An American Passport

While visiting with Crown relations in Manorhamilton, it was brought to my attention that a record of U.S. citizenship had been passed down among the descendants of John Crown of Manorhamilton.  This was interesting news!  The certificate has since been located, a hand-written document with very faded ink, part of which can still be read:

United States of America
From the Secretary of State on the 6th day of November 1858
'To permit safely and freely to pass John Crown
a Citizen of the United States' etc.
No 10954

It so happens this is not a certificate of John's U.S. naturalization, but rather his passport, for which he applied in the state of New York on 4 Nov 1858.  Unfortunately, the application, which reflects the same passport number, doesn't say much about John, neither where he was living nor where he was traveling.  We only know these details from the application:

The application was certified by a notary public at NYC city hall with this verbiage:

John Crown a naturalized citizen of the United States, about visiting foreign countries, desires a passport, and I do hereby certify that the persons named herein appeared before me and being duly sworn according to law each subscribed to the annexed declaration which I deem sufficient proof of the citizenship of said John Crown.

There is then an abbreviated notation which takes a while to decipher, which I now translate as:

Court of Common Pleas, Balto (Baltimore) 3 Nov 1856

The person who vouched for John on his passport application was named Charles Cooper, and he signed with his mark.  There were a couple men named Charles Cooper found in the 1858 NYC city directory, but no John Crown.  It's hard to say how Mr. Cooper knew John Crown well enough to vouch for him.

So all this is rather amazing to me.  First, living relations in Manorhamilton are in possession of an artifact that is 165 years old — an American passport issued to John Crown.  And the application for that passport still exists in American archives.  Second, I have always thought that it was my ancestor, Patrick Crown, who was the first from our family group to go to America, but that was not so.  Patrick's older brother, John, was there long before, by at least 12 years or so.  

But there are still a number of questions about John's travel:

• Why did John go to America?  Was it to start a new life or was it to help other Crowns who were in NYC? (see my article A Study of Intersecting Crown Families from the Manorhamilton Region in New York City).  
• Whatever the reason for making the voyage to America, John intended to stay because he went through all steps required to become an American citizen.  But why was he in Baltimore when naturalized?  
• A bigger question is why did John want a passport?  In the mid-19th century, passports in the United States were primarily used for diplomatic purposes and were issued to government officials and individuals traveling on official business. They were not widely required for ordinary citizens traveling abroad for personal reasons.
• And finally, why did John go back to Ireland?  I'm sure his aging parents had much to do with it.  But perhaps the looming Civil War, which erupted in 1861, might also have been a deciding factor.  Maybe John Crown did not see himself as a soldier.

All of this narrative now becomes a new chapter of the Crown story which we have not previously known.  John Crown came home and married, and maybe because of things he had seen and learned in America, he decided to become a proprietor in the town of Manorhamilton.  Though Crown's Bar in Manorhamilton is no longer in the Crown family, their name has been etched in the window of the building which still stands on Castle Street.  We just never knew how far John Crown had traveled before returning to his Leitrim roots and forging ahead into his future.

Sadly, John Crown died in 1882 at the relatively young age of 57.  His gravestone in the Crown plot at Killasnet Graveyard must have been vandalized for it was found pushed over and broken.  But when the base stone was rolled over, we found the clear inscription for John Crown and all his family members.  RIP, John Crown of Manorhamilton, an Irish and American citizen.