The first church was bought of the Baptists and moved by George Dwight from its location at the corner of Maple and Mulberry streets to the corner of Willow and Union streets. This was bought in 1846 and cost $3,500. The lot on Union street added another $1,000 to the expense of getting the little seventy by forty-five foot church ready for the first Catholic services held in Springfield in a church building. Pastors from Hartford and other places had for years before this said Masses in the open air or in homes. But even with the starting of the new St. Benedict’s Church there was interruption of the regular services. The first resident pastor remained but three years, and for a time another could not be secured, services being conducted by the Chicopee priest.
Many Springfield Catholics walked to Sunday morning services at Cabot, now Chicopee Center. Rev. Michael P. Gallagher, the next priest, was the early Catholic clergyman here whose work was of the deepest importance. He bought in 1860 the property at the corner of State and Elliott streets, which has been added to until it has reached its present size and importance. Father Gallagher was a keen business man. The numbers of the Irish in Springfield increased rapidly during the second quarter of the nineteenth century. Two localities where the first Irish gathered their little houses were Ferry street and along old Mechanics row, which ran between Howard and Bliss streets. Some of these people came all the way from Ireland to the back yards of their future homes by boat. Irish residents of Springfield now can recall relatives of theirs who came from Ireland to New York, New York to Hartford and from Hartford to Springfield in little steamboats.
William Hart and Mrs. Timothy Kenefick came from Ireland in the same vessel in 1833, and records say that their children were the first Irish-Americans baptized in the city. Fathers Reardon and Brady performed the ceremonies at the time, when Mass was being said there once a month or so in the family of some Catholic. The numbers of Irish coming from their native country to America rapidly increased because of the inducements which labor held out in the building of railroads and the demand for factory employees caused by the rapid development of the country. The famine of 1847 caused a veritable stampede to America. It is said that there were twelve hundred Irish Catholics in the city when Rev. M. P. Gallagher took the pastorate in 1856.
There were well-known names among the early Irish who lived in Springfield. One of the most famous of these was Gen. Robert Emmet Clary, who fought in the Civil War. He and his brothers and his sisters were born in the home of their father, which was situated on Benton Park, at the corner of State and Federal streets. The father, Ethan Allen Clary, was a well-known figure in Indian wars and in the war of 1812, when he was Commissary of the Port of Boston. John Mulligan, president of the Connecticut River Railroad, was a well-known Irish-American. He came to the city nearly seventy years ago from Hartford, where his father lived. He was the first child of Irish parents born in that city. Mr. Mulligan came to Springfield to work for the Western Railroad and later came to be chief executive of the Connecticut River road, which was later absorbed by the Boston and Maine.
Those who remember the early Irish as they were characteristically are filled with astonishment at the contemplation of what some of the descendants of those people have become. Along in the first of the time the Irish were in Springfield in large numbers almost all of them were laborers. The men were employed any way that they could earn money without much skill. Many of the women were employed as servants. There was hardly an Irishman in business and for years not one in a profession. Many remember Malley’s little dry goods store, which was near where the Gilmore hotel is now, and which was burned in the big fire which took the Haynes Opera House. For years there was also a little shoe store on Main street, between Harrison avenue and Hilman street, kept by James Burke.
No one needs to have pointed to him the contrast which the virility of those early Irish have made possible in their descendants. Irish are in every activity of the city life, and the best of them are filling creditably positions in every profession and business.
CONFERENCE WITH THE VICE-PRESIDENT FROM VIRGINIA AND MEMBERS OF THE SOCIETY FROM THAT STATE.
In response to an invitation from Capt. James W. McCarrick, Vice-President of the Society for Virginia, to the general officers for a conference at Norfolk, Va., to discuss ways and means of adding to the Society’s membership rolls from the lists of eligible Americans of Irish blood in that State, President-General Quinlan, Chairman Lenehan of the Membership Committee, and the Secretary-General visited Norfolk June 24th last and were met at the steamship wharf by Capt. McCarrick, General McGinnis and Mr. John Burke, and were escorted to the Virginia Club, which was made headquarters during the day.
After a short visit to points of interest throughout the city the party returned to the club and from there went to Ocean View, where they were joined by Hon. Joseph T. Lawless, Mr. John O’Connell, Mr. George Maxwell of Tuscaloosa, Alabama, President W. R. Boutwell of the Pilot Association, and Capt. Foster of the William A. Graves Company, where a bountiful southern dinner was served, which for novelty and excellence was greatly appreciated by all present.
Further consideration of the work of the Society took place, and speeches were made of an encouraging nature by all present and plans laid for a campaign of membership in Virginia.