USA > Massachusetts > Hampden County > Holyoke > Complete program of Holyoke's seventy-fifth anniversary and home coming days > Part 5
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If the cause was easy to find, the results were appalling. Men, women, and especially young children died by the score. The epidemic was swift and fatal. Men would be taken sick at night and be dead by morning. Once the disease got under way it was highly contagions.
There was no Catholic cemetery in the town then and every morning dozens of the dead were carried to Chicopee. These were the days of tribulation.
About this time the first regular Catholic services were held in the old Exchange Hall just recently built. Prior to that time occasional services had been conducted under a large eh tree that stood in a pasture near what is now the corner of Dwight and Elm streets.
The little village that rapidly grew up within sight of the industrial project came to be known as the "Patch." As more new settlers came in its extent widened until finally it reached almost as far as what is now known as Pulaski Park.
Here was the Holyoke version of the huts of square hewn logs of the Plymouth Plantation. or the frontier cabin of rude logs with mud- filled interstiees in which Abraham Lincoln was born. or the somewhat later "Little Old Sod Shanty on the Plains," of the Scandinavian settlers in the north central states. The Irish immigrants in Ireland Parish. that was shortly to become Holyoke, were in no better or worse circumstances than those who had been coming to America's shores for the best part of two centuries. The significant distingnishing foa- ture in their situation was that at this time they happened to be the last comers.
They were indeed in no worse situation than some of those earlier peoples who had treked overland to Springfield or up the valley to settle on the County Road. It has been a truism of which Americans have always been proud that
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ST. JEROME CHURCH AND CHAPEL
first comers to these shores have always had to grub for a living, and that no matter how lofty the pinnacle to which they may later have at- tained, for the most part they have lifted them- selves by their bootstraps.
With the Irish the shock of transplantation was sharp and very severe. They had come from simple agricultural backgrounds, rich in human values, steeped in an age-old culture that was mellow and kindly. They were plunged into the maelstrom of a young, vigorous, un- seasoned, impersonal, industrial economy where man through his labor was a commodity, to be bought in the open market, where supply was the determining factor in the face of limited demand.
It was now the turn of the Irish, and their opportunity to match their brawn and ingen- uity, their enterprise and patience, their forti- tude, against this new and difficult environment in which they found themselves. Bravely they began by the strength of their good right arms and the courage that was in them to hew ont a destiny for themselves and their children and their children's children forever.
Until a few years ago the popular opinion seemed to be that the Irish people who first began crossing the Atlantic after the famine of 1846, or about the time the canals and railroads were being eonstrueted, were the first of their nationality to come to the New England region. The old records of many towns prove this to be not quite true. Ireland Parish had its Rileys
and Gleasons. As early as 1643, after it had become obvious that what the Ameriean eol- onies needed most to make them prosperous was population, Captain John Vernon, William Leader, and Daniel Sellick contracted with the Commissioners of Ireland to supply them with 250 women of the Irish nation between the ages of 15 and 50, and 300 young men, to be found in the country within 20 miles of Cork, Kerry, Waterford, Wexford, and Tipperary, to import into New England. In no country in the world were conditions so favorable for inducing emi- gration as from Ireland, even at that carly date.
In 1718, a letter signed by 320 men of the Irish nation was presented to Governor Shute of Massachusetts Bay, asking for sufficient en- couragement From him to make the necessary arrangement for their reception. On receiving a favorable reply, a major part of the signers of this petition converted their property into money and embarked in five ships for Boston.
LEADERSHIP
Before long this newest settlement in the Con- nectient Valley began to take on a semblance of order and self-organization. The inhabitants of the "Patch" in the first days naturally grouped themselves into little segments aceord- ing to the particular region of the old sod from which they came. There were the Kerry men and the Connaughts, and history has it that upon occasion some of the groups were elannish. According to the ancient ways of civilization
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MARBLE BUILDING
there were jealousies within but withal a fierce loyalty to the settlement as a whole.
In a population made up of many different people of different qualities and characteristics and of widely varying abilities, it was inevit- able that some few leaders should emerge, to speak for the rest and in a measure to direct their activity. Within a period of a single decade mueh of the sifting had been done and a number of snch able men appeared in positions of responsibility, enjoying general esteem. They gained their ascendeney in various ways; some by outstanding native ability in getting along with other men, others by shrewd appraisal of the business opportunities of the pioneer situa- tion and prompt action to capitalize thereon, still others because of general recognition of their inherent character and worth. These early leaders of the Irish-American citizens of the community achieved leadership and distinction by rendering worthwhile, outstanding service.
JOHN DELANEY
Among the foremost of these able men was John Delaney. Mr. Delaney was a builder. He had learned the trade of a stone mason in his native Ireland and come over to America as a young man to make a future for himself. He arrived in New York City in 1835, and at once began to ply his trade. During his youth he
worked on such important projects as Fort War- ren in Boston Harbor and the locks and canals at Lowell. He came to Holyoke in 1846, as an experienced supervisor on the water power project.
It was about this time that he set up his own company and began to expand rapidly. In rapid succession he constructed a dam for the United States Arsenal at Springfield, the foundation for a number of paper mills at Hoi- yoke, bridges over the eanals from one factory to another and from the railroad tracks on the river bank to the various factories to facilitate freight shipment, and a number of sizable rail- road bridges scattered over Western Massaehu- setts.
In 1874, he was given the contract to rebuild the bridges and replace the dams washed away in the Mill River flood. It was about this time that recognition came to him in a grand way when he was singled ont to lay the foundation of the new Town Hall, shortly to be re- christened the City Hall.
A BIG OPERATOR
Prosperity had come to his company. At the height of his career, he had, working every day, more than 80 teams of horses. In 1870, there were 20 stone quarries in operation in West- ern Massachusetts. most of which were owned or controlled by Mr. Delaney. His own res- idenee was an impressive structure in which many famous persons were wont to visit. Gov- ernors Hayden and Russell were his friends.
For many years John had wished above all else to construet a building that would be a special monment to his life's work. The build- ing, as he saw it, should be outstanding for the amount of workmanship and planning it re- vealed. Here would be the culmination of years devoted to the building up of Holyoke-a glori- ons farewell to his profession.
In 1885, that structure was completed-the first building of pure marble ever to be erected in New England. It stood, facing the City Hall. overlooking the eity which he had loved as his home. It was his masterpiece, symboliz- ing the fulfillment of all his hopes and desires.
John Delaney was continuously aetive in church affairs. He was a devout Roman Cath- olie. It is reported that at that time the Cath- olie Church having some difficulty in purchasing land, he himself bought the land on which St. Jerome Church is now situated and turned it over to the Bishop. As a significant contributor and often as contractor, he laid the corner stones for many of the Catholic churches that were
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built in the district. The gold trowel with which he laid the corner stone at the Rosary Church is now in possession of the Dr. Horrigan family.
The final work of construction of this leader in Holyoke's early life was the building of the three huge reservoirs in the hills outside the city to provide pure drinking water for the rapidly growing population of the new city.
DANIEL O'CONNELL
Daniel O'Connell was born in Dingle, Coun- ty Kerry, Ireland, in the year 1833. As a boy of fourteen he came to the United States, spent a few months at Chicopee Falls and then came to Holyoke. His first job was that of water boy to a large force of men who were building the first ill-fated dam. Next he found employ- ment with a farmer in Baptist Village, then went back with the Hadley Falls Company as barn boss for the company teams.
In 1862, O'Connell gained a knowledge of the building business with Deaeon E. T. Richards, and the following year went into business for himself as a truckman. He served as superin- tendent of highways until 1864, and then was appointed superintendent of city streets.
In 1880, he began contracting, his first int- portant mill contract being the excavation of the Nonotnek Mill of the present American Writing Paper Company. From this time for- ward his business rapidly increased. As oppor- tunities expanded his six tall sons were admitted to the firm of Daniel O'Connell & Sons, whose reputation soon spread far beyond local limits
Mr. O'Connell made the excavations and laid the foundations for the Symms & Dudley Mill, the Winona and Parsons Mills, the Farr Alpaca Company's mill in Jackson Street, and many smaller structures. He built the New Bedford Waterworks, the dams at Bellows Falls, Vt., and Pittsfield, Mass. He construeted an electric railway in Conway and the railroad be- tween Great Barrington and Stockbridge. The Fomer pipe line was laid by his coneern.
The wife, whom he married in 1858, was Jo- hanna Brassil. The sons, Daniel James, Wil- liam, Charles Joseph, John, Frank, and George, carried on the family name and the family business with credit to the founder.
Among the names of families of Irish lineage living in Holyoke today, the following are pos- itively identifiable as having their origins here in the community before 1850: Barry, Cain, Callaghan, Casey. Conner, Clary, Coughlin, Dowd, Davitt. Delaney, Dillon, Donoghue (va- rious spellings), Donovan, Dooley, Driscoll,
Dunn, Egan, Falvey, Ferriter, Fitzgerald, Fo- ley, Garvey, Griffin, Harrington, Healy, Hen- nessy, Hickey, Joyce, Kavanaugh, Kelliher, Kennedy, Lane, Long, Lynch, Mahar, Mahoney, MeDonald, MeLean, MeNulty, Mullins, Murphy, Nolen, Noonan, Norton, O'Brien, O'Donnell, ()'Connell, O'Malley, O'Neil, Powers, Rourke, Shea, Sheehan, Slattery, Sullivan, Tobin, Quinn and Welch.
THE TOWN
In the course of two or three years the Had- ley Falls Company constructed a water supply system, a gas works, a school, and laid out a network of streets. Several new mills were con- strueted. In 1850, Ireland Parish ceased to exist and the Town of llolyoke came into being.
The water-works was calculated for a large population and extensive mills. These works consisted of two large pumps located in the gatehouse at the dam which were driven by a water wheel and which forced the water up into a reservoir located at what is now the north- rast corner of High and Lyman Streets. The water in the reservoir stood at a height of 77 feet above the top of the dam, held two million gallons, and could be filled by one of the pumps in about two weeks.
Water was distributed about the village by two and a half miles of pipe. It was connected to all the boarding houses, mills, and machine shops. The danger from fire losses was cut significantly by this installation.
Apparently the purity of the river water was still a source of questioning. A news item of June 21, 1851, declared that it contained "ani- maleulae" to a considerable extent and invited the general public to visit the newspaper office to look at some water taken from a filter in the operation of cleansing. The water, it averred, was full of animals, "alive and kicking." The filters incidentally could be obtained at the establishment of Rowe & Emory, enterprising retailers.
The Hampden Freeman on November 17. 1849, reported : "A new and beautiful engine has just been purchased by the Hadley Falls Company, and placed in Lyman Street, for the future use of the village. It is called the "IFol- yoke Number 1." A company of about 60 mem- bers has been formed to take charge of it."
In 1852, one of the cotton mills was lighted by gas from the company gas works. Shortly later gas was used to light the machine shop, the boarding houses, and the central streets.
The rapid population growth and the creation of so much eapital wealth in the "New City" made it unthinkable that it should be willing
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to continue a remote and lesser parish of farm- mg West Springfield. By common usage the unofficial appelation of "Hadley Village" was applied for a time but as the center developed an authorized name was indicated. "New City," "Hampden City," "Millville," and "Closopolis," were some of the suggestions.
Just before Christmas in 1849, a group of citizens met to take into consideration the pro- priety of asking for a division of the town of West Springfield at the next session of the Leg- islature. Warren Chapin presided. A commit- tee was appointed to circulate a petition for such division and another meeting was decided upon for the following week. It was also voted unanimously that the new thriving city be called by the time-honored name of Hampden.
On February 19, however, the Directors of the Hadley Falls Company met and their min- utes for the meeting show that "The Commit- tee appointed at the last meeting of the Diree- tors to report a name suitable for the town, re- ported the name of HOLYOKE." On motion, "It was voted that this report be accepted, and the Treasurer was authorized to take any need- ful steps in relation thereto."
The petition sent to the Legislature for a division of the town was acted upon, and the prayer of the petitioners granted. The petition, however, was amended by inserting the name HOLYOKE in place of HAMPDEN, and HOLYOKE the new town became.
Within three years three large mills were eon- strueted by the company for other owners. More workers were brought in. Tenement houses were ereeted in the vieinity of the mills and Ilolyoke was on its way. Of the tenement blocks constructed at that time many have been torn down but many others are still in use along Canal Street just westerly of the Street Rail- way Office.
THIE CANADIAN FRENCHI
In 1902, it was reported that fully one-third of the city's population was comprised of French-Canadians and persons of French de- seent, and further, that among the number were many men of means and influence, and moral worth and integrity. From the early beginings of industrial Holyoke, outstanding citizens of French extraction have been controlling factors for good, in the business, social, professional, and political life of the community.
In the 50's jobs which paid good money were few and far between. The process of manufac- ture and distribution of goods on a nation-wide seale was just beginning. Mass purchasing
power was to be witnessed only in the future. Cash was a thing to be tenderly cherished.
Superimposition of an industrial system upon an agrarian community overnight created the eurious phenomenon of a labor shortage in a land where labor was plentiful. The shortage was somewhat enhanced by the reluctance of workers who had already established themselves to take chances in a new and untried comm- nity. One could always be sure of a certain amount of independence on a substantial farm.
News of this shortage of labor, and of jobs for ready cash, spread far and wide up and down the Connecticut Valley, and worked its way up through Vermont and even to the far off Cana- dian Province of Quebec. In response to its im- port and sometime about the middle of the 19th century, five pioneer families from French Can- ada made their way down river to Holyoke.
The heads of these original French families were Narcisse Francoeur, Nicholas Proulx, Casal Viens, Furmence Hamel and Charles Pro- vost. They found work in the Lyman Mills and shortly proved themselves to be industrious people, worthy members of the new community.
The coming of these pioneer French Canadian families to Holyoke suggested to the agent of the Lyman Mills a new and hitherto untapped source of willing labor. Promptly he made an agreement with Nicholas Proulx to take peri- odie trips back to Province Quebec for the pur- pose of indueing "les habitants," particularly women and girls, to come to Ilolyoke where actual money was to be had for work in the mills. Money could be saved and sent back to relieve family economie situations, or if an en- tire family were willing to come, and work, and save, for a few years, then it could return to its native village in untold opulance, and, who knows, set up in business for itself. . . . Pent- etre.
COVERED WAGON
Pronlx had a long, covered wagon, specially constructed for his mission. (It is well to re- member that these were the days of the "forty- niners.") He took along another single horse and wagon in which to carry the luggage of his emigres. Thus equipped he set out for far off Province Quebee, traveling from village to vil- lage, and telling the people in their native tongue the wonders of a new and different way of life to be found at Holyoke, Massachusetts.
Skilled workmen were at a premium, but strong, industrious laborers were always useful, and could be employed to do the ordinary re- petitive chores of the mills. The women and girls, some of them highly skilled in an ancient
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provincial art of needlecraft, easily picked up the knack of handling the fine lawn thread, and came to be expert weavers.
The labor importing business was profitable. Over a period of five pears Proulx is said to have brought to Ilolyoke more than 500 persons for whom he was paid at the rate of four or five dollars each, plus transportation charges which also netted him a pretty penny. To this man more than to any other belongs the honor of having peopled the new Town with a thrifty and industrions class of inhabitants who were to make a signal contribution to the social, cultural, and economic life of the community down through the years.
No wagon train across the plains was more colorful than that first wagon load of habitants who came down from Canada in the new Proulx conestoga. Forty-five girls were crowded into the cavernous interior while the men and boys, seven or eight in number, walked along beside or took turns riding on the baggage wagon be- hind. Food was carried from home to last the long journey out and bivouacs were made at. lonely farms or at cross-road school houses. So well pleased were the first comers with the arrangements made for their living that others were willing to follow. The story goes that Pronlx offered the same service to the Hampden Mills and soon had two concerns bidding against each other with a consequent rise in price per new worker brought down.
The times were against these newcomers. No sooner were they established in their new en- vironment than the dull slack of the late 50's hit the mills, and they found themselves out of work. No offers were made to transport them back to their native province, and had there been, most of them would not have accepted. Ilolyokers they now were, and they took the bad times in stride with the good.
These people were poor in purse but pos- sessed of good health, a wealth of ambition, and a life-long training in persevering industry. Being unacquainted with English language and American customs, they were at first exploited both by their employers and by their more ex- perienced fellow citizens. Native intelligence, however, rapidly asserted itself, and soon they were regarded as a practical, thrifty, people who knew how to make the most of a situation even though it were a hard one. As they be- came skilled in their respective lines of work, pay was better. Many substantial fortunes in the community today trace back to the early struggles and hardships of these pioneers who came to Holyoke in a covered wagon.
A GREAT SORROW
The French too had a time of sorrow in the early days of their Holyoke history. Naturally for a time they chose to live in a community of their own. Their first settlement was called
PRECIOUS BLOOD CHURCH
"Canada Hill." As the years went by numbers became greater and larger colonies grew up in Ward One and Ward Two. They loved their own language and their own church, these new- comers. For a time they attended services at St. Jerome Church, but later formed a congre- gation of their own and rented a hall on High Street. About 1870, they built a little mission chapel on the corner of Park and Cabot Streets where Father Crevier's residence later was to stand.
It was in this chapel that the disastrons fire broke out on Corpus Christi Day in 1872. The calamity ocenrred at the vesper service, when a lighted candle set fire to the altar decorations and the flames spread so rapidly as to take the lives of the worshippers. When the congrega- tion sought to escape from the burning build- ing the single stairway down to the door gave way, piling the children into a close-packed mass where many of them were suffocated by smoke. Seventy-three people died as a result of the conflagration.
Chief JJohn T. Lynch of the Holyoke Fire De-
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partment did heroic work that day, going back again and again into the flaming building, and staggering out with another child in his arms. The fire was one of the most calamitons in all of Holyoke's history. But the people were un- dannted. They worshipped in a convenient hall until the completion of the Church of the Pre- cious Bood in 1876.
As in the case of the Baptists of Ireland Par- ish, the clergy of the French church were especially the intellectual leaders of their flock. Early they established schools lest children should grow up unversed in the subtleties of their chosen language. Father Dufresne was the first pastor, succeeded by Father Landry, who died in 1890. At that time Father Crevier began his pastorate with Father Bruneault in charge of the other French parish, a pastorate that was to be fruitful for many years.
RACIAL CULTURE
Soon the French-speaking people had their own newspaper, "Le Defenseur," a weekly pub- lication. This in turn, was followed by a daily, called "L'Annexioniste," which met with some success, until it gave way to "La Presse." The present French paper, "La Justice," enjoys a wide cirenlation and is often read by students of the language because of its clarity of expres- sion and excellent diction.
A famous French society in Holyoke is that known as St. Jean Baptiste, which was organ- ized in 1872, and served its members in many phases over the years, not the least of which was as a mutual insurance organization. Its founder and spokesman for many years was Edward Cadieux, who, after its amalgamation with other French societies of New England, became Su- preme President.
The French schools of the city seek to main- tain French culture and language in all purity. "The parochial school pupil, in addition to the subjects taught in the public schools, must ac- qnire a thorough understanding of French and also of his religion. He is taught etiquette and deportment, and the traditional French polite- ness. "
EARLY PIONEERS
Some of the leading characters in the life of the early French settlement contributed so ef- fectually to the later development of the city that their achievements are still talked about whenever old-time Holyokers get together. To- day their descendents play various and import- ant roles in the busy life of a thriving city.
Nicholas Proulx was one of the foremost
among these pioneers. He came from St. Ours, Canada, in 1856, and for a time, with his son, Joseph, devoted much of his time to the trans- portation of workmen and their families from Canada. After completing this project, he en- gaged in the coal and wood business with a fair degree of snecess, and later in real estate, ac- cumulating a comfortable fortune and being widely known and respected.
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