John James Murphy
1822–1909
Irish link: Documented
The Kilrane emigrant of 1844 who landed with £1, dug ditches at Chascomús and died owning two estancias: the arc of the sheep boom in one life.
- Land and business
Salto
A northern pampas town with 270 Irish residents in 1869, Murphy's estancia La Flor del Uncalito and a cemetery of Wexford graves.
- Kind
- Town
- Where
- Buenos Aires · Salto · Argentina
- On the globe
- 34.28° S, 60.23° W · Coordinates from Wikidata · See it on the globe
Visiting
Visiting: Not confirmedas of 2004
The estancia house and the cemetery graves were described by the IAHS in 2004; nothing newer was found.
Source: IAHS, Irish Place Names and Landmarks: Salto (2004), 2004(opens in a new tab)Salto, in the north of Buenos Aires province, counted 270 Irish residents in the 1869 census and 323 in 1895, according to the SILAS reading of Eduardo Coghlan's genealogy; Coghlan's records list 86 Irish deaths there. The Irish Argentine Historical Society's 2004 page says the Irish presence was small before 1870, when native estancieros began recruiting Irish workers; that conflicts with the 1869 count, and this site uses the census figure.
The best-known Irish trace is the estancia La Flor del Uncalito of John James Murphy, which in 2004 kept its original house and dovecote. Murphy, born at Haysland, Kilrane, Co. Wexford, in 1822, sailed in 1844 on the William Peile and rose from ditch-digger and shepherd at Chascomús to the owner of two estancias. The cemetery has Murphy graves, one of them honouring three Wexford brothers, and monuments to the Tobin, Casey, Ham and Geoghegan families. The Tobin family has a street and a seed firm in the town. The IAHS index also lists a town named Gahan in the partido. The surgeon Tomás Brendan Kenny, grandson of a settler of the 1830s, was born in Salto in 1883.
Where sources disagree
Published sources give different versions. Here is each one with its source, and the wording we use.
The Irish at Salto before 1870
A small presence before 1870, when native estancieros began recruiting Irish workers
Source: IAHS, Irish Place Names and Landmarks: Salto (2004), 2004(opens in a new tab)270 Irish counted in the 1869 census
Source: SILAS, Irish Settlers in Argentina (c. 2006), 2006(opens in a new tab)
We say: Use the 1869 count
People linked to this place
Sources
- Source: IAHS, Irish Place Names and Landmarks: Salto (2004), 2004(opens in a new tab)
- Source: SILAS, Irish Settlers in Argentina (c. 2006), 2006(opens in a new tab)
- Source: SILAS DILAB, Murray, Murphy, John James (1 Jun 2003), 1 June 2003(opens in a new tab)
- Source: IAHS, Irish Place Names and Landmarks: Argentina index (2004), 2004(opens in a new tab)
- Source: SILAS DILAB, José Brendan Wallace, Kenny, Tomás Brendan (1 Apr 2004), 1 April 2004(opens in a new tab)