This can be a subject I’ve lengthy wished to jot down about however was unsure I might do justice to it with out an excessive amount of in-depth analysis. I’m nonetheless not satisfied however need to at the least doc a major reality in regards to the historical past of the village and be aware that it deserves future consideration.
I’ve written earlier than in regards to the opening of the railroad line by Wellington in the summertime of 1850. In early November that very same yr, the federal census was taken. Scrawled within the margins of a number of pages are issues like “Rail Highway Contractors” and “Irish shanty.” Since I’m of Irish heritage, that final caught my eye. I assumed the folks recorded on these traces had been employed handbook laborers dwelling within the township quickly. In need of investigating every particular person identify, I used to be not sure study extra.
I just lately determined to take a better take a look at the 1850 census, rigorously counting the locations of origin for all 1,556 residents. What I discovered was a bit astonishing. I’ve famous on this weblog a number of occasions that Nineteenth-century Wellington was a various place, with a major a part of the inhabitants born outdoors america. Doing this statistical evaluation allowed me to place concrete numbers behind that assertion. Within the 1850 census, one-quarter of the village–25% or one out of each 4 folks–was not born in America. Listed below are among the totals:
- Eire (236)
- England (41)
- Canada (18)
- Germany (10)
- Isle of Man (3)
- Scotland (2)
[Note that this is strictly a tally of the “birthplace” column. There are households–one mentioned below–where not every member was born abroad. So it is important to remember that while there were 236 people born in Ireland, if the number of Ohio-born children from those families was added the total number of ‘Irish residents’ would be even higher.]
As a sidebar, amongst these born within the U.S. I discovered sixteen dwelling states represented–at a time when there have been solely thirty-one. Ohio, Massachusetts, New York and Pennsylvania are all to be anticipated however there have been additionally residents from as far afield as Louisiana, Mississippi, and even one William Clark, a teenage carpenter and joiner who gave as his birthplace “Cherokee Nation” (pg. 2). Since Clark was born round 1832, I consider this refers to territory in Georgia, Cherokee ancestral homelands earlier than their 1838 pressured elimination by U.S. troops to reservations in “Indian Territory,” present-day Oklahoma. William Clark could have been a baby survivor of the Path of Tears.
Whereas lots of the Irish folks recorded within the 1850 census had come to the village particularly to assemble the railroad (and apparently remained in Wellington as a “dwelling base” even because the every day work of extending the tracks shifted farther away) there have been Irish folks dwelling in in any other case non-Irish households whose residency was totally unconnected to the infrastructure challenge. Richard Maxwell, for instance, was a nineteen-year-old shoemaker–seemingly an apprentice of some sort–dwelling within the dwelling of Massachusetts-born Philo Herrick, additionally a shoemaker (pg. 2).
Although single male laborers often lodged collectively in teams, there have been additionally household models like Michael and Ellen McDonnell, who had six kids; 5 had been born in Eire however the youngest, Bridget, had been born in Ohio simply 9 months earlier than (pg. 4). Parkinson Lewell, a forty-one-year-old farmer, had seven kids with spouse Jane however all had been born in Ohio. Since their eldest was a twenty-two-year-old son, that couple had presumably emigrated a quarter-century earlier (pg. 5).
I all the time imagined the railroad employee “shanties” grouped across the tracks, most likely within the northeastern quadrant of the village the place a Roman Catholic parish could be based in 1851. The census offers a extra nuanced image. Although there are a number of massive clusters of Irish names, they’re unfold throughout your complete doc, showing on 23 of 38 pages and suggesting locations of residence broadly dispersed throughout the city.
This single subject is complicated sufficient that one might simply write a ebook about it. Researching these people, studying how far they traveled of their lifetimes, whether or not any ever returned to Eire–what number of settled in Wellington completely–would reveal numerous tales of the immigrant expertise in America. It’s tough to even conceive of one thing related taking place immediately. If one-quarter of the 1850 census topics had been foreign-born, and our present inhabitants (in keeping with the 2020 census) is round 4,800 folks, it will be the equal of over 1,200 development employees out of the blue arriving to construct a state-of-art underground superhighway. Think about the elevated street site visitors, the unfamiliar faces, the lengthy traces at grocery shops and eating places.
Truly, after I write it out like that, it simply seems like Truthful Week.
#Irish #Shanty
