Annie Moore (immigrant)


Anna "Annie" Moore was an Irish immigrant who was the first immigrant to the United States to pass through federal immigrant inspection at the Ellis Island station in New York Harbor.

Immigration

Moore arrived from County Cork, Ireland aboard the steamship called Nevada in 1892. Her brothers, Anthony and Philip, who journeyed with her, had just turned 15 and 12, respectively. As the first person to be processed at the newly opened facility, she was presented with an American $10 gold piece from an American official.

Family

Moore's parents, Matthew and Julia, had come to the United States in 1888 and were living at 32 Monroe Street in Manhattan. Annie married a son of German Catholic immigrants, Joseph Augustus Schayer, a salesman at Manhattan's Fulton Fish Market, with whom she had at least eleven children. She died of heart failure on December 6, 1924, and is buried in Calvary Cemetery, Queens. Her previously unmarked grave was identified in August 2006. On October 11, 2008, a dedication ceremony was held at Calvary which celebrated the unveiling of a marker for her grave, a Celtic Cross made of Irish Blue Limestone. She had 11 children of whom five survived to adult hood, and three of them had children.

Mistaken identity

A woman named "Annie Moore" who died near Fort Worth, Texas, in 1924 had long been thought to be the one whose arrival marked the beginning of Ellis Island. Further research, however, established that the Annie Moore in Texas was born in Illinois.

Legacy