USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The story of the Irish in Boston, together with biographical sketches of representative men and noted women > Part 3
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Then there are two other families whose names are a pretty sure indication of Irish blood, although they are described as English when any description is ventured upon. Florence Maccarty 1 was in Bos- ton as early as 1686. He was a butcher, and one of the founders of the first society for Episcopal worship in New England.2 He had two sons, Thomas, born 1689, and William, born 1691; and he had three daughters. He was elected constable for the year 1687-88. He built his slaughter-house on Peck's wharf, in 1693, in company with Samuel Bill and Henry Brightman. He died in 1712. His son William was on several occasions elected to office in Boston, but did not seem anxious to serve the town in that way.
The estate of Florence Maccarty, at his death, was valued at £2,922, including "land and housing on King Street," valued at £1,000, situated probably at the south-west corner of State and Congress streets, which was at that time known as Maccarty's corner. The Maccarty farm, near where the Marcella-street Home now is, was bought for use as a stock farm, in connection with his butcher busi- ness; it was broken up and sold in 1830.
Thaddeus Maccarty had four sons and a daughter ; Charles died at the age of eighteen, in 1683; the others were : Francis, born in 1667; Thaddeus, born in 1670; and Samuel, born in 1678. He was an officer of the town in 1674, and a member of the artillery company in 1681. He was taxed for £50 in 1686. This implies an estate of probably not less than £250, actual value at that time; and this sum represents much more than the same amount now does. He died at the age of sixty-five, in Boston, in 1705. His son Thaddeus was elected constable in 1727, but showed the same disinclination to serve. Thomas Maccarty graduated from Harvard College in 1691, and
" There was an Irish chief of this name of some note about a century before (see Amory, Transfer of. Erin, p. 522) : this man's name may be an indication of patriotism on the part of his parents, possibly of family pride. But the next generation did not inherit the father's significant name.
2 Drake, p. 468.
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THE IRISH IN BOSTON.
was dead in 1698. Charles Maccarty was badly wounded in the ex- pedition against Quebec in 1690. These last two are not known to belong to either of the two families mentioned above.
David Kelly was a land-owner in Boston in 1679.1 His son David was born here in 1647, Edward in 1664. John Kelly lived here about the same time, and had sons John and Samuel.
Edward Mortimer was on one of the first fire-engine companies here organized.2 He kept a public house, and was described as " an accomplished Merchant, a person of great modesty, and could answer the most abstruse points in algebra, navigation, dialling, etc." He was an Irishman. By his wife, Jane, he had three sons : Edward, born 1676; Richard, born 1680; Robert, born 1688; and three daughters.
In the register of births, marriages, and deaths in Boston, from 1630 to 1700, there are over two hundred entries of names distinc- tively Irish,3 and probably many others just as certainly Irish, but not so entered. In some cases, here and there, Scotch and Irish nation- ality is remarked upon in the register. We give a few instances of this : -
1656. Edmond Coussins of Pulling Point and Margaret Bird an Irish maid servant to John Grover of Rumney Marsh were married.
1658. Mary of John Bowhonno a Scotchman and Moer his wife & Irishwoman. born May 9.
James Webster a Scotishman & Mary Hay an Irish maid were married 14th Feb.
1659. John Morrell an Irishman and Lysbell Morrell an Irishwoman were married 31st August by John Endecott Gov.
1661. John Reylean an Irishman & Margaret Brene an Irishwoman were married 15th March by John Endecott Governor.
Bryan Morfrey an Irishman & Margaret Mayhoone widow were married 20th July by John Endecott Governor.
The Christian name Bridget occurs frequently in families whose names give no suggestion of Irish birth. The fact that these marriages
' Records, 1679, p. 129. 2 Records, 1678, p. 125.
3 Including Barry, Collins, Hay, Healy, Kelly, Kenny, McCarty, McCue, McLoughlin, Manning, Morfrey (Murphy?), Mulligan, Ockonnel (God save the mark !), Pateson, Rylee, Shannon.
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THE COLONIAL PERIOD.
were solemnized by magistrates does not prove that the contracting parties were not Catholics, when we consider the necessities of the times. But their Catholicity was probably in most cases short-lived, as has been before remarked.
Under Cromwell's government many Irish people were sent to New England. On their arrival they were sold as servants or slaves, by those at whose charge they were brought here. The slavery was only temporary, generally for four years, and was distinctly under- stood to be in direct payment for the trouble and expense of trans- porting them.1 In 1654 the ship " Goodfellow," Capt. George Dell, arrived at Boston with a large number of Irish immigrants, that were sold into service to such of the inhabitants as needed them. It is possible that this is the episode to which Cotton Mather refers as one of the "formidable Attempts of Satan and his Sons to Unsettle us."
After working out their service these immigrants had a tolerably even chance to succeed in life, especially if they joined some one of the churches here established and recognized. While many of them did not do so, it is very evident from the church records that some of them did.
To this period belongs the following petition, addressed to the authorities of the province, the original of which is to be found in the Massachusetts archives : -
The petition of Ann Glyn and Jane Hunter Spinsters Humbly Sheweth :
That your Petirs lately arrived at Boston from Dublin in Ireland in the Brig- anteen Ann & Rebecca whereof Thomas Hendry is Master That in Dublin aforsd your Petirs agreed to Serve the Said Hendry the Term of Four years he Transporting them to Boston and he also agreeing to provide for and give unto your Petitioners each of them a New Suit of Cloaths for all parts of their Bodys which were Accord- ingly provided in Dublin and brought over here and since your Petirs are disposed of the said Mr Hendry witholds from and refuses to deliver unto your Petirs their Cloaths according to his promise & Agreement.
Your Petitioners therefore humbly pray your honours Consideration of the premises and that the said Master Hendry may be Directed to deliver unto your Petitioners their Cloaths according to his promise and agreement.
ANN GLYN X signum. JANE HUNTER X signum.
1 Randolph's report in the Hutchinson papers.
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THE IRISH IN BOSTON.
Hendry was ordered to appear before the provincial authorities and show cause for his retention of the emigrants' property.
It was also the practice for some daring pirates to kidnap men at the English, Scotch, or Irish ports, and sell them to the Americans. Some of these waifs may have found their way to Boston. Moreover, English criminals were systematically sold to the colonists.1 As late as 1736 the brigantine "Bootle," Capt. Robert Boyd commanding, sailed from Cork for Virginia, with nineteen transports. He touched at Boston in August, but the selectmen promptly had him before them, and made him promise he would not let them " come on Shoar," but would keep a strict watch on board his vessel to prevent their escape. It was on this ship that William Stewart came, who is men- tioned as one of the early members of the Charitable Irish Society.
1 Statute of the reign of George I. [4 Geo. I., c. xi. ], referred to in Lecky's "Eng- land in the XVIIIth Century," p. 12.
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THE IRISH WITCH.
CHAPTER II.
THE IRISH WITCH.
T HE saddest tale we find in all American history is that of the witchcraft delusion that prevailed in Massachusetts in the latter part of the seventeenth century. The belief in the actual existence of imps, witches, and embodied devils, and of their power to influence, not only the mental, but also the bodily, sufferings of their victims, was as wide as Christianity itself. "The defenders of the belief, who were often men of great and distinguished talent, maintained that there was no fact in history more fully attested, and that to reject it would be to strike at the root of all historical evidence of the miracu- lous."1 One Matthew Hopkins, in England, is to be credited with the invention of a system of "proving" witchcraft that was every- where approved and adopted by the prosecuting officers. Eminent counsel and learned divines gave attendance at trials of suspected witches to see that "no fraud or wrong" was done them. Accord- ing to the law-books of the time "these witches have, ordinarily, a familiar, or spirit, which appeareth to them in the shape of a man, woman, boy, dog, cat, foal, hare, rat, toad, etc. Their said familiar hath some big or little teat upon their (the witch's) body, and in some secret place, where he sucketh them. And besides their sucking, the devil leaveth other marks upon their body, sometimes like a blue or red spot, like a flea-biting, sometimes the flesh sunk in and hollow, all which may for a time be covered, yea, taken away, but will come out again in their old form." Torture and indignity is not only hinted at, but even specifically enjoined. The justices of the peace are reminded that the devil's marks "being pricked will not bleed, and be often in their secretest parts, and therefore require diligent and careful search."
1 W. E. H. Lecky, Hist. of Rationalism, p. 38.
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THE IRISH IN BOSTON.
There was a set method of "watching" for the appearance of the witch's imp. " She is placed in the middle of a room upon a stool or table, cross-legged, or in some uneasy posture, to which, if she submits not, she is bound with cords. She is there watched, and kept without meat or sleep for the space of four and twenty hours, -for they say within that time they shall see her imp come and suck. A little hole is likewise made in the door for the imps to come in at." To comfort the magistrate for any uncertainty, he is reminded that he "may not always expect direct evidence, seeing all their works are the works of darkness."
Solely upon such evidence as could be obtained by these in- human practices, and without any of the fables as to actual injury of others, such as were common and accepted in later cases, Mrs. Mar- garet Jones, a kindly and sympathetic woman, was condemned, and, in spite of earnest appeals and avowals of innocence, was hanged on June 15, 1648. The second victim in Boston, Mary Parsons, con- fessed to the murder of her own child by witchcraft. She was un- doubtedly insane.
The devil-fear that seized upon colonial society at this time spared nobody. Of course the ignorant and the poor, with small chance to hide their personal peculiarities, were most often victims ; but the upper ten furnished their quota too. Mrs. Ann Hibbins was one of these. Of excellent family herself, and wealthy, her husband had been one of the judges that sat at the condemnation of Mrs. Jones. She was widowed now, and had suffered many misfortunes ; her infirmities, and even her wit, were turned as evidence against her. She was executed June 5, 1656.
The fourth victim was after the witch-hunter's own heart. She was old, and ignorant, and poor. She spoke a strange tongue, and in secret she practised the rites of her childhood's religion. She was superstitious herself, and in the crazy terror of the time she lost her poor old addled wits: she thought herself a witch, too.
In the midsummer of 1688, four of the children of John Good- win, a mason living in Boston, began to be afflicted with unaccount- able pains. Martha, the eldest, was thirteen years old, John eleven,
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THE IRISH WITCH.
Mercy seven, and Benjamin five. These children were well brought up, and were " thought to be without guile." The exhibitions that they furnished to the wondering community would have delighted a medium or a "Christian scientist" of the present day. They had pain in their heads, teeth, eyes, tongue; their necks were breaking, their backs, their knees, their toes; their cries were piteous and shrill, and the shifting of the pain from one part to another was con- stant and inexplicable. The most curious feature of their symptoms was the fact that the same part was affected, in each of the party, at the same time, so that they changed their yells and gestures simul- taneously, like soldiers at drill. The pains lasted an hour or more, and when it was over the children acted naturally, as at other times. The family had physicians examine the children, but no reasonable cause could be found for their disease; so witchcraft was suspected. The cause was then sought for, and it was remembered that some weeks before, Martha had missed some of the family linen, and had charged a certain laundress with taking it away. Governor Hutchinson says " the mother of the laundress was one of the wild Irish, of bad char- acter, and gave the girl harsh language." Soon after this the " dis- temper " came upon her, and extended to her sister and her two brothers. There was also an older brother, and a little baby at the breast, but these were not seriously affected. The only persons that had absolutely no sign of the disorder were the little baby and the father of the family. The ministers appointed a day of fasting and prayer with the Goodwin family, and after this the youngest recov- ered. But the others obtained no relief, and finally the magistrates apprehended the two women, the laundress and her mother. Their name was Glover.
On being brought into court, Mrs. Glover spoke only Irish, so that her testimony may have been misunderstood; and it is well to bear this fact in mind. It was said, though, that she spoke English in her family, and was perfectly able to converse in that tongue; her refus- ing to do so was regarded as an additional proof that she was under the devil's influence. During the confinement of these poor women, the Goodwin children remained well while out of their own house;
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THE IRISH IN BOSTON.
but on returning to it they were vexed as before. They were therefore bestowed at the houses of neighbors. The good people of the time " could not but think the devil had a hand in it by some instrument."
Goody Glover's house was searched while she was on trial, and several small "puppets or babies," made of rags and stuffed with goat's hair, were found and brought to the court. Through the " two honest men " that acted as her interpreters, she acknowledged that her way of tormenting the objects of her malice was to wet the top of her finger with spittle and stroke these little images. As she il- lustrated her method to the Court, a child in the room was taken with fits. On repeating the experiment, the same result followed. When she was asked if she had no one to stand by her, she replied in the affirmative ; but looking up "very pertly," she cried out, "No, he's gone!" She then confessed that there was one, her prince, whose relations to her do not clearly appear in the evidence. In the night she was heard soundly rating one that she called a devil, for basely deserting her, and she said 'twas for that cause she had con- fessed all.
Cotton Mather visited her twice as she lay in prison, and ex- horted her to abandon her covenant with hell. To him also she spoke only Irish. Her interpreters told him that the Irish word for spirits was the same as for saints. He understood her not to deny her guilt of witchcraft, but he got very little from her about her meetings with her confederates. She gave Mr. Mather the names of four persons who were associated with her in her uncanny dealings, but he kept them to himself, from a wholesome fear of "wronging the reputation of the innocent by stories not enough inquired into." She did not answer many of his questions, and she refused to pray or be prayed for, because her spirits or saints would not give her leave. In regard to abandoning her supposed bargain with the devil, she re- plied that he " spoke a very reasonable thing, but she could not do it." She could not repeat the Lord's Prayer in English, even when it was repeated to her line by line, but made ridiculous nonsense of it. She knew it in Latin, however, but there was one part of it that she could not say, for some reason or other.
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THE IRISH WITCH.
If it were not for the rag-babies and her tricks with them, it might be thought that her supposed confession was a gigantic mis- take, due to her testifying only through interpreters to prejudiced judges. But there was no other way of accounting for her use of the images than the way that all tradition justified. And again, there was a quantity of additional evidence, of an entirely different char- acter from that which caused the death of Mrs. Jones, the first Boston witch, forty years before. A woman named Hughes testified that Goody Glover had bewitched to death a Mrs. Howen about six years before; and further, that when the Hughes woman was preparing to testify, her son was taken with the same disorders that afflicted the Goodwin children. She said that she remonstrated with the witch, who replied that the boy's suffering was in retaliation for what the Hughes woman had done to herself and daughter. Hughes denied having injured her, and she relented. She looked kindly on the lad as she passed him in the court-room, and he was never troubled there- after. The reliability of this witness may be estimated by her testi- mony, that in former times she had often seen Goody Glover come down the chimney.
The witch was examined by several physicians, who kept her in conversation for five or six hours. Their conclusion was that she was sane. So she was sentenced to be hanged. On the 16th of November, 1688, she was drawn in a cart, a hated and dreaded figure, chief in importance, stared at and mocked at, through the principal streets from her prison to the gallows. As she went she prophesied the children should have no relief from her death. It was ten o'clock in the morning. The procession was marshalled in due form, with judges and constables, and as it passed the window of Judge Sewall he was attracted by the tumult, and after watching it pass he made an entry in his diary of the death of the Widow Glover. The people crowded to see the end, as always; and when it was over they quietly dispersed, leaving the worn-out body hang- ing as a terror to evil-doers.1
" The usual place of execution was in the easterly part of the South Burying-ground, a fragment of which is still in existence on Washington street. The gallows was placed near the shore, not far from the present site of the City Hospital, and its gloomy presence gave to what is now known as the South Bay the name of Gallows Bay.
30
THE IRISH IN BOSTON.
We can imagine the distress of the daughter, herself suspected of witchcraft, alone and friendless in the midst of a stern people. She thought her mother guilty; she heard the voices of the imps as the November winds whistled through the trees, or saw them frisk in the lengthening shadow that swung slowly to and fro on the beach. The children, whose ailments and whose testimony had doomed the old woman that hung there dead, were to live each a long life ; did they ever in secret question their hearts for the truth of that sad history? If they did, no whisper of it reached the outer world, and they lived and died in the odor of sanctity.
Cotton Mather has frequently been referred to as the chief agent in this ferocious persecution. On the contrary, it will appear to any fair-minded investigator that, though he fully believed in the reality of witches and witchcraft, he was always earnestly in favor of combating them, so far as possible, by prayer and fasting, and re- peatedly interfered to urge humane counsels. To his moderation and good sense it is undoubtedly due that the names mentioned by the crazed old woman whose troubles we have just sketched did not lead to further excitement and other judicial murders. His character is not such as the older narratives of the witchcraft period would have us believe; his harshness was only toward the devils, but he tried at all times to show gentleness and compassion to those pos- sessed by them.1
1 See Mem. Hist. Bost. ii., 156.
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THE CHARITABLE IRISH SOCIETY.
CHAPTER III.
THE CHARITABLE IRISH SOCIETY.
T HE earliest association of Irishmen in Boston was the Charitable Irish Society, whose organization on St. Patrick's day, in 1737, was mentioned above. The following extracts from the records of the Society at that time will serve to establish its character and that of its founders : -
Whereas ; Several Gentlemen, Merchants and Others, of the Irish Nation residing in Boston, in New England, from an Affectionate and Compassionate con- cern for their countrymen in these Parts, who may be reduced by Sickness, Ship- wrack, Old age and other Infirmities and unforeseen Accidents, Have thought fitt to form themselves into a Charitable Society, for the relief of such their poor and indi- gent Countrymen, without any Design of not contributing towards the Provision of the Town Poor in general as usual. And the said Society being now in its Minority, it is to be hoped and expected, that all Gentlemen, Merchts and others of the Irish Nation, or Extraction, residing in, or trading to these Parts, who are lovers of Charity and their Countrymen, will readily come into and give their Assistance to so laudable an undertaking; and for the due Regulation and Management of said in- tended Charity, the Society, on the 17th day of March, in the Year 1737, agreed on the following Rules and Orders.
I. This Charity is intended and to be appropriated to and for the Relief of Poor, aged, and infirm Persons, and such as have been reduced by Sickness, Ship- wrack, and other accidental Misfortunes, Contributers, who may by such Misfortunes become Objects to be always first preferred.
II. All persons of evil Fame or Repute, are to [be] excluded as unworthy this Charity, and also all Persons reduced in other Countries and having suffered no Misfortune in their Passage hither shall not be deemed Objects of this Charity ; and all Irish Men, or of Irish Extraction, being capable and invited to joyn in this Charitable undertaking, and refusing the same, are to be for ever excluded the Benefit thereof.
The names of the twenty-six original members of this Society are as follows: Robert Duncan, Andrew Knox, Nathaniel Walsh, Joseph
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THE IRISH IN BOSTON.
St. Lawrence, Daniel McFfall, Edward Allen, William Drummond, William Freeland, Daniel Gibbs, John Noble, Adam Boyd, William Stewart, Daniel Neal, James Mayes, Samuel Moor, Philip Mortimer, James Egart, George Glen, Peter Pelham, John Little, Archibald Thomas, Edward Alderchurch, James Clark, John Clark, Thomas Bennett, and Patrick Walker. .
Of some of these members nothing is known. Joseph St. Law- rence was only recently come into the town; in the selectmen's record for Sept. 28, 1737, appears the following note : -
"Mr. Joseph St. Lawrence from Ireland, Merchant, having im- ported upwards of Fifty Pounds Sterling, Prays he may be Allow'd to Carry on his Business in this Town." Nothing further is said, and it is presumed he was admitted.
There was an Edward Allen, a builder, living in Marshall's lane in 1789; a healthy old man, if he was the same one that was present at this meeting.
William Freeland may possibly have been the same as William Fryland, a joiner from Ireland, who was admitted as inhabitant of the town September 9, 1730, although the spelling is not quite near enough to warrant certainty. Spelling even of proper names at that time was in a chaotic state. Achmody passed for a fair spelling of Auchmuty, while Breck, Bricke, and Brick were equivalent forms, and Mecarty was current as the correct thing for the classic McCarty.
James Mayes was accepted as bondsman for Robert Henry, a blacksmith from Ireland, who was admitted as inhabitant of the town August 5, 1741. The selectmen were very cautious about new arrivals, lest they should turn out to be of no account, and become an expense to the town. The law of the Province on this point was very strict, and forbade a citizen of the town to receive strangers " as inmates, boarders, or tenants . . . in any house of his whatsoever within this Province . . . for more than the space of twenty days," without giving an account thereof to the town authorities, describing the immigrants and their circumstances as fully as possible. Then no persons, except those holding property sufficient to ensure free- dom from want, were admitted without the bond of some inhabitant
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THE CHARITABLE IRISH SOCIETY.
to secure the town from expense if the new-comer should ever be a charge on it.
Daniel Gibbs was probably Captain Daniel Gibbs, of the ship " Sagamore," who brought four hundred and eight passengers from Ireland in this same year, arriving at Boston Sept. 7, 1737. It was doubtless in consequence of his membership that the qualification " or trading to these parts " was introduced into the requirements for membership, as stated in the preamble to the " Rules and Orders."
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