When I was a boy I visited a New York State museum in Albany with my mother. By chance, we found that among old city railroad and subway cars was an exhibit on police uniforms. Among them was a late 19th century uniform with the distinctive high helmet worn by New York City policemen, and I recall my mother telling me that my father’s grandfather was on the force and wore one just like it. An Irish cop in the 1800s – fancy that!
Police parade (1876) (via NYPL.org)
(Especially the ones where pretty young women clamor for the officer’s attention. Ahem.)
When I finally began working on my family research several years back, I did not expect to find much detailed information on my great-grandfather Michael. After all, we’re talking about 100 years in the past and scant known information on him.
One tantalizing, yet elusive clue came from another story from my mother. When she first married my father she had seen a large portrait-type photograph in my grandmother’s collection of a uniformed Michael Tierney. Sadly, when she inquired about it later my grandmother told her that it had been ruined and thrown out long before.
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