Lyon, which sailed from Wilmington on 29 March 1865.[8] Aboard the ship were almost six hundred “discharged and paroled soldiers, escaped prisoners and refugees, among whom were about thirty women and twenty-five small children.” The day after it left port, the Gen. Lyon sailed into a storm about sixty miles off Cape Hatteras. The storm winds caused barrels of kerosene to break, drench the decks, and catch fire, soon setting the whole ship ablaze.  It sunk, killing all but 29 people of the 550-600 aboard.[9]

Decades later, one of those survivors recalled that many passengers were invalids and were seasick because of the rough weather.  He said, “On one side the fire was roasting them to death, and on the other the sea was opening and surging. Scores sprung from the burning vessel only to be swallowed by the maddened waves which whipped the ship about like a toy…Many who had safely gotten into the boats were later drowned by the high waves, or pulled down to their death by scores of hands that held on to the small crafts with the crazed determination of a drowning person. The waves were running mountain high…After having spent nine hours on the sea, we were sighted by the steamer Gen. Sedgwick.” [10] It arrived in New York City on April 2 with the survivors, and the New York Times ran a lengthy article called “Dreadful Fire at Sea.” The next day, the New York Herald reported Jeremiah as one of twenty men belonging to the Hart Island, N.Y. post lost in the shipwreck.  His wife Mary could not read and must have heard this horrifying news from a friend or neighbor.

My aunt Mary, Jeremiah’s great granddaughter, told me the story that was passed down to her, that John McCormick, who later married Jeremiah’s widow, tried to hold him up above the waves, but “it was no use.” That is a great story! However, newspaper lists of the survivors do not name McCormick, and there are too many John McCormicks who enlisted to verify the story. Maybe someday we’ll find out if it’s true. 

 

 

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[1] St. Paul’s (Arran Quay) Roman Catholic Church, Dublin City, County Dublin, Ireland, Baptismal Register, p. 39, no. 8561, Quinlan, 23 June 1837; “Ireland, Catholic Parish Registers, 1655-1915,” database and images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/61039/images/08835_01_0020?pId=7862760: downloaded 3 July 2022) > Dublin > St. Paul’s, Dublin City, > 1837-1857 > image 35 of 213; National Library of Ireland Microfilm 08835/01.

[2] Gibraltar, Burials Register, 1842, V. 6, p. 1, Quinlan; FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3Q9M-CSJ7-SQJK-N?cat=459422: downloaded 3 July 2022) > Parish registers > Burials bk. 6-7 1842-1860, image 19 of 748.

[3] Great Britain, War Office, WO 97/608; Soldiers documents: service documents of soldiers, containing particulars of age, birthplace and trade or occupation on enlistment, a record of service, including any decorations and the reason for discharge to pension, 1760-1872 > v. 608 46th Rgmnt. of Foot: Neville-Scott 1760-1854,” FamilySearch, IGN 8301363 > image 460, No. 316, Patrick Quinlan. 

[4] Great Britain, War Office, WO 22/190; “Royal Hospital Chelsea; Returns of Payment of Army and Other Pensions. Army and other pensions paid out locally in Ireland. Newry” > 1842-1852 > p. 158, Patk Quinlan, 46th, Mar. 1851; FindMyPast (https://search.findmypast.com/record?id=GBM%2FWO22%2F190%2F00198&parentid=GBM%2FWO22%2F190%2F00198%2F0196654) > “British Army Service Records” > p. 157 of 175. 

[5] Church of St. Joseph (New York City, New York), Deposition of Claimant, 31 July 1866, Mary Quinlan, widow’s pension certificate no. 102136; service of Jeremiah Quinlan (Pvt., Co. C, 90th New York Volunteer Infantry, Civil War); Box 32725; Case Files of Approved Pension Applications…, 1861-1934; Civil War and Later Pension Files; Record Group 15: Records of the Department of Veterans Affairs; National Archives, Washington, D.C.

[6] Deposition of Rev. John Lewis, 6 Aug. 1867, Mary Quinlan, widow’s pension application no. 101,240, minor’s application no. 204,368, W.C. certificate no. 102,136, minor’s certificate no. 161,619, service of Jeremiah Quinlan (Pvt., Unassigned 90th Regt. N.Y. Infantry, Civil War); Case Files of Approved Pension Applications…; images, Fold3 (https://www.fold3.com/image/295200059/quinlan-jeremiah-page-16-us-civil-war-widows-pensions-1861-1910: accessed 23 Aug. 2025) > image 15 of 116. Note: the church is located at 1101 Bay St., Staten Island, N.Y., closer to Brooklyn than Manhattan.

[7]  “90th Infantry Regiment,” New York State Military Museum and Veterans Research Center (https://museum.dmna.ny.gov/unit-history/infantry-1/90th-infantry-regiment: accessed 13 Dec. 2025).

[8] “The Lost by the Burning of the Transport General Lyon,” The New York Herald (N.Y., N.Y.), 4 April 1865, p. 4, col. 4; (GenealogyBank.com: accessed 1 July 2022).

[9] “Dreadful Fire at Sea,” The New York Times, 3 April 1865, p. 5, col. 1; Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com/image/20657351/?match=1&terms=%22Gen.%20Lyon%22: accessed 15 Dec. 2025).

[10] J. A. Moore, “Burning of the Gen. Lyon,” The National Tribune Repository, Vol. 1, no. 4, (1908): 61-63; Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/nationaltribuner00nati/page/60/mode/2up?q=%22Burning+of+the+Gen.+Lyon%22: accessed 15 Dec. 2025).