Category Archives: City Life

January 22, 2012

Abraham Lincoln’s Visit to Lowell, 1848

By Forgotten New England

If you spend a considerable amount of time reading turn-of-the-(twentieth)-century editions of the local papers of Lowell, Massachusetts, you’ll soon come across the name of Samuel P. Hadley, who presided as a Justice for the Lowell Police Court for close to three decades.  In fact, I think a few of the people I’ve researched for columns . . . and even genealogy, might have met Justice Hadley in his courtroom once or twice.  Justice Hadley was very active in local history too, and was a president of the Lowell Historical Society.

[Abraham Lincoln, Congressman-elect from Illin...

Abraham Lincoln, Congress-elect from Illinois - Image by The Library of Congress via Flickr

Justice Hadley spent a good amount of his later years recording his memories.  As the centennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth approached just over 100 years ago, Lowell’s historical society took note that they knew of just one man who still recalled Lincoln’s visit to Lowell some sixty years before, in 1848.  At the time, Hadley was just 16 years old, but already quite interested in politics.  He and his family considered themselves democrats, but Hadley recalled being intrigued by the rival Whig party and wanting to know more.

Hadley remembered walking up Lowell’s Central Street on September 14, 1848, and pausing when he saw a sheet of white paper, a yard long and two feet wide, with large black block letters inviting passersby to City Hall two days later, on a Saturday evening, to see the Hon. Abraham Lincoln of Illinois.

On the evening of September 16, 1848, a pleasant evening as Hadley recalled it, he walked into Lowell from his home in Middlesex Village.  As he turned the corner of Carleton and Hovey’s, he realized he was late, and could hear applause and laughter already escaping from the hall. He entered City Hall, and found a seated crowd, listening, entertained, to a man telling a story.  Even the ladies in the gallery had joined in the laughter.  Hadley noted that many prominent members of the local Whig party, Lincoln’s then-party, were present on the platform. Hadley later learned that the man speaking to the crowd was a young Abraham Lincoln, who would have been less than 40 years old at the time.  Hadley described him as a tall man who was dressed in dark clothing and wore a collar turned over a black silk cravat.  He noted that the man, who stood well over six feet tall, stooped somewhat and had long arms, that moved animatedly as he spoke.  He also noticed Lincoln’s dark complexion and nearly black hair.  Lincoln’s eyes, he described as bright, humorous, but reflecting a quiet sadness.   He found him forceful and candid, rather than eloquent.  While Hadley listened to him speak, Lincoln added amusing illustrations to his stories, and had a peculiar way of laughing that included shaking his sides, which caused the audience to laugh even more.  He also noted Lincoln’s strange way of pronouncing his words, “in a manner not usual in New England“.

Hadley listened to Lincoln for nearly 45 minutes, laughing at his stories.  He lamented that he couldn’t recall the details of the stories when he set down to record the memory some 60 years later.  Lincoln ended the speech to rounds of applause that filled the hall, and went to take his seat.  Before he could sit, though, Mr. Woodman stepped forward, and whispered in Lincoln’s ear.  Lincoln needed to stoop to hear Woodman, but nodded and came back to address the audience on the candidacy of General Zachary Taylor as the candidate of the Whig party for the presidency.

It’s interesting to read and consider the newspaper coverage that Lincoln’s appearance received the next day.  In his paper, Hadley provides the articles as they appeared in the Lowell Courier on the following Monday, September 18, 1848:

Alfred Gilman's report on Lincoln's Visit to Lowell, Massachusetts, September 1848

The second half of Alfred Gilman's report, 1848

Justice Hadley finished his recollection, stating that he was fairly certain that Lincoln had stayed in Lowell that Saturday night – since the trains to Boston ran no later than 6:30 in the evening during those days.  He did not know where Lincoln had stayed, but speculated that he most likely stayed with the Chairman of the Central Committee, Linus Child, or with another Lowell dignitary, Homer Bartlett, who both lived in the same block on Kirk Street in Lowell’s downtown section.

Leave a comment   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in City Life, history, living memory, lowell, Massachusetts

January 18, 2012

Unexpected Family Tree Finds – Western Electric’s Merrimack Valley Works

By Forgotten New England

Sometimes, you need to work really hard to land the latest find in your family tree discoveries.  Sometimes, family history finds just fall in your lap.  Before going to work yesterday morning, I stopped at the barber shop, and checked Facebook while waiting for my turn in the chair.  And I found – quite a find.

A while back, I wrote a post about the Lawrence History Center, a small-city archive dedicated to preserving and sharing the  history of the city of Lawrence, Massachusetts.  For a few weeks now, I’ve been following their Facebook feed, which today delivered the find that made my genealogical day – a link to a video from 1959, showing Western Electric‘s manufacturing plant in North Andover, Massachusetts.

Western Electric eventually became AT&T, which spun off into Lucent Technologies, which today is Alcatel-Lucent.  Growing up in northeastern Massachusetts‘ Merrimack Valley, Western Electric always played a large part in my life.  Most kids in my class had parents or relatives who worked at the Merrimack Valley Works plant, as it was called.  At its peak, 12,000 people worked there – including my parents.

My dad started there in 1960, my mom a year later.  A year after that, they met.  Many years after that, I visited the plant – during annual open houses.  But, I’ve always been curious what working there was like, especially in those first years, which today seem so long ago.  Sure, there’s the show Mad Men, which provides some great fictional insight into the life of ad men on New York’s Madison Avenue in the 1960′s.  But, I’ve been fairly certain that life at a Western Electric plant that was manufacturing equipment for the Bell System was quite different.  And after watching the video, I think I was right.

The video, from the AT&T Archives, lasts about thirteen minutes and shows views of North Andover, Massachusetts where the plant was located, as well as nearby Lawrence, Massachusetts and Haverhill, Massachusetts.  The idea behind the 1959 video was to emphasize the relationship between the plant, the larger community, and its employees.  Even if you don’t have a family connection to the plant, the video shows some interesting views into the Merrimack Valley of 1959 as well as what a mid-century working environment at one of the region’s key employers was like.

4 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , , , , | posted in City Life, Genealogy, history, living memory, Massachusetts

December 28, 2011

Boston’s Immigrant Experience in 1900 – Anticipation & Hope Amidst Confusion & Exploitation

By Forgotten New England

Courtesy of the Boston Public Library, Leslie Jones Collection.

SS Canopic lands in Boston on October 17, 1920

Imagine the anticipation of these folks aboard the SS Canopic as it docked in Boston over 90 years ago.  Were your grandparents or great-grandparents among these immigrants, who had perhaps spent more than a week aboard ship traveling to a new life?  How long had these families planned, sacrificed, and prepared for this moment as they watched Boston come into view?

I find photographs like this one, from the Boston Public Library’s Flickr Photostream, particularly inspiring.  A good number of my ancestors immigrated through Boston’s ports between 1869 and 1909.  In fact, my own second-great-grandparents came across the Atlantic on that same SS Canopic eleven years before the photograph above was taken.  Some relics from my family’s immigrant experience remain – a diary entry from July 25, 1869, written in my 2nd great-grandfather’s elaborate hand, recording his arrival into Boston; and a Victorian-era trunk that carried my great-grandmother’s belongings from the Azores when she arrived at Boston in 1907.  Relics like these help us imagine their immigration experience, but don’t really provide a lot of detail.

Surviving records like censuses or ships’ manifests tell us where, whence and when they arrived; they will even tell us who they arrived with.  And later records will tell us where they intended to settle and what they did for occupations.  But, unless stories have been passed down the generations, or otherwise recorded in diaries (or maybe even in rare newspaper accounts), we can only guess at the lost tales which might have told us what they experienced in that time between when their ship docked and when they “got settled”?

From Ancestry.com, this ship's manifest lists immigrants arriving to the port of Boston from Portugal's Azores Islands.

This ship's manifest lists immigrants arriving to the port of Boston from Portugal's Azores Islands. The ship, the SS Canopic, is the same that is pictured above. Lines #14 & #15 contain the registries for my second-great-grandparents.

To learn more about the immigrant experience for my ancestors, I first came across the website of the Ellis Island foundation.  So much is available about the Ellis Island experience in New York, which is important to me too.  My four-year-old grandfather, his parents, and younger brother all came through Ellis Island in 1913.  He never spoke of the experience (and probably didn’t remember much of it), but the records available do provide meaningful insight into what he and his family might have experienced there.

What’s sometimes forgotten is that Boston was also a major immigration port during Ellis Island’s active years.  Unlike Ellis Island, Boston’s immigration inspections were not concentrated in any one place.  Immigrants passed through the East Boston, Charlestown, and Commonwealth (South Boston) docks.  Each had a room equipped for immigrant inspections, which were carried out by federal US immigration officials.  These inspections could be quite daunting.  In my mind’s eye, for comparison, I imagine myself passing through an immigration checkpoint at a foreign airport in a non-English speaking country.  Like an immigration checkpoint today, the public was not allowed in the inspecting room or even on the docks.  This was designed to prevent the coaching of arriving immigrants.  While immigrants awaited the entry inspections,  they waited in general waiting rooms, which were segregated according to the class of service by which one arrived.

Arriving in Boston in 1890, my great-grandfather, Matthew McNamara, and his three brothers (all aged between eight and fourteen years old) were to continue to New York to meet their parents and younger siblings who had immigrated in 1888. The family was reunited after my second-great-grandparents managed to save the funds to purchase the four additional trans-Atlantic tickets.

Family members were never allowed within the waiting rooms, but people holding custom passes – generally those “favored” by immigration officials – were allowed into the waiting rooms to “advise” the immigrants amidst what was frequently a sea of hopeless confusion.  These favored individuals were mostly employees of transfer companies and had a reputation for bilking immigrants out of their money under false pretenses.  Many were representatives of immigrant banks, who helped immigrants coordinate onward travel by converting prepaid travel into valid stateside tickets.  Officially, they charged no additional fees for these services.  Unofficially, this wasn’t always the case.

Many arriving immigrants spoke little English and were unfamiliar with the cultures and even the geography of Boston.  The very young, or those who gave suspicious addresses and who seemed to be arriving to see friends in or near Boston might be detained until their friends were notified to call for them.  But, most were released after primary inspections cleared them and their baggage. Upon release, arriving immigrants walked into the same crowds as any cabin passenger, which could prove to be quite bewildering.

The option did exist for immigrants to wait within the waiting rooms.  However, eventually, they would have to leave and they had no way of knowing whether their own friends or relatives would be among the many people in the crowds outside.  Sometimes, a representative from one of the humanitarian private societies, e.g., the North American Civic League for Immigrants or the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA) among others, would be available to search the crowds for them, calling out the names of persons given to him by the arriving immigrants.  This helped some, but the experience of leaving the immigrant inspection area and meeting one’s loved ones on the other side must have been daunting and disorienting.  A lot of concern was voiced for the safety and well-being of the immigrants.  The Commission on Immigration was created to look into these concerns.  The Commission was particularly concerned about the situation of young women, of whom there were many and who were considered to be especially vulnerable.

Published in Harper’s Weekly - November 7, 1874.

Emigrants board an America-bound steamer in Hamburg, Germany

Many immigrants arrived with addresses given to them by someone in their villages; often, these addresses were incorrect or outdated.  In 1913, the Commission on Immigration learned of a Polish girl (in the parlance of the time, this could have been any unmarried female under 25) in 1913 who arrived on the Cleveland and reported her father’s address at 51 Beckford Street in Roxbury.  Commission investigators, later looking into her well-being, learned the man did not live at that address, and no one there had ever heard of him.  What happened to his daughter after she arrived at the address was never learned.

In November 1913, the Commission learned of another Polish girl who arrived on the docks at Boston’s Commonwealth Pier, on the ship Hanover, and gave a South Boston address.  An immigrant banker took her to his Salem Street establishment in the North End, charged her 75 cents and then put her on a street car leaving her to find the South Boston address alone.  The Commission never learned anything more about her.  In another case, during the same month, the Commission looked into the case of a Lithuanian girl, 21 years old, who had arrived on the ship Laconia and gave an address of 164 St. Clair Street in Boston.  One of the Commission’s investigators later tried to find that address to verify her safe arrival only to learn that no such street existed within the city.

The Commission did not only look into cases of young women.  In one investigation, they placed one of their own investigators in a cab with four immigrants – two men and two women.  An immigrant banker at the docks demanded $1 each from each of the immigrants “for the fare” of the cab he located for them.  The cab driver later demanded 50 cents each from the immigrants as he reached their respective destinations.  The legal fare for the ride was 50 cents in each case.  To add to the overcharging, the investigator, the last to be in the cab, provided the driver with an address he could not find.  After a cursory attempt, the driver gave up and left the investigator on the road amidst a “crowd that gathered around him”.  Frequently, cabmen became responsible for the welfare of immigrants who became lost in a sea of people, unable to find their friends and relatives.  Some proved to be trustworthy; some didn’t.

Many immigrants with final destinations outside Boston came with orders for railroad tickets that had been purchased abroad or sent from relatives and friends in the United States.  What wasn’t widely understood was that these orders needed the approvals of steamship company officials and also needed to be exchanged at the railroad ticket office.  One man, from Poland and with an ultimate destination in Michigan, arrived in Boston with his ticket already purchased and managed to get his ticket stamped and signed on the dock, which was two of the requirements, but did not realize he needed to exchange that ticket for another on the dock.  On the train to Michigan, without the right ticket, he was charged $11 by the conductor.  The average wage for a working man at the time was about 25 cents an hour.

Even if they managed to find a reliable ride to their final destinations, concerns existed around luggage handling and even getting food.   Confusion abounded about luggage requirements and fees.  In a complex fee structure (not unlike today’s airline fees), immigrants with continuing tickets were allowed one piece of baggage free of charge, but the procedures for additional pieces of luggage and for checking luggage through to its final destination were complex and far from uniform.

Immigrants continuing on from Boston most often bought food from the lunch counter on the dock.  Investigators from the Commission on Immigration found that hot food, or even hot coffee, could not be found on the docks.  They came across one vendor, who had a contract to sell food to immigrants awaiting additional questioning, selling 10-cent bottles of sarsaparilla for 25 cents, 10-cent packages of canned meat for a quarter, and 5-cent loaves of poor quality, stale bread for a dime.  Without much competition, immigrants had little choice but to shell out the exorbitant prices.

Armenian-Americans in Boston, 1908; Courtesy of the Los Angeles Public Library's Photo Collection via WikiMedia Commons

Reading through accounts of immigrants’ first moments in the United States provides some interesting insights into what my own ancestors might have experienced as they arrived in Boston and prepared for their onward journeys to other destinations within Massachusetts.  Regardless of which port your ancestors came through, each had a story.  Some have been preserved in official records or family diaries – or maybe through the oral history passed down through the generations within a family.  In our lives, so much is influenced by our surroundings – our schools, towns, states, and even the country where we spend our childhoods.  It’s interesting to ponder that someone so long ago sought to seek a better life amidst more opportunities, and that this choice, from decades before we were born, influenced our own lives to such a great extent.

6 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in City Life, Genealogy, Immigration, Massachusetts, Portuguese Genealogy

December 24, 2011

If you were to walk . . . or race a sleigh through Downtown Lowell’s Streets – 1906

By Forgotten New England

Did you know that Jingle Bells was composed by James Lord Pierpoint in Medford, Massachusetts in 1850?  It’s claimed that the town’s 19th century sleigh races inspired the song, and that it was originally written as a Thanksgiving, not Christmas song.  Why “jingle bells”?  Music historian James Fuld informs that the horse-drawn sleighs of the Victorian era, passing on its snow-covered streets, moved very quickly and in almost complete silence, and needed to “jingle” their bells as they approached intersections to alert other sleighs of their presence.  The first modern traffic light didn’t see an American street until 1914.

By Timmis, Reginald Symonds [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

A Two-Horse Open Sleigh - in Toronto, 1913

But, as our ancestors “dashed through the snow in a one-horse open sleigh”, what did they see as they passed “over the hills” and “laughed all the way”?  In the horse-centric world of Victorian-era cities, they would have seen streets that looked much more residential (read: less congested) than today’s downtown area roads.  In Lowell, Massachusetts, for instance, if your sleigh got ‘upsot’ by drifting into a snow bank, as the song’s lesser known second verse narrates, your great-grandparents would have seen some fairly gnarled and mistreated trees surrounding them.  On Lowell’s Dummer Street, which connects the city’s Acre neighborhood with its historic downtown district, Great-Grandpa would have seen lots of trees – with some uses that would be considered quite unorthodox today.

He would have seen some trees used as hitching posts for horses, some used as trolley poles, and some even used for billboard supports!  All of these uses caused significant damage to trees in Victorian-era cities.  On two of Lowell’s downtown area streets, the aforementioned Dummer Street, and Dutton Street (one of the thoroughfares leading into the downtown area), he would have seen lots of trees, like the one below, with severe damaged caused by . . . well, hungry horses.  When the horses weren’t otherwise occupied pulling sleighs or wagons through the city’s streets, they were often tethered to trees while their owners attended to downtown business or called upon friends. The horses, hungry and bored, would then gnaw on the trees, which caused some fairly significant damage.

From Lowell's Municipal Records - 1906 City Forester's Report

From Municipal Records of Lowell - City Forester's Report - 1906

Sometimes, cities provided hitching posts for travelers to hitch their horses.  When they didn’t, people improvised.  In the Dutton Street photograph at right, you’ll notice a hitching ring protruding from the tree’s severely damaged trunk.  City foresters of the era advised that tree trunks should be enclosed to a proper height in wire netting and, evidence of what this looked like appears in the Broadway photographs below.  One might surmise, however, that the true intent behind protecting that tree, rather than roadway beautification, was to protect the tree’s use as a trolley pole.

Billboards existed even in Victorian times, and they vexed city residents even then.  Billboards escape mention in Pierpoint’s Jingle Bells, but the use of trees as billboard supports persisted in Lowell as least as late as 1905, when the city passed its own sort of early Highway Beautification Act.  By the end of 1906, the city forester’s department had spent considerable resources removing the billboards from city trees.  It’s said that Lowell’s Branch Street and Dutton Street had the most cases of signs attached to trees.

From Municipal Records - Lowell City Forester's Report 1906

Can’t you just picture dashing through the snow on a road such as this one (below) from Lowell’s Middlesex Village a century ago?  Just add a little snow and some windows glowing with gaslit lamps inside, and you’d have a scene fit for a Thomas Kinkade painting.  But – this photograph, taken in 1906, doesn’t actually show a winter scene.  Instead, these trees are lifeless due to poisoning by “illuminating gas” – the same gas used, in an era before electricity was common, to power lighting in houses.  According to period sources, a considerable leak from a gas main could kill a group of trees in a single night.  Even a very slight leak could kill trees over a long period of time.

As I ponder the third verse of Pierpont’s jingle, and how it recounts the narrator’s rival laughing at him after he falls from the sleigh:

“A day or two ago, the story I must tell. 

I went out on the snow,And on my back I fell.

A gent was riding by, In a one-horse open sleigh. 

He laughed as there I sprawling lie, But quickly drove away.”

I feel I have a better idea of just what the fallen sleigh rider saw as he looked up at the long ago night sky, past his tormenting rival and into the branches beyond.  I can also envision the trunks of the trees outlining the roads he walked as he made his way home to his gas-lit home and his waiting family.

Happy Holidays, Readers!  And Best Wishes for a Successful 2012!

3 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in City Life, history, lowell, Massachusetts, minutiae, Trees

December 20, 2011

The Grand Fires of 1904: Huntington Hall; Lowell, Massachusetts

By Forgotten New England

A sign posted at the site of Huntington Hall provides a history of the building.

Huntington Hall/Merrimack Street Depot

By 1904, the building that housed both Huntington Hall and the Merrimack Street Depot had served as the city’s main public gathering place for generations.  The City of Lowell and the Boston & Lowell Railroad entered into a joint agreement to build the hall in 1853, providing the railroad with the Merrimack Street Depot and the city with a public hall.  Named for the early longtime Lowell mayor, Elisha Huntington, the building housed the hall in its upper stories, and the train depot on its bottom story.

The hall was very prominent during the city’s Civil War years.  In 1861, the Union’s Sixth Massachusetts Regiment left from the hall on its way to Washington, D.C., before meeting a tragic fate in Baltimore that left four of its soldiers dead, including Luther Ladd and Addison Whitney, now buried at Monument Square under the obelisk that bears their names.   During the 1880′s, the hall housed memorial services for President Garfield and Generals Grant and McClellan.  And a few years later, General Benjamin Butler made his final speech in the Hall shortly before he was laid in state there in 1893.

1896 map showing the location and surroundings of Huntington Hall

A portion of the 1896 atlas. Huntington Hall appears at the bottom-right, at the corner of Merrimack and Dutton

The hall wasn’t without its problems.  As early as 1856, three years after it was built, a crowd gathering to hear US Senator Rufus Choate speak grew so large that city councilman J. Frank Page later remarked that the hall’s floor, at its center, sunk by “about an inch, but it seemed to us as if it were ten feet”.  Although his father, Jonathan Page later added two iron trusses to add support, the floor still sagged regularly under the weight of large crowds.  In 1892, the safety of the hall was questioned again when a bazaar to benefit St. John’s Hospital drew such a crowd that the floor sagged under its weight.  Just a few years later, in 1897, a fire damaged the hall so badly that the rebuilding effort took almost two years before the hall reopened on May 2, 1900.

The Second (and Last) Huntington Hall Fire – November 1904

Policeman Noye was patrolling downtown Lowell early on the morning of November 6, 1904.  He reached the corner of Palmer and Middle Streets.  He looked in the direction of Huntington Hall and noticed a strange glow emanating from the hall’s Market Street windows.  He was slowly approaching the hall when an explosion rocked the ground underneath him.  He watched as a tower of flame blasted through the hall’s roof.

He turned back, ran to the Central Fire Station, and pulled the fire alarm box.  The fire department responded quickly.  Members of Engine Company Number 6 arrived on Dutton Street within minutes of the explosion and prepared to fight the fire.  They had not had time to erect their ladders against the Dutton Street wall when a second explosion rocked the building.  Had they arrived minutes earlier, the falling bricks and debris would surely have caused severe injuries and maybe death.

The explosion moved the Dutton Street wall of Huntington Hall by one foot.  The Market Street wall, one foot thick and said to be “one of the surest in the city” – blew apart in the blast.  Falling bricks split a freight car into two and destroyed a hydrant on Dutton Street.  As the firemen prepared again to fight the fire without the hydrant, they soon discovered that the water was also drawn off in the canal – furthering complicating their efforts.  Assistant Chief Norton took in the situation and ordered a general alarm, bringing in fire apparatus from all areas of the city.  It wasn’t long before the firemen realized that the Hall was a total loss.  The water was having no effect on the flames.

From the Lowell Sun - 7 November 1904, pg.1

Firemen fight the flames claiming Huntington Hall - November 1904

The firemen next turned their efforts to saving surrounding buildings.  And they succeeded.  Flames caused little damage to surrounding buildings – though the explosion and water did.  The one exception, the W.A Mack building on Shattuck Street was severely damaged when the second blast sent a pile of bricks onto and through the Mack building’s roof.

At the Merrimac House, a hotel which once stood on the corner of Dutton and Merrimack Streets opposite Huntington Hall and at the current site of the Hess Gas Station, guests inside awoke to the sound of ringing fire bells and shouts of ‘fire’ outside.  Those on the eastern side of the hotel, facing the hall, looked through their windows to see tendrils of flames shooting halfway across Dutton Street, threatening their hotel.  The bricks on the Dutton Street side of the hotel grew hot; window glass began to crack.  Guests panicked and began to cart out their hastily packed trunks.  One hotel tenant, an Ike Harris, was seen lowering his loaded trunk from a fourth-story window toward Merrimack Street below.  He, along with the other guests, were relieved to see the fire department’s water tower arrive moments later.  Those knowledgeable of fire department equipment knew the hotel was safe.  The others soon learned the same from the bell hops and night clerks.

The Merrimac House, Lowell's premier hotel, which once stood at the corner of Dutton and Merrimack Streets, opposite Huntington Hall

The fire heaved its last breaths from the Hall’s Shattuck Street tower, which lay beyond the streams of water thrown up by the firemen’s efforts.  Out came the department’s Babcock ladder.  Volunteers would be needed to ascend to the tower and cut out an outlet for the flames.  Bill Foss and Robert Carleton, firemen long known for past heroic efforts, quickly climbed the ladder with axes, as high as the ladder would take them, and then “monkey-like shinnied up to the roof” to make holes so that the hosemen could reach the flames.

By 6 o’clock that morning, the hall was totally destroyed.  All of its interior floors had collapsed onto the ground floor and were spilling out from the Merrimack Street Depot’s street-level entrances.  At noon, the “all out” signal sounded.  The fire was out.

A scene from the 7 November 1904 edition of the Lowell Sun

The fire, occurring so early in the morning, did not attract the usual crowd.  But the aftermath did.  Thousands were said to have descended upon Merrimack and Dutton streets to view the damage.  On the morning after the fire, the Lowell Sun estimated that some 40,000 people had come to view the ruins, many from out-of-town.  The walls that remained standing were so dangerous that Mayor Howe later ordered ropes erected to keep the crowds away.  The police guarded the ruins from would-be souvenir seekers.  Photographers crept as closely as they could to snap photos.  The cause of the fire was never determined, but some postulated that the source may have been a discarded cigar stub in a dressing room near the stage or by the scenery.  Janitor Omer Smith, known as a loyal, hard-working city employee, had worked at the hall for years and believed the fire’s cause to be the electrical wiring.  As he walked through the stage and the ante-rooms before leaving the night before, he had not seen any smoking cigars, or any signs of fire.

After this second fire in seven years, the hall was never rebuilt.  Its telltale arches were reconstructed and still stand today on Lowell’s Dutton Street.  The Huntington Hall fire was the third large fire to hit Lowell, Massachusetts in 1904, and was the last major fire during a year that had opened to see fires that claimed the O’Donnell & Gilbride Department Store and St. Patrick’s Church.

Today, all that remains of Huntington Hall are the rebuilt arches of its lowest floor.

4 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , , | posted in City Life, history, lowell, Massachusetts

December 17, 2011

1918: Spanish Influenza invades Massachusetts

By Forgotten New England
From The Boston Globe; 19 October 1918, Pg. 7

During the first weeks of the Epidemic, almost 4,000 people died in Boston as a result of the Spanish Flu.

As summer became autumn in 1918, the Spanish Flu struck hard at the eastern shores of New England.  Cases emerged in Boston, Brockton, Quincy, and Gloucester and at Camp Devens.  By mid-September, 21 flu-related deaths were reported in Boston alone.  By October 1, 85,000 cases had been reported statewide and the city was experiencing deaths at a rate of about 200 a day.  Doctors, health officials, and scientists rushed to control and find a treatment for the influenza epidemic as they watched victims die within days, or even hours, of the appearance of their first symptoms.

John Owen, my grandfather, was just 17 years old and living in Lawrence, Massachusetts at the time.  He remembered seeing the wagons come around the streets of Lawrence to collect the bodies of those who had fallen victim to the flu.  As he explained it, the horse-drawn wagons would approach from the end of the street and collect bodies placed on the sidewalks, or carried out from houses.  Coffins became scarce at the height of the epidemic and workers were forced to pile the bodies one atop the next, and carry them to mass graves.

By Uncredited photographer for St. Louis Post Dispatch [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

With masks over their faces, members of the American Red Cross remove a victim of the Spanish Flu from a house in St. Louis, Missouri.

From National Archives and Records Administration

Street car conductor in Seattle not allowing passengers aboard without a mask. 1918.

As influenza cases and death tolls mounted in Boston and statewide, panic emerged.  Misinformation and fear abounded.  What were the symptoms of the flu?  How could it be distinguished from the common cold?  The US Public Health Service soon released a pamphlet, informing the public that the Spanish Flu came on suddenly, striking the victim with pain and soreness throughout his body, especially in the eyes, ears, back and head.  Some experienced dizziness and nausea; most suffered fevers as high as 104°F that lasted as long as four days.  The US Public Heath Service advised that flu sufferers looked sick and likely would have bloodshot eyes, a runny nose, and a cough.

From The Lowell Sun, 27 December 1918, pg. 11

As the flu season progressed, advice to those nervous about getting sick was offered from many sources.

Beyond the pamphlets, schools became a means of disseminating information about the disease to children and their families.  During the height of the epidemic, the National School Boards Association advised the worried public to avoid sick people, crowds, and badly ventilated places, to keep warm, and to change from wet clothes quickly.  This is familiar advice, even for us today.  Local papers took it a step further, perhaps sensationalizing their advice somewhat, in order to attract more readers.

To slow the spread of the disease, public buildings, schools included, in Lawrence and many other New England cities and towns were closed.  Haverhill, Massachusetts went a step further and prohibited its schoolchildren from attending motion picture houses or other public meetings during the epidemic.  In Marblehead, Massachusetts, the high school building was converted into a hospital by the Board of Health in October 1918.  Boston’s Committee of Public Safety asked school teachers to attend flu victims; most did as schools were closed indefinitely.

From: CDC, released into public domain

This May 29, 1919 photograph showed rows of tents that had been set up on a lawn at Emery Hill in Lawrence, Massachusetts where victims of the 1918 influenza pandemic were treated.

During the epidemic, fresh air was thought paramount in protecting against infection.  Open-air emergency camps were set up in many Massachusetts cities and towns to treat the infected.  The first opened on Brookline’s Corey Hill on September 9, 1918.  Gloucester, Ipswich, Brockton, Waltham, Haverhill, Springfield, and Barre soon followed.  My grandfather would have also seen Lawrence open its own emergency camp for flu victims from the city, as well as cases from the neighboring communities of Methuen, Andover, and North Andover.  Controversy surrounded the opening of the Lawrence camp, named Emery Hill, which had been a large dairy farm that supplied milk to nearby residents.  Though the residents objected loudly to Lawrence’s Mayor Hurley; in the end, Lawrence city officials protested that they had little say in the matter.  They maintained that the state had chosen the site and was running the hospital.  By October 12, 1918, the camp had 150 patients.

In the end, more than one in every four people in the US suffered some form of the Spanish Flu, and within one year, the average life expectancy for a US citizen was shortened by 12 years.   Worldwide, more than 50 million people died – more than three times the number of lives claimed by World War I.

The Influenza Epidemic of 1918 is frequently overlooked in discussions about the history of the United States.  Does your family have a story about its experiences with the epidemic?  Did you lose any family members to it?

4 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in Boston, City Life, Massachusetts

December 10, 2011

The Grand Fires of 1904 – St. Patrick’s Catholic Church; Lowell, Massachusetts

By Forgotten New England

Note to readers:  The St. Patrick’s Church fire of 1904 occurred just one day before the Fellows Block fire covered in last week’s post.  This post marks the third installment of the Grand Fires of 1904 series.

On Monday, January 11, 1904, Sister Josephine, a teacher at Notre Dame Academy in Lowell, Massachusetts, awoke, rose from bed, and looked out her window at the pre-dawn stillness; it was just minutes after five o’clock in the morning.  Only she saw smoke – and lots of it – billowing from St. Patrick’s Church.  Sister Josephine rushed from her room and roused two other sisters.  Together, the three Notre Dame teachers found the key for the fire alarm box on Fenwick Street, just outside the church’s main gate.  Key in hand, the nuns rushed to the parochial residence, rapped at the door, and pulled the bell.  Rev. John J. McHugh, in the midst of a week of sick calls, bolted awake, threw on his clothes, and answered the knocking at the door, ready for his next sick call.

From the Lowell Sun, January 11, 1904

St. Patrick's Church - Lowell, Massachusetts, Before the Fire

Father McHugh saw the nuns – and the smoke in the churchyard behind them.  He held the church quite dear.  As a boy, he had been a student in its Sunday school and, later, an altar boy to its first priests.  Father McHugh called the Central Fire Station on the telephone, and took the key to the fire box to pull the alarm.  He struggled with the box; its door wouldn’t open.  It was either frozen or broken.  He looked back at the growing billows of smoke issuing from the church and gave up on the fire box.  He quickly ran inside the basement of the church and set to saving the host and as many sacred vessels as he could carry out.

A crowd began to gather outside the church as more and more of the neighbors, most parishioners themselves, saw the smoke.  Mary Ann Saunders, the elderly sacristan of the church and another lifelong member, pushed through the bystanders and rushed toward the burning church.  She made her way to the vestry windows on the Cross Street side, broke the glass, and climbed through.  She found the vestments, and prepared as big a pile on the floor as her frail but determined frame would allow her to carry.  The firemen arrived later to find her at her task, building a small mountain, and ordered her out of the building.  She turned, looked at the men, and refused – still determined to save as many vestments as she could.  The firemen were preparing to carry all 80 pounds of her out when another priest, Fr. Walsh, happened upon the scene.  Both were doubtful that the firemen would save the sacred vestments that Mrs. Saunders had gathered on the floor of the vestry.  Fr. Walsh mediated a compromise and the firemen escorted him and Mrs. Saunders from the building and helped them with the vestments.  Apparently, Mrs. Saunders was quite convincing.

Other parishioners rushed through the chaos to save sacred and valuable items within the burning church.  John Nugent, a member of the Holy Name Society, felt through the smoke and saved two large candlesticks that stood near the main altar.  John J. Sullivan carried out several statues, vestments, and other articles.  Professor Fred G. Bond, the director of the church choir, ran into the church at great peril to save the church’s collection of music from the choir gallery.  The music, which had been brought from Ireland by the late Father Michael O’Brien, was priceless to the church.  With the help of the firemen, Professor Bond took several bundles of music and covered others with protective blankets.

Sister Superior Theresa, of Notre Dame Academy, stood among the bystanders watching the fire, and calmly took hold of the situation.  She ordered all gas shut off in the church and all fire doors between the church and academy closed.  She thought of her grade school students at the boarding school.  Sister Superior advised her nuns not to tell the students of the fire until they were safely dressed and downstairs.  Her actions probably saved the school and lives.
The firemen, who had responded quickly, did not find much of a blaze initially, only lots of billowing, blinding smoke.  The  firemen surmised that the blaze had started in the church’s boiler room in the basement.  To gain entry, they broke through the church’s basement door and drove into the smoke escaping the church.  The fresh air fanned the flames, but the firemen’s efforts subdued the fire within a short time.  Lots of smoke and water still filled the church’s basement, but the flames appeared to be out.  Chief Hosmer dispersed some of the firemen and left a few to help in the clean-up.  The crowd breathed a sigh of relief.  Their church was saved.
But smoke still billowed from the upper part of the church.  And it seemed to be growing in intensity.  Doubts began to rise through the crowd that the fire was truly extinguished.  Perhaps the smoke  was still emanating from a fire.  Within fifteen minutes, the crowd, the remaining firemen, and Chief Hosmer looked on in horror as flames shot through the church’s roof.  The fire still lived inside the church’s walls.  Chief Hosmer frantically called back the dismissed firemen.  By now, Suffolk, Cross, Fenwick and Adams Streets were clogged with bystanders watching the fire.  The police struggled to keep them back, a safe distance from the flames.
From the Lowell Sun, January 11, 1904

St. Patrick's Church was soon ablaze. Inset: Officer Freeman lowers the fire doors.

Soon, a dozen lines of hose were directed at the church.  Chief Hosmer ordered the ringing of a general alarm.  The firemen aimed their streams of water at the steeple, the flames continued to lick at its stone and wood.  The firemen soon realized that their water would reach only 100 feet up, but the steeple was already fully ablaze – every inch of its 225-foot height.  The steeple was doomed.

Before 8 o’clock that morning, the huge, heavy cross, which had hung on the steeple for the building’s first 50 years, crashed into the interior of the church.  The flames could be seen throughout the city – thousands watched as the steeple burned in what some described as “an awful beauty”.  When the steeple failed, its spectacular crash sent timbers spilling into the church yard and into Cross Street.  Several fell atop members of Hose 11, throwing them to the ground.  They survived, though bruised and cut.
The firemen battled the raging fire, sending streams of water toward the church from all four sides.  Assistant Fire Chief Norton broke through the main door of the church, but was driven back by the smoke, and almost suffocated.  The firemen behind him directed several lines of hose into the church’s interior, but the altar, pews, and the entire front of the church was already lost to the flames.

Several firemen had close calls in the fire.  One, whose name was never recorded, was struck when a large piece of plaster, weighing several pounds, struck his helmet and knocked him flat.  The fireman remarked “Gee, that was a close call!”  as he picked himself up, cognizant of the fact that his helmet likely saved his life.  Another, a call man named John Conway, fell through a burning floor and was badly shaken, but not injured.

From the Lowell Sun, January 12, 1904

The Interior of St. Patrick's Church in Lowell, Massachusetts after the fire

The fire was extinguished, eventually – but not until midday.  Two firemen worked on its last sparks in the bell tower for an hour while the crowd watched from below.  By the time the fire was out, St. Patrick’s Church, the city’s oldest Catholic church with origins dating to the 1820′s, lay in ruins – its steeple destroyed, its interior gutted.  Its four walls stood, but it was clear that mass would need to be held somewhere else for some time.  The church’s marble altar, and every single stained glass window had been destroyed.  Parishioners, eager to hold onto any possible memento of their ruined church, sifted through the ruins in the hours and days after the fire to find their metal pew number markers within the ashes.

From the Lowell Sun, January 12, 1904

A man scours the ruins of St. Patrick's Church in Lowell, Massachusetts for mementos of his lost church.

City official James Conlon offered Fr. O’Brien the free use of Huntington Hall.  Indeed, the church would not fully recover from the damage caused by the fire until two years later, in 1906.

From the Lowell Sun, 11 January 1904

In the aftermath of the 1904 fire that destroyed St. Patrick's Church in Lowell, Chief Edward S. Hosmer received much criticism in the local press.

In its aftermath, Chief Hosmer suffered through significant, and undue, criticism, for initially underestimating the fire, and soon after, for mistakenly concluding that the fire was out.  The fire department also received criticism for the antiquated key-operated fire box at the corner of Fenwick Street, which had not yet been replaced by a new handle-operated box.  The failure of the key-operated box had been one factor leading to a delay in the reporting of the fire.  The fire department also received criticism for not using its water tower to fight the fire and for the underperforming hydrants that provided 100-foot streams of water when streams reaching 225 feet were needed.

Chief Hosmer defended himself in the press as early as the following day, stating that many of the accounts circulating were false.  When the fire was extinguished in the basement, he, and several of the priests, had thought the fire was under control when he sent the two companies of firemen home.  As soon as he entered the church again, he found that the fire still raged in the three inches separating the wall and the plastering and that this had allowed the fire to work its way up from the basement into the church.  Hosmer immediately called the dismissed companies back; they hadn’t gone far and were able to return quickly.  Hosmer knew the gravity of the situation when he realized that the fire had progressed into the church’s main floor and he had rung the general alarm.   Regarding the water tower, Homer stated that it could not have been used in the situation.  Chief Edward F. Hosmer survived the hasty post-fire criticism and went on to serve the Lowell Fire Department for another nine years before he retired, with honor, on May 1, 1913 after 55 years of firefighting, 30 of which were spent leading Lowell’s fire department.

10 comments   |  tags: , , , , | posted in City Life, lowell, Massachusetts

December 7, 2011

If you were to walk . . . Boston’s Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market, 1886

By Forgotten New England
Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Faneuil Hall - circa 1903, via Wikipedia Commons

If you were to walk . . . Boston’s Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market 125 years ago, on the afternoon before Thanksgiving, you would encounter a large assortment of the city’s vegetable and meat merchants, selling their wares from the many wagons crowding the scene.  Today, although these merchants have long since moved on to other areas of the city, Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market are still a great place for people-watching.  Traversing its brick walkways, you’ll see commuters rushing for trains, tourists following the Freedom Trail, shoppers carrying bundles, and even street performers entertaining passersby.  But, even amidst so many reminders of present-day Bostonian life, the history of Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market are still very evident.

Faneuil Hall, first built in 1742, has served as a marketplace since its beginnings and has witnessed speeches by historical figures such as Samuel Adams and James Otis as well as more recent lawmakers like Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, who declared his candidacy for president there in 1979.  Quincy Market, built a generation later in the mid-1820s, accommodated the  growing demand for shop space on what was then Boston’s waterfront, and provided an indoor shopping pavilion for shoppers and merchants seeking staples like eggs, cheese, and produce.  Butchers selling meat began coming soon after.  Evidence has been found that the butchering occurred on site.

While researching posts for this blog, I found an article in an 1886 edition of the Boston Daily Globe that vibrantly captured life at Faneuil Hall and Quincy Market 125 years ago, in Boston’s Victorian era.  When looking through old newspapers, it’s rare to find such a vibrant first-hand account as the one below that shows Boston scenes that transpired so long ago.  What follows is a transcription of that account, from the pages of the Boston Daily Globe, November 25, 1886, Page 4:

Great Fun Buying Fowl.

The Market Jammed with Thanksgiving Shoppers – Sights Seen and Bits of Curious Conversation Overheard.

uincy_Market,_Boston,_from_Robert_N._Dennis_collection_of_stereoscopic_views_2

Quincy Market, Boston, via Wikipedia Commons

She had come to the market with her mamma the afternoon before Thanksgiving to buy a turkey, and for the want of anything else to do for a minute jumped upon some scales that stood empty on the sidewalk just back of the Cradle of Liberty.  She couldn’t manage the weights very well; but a rosy-cheeked, auburn-whiskered marketman, who doubtless looks as handsome as any in his Sunday clothes, threw himself into the breach.  The young woman weighed 132 pounds.

“That isn’t very much, ” said the marketman, becoming acquainted in spite of himself.  ”I’ve got a daughter at home who is only 14, and she weighs 140.”

But 132 wasn’t bad, for the daughter of the old lady who was buying a turkey, besides being a favorite by her very looks and manner, was short and shapely.  She must have been solid, too.

There are a hundred funny things at the market the day before Thanksgiving, because the stalls of Faneuil Hall and Quincy market and the narrow alleys between the rough counters improvised in the streets are crowded from early morning till late at night.  The dealers are prepared for business.  They not only stock the stalls fully, but buy loads of fowl that are brought in from the country and get men to sell them on commission at the stands.  Perhaps twenty rows of these extend almost to the south sidewalk of South Market street, and perhaps 200 men, eager for a trade, stand by.  A thousand people throng around and purchase, if they can decide to do so.

It is an odd sort of person who doesn’t buy a turkey for Thanksgiving.  Here are a tall young man and a tall young woman, who looks like his wife, taking a lesson in social economy together.  They depend a good deal on the honesty of the man who is extolling the youth and beauty of his birds.  Here is a grey-haired matron who feels the breastbone of a turkey over with her black kid gloves to see if it is as soft as indifferently as if they could be bought for seventeen cents a pair.  Here is a stylish young maiden with a music roll on one arm and

A Turkey, or the Legs of One, 

sticking up, like the handle of a parasol, over the opposite shoulder.  Here is a fat woman, dressed in a shawl that must have been brought from the old country, looking the counters over again to make sure that she had struck a good bargain; and little Mamie, looking satisfied in spite of the big load of fowl she is carrying, trudges along by her side and tries not to get lost till after Thanksgiving.  Here is a policeman, majestic and self-possessed, paying for his dinner like other people out of a very ordinary-looking pocket-book; for why should the spirit of mortal be proud in a crowd like this?  Here is a large-eyed, dark-skinned Italian boy ruinously selling thirty-six bundles of matches for twelve cents; at the risk, too, of seeming out of place.  Here is a little man selling roasted chestnuts out of measures which have their inside bottoms half way up the sides.  Here is a slight, pale-faced dame, in gaudy plush bonnet and ill-fitting threadbare cloak, making her way homeward as well as she can with a live duck under each arm.  Here is General Nathaniel Prentiss Banks, inquiring the price of turkeys at a stand where they are thirteen cents a pound, and passing sedately on.

A well-kept elderly gentleman, who seemed to know a great deal, stood on the steps of Quincy Market yesterday and surveyed the crowd.  ”There will be more of them here later,” said he, “when they get out of work.  These commission men have been here since 4 or 5 in the morning.  They sell for these fellows inside.  A good many seem to think they get better bargains outside.  Well, they do get fowl cheaper, but they get it poorer.”

“Oh, they are selling all the way from ninepence to eighteen and twenty cents a pound.  These fellows don’t make more than 2 per cent profit on the whole, though a good seller will clear $10 or $12 or even $20 a day.  It’s lively, though.  I suppose they will be all sold out by 9 o’clock.  Or, if there are some left, they go to the cold storage to be sold in sixty days, perhaps, or three months, at 4 or 5 cents a pound, for Sunday dinners at the boarding-houses or cheap hotels.  There isn’t any waste.”

A GLOBE young man did not loaf for half an hour in the crowd without catching some curious bits of conversation.

Artist: Jean Béraud [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

An 1880's Street Scene, Showing Period Fashions

Mrs. McCarty and Mrs. McIntyre

who both live over in the seventh ward, came face to face in the middle of Quincy Hall, dropped their turkeys in the sawdust, and shook hands.  ”Well, now,” says Mrs. McCarty, “ain’t you a stranger.  Ain’t ye niver coming over?”  ”Sure,” says Mrs. McIntyre, “I couldn’t tell where ye lived no more than a fool ; but Jamesie he told me it was number 15.  Has the old man got work, thin?”  ”Faith, he has,” says Mrs. McCarty, “and the children won’t go hungry tomorrer.”

A rustic couple came down the hall looking this way and that, but faithfully keeping hold of hands.  A fat, good-natured fellow selling bologna sausage in one of the stalls saw them, and said to his companion in arms who was cutting up a rib:  ”He needn’t cling to her so; nobody in her wants her.”

One of the marketmen outside very much hurt the feelings of a fine old Irish gentleman by talking to another customer because he wasn’t very quick to purchase.  ”These are all young, as you can see, and you can’t do better than fourteen cents.”  remarked the marketman.  ”I find no fault with your fowl, my friend,” said the old fellow.  ”I know they were born yesterday; but if you don’t sell them cheaper now you will have to before night.  I don’t believe that bird weighs twelve pounds anyhow.”  ”Oh, yes,” put in a neighboring marketman, in a low tone; “he’s all right with the scales.  I’ve been watching him all day.”

A sad-eyed lady approached a young man who rested for a moment on the big stone steps.  ”Can you tell me, sir,” said she, “how much a 9¼ lb. turkey would come to at fourteen cents a pound?  I think he charged me too much.  But I was so confused with looking around that I couldn’t think.  I could do it out in a minute if I was home.”

“Let’s see,” replied the young man, slowly, “9¼ lbs. at 14 cents a pound.  Nine times 10 would be 90, and 9 times 4 would be 36; that’s $1.26.  Fourteen times 1/4 would be 3½; that’s 1.29½.  How much did he charge you?”

“He charged me $1.32,” said the woman not very disgustedly; “but that ain’t much.  I guess he can have it,” and she took her basket up and went away.

Two portly, well-to-do gentlemen, both on Thanksgiving errands, met near the door of Faneuil Hall.  One had made a purchase.  ”That’s a good turkey,” said he proudly, “and it only cost ninepence a pound.  ”Why don’t you try this man?”

“I think I will later,” replied the other.  ”Er – we lost Dr. Withrow, didn’t we?”

“Yes,” said the first, “I guess it’s all right; though I can’t help thinking it would have been better if he had come right out and said in the first place that he’d better go.”

“Yes, yes,” answered the second again; “he’s done right.  Here’s this row coming on and there was a tempting offer.  It’s all right.”

“How your daughter has grown,” exclaimed the first as he hurried away.  The daughter was indeed a bouncing girl of 8.

1 comment   |  tags: , , , | posted in Boston, City Life, living memory, minutiae

December 4, 2011

The Grand Fires of 1904 – Lowell, Massachusetts – The Rise and Fall of the O’Donnell and Gilbride Department Store

By Forgotten New England

In the 80 years leading up to 1904, Lowell, Massachusetts had grown from a sparsely populated corner of East Chelmsford into a bustling manufacturing city of 95,000 residents. Like any Edwardian-era city, Lowell faced its share of fire risks, especially in its downtown area. Before January was even half over in 1904, Lowell had suffered three substantial fires, one of which claimed the O’Donnell & Gilbride Department Store, the city’s largest.

An O'Donnell & Gilbride Advertisement from January 1904 listing just some of the items that the store had grown to carry. (Lowell Sun)

To tell the story of the origin of the O’Donnell & Gilbride Department Store is to also tell the story of what is great about Lowell, Massachusetts, and other mill cities like it.  Patrick Gilbride, an Ulsterman from what is today Northern Ireland, immigrated to the United States in 1874 at the age of 20, settled in Lowell, and soon found work with J. V. Keyes & Company, a dry goods firm. He learned the business, saved his money, and by 1880, at the age of 26, opened his own dry goods store with a fellow Ulsterman, Constantine O’Donnell. The O’Donnell & Gilbride Department Store was born, on downtown Lowell’s Merrimack Street. Through a combination of a strong work ethic, good business sense, and some luck, the two men built O’Donnell & Gilbrides into the city’s largest department store.   By 1904, the store had expanded from the original location in Merrimack Street’s Albion Block into a second Merrimack Street Block – the Bascom – and also into Middle Street’s Fellows Block. Bridges had been constructed to span the narrow alley that separated the Merrimack Street and Middle Street areas of the store.

The Buildings marked with black dots represent those occupied by O'Donnell & Gilbride in 1904. The bridges connecting the buildings are represented by the black lines spanning the alley between the buildings.

Just past 9 o’clock on a Tuesday night on January 12, 1904, John Quinn, the night watchman for O’Donnell & Gilbride, had just rung in his watch clock in the men’s clothing department on the first floor of the Merrimack Street store, when he began his walk to the carpet department in the adjoining Fellows Block. He approached the bridge connecting the buildings, opened the door, and was pushed backward by an inferno that had completely enveloped the carpets beyond. By the time he reached the street, the bells were already sounding.

William R. Kennedy had activated the alarm. Kennedy had gotten off work at the nearby Lowell Electric Light Company moments before and was waiting across the street on the Middle Street side of the Central Fire Station for a friend to get off work.  He was alone, the firemen were below in the basement, which happened to have a bowling alley. He looked through the window at the wintry desolation at Middle Street’s intersection with Palmer. Below, his friend was among the other firemen bowling. He had planned to descend into the basement, find his friend, and perhaps bowl a string or two in another moment or so.

Suddenly, he heard shouts from the direction of the Reynolds Brothers restaurant in the Staples Building across Palmer Street. Fire! Even through the closed windows, he could clearly make out that the man was shouting about a fire. Outside, above the shouting man, Kennedy quickly found the flames – silhouetting the top of the Fellows Block directly opposite the Central Fire Station. The firemen were somewhere below, still bowling. Kennedy thought of the maze that was the Central Fire Station, and dashed outside into the cold. At the corner of the building, he broke the glass of the Signal Box, inserted the key into its lock, and pulled the alarm. Inside the Central Fire Station behind him, the bells began to toll. It was the third fire in Lowell within the last five days.

                    

The Rebuilt Fellows Block on Lowell's Middle Street (brick). A small marker between the third and fourth story windows memorializes the 1904 Fire. The smaller Staples Block (with the white second story) today houses the Coffee Mill Emporium. Behind both is the Albion Block, which fronts Merrimack Street.

Taken from a similar vantage point in 1904, this photo shows the Fellows Block after part of its front wall had fallen. (Lowell Sun)

At about the same time, Joseph H. Gormley walked along Merrimack Street, and was passing O’Donnell & Gilbride’s when he heard cries from within the building. He stood outside for a moment, uncertain whether to get involved. He then distinguished cries of “fire!”, dashed into the Albion Block, and tore up its stairwell toward the source of the cries. In the corridor, he found first a woman screaming and running to and fro. He looked past her toward the window overlooking the alley between Merrimack Street and Middle Street – and saw flames glowing inside the Fellows Block. He set to knocking on each of the corridor’s doors to arouse the residents. They, and many others in downtown Lowell on that night spilled into the streets to watch the fire. The tolling of the alarm bells filled the streets of downtown Lowell, as the firemen assembled at the intersection of Middle and Palmer Streets outside the Central Fire Station (in front of the brick building in the photo, at left). The alarm sounded, and just moments later, a loud explosion, and then a second, roared through the night sky. People as far away as Lawrence, Haverhill, and Nashua reported seeing the flames above Lowell that night.

A brisk breeze buffeted the crowds gathering in the street.  Sparks showered down upon them.  The flames whipped from the upper story windows of the Fellows Block. Long, roaring tongues of fire bridged overhead across Middle Street. The flames were blowing against the Central Fire Station itself, its third story wooden window frames were beginning to smolder. The station’s weathervane representing a streamer, atop the tower, was melting.

At the corner of Palmer and Middle Streets, Downtown Lowell. (Photo by Author)

Without the Central Fire Station, the fire would rage unchecked throughout the entire downtown area, causing millions of dollars in damage. The firemen diverted their attentions from the Fellows Block to their own station. Ten streams of water gradually brought the flames to smoldering tendrils of smoke. The station was saved, but behind them, the fire continued to rage through the Fellows Block. The wall facing Middle Street groaned and appeared to waver, though whether it was actually wavering or if this was an effect of the flickering firelight was debated among the firemen.

The firemen eventually conquered the flames threatening the Central Fire Station and turned seven streams of water back toward the Fellows Block, now fully engulfed in flames. The firemen held their ground on Middle Street, but with one final groan, the Middle Street wall wavered and fell into the street. An avalanche of smoldering stone and brick poured over several of the firemen. The crowd gasped; several women wept. Ten firemen sustained injuries in the collapse. As Assistant Chief James F. Norton was pulled from the rubble with a broken leg, the capstone from the Fellows Block, four feet square and weighing more than two tons, was hurled against the wall of the Central Fire Station cracking its wall from floor to ceiling, and narrowly missed several bystanders.

Three of the Lowell Firemen hurt in the Fellows Block Fire (Lowell Sun)

The winds shifted again and threatened the Pollard Building. Glass shattered from its windows, and hit the street below. The building’s walls grew hot. The firemen diverted the water to the Pollard Building. Steam hissed from its bricks as the water hit the walls. At this point, with flames filling the night sky over downtown Lowell, managers at the Thompson Hardware Company, at the nearby corner of Shattuck and Merrimack streets, nervously watched the growing fire as it neared their building.  The managers thought that the great heat from the flames would ignite the powder and dynamite they had on hand, causing a great explosion. They loaded the dynamite and powder on a wagon and carted it away.

The bridge connecting the Albion Block to the Reconstructed Fellows Block in Downtown Lowell, Massachusetts

Crowd control became a challenge for city officials at the corner of Palmer and Middle Streets.  The crowds pressed closer and closer to the flames.  Inspector John Walsh, needing to move the people away a safe distance, picked a spot in the crowd and said to an imaginary person:

“It’s strange how the flames got over to St. Anne’s church.  It’s a pity to have that burn down.  I understand the tower is all ablaze.”

Instantly, the streets cleared as the crowds dispersed to check on St. Anne’s on Merrimack Street, even then a historical landmark on the Lowell landscape, dating to the early 1820′s when it was built as a place of worship for Lowell’s mill girls.

As the crowds rushed to check on St. Anne’s on Merrimack Street, the firemen’s toughest battle continued upon the bridge connecting the Fellows Block with the Albion Block – pictured, as it appears today, at left, and, as it appeared in 1904, below.  At this point, the firemen were losing hope that the Fellows Block could be saved.  From their vantage point atop the bridge, they watched as the flames issued from the windows of the Fellows Block and raged across the narrow alley.  Six firemen fought the flames from atop the bridge.  Several more fought the flames from the several stories of fire escapes above the bridge.  Flames shot below, around, and above them.  They worked their way up from the bridge, battling one step to the next, as they calmed the flames until they no longer spanned the alley, threatening the Albion Block on Merrimack Street.  Below, more firemen stood, throwing a stream of water at the men on the bridge so that their clothes would not catch fire.  Another stream was aimed at the bridge to keep the flames from destroying the bridge and the fire escape stairs above it.  Once the bridge was secured, the firemen took a length of hose to the top of the fire escape, turned it to fight the flames raging within the department store, and then realized that the hose had turned dry.  The firemen and then the many spectators who heard them began to cry “water!” “water!”  loudly, but it was ten suspenseful minutes before the water issued again from the empty hose.  A cheer went up and the firemen set to fight the flames again.  As the firemen fought the flames issuing from the Fellows Block, the fire continued to threaten O’Donnell & Gilbride’s main store on Merrimack Street.  The edge of the roof of the Albion block caught first, the sidewall began smoking next, and then the spectators watched in horror as a thin line of flames advanced toward Merrimack Street.  The fire fighters gave up on saving the Fellows Block, and set their efforts on saving the Merrimack Street buildings.

The Bridges between the Fellows and Albion Blocks, circa 1904. (Lowell Sun)

It was after midnight before the fire was under control, but it wasn’t until one o’clock in the morning when the firemen began packing up their equipment and leaving the scene. In the aftermath, the Fellows Block suffered the heaviest losses and was considered a total loss.  The Block was pulled down ten days later, and subsequently rebuilt.  The Staples Block too suffered heavy damage, but was rebuilt and still stands today.  The Albion Block, which currently stands on Merrimack Street, and the Bascom Block, its Merrimack Street neighbor which is no longer extant, were considered near total losses.  The Urban Hall building, which stood on Middle Street at the present-day site of the parking lot next to the Fellows Block, also suffered heavy damage.  The Central Fire House, due to the valiant efforts of the firemen, suffered only minor damage.

The O’Donnell & Gilbride Department Store did not re-open after the fire. The partners took the fire as a chance to amicably dissolve their partnership after nearly 25 years in business together. Constantine O’Donnell and Patrick Gilbride each eventually reopened separate businesses. Patrick Gilbride re-opened a store at the Merrimack Street location where he had opened O’Donnell & Gilbride’s with Constantine O’Donnell over two decades before.  He died more than ten years later, in March 1914, mourned by those who knew him as a quiet, unassuming man who became an inspiring business leader in the early downtown Lowell community.

6 comments   |  tags: , , , , , | posted in City Life, lowell, Massachusetts

November 26, 2011

The Grand Fires of 1904 – Lowell, Massachusetts and Fire’s Constant Threat

By Forgotten New England
Image of 1904 Fireman

1904 Fireman - Lowell, Massachusetts. From: Lowell Sun. 14 Jan 1904; 7.

Fire was a danger never far from the minds of our ancestors at the turn of the last century.  In 1904, Lowell, Massachusetts, then a manufacturing city of 95,000 residents and the 39th largest city in the United States¹, suffered a record-setting year in terms of fires, alarms, and losses suffered.  Before the year would end, just over 700 alarms were called into the Lowell Fire Department; five of those alarms included a fatality.  The year’s largest fires claimed Lowell’s iconic Huntington Hall and one of its largest department stores – O’Donnell & Gilbride’s.  The Old City Hall – dating from 1830, St. Patrick’s Church- the city’s first Catholic church, and even the Central Fire Station were nearly lost as well.  Through this post, and a series of posts to come, I will cover each of the grand fires of 1904 in detail.

All five of the city’s fire-related deaths during 1904 were women and girls who had passed too closely to open flames in an age when hemlines swept floors.  Mrs. Celia Green died in February after stepping on a match.  Two others, Mrs. Rose Churchill and Miss Alice Sullivan, just four-years-old, died after passing too closely to burning leaves.  Another woman, Mrs. Marion Ainsworth, died on September 23 after suffering from burns caused from her oil stove the day before.  The last, Mrs. Ellen Leary, 75, died on Christmas Eve after her clothes caught fire from a falling oil lamp.

What’s surprising is that there were not more far more deaths in Lowell.  707 alarms were called into the Lowell Fire Department in 1904, and those were fairly well-distributed throughout the year, averaging about 60 alarms each month.  What caused these fires?  Chimneys were the most common cause in 1904, constituting about 17% of the alarms for that year.  Grass fires were a distant second at 7%.  Improper use of matches resulted in a good number of calls to the fire station during that year, as well, and resulted in about 5% of the year’s alarms.  However, the causes of the alarms truly were varied – ranging from sparks setting a roof on fire to failed attempts to thaw frozen pipes.  A wooden spittoon was blamed for one fire and rats’ nests in wall partitions were blamed for five others.

National Register of Historic Places listings ...

St. Patrick's Church - Lowell, Massachusetts; Image via Wikipedia

1904 began with three disastrous fires before January was even half over.  The first, on January 9, sparked in the Odd Fellow’s Building on Merrimack Street, and threatened to spread across a narrow alley and burn down Lowell’s Old City Hall Building, even then a valued part of Lowell’s early history.  The Fire Department responded quickly and effectively and protected the Old City Hall Building, which still stands today on Lowell’s Merrimack Street.  The damage from that fire was contained to the top two stories of the Odd Fellow’s Block.  Just two days later, on January 11, an overheated smoke pipe in the boiler room of St. Patrick’s Church (the city’s first Catholic church, dating from 1853²) started a fire that quickly spread throughout the landmark church, and grew so large that it threatened the nearby St. Patrick’s Home, a five-story women’s boarding house and Notre Dame Academy, a day and boarding school for the daughters of the city’s mill workers, housed in another five-story brick building.  In the end, the boarding house and the Academy were saved, but the fire caused losses of $160,765³ and major damage to the church’s interior, which would not be completely rebuilt until two years later, in 1906.

Lowell's Central Fire Station - Taken by Author

The worst fire, however, occurred on January 12, the night after the St. Patrick’s Church fire.  That fire resulted in an even larger loss of $161,422 and shut down one of the city’s largest department stores, O’Donnell & Gilbride.  The fire started late in the evening at the Fellows Block near the intersection of downtown Lowell’s Middle and Palmer Streets and quickly spread to three other large brick buildings on Middle, Palmer, and even Merrimack Streets.  Before it was extinguished four hours later, the fire threatened the Central Fire Station itself and even the entire downtown area.  Together, the three fires (all occurring prior to the middle of January) resulted in more than 80% of the city’s annual fire-related losses (4).

Historical Marker on Downtown Lowell's Merrimack Street

Historical Marker telling the story of Huntington Hall/Merrimack St. Depot

Although not the largest fire of 1904, the Huntington Hall blaze of November 6, 1904 left the longest-lasting scars on the downtown Lowell landscape.  Rebuilt from a previous fire of just seven years earlier, Huntington Hall was jointly owned by the Boston & Maine Railroad and the City.  Since 1853, Huntington Hall had served downtown Lowell as its main train station and public hall at the intersection of Merrimack and Dutton Streets.  The Hall was not rebuilt after the 1904 fire, but the arches that stand today in its place on Merrimack Street replicate the Hall’s first floor entrance to the train station, which was also known as the Merrimack Street Depot.

Over a series of posts during the next few weeks, I will be covering each of these fires in detail.  Each has its story to tell and, in the case of the Huntington Hall and Fellows Block fires, has left a lasting scar on the downtown Lowell landscape we see today.  The firemen fighting these blazes fought bravely and amid significant peril to their own lives.  Fire was an ever-present danger to our ancestors who were alive in the first years of the 20th century.  Stories have survived to show that citizens banded together to help each other through this fear, to escape the fires as they raged, and to recover from the losses they suffered.

Footnotes:

1.  To put this in perspective, consider that today, Atlanta is the nation’s 40th largest city, with a population of 420,000.

2.  It should be noted that the original St. Patrick’s Church was built in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1831.  The stone structure that suffered the 1904 fire was constructed a generation later, in 1853.  It still stands today in Lowell’s Acre neighborhood.

3.  This is quoted in 1904 dollars.  For perspective, consider that the annual payroll for Lowell’s entire department of 176 firemen was $110,000 that year.

4.  This excludes the damages caused by the Huntington Hall Fire, which occurred in November and was still being valued at the end of 1904.  The total valuation of that fire’s losses approximated $70,000.

8 comments   |  tags: , , , , , , | posted in City Life, lowell, Massachusetts