Tag Archives: Irish immigrants

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A Very Green Street: Irish Families in Hingham in 1900

Detail from 1903 Hingham map

Green Street, which became a mapped street of Hingham in 1838, had existed as an informal road since early in Hingham’s history. In the late 1800s it was increasingly populated by Irish immigrants and their families, though the name Green Street does not appear to have a direct connection with its Irish community.  The immigrants here primarily came from counties in southern Ireland like Cork and Tipperary, although Dan Daly, one of the early Irish of Green Street, had arrived in 1855 from County Armagh, in Northern Ireland, where St. Patrick is said to have founded a Celtic Christian monastery.

19 Green Street, Hingham

In 1900, many in the neighborhood, like Dan Daly, at 19 Green Street –then 72 and still working – had livelihoods tied to nearby estates and the comings and goings at Hingham Harbor. The Gilded Age had increased wealth for some in Hingham while also creating jobs for many Irish immigrants fleeing poverty tied to the Irish potato famine which began in 1845.  In addition to Daly, Irish-born estate gardeners included

23 Green Street, Hingham

30-year-old John Connelly and 32-year-old James Donnell, both of whom settled on Green Street to raise families.  Also working as a gardener in 1900 was 78-year-old John Magner. He and his wife Bridget Hanley were empty nesters in 1900, after raising 5 children at 23 Green Street.  One son, John Magner, Jr., lived with his young family on Martins Lane, where he was head gardener for the Brewer Estate.  (The Magner clan would continue to grow in Hingham during the 20th century.)

St. Paul’s Church, Hingham, c. 1930.

Another Green Street resident likely employed by a nearby estate was Judith (Barrett) Buttimer, 61, a widow who worked as a laundress. Judith’s husband, John Buttimer, a farm laborer, died young, at only 55, as did many hard-working immigrant laborers. John had emigrated in 1854 with a younger brother, Thomas Buttimer, who in 1900 was a farm foreman in Hingham. Thomas and his wife, Catherine Barrett, had married in 1858 in Randolph–before the building of St. Paul’s, Hingham’s first Catholic church (dedicated in July 1871).  One of their six children, Thomas H. Buttimer State Rep. Thomas H. ButtimerJr., who in 1900 had his own family home on Lincoln Street, was a prominent  attorney, and in 1902 would be elected as state representative from the 3rd district. Over on Green Street, Aunt Judith must have been quite proud, although in 1902, as a woman, she would not yet have had the right to vote.

Milk bottle cap, World’s End Farm

The 1900 census identifies some other Irish immigrants on Green Street as “farm hands” or “farm laborers,” including 37-year-old Dennis Long, married with two young children, and 48-year-old James Buckley, married with two teen-agers. Long and Buckley likely were working at one of the farms in north Hingham at the time, perhaps John Brewer’s “gentleman’s farm” – established in the 19th century at World’s End, or the Jordan Farm,  then one of the largest farms in Hingham, located on Union Street (now the location of Hingham High School.)

Hingham’s days as a Gilded Age seasonal tourist destination were, in 1900, mostly past. The steamship lines recently had ended their scheduled stops at Hingham Harbor after assessing the damage to the Hingham wharves caused by the 1898 Portland Gale.  Melville Garden, the amusement park at Crow Point, had been dismantled in 1896, and the Old Colony House, just up the hill on Summer Street, had burned down in 1872.  But Green Street’s location near the harbor gave its residents convenient access to work related to the coal and wood fuel-supply dealers, lumber wharves, and other harbor-related businesses. For many, this proximity to businesses needing carting and other hauling and loading services created jobs as teamsters, or as hostlers. Teamsters living on Green Street in 1900 included the recently married Cornelius Ryan, 31, and William Welch, 33 and married with young children.

Kimball Lumber yard at Hingham Harbor

6 Green Street, Hingham

William Welch was born here to Irish immigrants John Welch and wife Julia of 6 Green Street.  John Welch, 80 years old in 1900, was still working as a laborer according to the census record. He and Julia had eleven children, but only four were still living in 1900. Tuberculosis and pneumonia, along with scarlet fever, were frequent causes of death for children and young adults in the late 19th and early 20th century Irish immigrant community here.  Hostlers on Green Street included 27-year-old James Riley, living here with wife Bridget and two young children, along with mother-in-law Bridget Coughlan. James was a recent arrival, emigrating as a teenager in 1890. His 20-year-old wife had come earlier, as a young girl in 1877.

Also now working as a hostler was Thomas Morrissey Jr., 38, a former shoemaker, married for 17 years to Mary Crehan. For the Morrsisseys, 1900 was just seven years since the tragic loss of three of their young children to scarlet fever. The children’s young lives are memorialized on the family headstone at St. Paul’s Cemetery.  Both Thomas and Mary were born in Irish immigrant households in Hingham. Thomas grew up on Elm Street. Mary’s parents earlier had a home on Green Street but after her dad’s death, her mother Ellen Crehan lived with her youngest daughter Catherine’s family here.

Of course, the horses managed by both teamsters and hostlers needed the services of blacksmiths. There were several blacksmith shops in the downtown Hingham area then and one Irish immigrant blacksmith then living on Green Street, Michael Downes, may be one of those shown in this 1900 image of workers at the Huntley Blacksmith shop.

In 1900, Green Street residents also found work for the railroad. The Old Colony line’s South Shore branch through Hingham to Cohasset, built in 1849, created jobs including those held by 40-year-old Irish immigrant Jeremiah Collins, who was supporting his Irish-born wife Margaret and six children born here as a Section Foreman for the railroad, and 39-year-old Irish immigrant Michael Kelly, a track walker for the railroad, whose household included, in addition to wife Margaret and six children, an Irish-born boarder, Michael Wallace, also a railroad worker. Taking in boarders was a common practice in the Irish community here, both to assist newer immigrants and to provide added income for the household. The children in the Kelly household as of 1900 included four daughters and two sons, all under ten years old. Another daughter would be born in 1901. Three of the “Kelly girls” of Green Street would, years later, be among the first women in Hingham to register to vote after the 19th amendment passed in 1920.  By that time, their father had left railroad work behind and joined his neighbors working at nearby private estates.

Hingham Street Railway Car on Summer Street in front of Walsh’s Paint Shop, May 31, 1896.

As the new century dawned, both sons and daughters of the Irish of Green Street often left school and began working as teenagers. Many then stayed in their parents’ household into adulthood, perhaps in part to contribute to the family income as their parents aged. These next-generation Green Street residents at work in 1900 included James Buckley, Jr., 19, then working for the Electric Street Railway.  (One such street car is show here traveling along Summer Street at the harbor, not far from Green Street.)

Burr, Brown Tassel Factory

Three adult daughters of John and Julia Welch were living with their parents in 1900 and working as: a dry-goods dealer (Mary, 39), a dressmaker (Hannah, 35); and a fringe-maker (Julia, 34).  As a fringe-maker, Julia Welch likely worked at the Burr Brown Tassel Factory, nearby on Fearing Road. Julia Buttimer’s daughter, Nellie, 33, worked as a clerk at a shoe and boot store. Dan Daly’s 34-year-old son, Edmund, who lived in his parents’ Green Street home with wife Margaret in 1900, was employed as a clothing dealer.

Detail from 1893 Hingham map showing Dower ropewalk on Hersey Street.

Before ending our visit to the Green Street of 1900, we’ll note some other residents who, like Thomas Morrissey, had ties to the close-by west Hingham area referred to as an “Irish village” in the 1993 Hingham history, Not All Is Changed, published by the Hingham Historic Commission.  James Dower Jr., 33, who in 1900 lived on Green Street with his wife Catherine, their newborn child, and his mother-in-law, Ellen Crehan, was born in Hingham, to Irish immigrants James Dower Sr. and Catherine Bowden, at 135 Hersey Street. This home is still there, near the entrance to St. Paul’s Cemetery, and, like other homes referenced in our visit today, is listed on the Town of Hingham’s Comprehensive Inventory of Historic Assets. In 1900, James Dower Jr. would have walked to work on Hersey Street, where he was  a ropemaker in his father, James Dower’s “rope walk,” then adjacent to the family home. (The rope-making mechanism from the Dower ropewalk is on public display at Hingham Town Hall, on loan from the Hingham Historical Society.)

21 Green Street, Hingham

Mary Casey, living on Green Street in 1900, was the widow of ropemaker Jonas Casey, who may have worked at the Dower ropewalk. The Casey home, at 21 Green Street is another vintage highlight of this charming neighborhood.  If you have enjoyed this brief visit to Hingham’s Green Street of 1900, consider booking a docent-led tour of Hingham’s Irish Immigrant Neighborhood sometime this spring or summer. The walking tour was created as part of the nine-town South Shore Irish Heritage Trail launched in 2022. Email info@hinghamhistorical.org to book.

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Irish in Hingham: Hannah and her Brothers

From the 1880s through about 1920, Irish immigration to America was led by women. Fleeing poverty and lack of opportunity in their native land, they came alone or with a friend or cousin. They took jobs as domestic servants or mill workers, managing to send a bit of money home, which enabled other family members to follow. In Hingham, we see this unique immigration pattern played out in the life of Hannah Ferris. Whether or not she paid her brothers’ passage, she and her husband, Henry Trowbridge took them in when they came.

Hannah Ferris Trowbridge (1856-1934)

Hannah (Ferris) Trowbridge and Henry Trowbridge, circa 1885

She came, Hannah Ferris, a young woman, out of the impoverished west of Ireland early in the 1880s. She came, first, to the industrial town in central Massachusetts where she found work as a servant. In the summer of 1884, she came to Hingham, the bride of Henry Trowbridge, farmer, butcher, shop owner, and Civil War vet. He was more than a dozen years her senior, a recent widower, with no children.

How Henry and Hannah met is unknown. There were a number of Irish families in town. Henry’s cousin had a live-in Irish servant as did his several of his neighbors. Did one of them introduce the couple? Someone had to because she lived in Worcester, he lived in Hingham, and because more than miles separated them. She was a domestic servant; he was a business owner. She was Catholic; he held a pew in the Old Ship.

Raymond Trowbridge (1896-1962), son of Henry and Hannah, as a child. Raymond was a WWI and WWII Navy vet. His father was a Civil War Naval Vet.

They married in the Catholic church in Worcester in July 1884 and returned to Hingham where she moved into his house on the corner of Union and Pleasant streets. They had five children. Three of them died young. Their first born, Isabel, died of croup at “2 years, 2 months, 2 days.” Frances died of meningitis at 15 months, and they lost Henry Jr. to tuberculosis at 14. The Catholic cemetery was still new when they buried their young ones.

Henry was more than busy with work, farming, and family, but in 1982, he undertook a new project. He built three new houses on his Pleasant/Union Street property:  a new one for his family and two others that came in handy when his relatives needed them and when Hannah’s brothers started coming to town.

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Hannah Ferris was the second of twelve children born in a small cottage in rural Killarney. Eight of her siblings immigrated into Massachusetts. Her younger sister Kate went to Worcester where she married, died and was buried in an unmarked grave with her six-month old son. Her seven brothers started their new lives in Boston or Worcester and have stories of their own, several marred by tragedy. The brothers were all in Hingham at some time, and many of their names are inked into St. Paul’s Church records as Godfather to one of Hannah’s children. Of the seven brothers, Morgan, Robert and Daniel lived in Hingham.

Morgan Ferris, my great-grandfather (1859-1938)

The Morgan Ferris family, School Street, 1921. Front, from left: Morgan Ferris, Oliver Tower, Oliver Ferris, Annie Tower, Annie (Tower) Ferris. Back, from left: Kathryn Ferris, Marjorie Ferris, Oliver Ferris, Amy (Litchfield) Ferris, Richard Ferris, Gordon Ferris.

Morgan Ferris came to Boston in about 1884 when he was in his twenties and soon followed Hannah to Hingham. He was a skilled carpenter and set up a business. Over the years, he built many houses on the South Shore. In 1892, he married Annie Tower, daughter of Oliver and Anne Tower of School Street. A minister of the First Baptist Church performed the ceremony in her family home; the record shows she was 19 and he was 29. (He was actually 33.)  They bought a house on School Street at the intersection of Spring Street and had three children, Oliver, Kathyrn, and Gordon. All three children attended Hingham schools, married, and stayed in town. Oliver married Amy Litchfield, Katheryn, Bob McKenzie, and Gordon, Evelyn Staples. They, in turn, had children; many of them made Hingham their home.

Morgan died in 1938 at age 78. There are a few stories that came down the years; most are about his story-telling prowess and his big belly laugh. One is about his love of sports, another says that when he died, the rosary beads he brought with him from Ireland were found in his bureau drawer.

Robert Ferris (1868-1957)

In November 1892, twenty-three-year-old Robert Ferris married Irish-born Margaret McCarthy, a laundress, in Boston. At the time, he was living in Hingham with Henry and Hannah and, more than likely, working on building their new houses. He was a carpenter like several of the brothers, but he wanted something else and became a Boston police officer. He and his family moved closer to the city, and he returned the Union Street house to Hannah in a legal transaction. He began his career patrolling the South Boston waterfront. The only picture I have of him accompanies an article in The Boston Globe in 1901 which recognizes him for saving a nine-year old boy from drowning.  He and Margaret had three children and lived relatively long lives.

Daniel Ferris (b. 1874)

Daniel and Gertrude Ferris’ children, Frances and John, c. 1902.

In 1898, Daniel was a U.S. Marine stationed in Boston, but his home was with Henry and Hannah. In 1899, he married their next-door neighbor, Gertrude Stephenson, daughter of Ezra and Clara of Pleasant Street. Daniel was 23 and she was 20. According to the Hingham Journal, the marriage “took place at St. Paul’s parsonage” on a Wednesday night. After their marriage, the couple lived with her family. Their daughter Francis was born in 1900 and son John in 1901.  Things did not go well, however. Daniel was arrested for theft, court martialed and discharged from the service. Soon after, he left Hingham. Gertrude took a job as shoemaker and lived with her parents before eventually moving to Bank Street.

Daniel disappeared from the record until  September 12, 1918, when he completed a WWI draft registration card. On that day, he was a logger living in a camp in Washington state. In addition to the birthdate, we know he is “our” Daniel Ferris, because he reported his nearest relative to be Robert Ferris, Police Headquarters, Boston, Mass.

Daniel’s problems and subsequent move may have hit Hannah hard – he was her youngest. brother When she was 18, she had walked to a civil registration office in Ireland to report his birth: “Informant, Hannah Ferris, present at birth.”

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Hannah’s life was full and her door, it seems, was always open. She kept in touch with her brothers and their children. She was Godmother to many and responded when they needed help. When her brother Eugene’s wife died of a fall at their home in Malden, her body was brought to Hingham and buried in Hannah and Henry’s plot in St. Paul’s cemetery.

Henry died in 1930 at 87, “one of the oldest GAR men in the state.”  When Hannah died four years later at 78, she left a detailed will. To her son Raymond she left $1,000, to her daughter Mabel went her house worth $4,100, and to St. Vincent DePaul, a Catholic charity committed to serving the poor and suffering, her entire savings of $3,269.93.

Hannah, Henry and four of their five children are buried in St. Paul’s Cemetery. Morgan and his family are buried in the Hingham Centre Cemetery.

The Trowbridge Ferris graves. Four of Henry and Hannah’s five children and Hannah’s sister-in-law, Emma, are buried here. Henry and Hannah’s names are on the other side.

 

Notes

  1. There are a number of good sources on the subject of Irish female immigration. “The Irish Bridget: Irish Immigrant Women in Domestic Service in America, 1840-1930 written by Margaret Lynch-Brennan, is a good one. N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 2009.
  2. The National Women’s History Museum website says: “Strong female networks sustained the immigration flow of Irish women, even during times of economic depression … Irish women were the only immigrant group to establish immigration chains … Whereas other ethnic groups sent their sons to America, Ireland sent its daughters.” Raising a glass to Irish women, March14, 2017,
  3. On dates, names and ages: Hannah and Morgan consistently shaved four or five years off their ages on official documents. Their other siblings were only marginally more accurate. Daniel alternately used Donald as his first name.
  4. On quotations in this post: “2 years, 2 months, 2 days”: Isabel Trowbridge death notice, Hingham Journal, Nov. 13, 1887; “took place at St. Paul’s parsonage”: Hingham Journal, June 1899; “one of the oldest GAR men in the state”: Henry Trowbridge obituary, Daily Boston Globe, May 7, 1930.
  5. Eugene’s wife, Emma Ferris, 64, died in a fall from the second-story piazza of her Malden home. “She was cleaning rugs when the railing broke.” The Boston Globe, Sept. 1, 1923.