The Irish American Family Album

1995, Oxford University Press

 

 

 

Excerpt from The Irish American Family Album:

Jeremiah O’Sullivan traveled around Cape Horn to the West Coast in 1859, after which he headed for Virginia City, Nevada, where a discovery of silver had lured many hoping to make fortunes. Jeremiah wrote home to his brother Dan in Ireland:

“I will get on at once to the great news. We were not long arrived in this place when Owen and I found the treasure we had come to seek, yes, my doubtful brother, we have indeed struck a vein of purest silver, and are in prospect of becoming very rich men. The settlement here is full of Irish, along with what seems to be at least one of every nation in the world. But we are among the few who have had the good fortune to ‘strike it rich’ as they say here…

“Now, Dan why don’t you come out here and join us? I know that you were not a mere scoffer, like those others who said Owen, Mary and I were fools to go to America at all…You were always one to stay home because you loved the land, and it will still hold you, I know. But you can make your fortune here too. It is not just a dream.”

 

Parents’ Choice Award
Selected for New York Public Library’s Books for the Teen-Age