On November 8th, 1909, sixteen-year-old Bridget Donaghy and her 9-year-old sister, Lilly, sailed from Ireland to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, aboard a ship called the Haverford. The girls’ father sent them to Philadelphia to live with their cousin, Lilly McCrystal, who had already settled and owned property in the city.
This document includes a trancript of the testimony of Bridget Donaghy and her cousin Lilly, taken by the Board of Special Inquiry at the Port of Philadelphia. The Board consisted of three or four Bureau of Immigration and Naturalization inspectors who questioned immigrants that had been detained. Because Bridget and her sister came as children and did not plan to stay with their father, they were likely questioned out of concern that they would be unable to take care of themselves without becoming a “public charge.”
After taking testimony, the Board would decide to admit or deport a person, and record this decision with the transcript. In this testimony, Lilly McCrystal described the girls’ living conditions in Ireland and why she would support them: “I traveled abroad this summer and seen [sic] them and thought it was charity to take these two children. I have no dependents on me.” Lilly was a retired school teacher and had the means to raise and educate the children. The Inspectors on the Board determined that Bridget Donaghy and her sister Lilly had sufficient accommodations with their cousin; they approved their admittance into Philadelphia and released them to her care.
Bridget would later marry an American-born man. She applied for naturalization in 1939.
