US Immigration 1800s

The 1800s brought millions of immigrants to the United States. Most came from Germany, Ireland, Great Britain and Scandinavia, with others from elsewhere in Europe and from Asia.⁵ Often overlooked are the forced immigrants, people brought in through slavery.

Many of these newcomers headed west, and plenty ended up in Tombstone. Here is why they came, who they were, and some of the immigrants who shaped the Old West and our town.

Why Immigrants Came to America

People looked for opportunities elsewhere when land became hard to own in their native country, when governments were oppressive, when they faced religious persecution or food shortages, or when they couldn’t support their families.¹

Ireland suffered a severe famine, often called the “Great Hunger.” It began with potato blight but was made worse by political decisions: food grown on the island kept being shipped to England regardless of Ireland’s need. About one million people died in the mid-1800s.

Famine and hardship in Ireland were still news decades later. This telegraph report appeared in an Arizona paper in 1880:

Two million Irish escaped the “potato famine” by scraping together the fare. Some went only as far as the food did, to Britain, especially Liverpool, Scotland and South Wales. Many others went to Australia, Canada and the United States.²

More than half of the Irish immigrants, 52 percent, were women. When one family member arrived and found work, their savings paid the passage for others.¹⁰

The Chinese were the main Asian group of 1800s immigrants. Seafarers and merchants came first, and the California Gold Rush attracted more. Others came for work in agriculture, households, fisheries and the railroads. Many were also escaping the Taiping Rebellion.⁴

Heading West

During the 1800s, immigrants from Europe often trekked west. Their goal was good, fertile farmland, especially in California. But they met stark deserts and difficult mountain ranges, and some settled in suitable areas along the way.⁷

The California Gold Rush was another draw. Chinese immigrants and others from South America, Mexico and Europe headed there to seek their fortunes.⁷

Freed slaves also came west after the 13th Amendment was ratified at the end of 1865.⁸ Many had worked with cattle on plantations, farms and ranches, and they put that experience to use as cowboys. They often found more acceptance and camaraderie among cowboys than in public life in general.⁹

About One in Four Cowboys Was Black

All these groups made their way to Tombstone during this great age of immigration. Native Americans already lived on the land and fought the newcomers who laid claim to it.

Tombstone’s population in 1882 included 559 Irish, 423 Hispanics and 245 Chinese, and there were sizable Jewish and German communities as well.⁶

Irish Immigrants in the Wild West

Patrick Joseph Sullivan was born in County Cork. He settled in Casper, Wyoming, as a sheep rancher, became the town’s mayor and later served as a U.S. Senator from Wyoming.

Billy the Kid was born Henry McCarty in New York City, to parents of Irish descent. He used the alias William H. Bonney, but most people know his famous outlaw name.

1. His widowed mother remarried and moved to Silver City, New Mexico, when he was about 13.
2. She died the following year, and that’s when he began stealing and getting into trouble.
3. He went to southeastern Arizona and worked on Henry Hooker’s ranch.
4. But Billy the Kid spent most of his outlaw career in New Mexico.

Tombstone’s Ethnic Groups

The Irish in Tombstone

Millions of Irish immigrants came to America in the 1800s. After landing on the East Coast, many moved west to escape harsh discrimination. Its roots lay in British attitudes from back home, and it continued in the Eastern cities the Irish tried to make their own.

Many came to mining camps, hoping discrimination wouldn’t follow them west, and the Irish became part of Tombstone’s population.

Some were recent arrivals, others second generation. They kept strong ties to the “mother country,” and that support system helped them withstand discrimination and improve their lives. Part of it was backing Irish organizations, such as the local branch of the Irish Land League, which sponsored events, typically Irish festivals, at the Tombstone Driving Park.

Nellie Cashman

Nellie Cashman is among the best known of Arizona’s Irish. She was born Ellen Cashman in County Cork in 1845.

• As a young child she immigrated to Boston with her mother and sister. She moved to San Francisco around age 20.
• Her first business was in a Nevada mining town: in 1873 the Pioche Daily Record advertised the boarding house of Miss N. Cashman, proprietress. She left before the town’s mines gave out, and she seemed to have an instinct for that.
• Next she went to British Columbia, then Tucson, then Tombstone. She led the fundraising to build Tombstone’s Catholic church, which still stands.
• She promoted the local Irish Land League and ran businesses in town, including the Russ House. She tried to stay neutral in Tombstone’s political divisions, though looking back, her method seems to have included playing both sides.

John Behan

• John Harris Behan is a prominent figure in Tombstone’s history. He was born in Westport, Missouri, now part of Kansas City.
• His father came from County Kildare, Ireland, so John was half Irish.
• As a young man he moved to California and worked in mining and freighting.
• During the Civil War he worked for Carleton’s Column of Union Volunteers, which brought him to Arizona, and he fought in the Battle of Apache Pass. Afterward he worked in Tucson, then got a government clerk’s job in Prescott.
• In Prescott he went into mining and real estate and worked at sawmills, in bars and with stage lines. Praise for his part in the Apache fighting helped get him his first job as a lawman. He was later elected county sheriff and then to the legislature, moving in and out of law and politics. He married but gained a reputation as a womanizer. His association with Josephine Marcus began around this time.
• He moved to Tombstone around 1880. When Cochise County was formed in February 1881, Behan was appointed its first sheriff. He came to know Ike Clanton, John Ringo and Curly Bill Brocius, and he became notorious for his part in the events around the Gunfight at the OK Corral.

Ned McGowan

• Edward “Ned” McGowan had a notorious career. He was born in Philadelphia to Irish parents, grew up there, became a lawyer and went into politics. He was controversial almost immediately. He had a temper and got into a knife fight in the Pennsylvania legislature. People also said he had a gregarious personality.
• McGowan (no relation to us, as far as we know) went west to California, where he was constantly at odds with the vigilance committee running San Francisco. Eventually he fled to British Columbia, east of Vancouver.
• He stayed controversial there. Some San Francisco Vigilance Committee members had also come north and kept feuding with him. Native peoples, miners, Royal Engineers and local officials all got involved, stirring racial and international tensions.
• McGowan led his friends into brawls with the vigilantes’ side. The episode is known as McGowan’s War. Not a shot was fired in the war itself, and it was settled in court.

• Ned left British Columbia in 1859. By mid-July 1882 he was living in Tombstone and became a well-known local. In September 1882 he was asked to act as second in a duel between newspaper editors, one of them from the Epitaph, with Dr. Goodfellow on hand to treat the wounded. An argument over the choice of firearms ended the plan, and the duel was called off on the spot.
• For a while he worked as a faro lookout at the Oriental Saloon on Allen Street. During one game a player shot another. Ned saw the whole thing and testified at the trial.
• He later held a federal post in Washington, D.C., and returned to California in 1889. He died in San Francisco in December 1893, at 80, and is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery.

The Epitaph article goes on to say the duel “trouble arose over some newspaper articles” and that “McGowan was at one time clerk of the 9th legislature at Prescott and was well known all over the territory.”

More Irish Names in Tombstone

• Mary and Martin Costello: an Irish pioneer name you’ll notice in the Tombstone Cemetery. Walk through that cemetery and you’ll see quite a few Irish names, from burials in the 1880s and early 1900s down to today.
• Charles L. Cummings: from a pioneer Tombstone family. Charles came to town in 1880.
  1. A determined businessman, he first worked for the mines and the water company.
  2. He owned a mining interest but opened the Tombstone Pharmacy.
  3. He served as city treasurer and in the legislature.
  4. He became president of the First National Bank of Tombstone.
  5. He’s buried in the city cemetery.
• Thomas H. Corrigan: this Irish immigrant opened one of the first saloons in Tombstone’s Old Wild West.
  1. His Alhambra, opened in 1879, appears to be the earliest documented saloon in town.
  2. It had a stunning bar with a throne-like Gothic chair in the center.
  3. It stood on Allen Street, midway between Fourth and Fifth.
• Frank and Tom McLaury: the brothers killed by the Earps and Doc Holliday in Tombstone’s gunfight.
  1. The family descended from Matthew McClaughry of Ireland.
  2. Both brothers were born in upstate New York. Their father was educated and became a lawyer, as did another brother.
  3. The family moved to Iowa when Frank and Tom were boys.
  4. As young men they came to Arizona, and the rest is history.

Mexicans in Tombstone

The Mexican community was part of Tombstone town life. Southern Arizona had been part of Mexico, and Mexicans were living there already. Many went into mining. Although Mexicans worked alongside white miners, they weren’t always treated the same. Socially, sometimes everyone got along, and at other times relations were strained.

Many Mexicans lived in a part of town called the “Mexican Quarter,” roughly the block from Fremont south to Allen Street, between First and Second streets. The community got little attention in the papers unless something went wrong.

Chinese Immigrants in Tombstone

The Chinese mostly kept to their own community. Chinatown covered a few blocks, from near Fremont south to Toughnut, between about First and Third streets. Many Chinese immigrants also lived elsewhere around Tombstone.

Businesses sought Chinese labor for the mines and railroads. Many Chinese also farmed and sold vegetables to local markets, worked as cooks and household servants, or opened laundries.

Many residents were suspicious of this group and its unfamiliar customs. Some formed an “Anti-Chinese League,” which pressured businesses to rid Tombstone of the “yellow peril” by boycotting anyone who employed Chinese workers. It also stirred up some violent incidents.

When the contractor building the Tombstone courthouse hired four Chinese brickmakers, the League was outraged and demanded an explanation. The contractor said he “could not get white labor to do the same kind of work. The white men habitually worked a day or two and quit.”^6,13

Anti-Chinese sentiment got federal backing with the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. It barred Chinese immigrants already in the country from becoming citizens and cut off further Chinese immigration for the next 61 years.¹¹

Even so, some of Tombstone’s Chinese succeeded and became respected. The best known were China Mary (Mary Sing) and Quong Kee, who ran the Can Can restaurant. Both are buried at Boothill.

Other European Immigrants

Other European immigrants made their way to the Wild West and to Tombstone. Most came from Germany, Scandinavia and Great Britain.⁶

Frederick Brunckow

Frederick Brunckow, a German immigrant who arrived in 1848, was the first person to explore for minerals in the Tombstone area. He had a mining degree and some European mining experience, and an American mining company hired him. He did well and was quickly promoted. In 1859 he started his own company with three professional miners and Mexican laborers.⁶ Read the whole Brunckow mine story.

Jewish Immigrants in Tombstone

Jews also immigrated, many escaping religious persecution in Eastern Europe, and some of them came west after arriving in the U.S.

Fred Harvey was ahead of his time in hiring when he started his chain of hotels and restaurants along the Santa Fe railroad. Two of his most valued employees were Jewish.¹²

A small Jewish community settled in Tombstone.⁶ Jewish immigrants also went to other booming western towns to make the most of the opportunities there, and many have descendants still active in those towns.