Emigration

They left because the island could no longer sustain them. They carried Manx names, Manx language, and Manx memory to Virginia, Ohio, and beyond.

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The Departures

An Island Emptied

The Revestment of 1765 did not cause Manx emigration overnight. But it destroyed the economy that had sustained the island, and within two generations the consequences were inescapable. By 1824, the Manx labourer had reached what the historian A.W. Moore called his ‘lowest depth of misery.’ By 1827, the first ships were sailing for Ohio.

The story begins earlier, though. In 1655, William and Jonathan Christian left Mann for Virginia — not as economic refugees but as members of a governing family seeking land and opportunity across the Atlantic. Their descendants would shape American history in ways the island never knew.

Virginia — The Early Emigration

The Christians in the New World

The Christian surname appears in Virginia’s colonial records from the 1640s onward. A persistent tradition, published by A.W. Moore in Manx Worthies, holds that brothers William and Jonathan left the Isle of Man around 1655 and founded the Cedar Grove line in New Kent County. The tradition is attractive and the surname is distinctively Manx. But no primary source has been found connecting any Virginia Christian to the Island. Separately, a Manx probate record of 1751 places Dollin Christian — son of the Reverend John Christian, vicar of Jurby — dying “on the coast of Virginia” around 1745. The full research is on the companion page.

1655?
The Virginia Christian Tradition
A tradition that William and Jonathan Christian left Mann for Virginia around 1655. Published by Moore in the 1880s from Judge Joseph Christian’s correspondence. The evidence that would prove it has not been found.
1655–present
The Christians in Virginia
Robert Christian of Cedar Grove became Chief Magistrate of New Kent County. His granddaughter Letitia married John Tyler, the tenth President. Whether the family originated on the Isle of Man is unproven.
c.1745
The Dollin Christian Discovery
A 1751 Manx Consistory Court bond records Dollin Christian, son of the vicar of Jurby, dying “on the coast of Virginia” around 1745. His uncle Robert was in Ireland by 1699. The hypothesis that Israel Christian of Augusta County was Dollin’s son is plausible but unproven.
20 Jan 1775
The Fincastle Resolutions
Colonel William Christian chaired the committee rejecting Parliamentary authority over the colonies. Whether his family’s constitutional instinct traces back to a Manx Deemster’s bench remains an open question.
1888
The Four Virginia Judges
Four Christians served simultaneously on the Virginia bench. Whether the instinct to adjudicate came from a Manx Deemster’s bench or from somewhere else entirely, the pattern is striking.

Read the full research →

“Come to this country and you will do well. The poorest labourer in this country lives better than the best farmer on your Island.”
— Thomas Kelly, writing home from Ohio, 1828
Ohio — The Great Departure

The 1827 Emigration and After

In 1827, three ships — the Chile, the Curler, and the Ocean — carried Manx emigrants to Ohio. They settled in Cleveland and the surrounding townships. They spoke Manx. They built churches. They named their streets after Manx parishes. The language lived longer in Ohio than it would live on Mann.

1824
Moore’s ‘Lowest Depth of Misery’
The historian A.W. Moore fixed 1824 as the date at which the Manx labourer reached his lowest depth of misery. The 1827 emigrations followed directly.
1779–1827
The Archbishop’s Irony
In 1779, the Archbishop of York asked Manx people to contribute to the relief of Anglican clergy displaced by the American Revolution. Within fifty years, the Manx people themselves would be the displaced.
1827
The 1827 Ohio Emigration
Three ships carried Manx emigrants to Ohio: the Chile, the Curler, and the Ocean. The Cleveland Herald noted their arrival. A community was born.
1827
The Ship Chile
Chartered by the Corletts of Orrisdale and others from the northern parishes. One of the three ships of the 1827 emigration.
1827
The Ship Curler
One of three ships that carried Manx emigrants to Ohio in 1827. About thirty-one passengers.
1827
The Ship Ocean
The largest of the three ships. Roughly a hundred and twenty-nine passengers.
1828
Thomas Kelly’s Letter from Ohio
A letter home that was both an invitation to follow him to America and an indictment of what the island had become.
The Aftermath

What They Built, What They Left Behind

1830s–1840s
The Northern Parish Exodus
The departures continued through the 1830s and 1840s, and the press notices accumulated like entries in a parish register of loss.
1830s–1950s
The Cleveland Manx Community
In Cleveland and the surrounding townships, Manx emigrants built churches, established societies, and kept the language alive longer than it survived on the island itself.
1830s–1860s
The Newburgh and Warrensville Settlements
Beyond Cleveland itself, Manx emigrants settled in the surrounding townships and in small communities scattered along the lakeshore.
1827–c.1900
Manx Language in the Ohio Settlements
The language lived longer in Ohio than it would live on Mann. In the 1830s and 1840s, Manx was still a living tongue in the settlements.
c.1827–present
The Manx Diaspora in Greater Cleveland
Eventually there were over three thousand Manx people and their descendants in the greater Cleveland area.
1837
The Primitive Methodist Conference Losses
The Conference of 1837 reported losing thirty-eight members by removals to England, America, and elsewhere. The island was bleeding people.
1855
George Borrow and the Ohio Manx
George Borrow, travelling in 1855, met a woman whose son lived in an Ohio village where the Manx language was spoken.
1827–1850s
What Remained on Mann
The cost to Mann was not only in the people it lost but in what those people took with them. The parishes were not just losing labour — they were losing memory.
 

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The emigrants carried the island with them. Explore the families they came from, the merchants whose world was destroyed, and the soldiers who served an island that could no longer feed them.

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