USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Lawrence > Immigrant city: Lawrence, Massachusetts, 1845-1921 > Part 4
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16. Ibid., May 27, Aug. 5, 23, 1853, Mar. 28, April 18, 1854.
17. Ibid., June 9, 13, 20, 1854.
36
IMMIGRANT CITY
they were first "assailed with stones, brick bats, and one or two shots ... fired from the houses" is not clear; but the natives did most of the damage. Back they went to the engine house on Oak Street, gave three cheers for the flag, and dispersed.
Here again it might have stopped, but a small group returned home by way of Common Street and once more engaged the Irish with brick bats and gun shots. Only the timely arrival of the mayor, who read the riot act and called out the Lawrence Light Infantry, succeeded in breaking up the mob. Though nothing more happened, news of the riot spread throughout the United States. Even two years later the Michigan Paw Paw Free Press compared it with the "border ruffian" raid on Lawrence, Kansas. And by this time the story had grown, for the newspaper referred to a "band of twelve hundred 'Massachusetts freemen,' who as- saulted at midnight the humble tenements and cabins inhabited by free white laborers" and "leveled forty of those dwellings of the poor."18
In the fall of 1854 the Know-Nothing party turned first the state and then the city party structure upside down as it annihilated the Whigs and Free Soilers and paved the way for the rise of the Republicans. Henry Gardner, its candidate for governor, carried 317 towns and cities, securing over 80,000 of the 127,000 votes. All state senators and 347 of the 355 state representatives were Know-Nothings. A month later Albert Warren of the Know- Nothing party won the first of two smashing victories in the race for the mayor's seat.
What the Know-Nothing party did to Lawrence politics is best seen in a study of the Lawrence vote in the state elections between 1853 and 1857. The Know-Nothing party apparently served as a halfway station for those leaving the Whig and Democratic parties and joining the Republican party. Listed below is each party's percentage of the votes cast for governor:
18. The Lawrence Courier and J. F. C. Hayes both denied that the flag and cross were raised to create trouble. Ibid., July 11, 1854; Hayes, History, pp. 66-67. An old Irish settler reported in 1879 that the Know-Nothing Party started the affair. Lawrence Journal, Feb. 22, 1879. The Lawrence Courier was probably the most reliable. The Paw Paw article was quoted in the Chicago Times, requoted in a Lawrence newspaper, and inserted in Municipal Records, I.
37
THE SHANTY IRISH, 1850-1865
1853
1854
1855
1856
1857
Know-Nothing
0%
78%
59%
8%
29%
Republican
0%
2%
15%
66%
46%
Democratic
55%
12%
21%
25%
25%
Whig
30%
8%
5%
0%
0%
Free Soil
15%
0%
0%
0%
0%
A comparison of the actual votes cast in 1853 with those in 1854 reveals the source of the Know-Nothing strength:
1853
1854
Know-Nothing
0
1126
Republican
0
30
Democratic
456
172
Whig
585
117
Free Soil
174
0
Former Whig votes made up 41 per cent of the Know-Nothing total; Democratic losses contributed 25 per cent; Free Soil losses 13 per cent; and new votes 20 per cent.19
The "conscience Whigs" and Free Soilers of Lawrence, who later became Republicans, went to the Know-Nothing Party first because it included many social reformers who were opposed to slavery. This dichotomy of interests, pro-reform and anti-immi- grant, split the party. Since the reform elements would not en- dorse severe anti-immigrant measures in Boston, the Know-Nothing legislature passed few nativist laws. When it did disband several Irish military companies, the Courier, caught in the split, ques- tioned the constitutionality of the move. And the activity of the state Hiss Committee, which was investigating nunneries, drew so much scorn that all Know-Nothings were dubbed "Hissites." The anti-slavery Know-Nothings of Lawrence and all New England could hardly agree with their unionist brothers in New York or their pro-slavery associates in the South.20
19. The Lawrence Courier, Nov. 14, 1854, for the state result. For the Lawrence vote, ibid., Nov. 15, 1853; Record of Elections in the City of Lawrence, MSS, City Clerk's Office, Lawrence, Mass., I (1853-80), 19, 31, 43, 57.
20. There are references to the plight of the Know-Nothing Party in Oscar Handlin, Boston's Immigrants (Boston, 1941), pp. 209-11. A workmen's com- pensation law and a railway crossing law were two typical reforms. The Lawrence Courier, Sept. 7, 1855.
38
IMMIGRANT CITY
While these differences accounted in part for the decline of Know-Nothing strength in Lawrence in 1855, the granting of patronage in Lawrence to outsiders was even more important. As a result, many Know-Nothings either went back to the Democratic party or on to the Republican. The political confusion of the time appeared in the case of Josiah Osgood, who within twelve months was a Whig, a Know-Nothing, and a Republican. The movement from the Know-Nothing to the Republican Party ac- celerated during the next year. Even the Courier, now lukewarm in its opposition to slavery and reluctant to abandon Whiggism, came out strongly for the Republican John Fremont for president. When the bolting Know-Nothings in Massachusetts merged with the Republicans in renominating popular Governor Gardner, the combination swept both Lawrence and the state in November. In the city election in December all was confusion. The American party, made up of Whigs, Know-Nothings, and Republicans, de- feated a Citizens party comprised of Whigs, Know-Nothings, and Democrats. The Irish voted on both sides.21
While this was the end of the Know-Nothing party in Massa- chusetts and throughout the United States, it held on in Lawrence because of the virulence of the anti-Irish feeling and because Law- rence textile men, who accepted nativism, were angry at the Re- publican failure to support a higher tariff. As a result the Know- Nothing party recovered for the year 1857 some of the strength it had lost to the Republican party. A nativist tinge, in the form of an "American" party lingered on almost until the Civil War in the city elections. Not until the Republicans adopted economic planks in 1860 did the native-born voters of Lawrence abandon Know-Nothingism.22
The Democratic party and the Irish, who were the joint targets of the Know-Nothing-Republican drive, banded together, mean- while, to avoid annihilation. Their combined efforts were so suc- cessful that by 1859 the Democracy won 40 per cent of the guber- natorial vote in Lawrence and carried the city election in Decem- ber. Because they were so essential, the Irish were able to seize
21. Ibid., June 5, July 20, Oct. 18, 30, 1855, Dec. 11, 1856; Record of Elections, I, 31.
22. Record of Elections, I, 57; Municipal Records, II, V.
39
THE SHANTY IRISH, 1850-1865
many of the top positions in the party. Terence Brady, next to Cantillon the outstanding Irish politician of the 1850's, dominated the Democratic city caucus of 1859. Since the Irish were poor, the Democratic politicians tended to be economically lower on the scale than the Republicans. By correlating the occupations of the foremost politicians in the two parties, it is possible to make the following comparison:
Democratic 1848-1853
Republican 1854-1860
Mill executives
3%
14%
Bank and other business executives
6%
7%
Doctors, dentists, lawyers
21%
29%
Overseers and skilled craftsmen
26%
25%
Laborers and farmers
44%
25%
Half of the Republican leaders, as compared with only 30 per cent of the Democratic, were in the three top categories. The difference between the years for the Democratic and Republican figures is unimportant because the Democratic politicians did not change much between 1854 and 1860 even though their share of the votes fell off.23
The Irish, however, were not always perfectly loyal to the Democrats. In 1857, for example, the Republicans carried Ward Three, and in 1858 Father O'Donnel urged his parish to vote American-Republican rather than Democratic. Then in 1860 the Republicans abandoned nativism completely and gained sufficient Irish support to halt the Democratic gains of 1859. Their candi- date for governor, John Andrew, carried the city handily.24
While the Know-Nothing movement was reshaping Lawrence
23. The Lawrence Courier, Sept. 15, 1859; The Lawrence Sentinel, Sept. 21, 1861. The sources of the Democratic lists: The Lawrence Courier, Nov. 10, 1849, Mar. 8, Aug. 23, 1851, Feb. 28, 1852, Sept. 16, 1853. The leadership of the party stayed about the same throughout the decade. Ibid., Sept. 15, 1859, Sept. 21, 1861. For occupations see Filmer, Directory; Goodwin, Directory; Adams, Directory. For Republican lists: The Lawrence Courier, Sept. 5, 1854, Oct. 7, 1856, Mar. 22, 1860. Occupations of Republicans from Adams, Di- rectory. Seven of twenty-two Lawrence delegates to the Democratic State Convention of 1861 were Irish; so were six of seventeen members of the City Committee.
24. Record of Elections, I, 31, 43, 57, 98; Municipal Records, V; The Lawrence Courier, June 8, 1857, Sept. 29, Dec. 8, 1859, June 7, 1860.
40
IMMIGRANT CITY
politics after the riot of 1854, tension between the natives and im- migrants continued. The Irish contributed to it by raising arms to defend themselves against further attacks. Then the School Com- mittee made it worse by a policy of not recognizing the Catholic school or the certificates the school issued to students seeking work in the mills. According to the committee it was "a school ... un- der Romanist influence, ... at the head of which was an Irishman, of manners and habits so gross and degraded" that had it not closed, the police would have shut it down. An Irish brawl one spring Sunday in 1855 led Americans to scorn them even more. A year later it was no better as "a handful of drunken Irishmen defied the whole police on Pine Street, and successfully, too." After another group tripped up members of the Syphon Engine Company on its way to a fire, the company came back and mauled its assailants. 25
A newspaper row meanwhile developed between the Know- Nothing Lawrence American and the Democratic Lawrence Sen- tinel. The anti-Irish-Catholic attitude of the American was evi- dent in its description of a Democratic parade in November of 1856:
A procession composed of the most noisy Irish rabble ... com- prising some 500 ragged, dirty-faced, filthy urchins culled and dragged forth from the rum-holes, grog cellars and shanties of "the plains," with a goodly delegation from the underground mud huts of the "City of Cork," upon the South side ... started directly for the Irish settle- ments of Oak and Elm Streets, making the night hideous with their yells and outcries, while the robust form of the "great Bohea" [Can- tillon] was seen here and there, shouting lustily in his "rich Irish brogue," "three cheers for Buch-anan," . "three cheers for the Pope," ... no one we say, who witnessed these doings ... will ever need to read another lesson in Americanism.
Calling the American "a bigoted Know-Nothing sheet," the Sentinel accused it of wanting to "exterminate all Catholics and foreigners." The American had previously referred to the Sentinel editor as a "Roman Catholic Foreigner." When the American protested be- cause the Catholic Library Society had put announcements of a
25. Municipal Records, I; The Lawrence Courier, Oct. 13, 1854, April 24, 1855; School Committee of . .. Lawrence, Annual Report, VI (1852-53), 7; VIII (1854), 10; IX (1855), 7-8. There were other riots in July, 1856, and April, 1857. The Lawrence Sentinel, May 10, July. 1, 1856, April 22, 1857.
41
THE SHANTY IRISH, 1850-1865
member's death in all other newspapers, the Courier responded that it was because the American had "treated all the foreign popu- lation in .. . a very abusive manner."26
The intensification of the slavery issue made an end to the Know-Nothing party and quieted the nativist struggle. The pro- immigrant planks of the Republican party in its 1860 victory muted it even more. The Civil War quelled it entirely. The Irish con- tributed so many men through their special brigade that they were able to demand and get additional rights. When sixty Lawrence immigrants enrolled at a meeting of naturalized citizens in April of 1861, the Sentinel remarked: "There can be no question of the devotion of our adopted citizens to our government and free institu- tions." A letter to the Sentinel said there was no reason to be surprised at the loyalty of the immigrant and added that we could not afford to "let England laugh and say we have failed in the experiment of self-government." When similar letters followed, the newspaper called on the government to give all soldiers their citizenship.27
By the end of the Civil War the Irish had passed through the first phase of their migration to Lawrence. The 1850's was one of the worst decades in the history of the city, a decade notorious for its disease, its tragedies, and its attacks on the immigrants. But for the Irish the worst was over. Already they had gained political importance in the Democratic party. Some of the Irish had al- ready left the "plains" and the shanty district for better homes on Tower and Prospect Hills. The decline of the nativist movement during the Civil War and the building of the Arlington Mill in 1865 brought social and economic security much closer. Most im- portant for the Irish, however, would be the influx of new national- ities after the war. The immigrant cycle was beginning to operate as new groups appeared at the bottom of the ladder and the Irish began to rise. Better years lay ahead.
26. Lawrence American, Nov. 15, 1856, in Municipal Records, I; The Lawrence Courier, Sept. 1, 1859; Municipal Records, II, VI.
27. The Lawrence Sentinel, April 27, May 4, Aug. 10, Nov. 23, Dec. 14, Jan. 25, 1862.
CHAPTER IV
Decades of Promise, 1865-1890
In Lawrence the spring of 1865 brought the end of the Civil War, the opening of the Arlington Mill, and the start of the Fenian movement. Each event in its own way marked the beginning of a new era in the history of the city. The revival of shipping after the war and the demand for workers at the Arlington soon attracted large crowds of Canadians, Englishmen, and Germans, as well as more Irishmen, to the city. As the poor Canadian habitants ar- rived to take their places in the Arlington Mill, the scene was similar to that in 1846 when poor Irishmen had started in on the dam and the early mills. But in the two intervening decades the Irishmen had won a place in the city which the Fenian adventures would soon strengthen. The immigrant cycle was operating.
Pushed out of the Saint Lawrence Valley by poor crops and overpopulation, the habitants trickled down into New England on the railroads that followed the Connecticut River or Lake Champlain or went along the trail blazed by the Irish immigrants of the 1840's and 1850's in Maine. In Lawrence they multiplied more rapidly than any group except the Irish. Only a handful at the time of Appomattox, the Canadians numbered 8,500 by 1900. One-fifth of the immigrants living in Lawrence in 1890 were French Canadians. Saint Anne's Church, whose school was the second largest in the Archdiocese of Boston, was built by 1873 in the heart of the French-Canadian district south and west of the "plains." In addition to the church and school the Canadians established a branch of the Saint John de Baptiste Society and several newspapers. From these organizations came men such as
43
DECADES OF PROMISE, 1865-1890
Charles Roy and Charles Lacaillade, who were spokesmen for their fellow countrymen.1
Living close to the Irish and Canadians after the Civil War were a number of English textile operatives who deserted the north shires of York, Lancashire, and Cheshire to seek work in the Arlington Mill. They had an easier time than the other immigrants because they had had experience in the mills and because there were English immigrants in Lawrence who had arrived before the Civil War to help them. The English total was as large as the Canadian until the 1890's when the Canadians moved far ahead. Although they lived near the Irish and Canadians, the English occupied better areas. About half of the English lived on the old Essex Turnpike, which had been renamed Broadway, where they were close to the Arlington. The English did not quickly establish societies because they encountered no linguistic or religious conflicts with the natives. They set up the Albion Club in 1886 to get better representation in the city government, but the English Social Club was not founded until 1900. Nonetheless, a state British- American convention met in Lawrence in 1891 and a Daughters of
1. Carroll D. Wright, Census of Massachusetts: 1875, I (Boston, 1876), 301; Carroll D. Wright, Census of Massachusetts: 1880 ... (Boston, 1883), p. 50; Carroll D. Wright, Census of Massachusetts: 1885, I, Part 1 (Boston, 1887), 507; United States Census Office, Eleventh Census of the United States: 1890, I (Washington, 1895), clii, 670; Horace G. Wadlin, Census of ... Massachusetts: 1895, II (Boston, 1897), 607; United States Census Office, Twelfth Census of the United States . .. 1900, II (Washington, 1901), 796; J. L. K. LaFlamme, David E. Lavigne, J. Arthur Favreau, "French Catholics in the United States," The Catholic Encyclopedia (1909), VI, 276. The leading French-Canadian Ward was as follows: 1865, Ward Three (38 per cent of all Canadians); 1875, Ward Four (38 per cent); 1880, Ward Four (45 per cent), 1910, Ward Five (42 per cent). Oliver Warner, Abstract of the Census of Massachusetts,-1865 ... (Boston, 1867), p. 63; Census of Mass., 1875, I, 301; Census of Mass., 1880, p. 50; United States Census Bureau, Thirteenth Census of the United States 1910. Abstract of the Census . . . with Supplement for Massachusetts (Washington, 1913), p. 609. Lawrence American, Feb. 27, 1864; The Essex Eagle, Nov. 15, 1873; W. J. Lauck, "The Significance of the Situation at Lawrence: The Condition of the New England Woolen Mill Operative," The Survey, XXVII (1911-12), 1772. Concerning the newspapers: Le Drapeau lasted only a short time and ended in September, 1874; in 1881 the Methuen Enterprise added a French column; then came the short-lived Alliance of 1886 and Le Echo 1890; Le Progres, 1890, and Le Courrier de Lawrence, 1899, were the first to give extensive coverage to French activities. The Lawrence Sentinel, Sept. 26, 1874; The Essex Eagle, June 18, 1874; Lawrence Journal, Mar. 12, 1881, Nov. 20, 1886, Mar. 4, 1887; The Evening Tribune, Oct. 31, 1890; Le Progrès, Dec. 30, 1898; Le Courrier de Lawrence, June 1, 1911. For the Saint Jean de Baptiste Society see The Evening Tribune, May 16, 1901.
44
IMMIGRANT CITY
Saint George meeting took place in 1902. The leading Englishmen down to 1900 were the politician James Derbyshire and the travel agent Duncan Wood.2
Like the British the Germans came from textile districts, in this case Saxony, Bavaria, and Silesia. Starting in 1854 they began to settle in a place they called Hallsville just above the Spicket River near the base of Prospect Hill. Here a thriving German community developed after the Civil War. It included a large number of societies ranging from the Turnverein with its gym- nastics and radical political discussions to the Lyra Singing Society. When the Lyra dedicated its new hall in 1891, German glee clubs came from as far away as South Boston, Worcester, and Man- chester, N.H. A school, a newspaper, and three churches sup- plemented the work of the societies and also helped provide leaders. While August Reichwagen, treasurer of the school, and Hugo E. Dick, editor of the Anzeiger und Post, vied for power in the 1870's and 1880's, August Stiegler was even better known in the 1890's. When he was finally defeated for office, the Evening Tribune simply stated, "Howgoost got it in the neck" and everyone knew what it meant.3
2. For the pre-Civil War immigrant population of Lawrence, Francis DeWitt, Abstract of the Census of ... Massachusetts ... 1855 ... (Boston, 1857), pp. 105, 206. Lauck, "Significance," p. 1772. British authors referred to Lawrence as the "Bradford of America." James Burnley, Two Sides of the Atlantic (London, 1880), pp. 62-66; William Smith, A Yorkshireman's Trip to the United States and Canada (London, 1892), pp. 130-32; both sources cited in Rowland T. Berthoff, British Immigrants in Industrial America 1790-1950 (Cambridge, Mass., 1953), pp. 38-39, 224. English-born in Lawrence-1855: 1132; 1865: 1892; 1875: 3353; 1885: 3928. Census of Mass., 1855, p. 105; Census of Mass., 1865, p. 63; Census of Mass., 1875, I, 288; Census of Mass., 1885, I, Part 1, 507; Eleventh Census of ... 1890, I, clii. In 1875 and again in 1910 about 40 per cent of the English were in Ward Five. Those near Broadway worked at the Arlington Mill. Others lived on Tower Hill. Census of Mass., 1875, I, 288; Thirteenth Census ... Supplement for Mass., p. 609. Concerning clubs see Lawrence Journal, Dec. 19, 1885; The Evening Tribune, Feb. 9, 1891, May 20, 1901; Lawrence Daily Eagle, Oct. 1, 1902.
3. The Evening Tribune, Dec. 9, 1891; Lauck, "Significance," p. 1773. Ger- man-born population-1865: 151; 1875: 963; 1885: 1499; 1895: 2402; 1910: 2301. Census of Mass., 1865, p. 63; Census of Mass., 1875, I, 295, 311; Census of Mass., 1885, I, Part 1, 507; Census of Mass., 1895, II, 607; Thirteenth Census . . Supplement for Mass., p. 609. For the German origins see Lauck, "Signifi- . cance," p. 1773; The Lawrence Sentinel, Jan. 3, 1874; The Essex Eagle, Jan. 10, 1874; Lawrence Journal, Dec. 31, 1881; Lawrence American, Jan. 11, 1884, supplement; The Evening Tribune, April 4, 1891, Oct. 9, 1896, June 28, 1904. For German locations in Lawrence see Census of Mass., 1875, I, 311; Thirteenth Census ... Supplement for Mass., p. 609. Additional references to German resi-
45
DECADES OF PROMISE, 1865-1890
The simple Lawrence society of the 1850's, Yankees at the top and Irish at the bottom, soon vanished beneath the impact of the newer groups. Revelling in a newly-found seniority, the Irish were now able to look down upon many of the recent arrivals, particularly the French Canadians. They soon found, however, that the English and Germans, experienced in textile work, were often their equals. In the twenty years after the Civil War the Irish steadily improved their position in the city until it was finally clear that they had "arrived." Sometimes they advanced through positive accomplishments of their own, sometimes merely at the expense of others.
By the end of the first decade after the Civil War they had grown both ways. Their most praiseworthy achievement was the Fenian movement. Irish immigrants, angry at British failure to do anything about the famine, were so opposed to the union of Ireland and England that they held half a dozen repeal meetings before 1850. T. F. Meagher's lecture in 1853 helped keep the sentiment alive until the Fenian movement at the end of the Civil War. The Fenians, who wanted to capture Canada and use it as a hostage for British concessions in Ireland, first arrived in Lawrence on Saint Patrick's Day, 1865. Then on the Fourth of July, Fenians marched in the city parade and a month later paraded independently on their way to an excursion. Already they numbered three hundred, seventy-five of them in uniform with green caps, white shirts, and black leather pants. By September a Fenian Hall on the "plains" and a Fenian Sisterhood reflected the vigor of the new society.
The high point came in the spring of 1866 with a conflict be- tween the Sweeney group, which favored the diversionary attack on Canada, and the Stephens wing, which preferred a revolt in Ireland. In spite of a speech by Colonel John O'Mahoney, Law- rence supported General Sweeney and named its circle for him. Posters appeared in the streets and the Fenians raised $5,200 and a hundred stands of arms for the Canadian attack. Suddenly
dences in Donald B. Cole, "Lawrence, Massachusetts: Immigrant City, 1845- 1912" (Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, 1956); see map at the beginning of Chapter III. The churches were the Evangelical Lutheran, Meth- odist, and Catholic. The Evening Tribune, Jan. 6, 1896; Anzeiger und Post, Feb. 4, 1899; The Essex Eagle, Dec. 25, 1875; Lawrence Journal, Dec. 17, 1881, Aug. 22, Dec. 19, 1885, Oct. 1, 15, 1887; The Evening Tribune, Sept. 18, 1890, July 2, Nov. 23, 1891, June 11, 1892, Sept. 3, 1905.
46
IMMIGRANT CITY
Sweeney was at the Canadian border and with great rapidity the Fenian excitement reached a climax. Immediately they collected $1,600 more and thousands crowded the railroad station to see the first hundred off to Canada. A few days later, however, they and the hundred who followed were back. General Sweeney was under arrest. The attack was off.
The utter failure and the arrival in Lawrence of James Ste- phens, the opponent of a Canadian invasion, should have ended the affair, but the Sweeney Fenians were determined. A parade in 1867 showed seventy-five men remaining in uniform, and in 1870, 172 left for another invasion of Canada. By the end of a week they also had returned from another farce. The Sentinel, heretofore sympathetic, called this the "Fenian Fiasco" and Fenian- ism in any form was dead in Lawrence.
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