Irish History
CHARLESTOWN HISTORICAL SOCIETY AND
SAINT FRANCIS de SALES
DEDICATE IRISH FAMINE MEMORIAL
A fifteen-plus month joint initiative of the Charlestown Historical Society (CHS) and Saint Francis de Sales Cemetery Memorial Project Committee to site "The Children of the Famine" Memorial in the Archdiocesan Burial Ground directly behind Saint Francis de Sales Church came to a close on Sunday, September 13, when more than 600 current and former parishioners joined clergy and distinguished public Officials at the Burial Ground for the official Dedication and Blessing.
Father Daniel J. Mahoney, Pastor of Saint Francis de Sales who is now in his 43rd year of stewardship and service at Saint Francis de Sales, welcomed the Most Reverend Robert F. Hennessey, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Boston, who officiated at the 150th Anniversary "Remembrance Mass" that commemorated, in part, more than 9,000 souls interred in the Cemetery on Bunker Hill. At the conclusion of the Mass, Bishop Hennessey led a public procession from the Church to the Burial Ground (aka Saint Francis' Cemetery) at the rear of the Church and Rectory, where he then blessed the Memorial as part of the Dedication Ceremonies. A collation followed in the Bishop Lawton Hall.
The Project was undertaken with the active assistance of the Archdiocese of Boston and the Catholic Cemetery Association. Distinguished Guest Speakers included Mr. Marius Harkin of Clonmany, Donegal; the Hon. Michael Lonergan, the newly-installed Counsel General for the Irish Counsel of Boston-New England; the Hon. Thomas M. Menino, Mayor, and the Hon. Eugene L. O'Flaherty, State Representative for Charlestown and Chelsea who serves as the Co-Chair of the Joint Committee on the Judiciary for the Massachusetts Legislature. The Hon. Raymond L. Flynn of South Boston was also in attendance at both the Remembrance Mass and the Memorial Dedication.
Per the input of the Archdiocese, the Committee selected a site approximately 15 feet inside the Cemetery Main Gate at the end of the walk-way and corridor that extends from the Gate back to the Bunker Hill Street stairwell that separates the Church and the Rectory. The Memorial encompasses an eight foot-plus high traditional Celtic Cross featuring icons associated with Irish immigrant experience and stands on a supporting platform to enhance the visual impact. An adjoining Dedication Stone carries the Dedication Inscription.
'DEDICATED TO THE SACRIFICE AND COURAGEThe selected location towers over the Cemetery and affords a panoramic view of Boston harbor; it is visible, as well, to passersby on the sidewalk on Bunker Hill Street.
OF THE CHILDREN OF THE FAMINE HERE INTERRED,
WHO PERISHED ON THE VERY THRESHOLD OF THE DREAM,
AND TO THOSE WHO FOLLOWED,
FOR THEY DARED TO LIVE THE DREAM
AND LAY THE FOOTPRINTS,
FOR OUR LIFE AND TIMES IN THIS,
"THE GREEN SQUARE MILE"
MAY GOD GRANT THEM LIFE ETERNAL'
The Inscription is the Committee's attempt to properly and permanently memorialize the plight of Immigrant Famine-era children who were often of such ill health that survival was a typical fear. It also ties together as described to the Charlestown Patriot Bridge "the courage and struggles of the succeeding generations of Irish Immigrant ancestors who stayed here in Charlestown in spite of the plight of the very first arrivals, and persevered in the face of rampant repression and ethnic bigotry to lay the foundation for the contemporary 20th century Irish American experience in what we now call "The Green Square Mile."
Proceeds from the on-going sale of the Historical Society's Irish documentary film/DVD, "The Green Square Mile - the Story of the Charlestown Irish" and accompanying Booklet will continue to be applied to the costs of the Famine Memorial until all costs are paid in full. In addition to the online link above, copies of the DVD remain available at The Cooperative Bank on Main Street. See Manager Tom Coots for your purchase.
The second wave of Irish emigration to Charlestown, 'Black '47' and the famine Irish - by Ed Callahan
Overview:
On the eve of the fall harvest of 1845, Ireland's population stood at 8 million people. Roughly 3 million subsisted on small holdings of land large enough to plant a small field of potatoes that would sustain a family until the next harvest. Other crops such as wheat, oats, and barley were grown and sold to pay rent. The average adult male consumed about 14 pounds of potatoes a day, and the Irish people developed a near total dependence on the potato as the primary source of nutrition.
In 1845, a fungus known as "phytora infestans" arrived in Ireland via the hold of a ship from America and it rapidly infected the Irish potato crop with a vengeance. Other European nations were affected by the blight, but the Irish dependence on the potato produced near famine conditions. All the while, cash crops and livestock were removed from Ireland by the boatload bound for England.
Hopes were high for the harvest of 1846, but the crop failed once again. Starvation and disease, including typhus and dysentery, ravaged the Irish population. In a meager response to this impending disaster, the British government initially imported stores of American Indian meal and initiated a public works program that compelled destitute and starving people to build roads that went nowhere. Between 1846 and 1855, at least 500,000 Irish men, women and children were evicted from their homes often under particularly heartless and brutal circumstances. The potato crop failed again in 1847, and the British Government adopted a policy of non-interference with market forces and required the Irish to pay for support of the poor. Conditions had deteriorated so dramatically and the mortality rate had risen so substantially that the year 1847 became known forever to the Irish people as "Black '47".
Historian Kerby Miller outlines the situation quite dramatically in a single sentence: "As starvation and disease devastated Ireland, thousands of panic stricken people embraced emigration as their only escape from destitution and death." Miller estimates that 1 million people died of starvation and disease, while 1.5 million emigrated to North America.
The voyage:
The "Famine Emigrants" were among the poorest of the poor in Ireland, and in Europe, they possessed few marketable skills and were tremendously in need of charitable assistance. Because of their extreme poverty, those who could muster the fare set forth for the United States on British sailing vessels that were decrepit and disease ridden. As passengers, the famine Irish were packed into steerage decks that were claustrophobic and filthy beyond description. These ships were also called "coffin ships" because of the extraordinarily high death rate of the Irish passengers. The steerage deck was located immediately below the main decks on these vessels, and steerage passengers had extremely limited access to the main deck. Passengers were often locked into the steerage deck for up to 20 hours a day. On many ships, toilet facilities were virtually non-existent and cooking facilities hardly adequate to provide food for the hundreds of poor souls packed on board. The smells emanating from these holds was overpowering, fresh air and potable water was in desperate supply, and the voyage to North America often took up to 10 weeks to complete. Most of the famine Irish had never set foot on a sailing vessel and suffered desperately from seasickness and gut-wrenching fear. In bad weather, the steerage compartment was sealed tight in an impossible attempt to keep seawater from seeping in with the passengers trapped in near total darkness. Sleeping arrangements were so tight, that most adults could not lie down and fully extend themselves. Whole families were often crammed into these bunks sleeping either on wooden boards or fetid mattresses.
Without adequate toilet facilities, the steerage holds became incubators of disease. Disease carrying lice became rampant and typhus, dysentery, cholera and a whole host of other maladies wracked the passengers who were already in a weakened condition as a result of the famine. The elderly were often the first to die, and many of them were horrified of the prospect of being buried at sea. In Ireland, being buried in consecrated Catholic burial ground along with generations of their ancestors was considered one of their few consolations. At sea, the deceased were unceremoniously slipped over the railing into the Atlantic as soon as they were discovered dead in their wretched living conditions.
So shameful had become the condition of these passenger ships, that the Times of London, no apparent friend of the Irish peasantry editorialized as follows: "...the worst horrors of that slave trade which it is the boast or ambition of this empire to suppress, at any cost, have been reenacted in the flight of British subjects from their native shores...The Blackhole of Calcutta was a mercy compared to the holds of these vessels. Yet simultaneously, as if in reproof of those on whom the blame of all this wretchedness must fall, foreigners, Germans, from Hamburg, and Bremen are daily arriving in America, all healthy, robust and cheerful...Nor so we see any way to escape the opprobrium of a national inhumanity except by taking the earliest and most effectual means to rectify past errors and prevent their recurrence."
The reaction:
How many typhus-ridden Irish men, women and children washed up on Charlestown's docks and piers is unknown. But given the reaction to their presence by Charlestown's native community, we can surmise that the number of famine Irish entering Charlestown must have been substantial. Charlestown residents responded to the famine in two entirely different ways. The first inclination of the town's native population was to help and the second was to condemn.
In early 1846, a group of Charlestown's most prominent citizens banded together to form a committee for "relief of the sufferers from the famine in Europe." In a press account of their meeting, the word "Ireland" never appears. Abraham R. Thompson and Richard Frothingham Jr. led the meeting. A whole host of Charlestown "gentlemen" served on this committee. The only two Catholics to participate were the ubiquitous Patrick Denvir and William McElory, who owned a business in City Square. Their inclusion on this committee was no doubt a reflection of their high status among the Irish of Charlestown.
The parishioners of St. Mary's Parish also organized relief efforts and they forwarded $361.65 to Bishop Fitzpatrick in March of 1847 for famine relief. The Bunker Hill Aurora reported that the citizens of Charlestown had obtained more than $15,000 in cash, business and other relief for the "Committee for Relief of Ireland". Whether or not this committee was the same as the group noted above is not certain. More help came when a group of Boston businessmen, led by John Forbes and his brother Captain Robert Bennett Forbes, petitioned Congress for the use of a naval vessel to transport food and supplies to Ireland despite the fact that the United States was at war with Mexico. Congress approved the petition on March 5, 1847, granting the use of the USS Jamestown from the Charlestown Navy Yard to Captain Forbes for "...the purposes of transporting to the famished poor of Ireland and Scotland such contributions as may be made for their relief".
In response, the Boston Committee collected about $3,000 from the churches to supply and outfit the ship. The Navy provided the equipment and countless businesses provided the food and supplies. On March 17, members of the Laborers Aid Society volunteered to load the ship without pay. These men who worked "all along the shore" were mostly Irish born. The Charlestown community alone donated 50 barrels of rice, 50 barrels of cornmeal, two barrels of bread, 60 barrels of beans, four barrels of peas and four boxes of clothing.
Yet even while these humanitarian efforts were underway, there was growing concern that too many destitute Irish men, women and children were arriving at the Charlestown docks.
In the Feb. 27, 1847, edition of the Bunker Hill Aurora, there appears a rambling editorial that states in part: "In addition to the heart rendering accounts from Ireland, of poverty distress and misery, although there is some reason to think that these statements are exaggerated, the feelings of the country are almost daily touched by scenes and descriptions, in our own midst. Almost every vessel, which arrives from Europe, particularly from England, comes filled with emigrants, in a condition of poverty and disease, more dreadful than the famine from which they escaped".
That William W. Whieldon, owner and publisher of the Aurora, thought that the reports from Ireland regarding the famine "exaggerated" is remarkable. Whieldon who seems to have had a pathological hatred of Catholicism assuredly wrote the passage outlined below, in May of 1847 as a rallying cry for natives to meet to discuss the "...great disease of foreign paupers in our City..."
"It is quite time that something of an efficient nature was done in reference to this subject. Our country is literally being overrun with the miserable, wretched, vicious and unclean paupers of the old country. They are not only introducing their wretchedness and disease among us, but if they ever recover from these plagues, they have a worse disease which will overspread the country; in their religion. We think that there is much to fear..."
Also in May, the Aurora reported that a disease called "ship fever" was being transported to Charlestown by the famine Irish. The Aurora reported: "We understand that some cases of 'ship fever' have occurred in this City, with fatal results, and it will require great vigilance in our health to prevent its spread among us". The Aurora also reported this mysterious disease was supposedly spreading throughout New York City. Of the New York situation, Whieldon reported, "The chief tells us that the disease is unquestionably contagious and rapidly increasing throughout the city". These comments no doubt caused some level of panic throughout Charlestown.
On June 1, 1847, more than 200 Charlestown residents attended the meeting at the Charlestown City Hall to address the emigration issue. The meeting was called by legal warrant on a petition filed by Charlestown resident and future elected official Jesse Mann, who gave a speech lasting about one hour and reportedly acquitted himself "handsomely" and "much to the satisfaction of all present". The throng, the largest assembly of citizens so assembled in Charlestown in many years, unanimously approved a resolution presented by Mann.
The resolution stated in part: "Resolved Unanimously: That the Overseers of the Poor in the city of Charlestown be, and the same are hereby instructed to make complaint before a Justice of the Peace, under the provisions of the 17th section of the 16th chapter of the Revised Statutes, and to take any and all other steps legal and requisite, to cause any and all paupers, that now, or are, or may be hereafter residing or found in said city, and having no lawful settlement within this state, to be sent and conveyed at the expense of the state, by land or water, to any other State or to any other place..."
At about the same time, the Charlestown City Marshall and other municipal officials refused entry of the bark "Reliance", packed with 280 Irish men, women and children, after it attempted to dock at Darwin's Wharf at the Port of Charlestown. The Reliance had been quarantined upon arrival after a number of passengers had died during the crossing and many more arrived desperately ill. The Reliance was by any measure a classic "coffin ship". The passengers later disembarked at another port after Charlestown municipal officials made it clear that they were not welcome. If the town fathers were planning to physically remove all known paupers, then we can assume, from their point of view, that it would make little sense to allow even more of them to enter the community. There is an indication, that there was a disturbance of some type regarding this resolution. Perhaps Jesse Mann and his followers actually tried to remove Irish emigrants from the community with predictable results.
The June 12, 1847, edition of the Aurora reported the following news item: "Irish Paupers. We understand that several Irish paupers, a few days since, applied for admission to our Almshouse, but on being told that, if they went there, they would immediately be sent to Ireland, they left the City. Several others, who were already here, we are told, have absented themselves, without leave. At this rate, we shall hardly be able to put up a ship load".
Close scrutiny of Whieldon's writings indicates that he was extraordinarily preoccupied with disease. In his view, the Irish people and their religion were diseased. The notion that Irish emigrants might be disease ridden was hardly new to Charlestown in 1847, as one of the principal arguments made against the operation of the Catholic cemetery on Bunker Hill Street concerned the deep fear that disease would spread throughout the community. The cemetery was a very busy place in 1847, and there is little doubt that Whiledon and like-minded citizens witnessed a habitual parade of keening woman climbing over the Bunker Hill Street to bury their children.
For in 1847, a large number of Irish children died in Charlestown and were buried on the side of Bunker Hill. A review of the Charlestown Vital Records compiled and edited by Roger D. Joslyn indicates the deaths of at least 41 Irish children are recorded for "Black '47". Bridget Noonan, age 1, died of cholera, as did Michael Sullivan who was only 11 months old. Margaret Kenney, Mary Ryne and James Walsh all died of typhus fever. Scarlet fever took the young lives of Daniel Corson, Ellen Dean and Denis Phelan. Others died of consumption, lung fever, dropsy, dysentery and cholera. One can't help but wonder how many deaths went unreported. At the time, it was not an unusual occurrence for destitute parents to simply leave the corpses of their children on the stairs leading up to the cemetery and hope that the Sexton would bury them. This practice was taking place even at the advent of the Civil War.
The flow of Irish emigrants into the community was overwhelming, despite the protestations and official resolutions of the native community. By September of 1847, Whieldon and the Aurora would attack the issue of Catholic voting rights. So many famine Irish settled into Charlestown that they dramatically increased the percentage of the Catholic population, overtaxed community institutions and set the stage for even further tension between themselves and their Protestant neighbors. The Irish population on Warren Street had swelled to such a degree that it became known as "Dublin Row", a place "where the town's old residents were horrified to find any quality of filth, rubbish, misery and degradation".
In regard to the impact of the famine on Charlestown's history, historian James G. Blaine II stated: "The Famine years of the 1840's began a process that transformed Charlestown from a Yankee and Protestant community to an Irish and Catholic community by the end of the century".