Chapter 3

Life in the Ward

After returning from Europe in March of 1856, Bishop Timon approached Maire once again about organizing the Irish festival. Father Corbett had talked with Maire about her ideas while the bishop was away.

The priest appeared at her house in the bishop’s brougham to bring her to the cathedral church hall. He was as tall as Bishop Timon was short, a humorous pair when standing side by side. To add to the contrast, Father Corbett had a finely chiseled face, round smiling eyes, and a head of thick dark, unruly hair.

Maire motioned Pat into the coach and wrapped him in a heavy wool blanket. She was honored to be riding in the bishop’s carriage, but had not expected the austere state of it. The brougham was almost as bare as an open wagon, except for its black, varnished wood coach. It had unpadded wood benches, open windows, and one riding lamp. The bishop’s coat of arms painted modestly on both doors was its only distinguishing feature.

Buffalo was in the midst of one of its coldest winters in years. Nonetheless, Maire sat on the outside with the priest, who drove. She enjoyed conversing with Father Corbett. The ride across streets she often walked was an added luxury. Pat was thrilled just to be riding in the bishop’s carriage. He peered out the windows at streets he seldom saw after dark.

The streets were quiet. A few workers were making their way home on foot from workplaces clustered on the Niagara River, downtown, and in the Buffalo harbor. Many men who knew the bishop’s carriage by sight tipped their hats and shouted a word of greeting to him. Father Corbett acknowledged their greetings with a hearty “God bless you and your families,” imitating the bishop’s usual greeting. Maire smiled at the priest’s puckish sense of humor.

Maire and Father Corbett chatted about the weather and the bishop’s remarkable accomplishments. She asked him about his work aiding the poor through the St. Vincent de Paul Society. She thought, as he described it, I could have used it many times meself, but there were those who needed it more. Father Corbett’s descriptions of Irish degradation filled the rest of their short voyage across the Ward and downtown to the cathedral on Franklin Street.

They were early for the meeting, and with time to burn he stopped the carriage to gaze at the cathedral looming majestically above them. “Maire, the cathedral is the crown jewel of the bishop’s labors. After mass tomorrow, 100 yards or so into your walk home, take a minute to look back on it.” He went on pointing out its features: its magnificent spire, its arched front gate, its stately buttresses, and St. Joseph holding the Child, the two standing guard over Buffalo’s Catholics. “Remember, the bishop has not been here a decade and he’s already positioned Buffalo’s Roman Catholics proudly alongside not only the elite of our city, but of Christendom everywhere.”

The bishop had gathered a hundred prominent Irish Americans, many of whom served on the cathedral building committee, to organize the first Buffalo Irish Festival. Members of the audience were whispering to one another. They were eager for the bishop to begin, not because they wanted the meeting over and done with, but because they enjoyed listening to this unusually bright, independent, and forceful man.

Everyone remained bundled up, the women with their hands up to their wrists in rabbit-furred mufflers. A large oil-fed boiler served both the church and its downstairs hall, but barely took the chill off.

The bishop wanted to hold the festival on the feast of St. Patrick, Monday, March 17, 1856, but he resigned himself that it was not to be. He hoped instead for a summer festival. Everything takes time, money, and skills, all in short supply. He thought to himself: God, give me patience with my priests and people, most of all with myself. I’m not Jesus that can just wish things into being.

He moved to center stage at exactly 7:00 and stood before the assembly. Flashing through his thoughts were his rides through Irish neighborhoods, stopping to visit families he knew—and he knew many—and to talk to men on the streets. Irish males were acting out in embarrassing ways, drinking and carousing, fighting and getting into trouble with the police, and filling the dockets of the city’s courts. He knew they were intensely disliked by the Anglo-American population for their behavior. He had read the signs all over town saying, “Irish need not apply.” The natives expected him to rein in his fellow Irish and teach them how to act.

There were Irish women at the doors of every social institution and church, bedraggled, hungry children in hand, begging for handouts. Catholics were not assimilating into the American masses as he hoped. They were losing the pride and culture they had fought so hard to nourish during hundreds of years of British domination. All sorts of anti-Catholic, anti-Irish societies were forming in Buffalo and throughout the country. In large measure, the same social dynamics were not found among German Catholics. German Catholics disliked him for the way he favored the Irish population. The truth was, the Irish needed his leadership and correction far more.

He had already established several new parishes, St. Joseph’s College, St. Joseph’s Boys’ Orphanage, and Sisters of Charity Hospital. He intended to do much more as soon as he raised the money. He proposed to move thousands of Irish into rural communities to own land and farms once again, as they had in Ireland. The Protestant newspapers derisively called the plan “Timon’s Colonization Program.” But never mind, it could work. Living in the slums of the cities brings nothing but squalor to people who have no history in them.

He decided not to speak about the negative circumstances of the Irish population, believing them clearly visible to his audience every day. He would focus on his festival agenda.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began in a voice loud and strong, amid the dying whispers and coughs. “Thank you for coming out on one of Buffalo’s more inclement evenings.

“The interests of the diocese compel me to undertake more voyages seeking assistance from wealthy Catholics. On my last travels through Europe, my first stop was in Rome and the Vatican to ask for the Holy Father’s blessing on our endeavors here in Buffalo and, to be sure, to ask for a significant donation. Pius IX was most generous. I used his good example to secure even bigger donations from rich Catholics throughout Europe and Mexico and will soon approach similar individuals in this country.

“Before I leave, I want you all to work with me to organize a grand event whose purposes will be twofold.” The bishop lifted his outspread hands. “First, we must show our Protestant friends and neighbors and the people I will be begging from our willingness to help ourselves. We will raise from our own what funds we can.

“Secondly, this event will have another, more fundamental purpose. Our Irish brethren suffer not only from a lack of wealth, but far worse than that, from a lack of pride in themselves and their own heritage. In the face of the most dehumanizing and degrading persecutions ever perpetrated on any people in Europe, the Irish have always celebrated their faith and their culture like no other people on the continent.

“Many of you attended sprees in Ireland, so you know what I propose to do in our own uniquely American way here in Buffalo. I have asked Mrs. Maire Joy to speak briefly about the sprees she organized in Mallow, County Cork, and to suggest a few ideas to get us started. We want to inspire our people to rise above their sad conditions through faith in God, a disciplined family life, sobriety, and hard work.

“We beg your kind prayers, dearly beloved in Christ, that the Mother of Our Savior be our keeper throughout our journeys and make our festival a grand success.”

Bishop Timon turned toward Maire and nodded. She stood up and bowed her head for a moment to utter a silent prayer and to gather her thoughts. She was nervous standing before such important people, but focused on giving a performance that would capture her audience. The crowd began whispering again. She raised her head slightly and waited for them to focus on her. Then she looked over them and gestured to a group of bagpipers who had gathered unnoticed in the rear of the hall. With a loud wail that pierced the stillness and sent shudders through every person there, the six musicians blew an ancient Celtic ballad, “The Winds of Galway.” A dozen smiling girls in ankle-length, green cotton costumes trimmed with white lace step-danced onto the stage.

The moment they stopped, with gas lights turned low and in darkness broken only by large candles burning in the four corners of the hall and alongside her, Maire told a shortened version of Fionn mac Cumhaill, Finn McCool in English.

“You have all heard that Fionn mac Cumhaill received his father’s magic spear and became the leader of the Fianna, who for centuries protected the high kings at Tara. Well, it seems that on our Bishop’s last visit to Ireland, he ran across a giant of a lad high in the Boggeragh Mountains, nearly seven foot tall with arms that, when swung in a circle, could create a windstorm. He was said to be runnin’ at the fore of a band of red-haired brothers and scarin’ the bejesus out of any fool Brit who dared wander into the high heather.”

She held up a large piece of print paper on which she had drawn, quite adeptly, the giant carrying a huge club and followed by a dozen smaller men.

“Well, the bishop ran the boys through one of the famous retreats he gives his priests. He recruited the leader and five of his best to join him in Buffalo. The lads found a skiff on the shore of the westernmost Aran Island, rowed their way to Canada, and were in Buffalo two weeks before him. There they perched atop the tallest elevator in the harbor, roamed the city by night invadin’ Know Nothing meetings, demandin’ they make their shops more safe and double workingmen’s wages. You know, tonight the Fianna are buggerin’ the St. Louis trustees, leadin’ em through downtown to the cathedral to confess their sins of pride.” The audience laughed loudly. They were all aware of the feud between the bishop and the St. Louis Church trustees that had continued on and off since he arrived in 1847.

Bishop Timon stood and shouted, “Wouldn’t I love to see that procession. Hurry on, Maire, I have to get upstairs,” and everyone laughed.

Maire paused to let the laughing die down and then continued. “Spread the word to your friends in the Ward, ladies and gentlemen. These heirs of Fionn and the Fianna have the Ohio Street saloons and the Beach in sight and they’ll be drivin’ the whole pack of them, Celtic, German, and Know Nothin’s all, back to a barren Aran Isle on a slow barge in January.”

Someone muttered loud enough for everyone to hear him, “Sure, I’ll stay sober that night, love. That boat’s not for me.” Again the crowd laughed. They were very much into Maire’s story. Then she went on.

“Before they do, they’ll be holdin’ their games at our spree on the Canal. Can you imagine the beer bellies with thorn in foot tryin’ to pluck it out while runnin’ and bendin’ beneath a knee-high stick, or jumpin’ their own height? Sure they’ll all be glad to take to the barge.” Now she had the crowd laughing at the thought of watching Know Nothings, St. Louis trustees, and Irish scoundrels put through Fianna trials, and then crowded together on the same barge crossing the Atlantic. She bowed and moved off.

Before she could sit down, the assemblage exploded in applause. She beamed ear to ear. Her aim was to get the group thinking “spree” and in the right mood. She knew she had succeeded.

Bishop Timon sprang to his feet and with Father Corbett called for and captured ideas and commitments shouted out by the crowd for over an hour on large paper tablets pinned on wooden stands.

When the discussion was done, he asked them to bow their heads. He prayed a short but fervent prayer to his heavenly Father, blessed them and their families, and dismissed them in peace. The festival was on its way.

Pat rode home, awestruck by the bishop and his grandmother even more so. Why, she was every bit as great as he was!

John had finished his last year in school, the sixth grade, in 1855. Theresa talked to him about remaining in school through the eighth grade and then going on to high school. She told him that education would open up opportunities that only people like the Halls and their kind enjoyed.

John, however, decided work, not school, was for him. He was looking forward to the day when he could live on his own and help his grandmother. Besides, he could see no further use for book learning. Theresa fought back her disappointment and said nothing more. She knew talking education was a losing battle with most of the children of the Ward whose families were struggling to put food on the table each day. John was influenced by these children. Still, she had hoped for more from him. He had such promise, and going to work shining shoes or running errands for sailors following the other boys in the Ward was such a waste of his talents.

Of his ten classmates, only two went on two years later to Central School on Court and Franklin Streets, the city’s only high school.

Pat’s thoughts for the past year had focused exclusively on work. He hardly paid attention in school. All he thought about was getting through the daily boredom of his classes. He too lacked the slightest insight that further education could advance him beyond the fate of a day laborer. The very survival of his family depended on his finding a job as soon as he was legally allowed. Gram and Uncle Jack were as close to starving as a winter lasting into April or a deferred vestment order could bring them. They talked up work to Pat as soon as he reached the fifth grade. Pat turned twelve on Tuesday, March 25, 1856 and quit school as soon as he finished the sixth grade.

The Ward afforded opportunities for children and adults to find employment from the time they were ten. Even while still in school, Pat and John earned money shining sailors’ shoes outside the many saloons on Ohio Street. The other shoeshine boys avoided the places where Pat set up his and his brother’s stations, not only for fear of tangling with Pat, but with his gang as well.

The Buffalo harbor was full of ships and barges from Great Lakes states, Canada, Europe, and the East Coast. The Canadian government had constructed the second edition of the Welland Canal. Because of it, ships from all over the world now had access to Buffalo and its mercantile and marine facilities. English, Scottish, French Canadian, Irish, German, and Scandinavian sailors walked across the Ward from the docks to hotels, clubs, and restaurants downtown. Buffalo’s downtown stretched from the Erie Canal at the foot of Main Street a dozen blocks north to Chippewa Street.

John and Pat found street corners with abundant foot traffic and explored how best to attract and keep customers. John smiled and talked in pleasantries. Pat engaged in more personal and direct talk that sometimes got him a dime and twice a cuff on the mouth. The last occasion, an English sailor wanted to give him a shilling. Not recognizing the large foreign coin with a woman’s face on it and fearing he was about to be duped, Pat asked, “Who’s this supposed to be?”

“Why, the most revered woman in the world, me boy,” said the gob.

Pat scratched his head. “Wotja mean, Mary, Mother of God?”

“No, ye scamp, that’s the Queen of England,” and he swatted Pat lightly across the mouth.

Within a few weeks, John saw how men earned money outside the law. He made up his mind to shun such behavior. Pat saw the same thing and was drawn to the thrill of it.

Evenings, Pat led his gang to railroad cars awaiting switch engines to continue their journeys across the East and Midwest. The cars stood idle by the dozens in rail yards in the middle of the Ward and in the Valley, the next neighborhood east. Pat pointed out opportunities to his boys and plotted the best strategy so they wouldn’t get caught. After he sliced freight car seals with iron clippers borrowed from Uncle Jack’s backyard shed, four gang members pushed and pulled open the heavy doors. Many nights, they opened dozens of cars before they discovered valuable, portable cargo.

The boys loaded up as much as they could carry and moved quickly through the darkness across junk-filled yards, vegetable gardens, and grain fields—for there were still a few small farms in the area—to an unused shed on Alabama Street. The shed filled up with lumber, hardware, and other items Pat sold to a barkeep who asked no questions.

Pat proudly added his share of the take to his shoeshine earnings and handed it to Gram. At her quizzical expression at such large amounts, he exclaimed boldly to her face, “We’re getting good at making the shoes shine like stars, so the tips are better.” Gram was pleased and put any questions she had out of mind. The money Pat gave her would allow them to eat meat three or four times a week.

After a few months of this illicit behavior, a neighbor became suspicious and alerted the Buffalo police, who in turn notified railroad cops. The end for Pat and his gang came suddenly. They were beaten with nightsticks and taken downtown to Precinct #1 on Terrace and Evans Streets, which served as police headquarters and contained the city jail. Pat sat in a cell, aching, head full of lumps, with five other boys, glumly anxious about what would happen to them next.

That night Gram and Uncle Jack were awakened by a loud, persistent knocking on their door, as were the other parents, all of whom lived in the Ward. Uncle Jack opened the door to a police officer, a smallish, somewhat embarrassed rookie. Maire spoke first. “Is it about my Pat?” she asked, fearful of the reply. She had gone to bed worried because Pat had once again not returned home from playing outside before she retired. The officer apologized for waking them and told them Pat was in jail downtown for larceny, burglary, and selling stolen property. Parents were to appear at a hearing at 10:00 a.m. at Buffalo City Court on Clinton and Washington Streets.

Gram did not go back to bed that night. “Jack, I wonder if some mistake’s been made. Sure our Pat would never do such things.” They talked about Pat’s habits over the past months and concluded she had given him too much freedom to hang out with his friends. “He could have been led astray by some of the older boys,” Jack offered. Finally, Maire concluded, “Jack, I’m beginnin’ to think the boy might have been into more mischief than I saw. Maybe I’m gettin’ too old to raise a young scamp in the Ward.”

She talked with her brother further about how this could have happened, “Sure and it was my fault, Jack. I was only too glad to see him bring home the extra coins. I shut me eyes to what he was doin’.” She decided the only person who could help her was the bishop.

Maire approached Bishop Timon after the 7:30 morning mass at the cathedral. He listened to her confused statements and pieced together the gist of the story. He liked the fact that she blamed herself for not keeping a firmer rein on her grandson. The truth is the boy needs a father, he thought. The bishop agreed to appear at the arraignment at mid-morning.

There he listened to what the police and a few adults from the Ward had to say about what had been going on for months. When the judge was about to make his disposition of the case, the bishop rose and asked to approach the bench. The judge acquiesced. Bishop Timon spoke so that all could plainly hear him. “Your honor, these boys have done a grave injustice to our community, but I would like to salvage them from a life of crime that would be a burden on their families as well as on the city and its citizens.”

Judge Wente believed the bishop to be a man of integrity and action, who was not about to whitewash what the boys had done just because they were Irish and Catholic. To the contrary, he felt Bishop Timon would use his influence with the parents to correct the boys’ behavior and make good on what the boys had stolen from the railroads and stores. He listened to the bishop’s deferential request, already knowing what he would do if the bishop asked that the boys be placed in his custody. He did so readily, grateful to have the bishop’s intervention. There were so many delinquents and so few resources.

That afternoon, the bishop held an arraignment of his own in the cathedral church hall, attended by all seven boys and their parents. The boys were downcast and not a little sore. Their fathers, or uncles if fathers were absent, had whipped each of them while the bishop tactfully waited outside. He would have liked to have done the same. Two First Ward beat-policemen were present at the request of the judge and the bishop. They, too, waited outside until the boys’ cries abated.

The bishop, with the two officers beside him, interviewed each boy singly and then brought parents and children together. “Your sons have acted like common criminals, breaking into rail cars, warehouses, and stores. They kept the stolen property right there near you in an abandoned shed on Alabama Street and sold it to a saloonkeeper on Ohio Street, who peddled it from his own bar and in other saloons nearby. He used young men from the Beach to sell it to sailors and travelers coming off boats, trains, and barges.”

One of the parents pleaded, “But Bishop, we knew nothing about it. We thought the boys were doing what all boys do at their age.” A few other parents grunted their agreement.

Bishop Timon waited to speak until he had better control of his temper. He surveyed the group before him, quite representative of his flock. He knew well their hardships and felt sympathy for each. Still he shook his head, arranging his spectacles on his nose.

“I understand your plight, living hand to mouth through the good weather when the men are working and then half starving when the lake freezes, but let’s be honest with one another. This behavior has been going on several nights a week for months. Numerous robberies occurred right in the Elk Street Market, to such an extent that farmers moved their produce to markets in other parts of the city.” The bishop tugged at his cassock sleeves before going on. “You had to know your sons were up to no good. Oh, sure, boys will be boys and get into a certain amount of mischief, but their actions were not just practical jokes. They committed felonies that could land them in jail for years.

“The boys had two motives, I say. One was the thrill of it. The other was money and you were complicit in the latter. You can’t tell me your sons began to hand in more money than you’d ever seen from them and that you thought it came from fruit picking, ferrying men across the creek, shoe shining, or running sailors’ errands, now did you?”

He looked out over the crowd to see if there were signs they agreed with his logic. Indeed, he caught several reluctant nods. He waited a moment and then went on. “I know some of you are hungry day after day, but winking at your sons’ criminal behavior is wrong, not just before a city court judge, but before God. How were these boys able to stay out till late at night without you disciplining them?”

Again, he paused. The parents looked down or away. They knew he spoke the truth. “If your boys continue on like the last year, they will all be confined, most likely outside the area, for most of their lives. You parents will be forced by the court to make good for what they’ve stolen and for the damage they did. Do you understand what you must do?”

A chorus of voices responded, “We do, Your Excellency,” and promised him it would never happen again.

In a much lower voice indicating he was about done, he said, “I can only go before the court once on your behalf. The judge is no fool. Recognize the mercy he has shown and the confidence he has in me that I would work with you. Your sons must see the seriousness of their deeds and go through a complete change of heart. I will stand by you this once and once only.

“Father Corbett will approach railroads and stores harmed by your boys and acquaint them with the full details of what has transpired. I want a few of you parents to accompany Father Corbett at each stop. You will have to beg the offended parties to forgive your sons and assure them it will not happen again. I will get a full report on all that is said and can only hope the parties will be merciful. I know you parents are not able to make full restitution or come close to it.”

Lastly, with forefinger raised in reprimand, he chided the parents for allowing their sons to appear before a Protestant judge. “What must he think of us Irish?” he asked. “What else but thieves and delinquents from broken families . . . boys abandoned by their fathers and living on the streets, preying on the law-abiding citizens of the city!”

The bishop kept Pat, Maire, and Jack after the others had gone home. Bluntly, he told them, “Pat was the leader of the gang, and I hold him more responsible than the rest for all the evil the gang has done.” He grabbed Pat by the arm with such pressure that the boy squirmed and tears came to his eyes. Pat feared he would never let go. Bishop Timon then asked him probing questions with all the skill and force of a New York district attorney. Pat’s answers came quickly. He admitted he was the brains behind every break-in, the terms of sale to the saloonkeeper, and the division of money each boy received. Gram and Jack twisted in anguish and disbelief as they listened.

Finally, Pat began to sob and with head in hands said several times, “I’m sorry Gram, Uncle Jack. I promise I won’t do it again.”

The bishop took Maire aside and told her, “You must get control of your grandson or lose him. He will not see his fifteenth birthday a free person, perhaps not alive, the way he’s going.”

Then he asked Jack to step out with him for a moment. “I see Maire takes a hand with raising Jo. It’s because you saw a woman’s presence was needed to raise a young girl. Pat needs a man the same way Jo needed a woman. I’m asking you to talk with Maire. Tell her what I suggested, and take a stronger role with that boy. He needs a father.” He hesitated for a moment. “Jack, that seems to be what God has in mind for you.”

Jack was reluctant, but he knew that the bishop was right. He would have to step up and take the place of Pat’s father or the boy would likely go the way of so many boys in the Ward.

That night, Jack slapped his leathery right hand across his nephew’s backside, a whipping that Pat would recall with a pained expression for the rest of his life. Maire watched and then clenched her grandson’s neck until his face turned crimson red. “I’ll be after tellin’ ye, son, I will send you back to Father Edwards and have him keep ye in his home for wayward boys for the next five years. If ye can’t make up your mind to go straight and narrow, we’ll be on the train tomorrow, first light.”

Pat wanted nothing to do with an orphanage in Rochester. Losing his gram was his greatest fear. He put his head in her lap and said, “Gram, I love you more than anything. I won’t ever do it again. I promise. I truly promise, Gram.”

Later that night, Jack and Maire discussed what they must do and agreed they would act more like parents to one another’s children. No more Jo belongs to Jack, Pat belongs to Maire.

Pat met with his gang one last time and told them his days as their leader were done for good. From now on, he would stick with his brother, work the shoeshine business, and play baseball. Pat and John had watched older boys carve a baseball diamond out of a field on Ohio Street and had become very interested in playing themselves.

On Saturdays, Pat packed up his shoeshine kit and followed his brother downtown, where they watched a mix of immigrants and Americans heading west: families, businessmen, sailors, vagrants, thieves, and women of the street, disembarking from trains and barges at the western end of the Erie Canal near the foot of Main Street. Buffalo was the transfer point for anyone wanting to secure free land, build rail lines, or mine for gold in the West. The boys catered to sailors, gamblers, and businessmen who frequented the hotels, taverns, brothels, and dives north of the canal.