BOSTON MASSACHUSETTS
FALL 1870
I’m not a man born of privilege. My first memory as a child is being cold, wet and hungry. A terrible feeling, being hungry. At ten years old, my home was the streets of London. My bed, the dirt alleys. I stole what I needed. Sometimes from other street boys. It was a means of survival. My companions were stray mutts, who like me, didn’t belong to anyone.
My name isn’t even Brennan. No need for a name on the streets. No one talks to you. When I got put into a poorhouse, they said I had to have one. I remembered being called Charles by a woman, maybe my mother. It’s my only memory of her, that and the smell of whiskey on her breath. The people at the poorhouse decided to call me Charles Brennan, because an orphan named Brennan just died and didn’t need the name. The garbage I found on the streets was better than the food at the poorhouse. Meals were mush. The matrons beat me almost every day. Each time I ran away, they brought me back and lashed me again. Every kid was crawling with lice and scratching from bed bugs. They kept us busy scrubbing floors and washing pots over and over. Rain or sun, hot or cold, each day we stood outside for an hour.
Before long I got shipped off to Montreal, Canada. The government decided us orphans might be of more use as slaves on livestock ranches. We were supposed to go to school to learn how to herd cattle. They promised clothes and food and comfortable passage. Only orphans who read and wrote and were sixteen or older were supposed to go. In the end, it didn’t matter. If you were an orphan or at least unclaimed, on the ship you went.
I was ten. They put five hundred of us, all boys, in the hold of the ship. We were crowded in with the cattle. It was vermin infested, stinking and dark all the time. We slept on the floor, puking from the rocking of the ship. We shit in our clothes. Some couldn’t take it, and died. I watched naked bodies being hoisted out of the hold. The older boys stripped them for the clothes.
The trip lasted weeks. I lost track of time. We were hot and starving. The big boys took their rage out on the youngest. I was small, and an easy target. They beat me every day. The meanest stripped me naked and sodomized me with the handle of the water ladle. They made sport of me. I stopped fighting back because they just hit me harder when I did. Tried to hide, but it was no use. No one helped. They were grateful it was me and not them. By the time we reached Canada, I had no front teeth and was deaf in my right ear from so many bangs on the head.
The beatings made me strong and angry. I wasn’t about to become a slave for a rancher. I planned to be on my own again. We were being loaded onto a train to Ontario. That’s when I made my break. I ran. It was spring and easy to survive in warm weather. I hopped trains. Slept in the forest. Ate berries and bugs when I had to. But I was free. No one was beating me, and no one would ever again.
I made my way to Middlebury, Vermont. It was fall and turning cold. I found a woodshop and snuck in after dark to sleep. At first I thought the owner didn’t notice me. I used a pile of sawdust for a bed and ate scraps he threw out for the dog. After a few nights, a blanket appeared and some cheese and bread. Mr. Hasty was the first kind person I ever met. He didn’t talk much, but gave me chores to earn my keep. I swept floors and kept the wood burning stove hot. He let me watch him work.
Hasty was a master craftsman, creating custom bowls, spoons and cutting boards. He made larger items like gun racks, bed frames and chairs. His dining tables and breakfronts were crafted of white pine with satinwood veneers and custom jigsaw work. The only time he talked was to explain his craft to me.
He encouraged me to travel around Vermont to learn techniques of master craftsmen who used exotic woods like rosewood and walnut. I went to Woodstock, Rutland and Bennington. I memorized each maker’s mark. I watched as they worked the color and grain of local woods to create veneers with their signature patterns. They used tiger maple and yellow birch and etched fine lines and carved ornamentation to call attention to a piece.
After four years of study, I understood the nuances of woods like cherry, mahogany and oak. I recognized the work of individual woodworkers and the value of the intricacies of their work.
I returned to Mr. Hasty in Middlebury. His furniture was known in Boston, and he willingly filled orders for custom Mission style and Colonial furniture. His walking sticks were in high demand, as were his hand-carved musical instruments. Times were changing in the cities. New immigrants were ready to give up the musty furnishings they brought from the old country. They were modernizing with handcrafted American styles.
Mr. Hasty engaged me to deliver his unique, modern pieces to wealthy customers in Boston. Each time I made a delivery, I graciously offered to remove old furniture no longer wanted in the home. I asked questions, the year it was made, craftsman or artist, country of origin. I accepted furnishings that no longer fit the modern décor, four French antique copper plated engravings from the 1700s, an English pewter teapot with a Tudor rose and crown, an Italian gold, gilded mirror, a set of French porcelain cachepots. I soon had a collection of others’ treasured family heirlooms from around the world.
I used my meager earnings to rent a small storefront on the north side of Boston and placed my belongings there. In time, I left Vermont and lived in the storefront, surrounded by my treasures. I slept on the floor, covered by the blanket from the woodshop. At fifteen, for the first time in my life, I had possessions. My own possessions.
I spent the next ten years bartering, buying and selling. I scoured streets for abandoned furniture. I took the velvet upholstery from a useless sofa and saved a chair. For the first few years I continued to eat from others’ garbage, never spending my money when food was readily available.
I studied. Asked questions. By the time I was twenty-five my business included imports from the Orient, Italy, and India. I saved every penny and purchased a four-story brownstone row house with a large first floor storefront. I commissioned a fine, tailored black suit for conducting business, and lived among the wealthy Brahmins. They sought me out for my knowledge and expertise in fine furnishings, carpets and art. I got rich from their money.
In spite of the trappings of a home in a prestigious section of Boston, custom business suit, and new wealth, I was still the poor boy, abandoned on the streets of London. My Cockney accent, unmistakable. My manners, wanting. I had yet to earn the respect of my neighbors. And then I met the perfect addition to my collection.
Rose is a fine specimen of a proper English woman. She’s from upper class, the daughter of a physician, fairly educated and speaks the Queen’s English. Like a dainty piece of Chinese porcelain, she’s refined in her dress and looks, with delicate features, pure white skin and silky brown hair.
As luck would have it, Rose’s father died and left her alone in the world. She couldn’t survive as a single woman in Boston. We were both past marrying age and willing to make compromises. The courtship was swift. Assuming a lonely spinster craved male attention, I presented her with a rose and said it reminded me of her. As expected, her face lit up. Within months, I offered her a jewelry box, lined with rose-colored silk, as an enticement to marry me. I didn’t want to prolong the courtship for no good reason. It worked. Rose agreed to the marriage. And why not? I was rich and offered her a home furnished with fine antiques, selected by me personally. All she had to do was produce the children. We seemed a perfect match. My life was complete, a home, wealth, possessions, and now with Rose, respectability.
I’m Charles Brennan, a self-made man. I may not have the manners and accent of a Boston Brahmin, but hard work earned me the money and the right to live on Beacon Hill.