Two hundred people gathered at Calvary Cemetery in Queens yesterday to give Annie Moore – the first immigrant to set foot on Ellis Island – a proper burial, 84 years after she died.
“This is the typical American story,” said genealogist Megan Smolenyak. “The happy ending for her is that her descendants have done so well, and she is regaining her rightful place in history.”
Moore was front-page news when she arrived from Ireland at age 14 on Jan. 1, 1892 – the very first of millions of immigrants to pass through Ellis Island.
But when she died at age 50 after a hard-scrabble life on the Lower East Side, Moore was buried in an unmarked grave in Calvary, along with five of her 10 children.
When Smolenyak was making a film about Ellis Island, she realized no one knew what became of “wee Annie.”
She and city Records Commissioner Brian Andersson tracked down family members, marriage certificates, and finally the death certificate that led them to the forlorn cemetery plot.
Five great-grandchildren of “Ellis Island Annie” raised $25,000 to give their family matriarch a carved blue-limestone headstone befitting her historical significance, which was dedicated yesterday before family and friends from Ireland and America.
Additional reporting by Melissa Jane Kronfeld