Photograph of the author, John J. Corcoran Jr.
THE STORY OF CAPTAIN JOHN & TIMOTHY OR PART II OF AN IRISH SAGA
This Part of the story goes a way back in time. I'm not sure of my dates, but it was some time in the late 1810's or early 1820's, that means 150-155 years ago in the little town of Skibereen, Ireland, in the county of Cork, just outside of Queenstown, as the English called it, or, Cobh, as it knew itself; Skibereen, where Mary Lee and Tommy Lee, her brother, many years after, took ship to come to America, as still later did Ellen and Margaret of our first story. In this little town there was a man named Michael Collins, a name very honored amongst the Irish, the name of their later day hero and leader, but of no known relationship to our Michael Collins of Skibereen. Our Michael Collins had a brother, John Collins, who was the parish priest of Cardiff, Wales, across the Irish sea, and he also had threes sons, the youngest called John and an uncle, who then was Bishop of Cork. Now I know that seems like a lot of names for a young mind to remember, but I'm sure they'll all fit in place as our story goes on. I don't ever remember hearing of the names of Michael Collins' two oldest sons, but the youngest was John Collins, our hero of this tale, who was named after Father Collins, the parish priest of Cardiff, who was his uncle. Now if you remember from the first part of our story, the story of Ellen and Margaret, all of Ireland was then under British rule, who paid for the public schools and Uncle Hughie's salary, but would not let the Irish, either boys or girls, attend them. For to get an education, those of the Irish who could afford it, had to go across the seas to Europe, to Catholic France or Spain. That included even those who wished to become priests. They had to go overseas for their academy and college education. What was known then as "Academy", is like our high schools. After they finished high school and college, they then came back and went to the seminary at Menuth till they were ordained. Trinity College was in Dublin and still is in the capital city, but it might as well be on the moon as far as the Irish boys and girls were concerned. It was and is one of the great Universities of the world, along side of Oxford and Cambridge in England, Heidelberg in Germany, Saint Sulpice and the Sorborne in France, Salamanca in Spain and Bologna in Italy. However, in the words of an advertisement, that many times later appeared in American newspapers, as far as Trinity College was concerned, "No Irish need apply", and not only did it mean Trinity College, but every school throughout the country, from North to South from East to West, "No Irish need apply."
So, in order to get some education the sons of Michael Collins had to go across the seas to Cardiff, Wales; not to Catholic France or Spain; there was no money for that, but to their uncle, Father John, the parish priest. You see, there was then, as there is now 150 years later, coal mines in Wales and miners were needed to dig the coal and since the Irishmen of the time were poor and uneducated and persecuted, many of them had come across the Irish sea to dig coal in Protestant Wales, and they brought with them their Catholic faith, which the Irish have held on to and still do, for better than 1500 years and, so they had a need of a parish priest at Cardiff, and that was Father John Collins. But to return to our story, the oldest son of Michael Collins went over first. This was about the year l822-23. He spent two years living with his uncle John, the priest, who was his schoolmaster and teacher, learning reading, writing and arithmetic. When the two years were up, he came back to Skibereen and his younger brother then went over to Father John's, where he stayed his two years learning his reading, writing, and arithmetic. Then he came back to Skibereen also and it was young John Collins' turn to go over to Cardiff to live in the rectory and learn his lessons also. But, since he was the last of Michael Collins boys, he did not have to go back to Skibereen at the end of his first two years at Cardiff to let a younger brother come over, so he stayed on with his lessons for four years and, in the process, learned something of navigation and some small smatterings of astronomy because that is what navigation is pretty much all about, particularly in his last two years, with his uncle, the parish priest. At the end of his four years at Cardiff, when he was only about 12 years old and had learned all that a parish priest of the times could teach him, he went to sea aboard a sailing ship out of Cardiff as a cabin boy. I'm sure you all know what a cabin boy is, if you remember "Treasure Island" and "Jim Hawkins" of that great story. The cabin boy of those times kept the Captain's cabin clean, brought food from the galley to the captain's table, who ate alone, and then for the mates, who ate after the Captain, and later the cabin boy helped clean up for the cook, and that was the way it was on "Treasure Island" and on John Collins' ship when he first shipped out of Cardiff about 1851 or 1852. What happened aboard his ship for the next 17 or 18 years is not known, but by 1849, when he was about 30 years old, he was Master, that is Captain of his own seagoing sailing brig, sailing out of Cardiff as it's home port and flying the British flag.
It was at this time in late March or early April in 1849, that his owners told Captain John to take his ship to Queenstown or Cobh, if you will, and take aboard as many of the Irish as had passage money ($30.00) and sail with them to New York in the New World.
He did this and took aboard some 60 men and women and sailed for New York, arriving there in late spring of 1849. Something mighty big had been happening in the meantime. The port of New York was crowded with ships from all over the world. Captain John had to wait for two days to berth his ship. As soon as he did, all his passengers were for "over the rail" to join the countless thousands milling about on South & West Streets trying to discover how was the fastest and best way to get to California. For you see, just the year before, in 1848, John Marshall had found gold at Sutter's Mill on the American River above Sacramento in old California, and all the world and his brother, it seemed, was bent on getting to California to search for Gold. A madness had seized upon all creation, and madman's thoughts had blocked out all good sense leaving but the "itch to be rich." From every corner of the globe, from every race that had sprung up since Adam, came men seeking the "impossible dream" to banish once and for all poverty from their lives. But alas, Sutter's Mill and the American River were three thousand long miles and a continent away. Walking was out of the question. With a team and wagon, Chicago or St. Louis might be made in thirty days. After that would come the "Rockies of Colorado", deserts of Utah or New Mexico, the mountains of the "Sierra Nevadas" and still yet the desert of Mojave, limited always by the scarcity of passes through the mountains. Many however essayed it - few got through. Death overtook those that did not. There were two alternate ways to reach the gold fields. One by ship to Panama, by burro across the Isthmus and by ship up the Pacific to San Francisco and overland by foot to the "diggins." The third, the least risky, but only by way of comparison, around the tip of South America, "around the Horn" in the depths of it's winter. But the wiser, and those who had the passage money, preferred the risk of a winter's passage through the Straits of Magellan to the desert heat of approaching summer and the towering peaks of the Rockies and the Sierra Nevadas. 7000 miles at sea with the risk of foundering, or 3000 miles overland with the risks of dying of thirst or freezing to death in snow covered passes above 8000 feat. Either way would take about three months ninety days. Those with passage money would sooner take ship.
And so it was that Captain John received orders by a later ship, from his owners, not to return to Cardiff empty, but to take on board as many as he could carry and that had the passage money of $60.00, and sail for California. Taking aboard his vessel some 80 passengers, Captain John set sail for San Francisco Bay about May 15, 1849, having spent some $800.00 to provision his ship for the voyage. After a stormy, freezing passage around the Horn, instead of the shorter but more dangerous passage through the Straits of Magellan, he beat his way up the Pacific and brought his ship into "Frisco Bay" about the middle of August, 1849, all safe and sound aboard.
But not aboard for any longer than an hour. Over the side went passengers and crew "skeedadle, skeedidle"- and off to the gold fields, as if they were next door rather than some 139 miles away and by foot. By nightfall, all he had left aboard was his mate, cook and two of the crew. Hardly enough to get out of San Francisco Bay and go stand "on and off" watch 7000 miles around the Horn to port in Cardiff or Skibereen, Ireland.
He and his ship were stranded in what in time was to become the "graveyard of ships."
Now at this point, I would like to interrupt the story a bit and go back to just before Captain John set sail from Cardiff and wound up in San Francisco Bay. He had, as the saying goes, "taken a wife", one Julia Lockett, whom he had left behind him in Skibereen with her brother, Johnnie Lockett. But now back to San Francisco, where Captain John was endlessly walking the streets of a "dead" city, seeking to make up a crew. Week after week he walked and without any result; the "butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker" and, even more importantly still - the "bartender" - all had gone off to the gold fields. But fortunes were being made in San Francisco as well as in the gold fields by a limited few in both places. Spades and axes, wheelbarrows and horses, went at "what the traffic could bear" and many of the would-be miners were soon parted from what "gold" they had brought from the East, but as they say, "one man's meat is another man s poison and visa versa", this was to be Captain John's salvation.
Weeks having gone by and then months having passed since the August landfall, and hope that "survives the worst disease" having been reduced to a glimmer, men started drifting back into town, denuded of their goods and disillusioned in their dreams, seeking but some means of "getting home", the Americans to the East and the others over two seas.
It was from among these returning "driftees" one by one that Captain John picked four - two Irishmen, one Englishman and a Welshman and now, with himself and a crew of seven, he essayed the "unassailable." About or around October 29th, 1849, he sailed out of San Francisco harbor.
Perhaps the only ship to do so, on his 9000 mile journey home to Cardiff, with eight hands aboard to make sail and stand watch, four professionals and four amateurs at the start but pretty close to being "A.B.s " when, three months later, about Jan. 29th, 1850, he brought his vessel and $5 800.00 of "passage money" home to his owners in Cardiff after a not too difficult passage back around the Horn in it its Summer. The next day he pulled into Skibereen and to home and to Julia and Johnie Lockett. Julia promptly saying, amongst her other remarks on the occasion, "No more `round the world' cruises for you me Bucky Boy if you expect to find a wife here on your return. From now on where you go, I go."
After laying over a short while, he took his vessel into the Mediterranean trade, installing Julia in the ship's cabin, having mustered a crew from amongst the Irish at Skibereen before he sailed. But he soon saw it just would not work. It was up against the sailors' superstitions about, "a woman of their own lineage being on board." After a trip of two to three months, to Livorrno, (which the English called Leghorn) and a lay over at Palermo in Sicily and a stop-off at Marsellies on the way back, when he reached Cardiff he told his owners he would have to become a "dry-land sailor", telling them of the sailors' reluctance to sail with a woman on board.
Remembering they had their vessel back, and with it, the $5,800 passage money that Captain John had earned for them, they offered to set him up as their port agent for their line at New York with a five per cent commission on all freight and cargo shipped back to Europe. This he very gladly accepted and he and Julia and Johnnie Lockett set sail from Skibereen for the last time aboard a company vessel, aboard which, unaided by any other female, Julia Lockett Collins gave birth on May l0th, 1851 to Timothy Francis Collins, two days outside of the Port of New York, where young Timothy was baptized two weeks later on May 24th, 1851, in, St. James Church on Oliver Street where Al Smith was also later to be baptized and, like Timothy in the years yet to come, would be taught by the Christian Brothers, who, in. turn, would teach Timothy's son, grandsons, (including myself) and his great-grandsons to the third and fourth generation.
THE STORY OF MARGARET AND ELLEN
Part I of an Irish Saga
Our story begins in a small village in the County of Fermanagh, in the province, but yet not really in the province, of Ulster, in Ireland across the sea. It was just south of the River Boyne of Bonnie Prince Charlie's fame.
It is about two Irish lassies, one named Margaret and the other named Ellen. Margaret was Margaret Lee, one of the many daughters of John and Margaret Lee, the elders. It would be just as well right here to name all of her sisters and brothers because they will, each at one time or another, come to be part, even a big part of Margaret's story as it comes about.
First there was Annie Lee, the oldest of them all, in later years to be known throughout the family as "Aunt Annie"; then there was Johnnie Lee, her oldest brother, who would inherit the farm and never leave Ireland. Then there was Bridgie Lee, followed by Margaret's other brother Tommy. Then there was Margaret herself, followed by the Pretty Rose, the baby sister and everyone's darling.
Ellen was Ellen Agnew, the only daughter, in fact, the only child of Hughie Agnew, the village schoolmaster, who taught the British children who attended the English supported school, the English exclusive school. Hughie Agnew was the elder Margaret Lee's brother and so, the younger Margaret Lee's uncle. Ellen and Margaret were first cousin's in fact, but more like two loving sisters, with but two years between them, Ellen being the older.
It is well to call to mind at this time that England and the English king ruled all of Ireland, the north and the south, Ulster, Munster, Leinster and Connaught, and rule it she did and all of the Irish men and all of the Irish women who lived on that "small green isle." This sad fact affects very strongly our story of Margaret and Ellen and the stories of John and Timothy, which comes after, and the story of Michael and John which follows after that. It was the lack of opportunity, of education and occupation that had sent Annie Lee ("Aunt Annie" of our story) and her youngest brother, Tommy, off to America, the first, but by no means the last of the Lees to leave home. Annie, perhaps just because she was Annie, always to her death venturing forth in new directions, and Tommy of a certainty, because his older brother Johnnie would inherit the farm, or more accurately the holdings of the Lees. When the elder Johnnie passed on, the younger Johnnie would take over, with her own rooms for his mother till she died years later.
This is what I said a while back, that English rule and English law would affect the lives and the stories of the people whose tale I will try to tell.
English rule meant English law, and English law carried with it the rule of primogeniture, which the Normans as conquerors, had brought with them to England which, even to this day still exists in many forms even in our own State of New Jersey, which was originally a crown colony of England before the Revolutionary War. Primogeniture, for the benefit of my very young listeners, means the first-born that is the oldest son shall inherit, whether it be a kingdom to the eldest son of a king or a small farm to the oldest son of a farmer. But that is something of another story and no more need be mentioned of it here.
Annie and Tommy Lee first came to the home of their mother's middle brother, their Uncle John Agnew who was then living in lower Jersey City New Jersey just across the Hudson River from New York. While there, "Aunt Annie" met and married (in St. Mary's Church) a young man named Willie Fleming. I mention St. Mary's Church because it will also be playing a very great part in the lives and loves, the births and deaths, in the weddings and christenings of Margaret and Ellen, John and Timothy and even of Michael and John when we get around to their story, and to all those that come after them into this century.
But to get back to our first story, that of our two lassies, that of Margaret and Ellen. It was now about the year of Our Lord 1870 and of Victoria Regina the Thirtieth. Victoria was the long living Queen of England then sitting on the English throne in Buckingham Palace in London. And Hughie Agnew was about to start a new school year across the Irish Sea in Fermanagh. But Uncle Hughie needed someone to look after his few sheep and two cows while he was trying to cram some learning into the heads of the sons and daughters of the Orangemen landlords. In plain words, he needed a "Little Bo Peep"; in fact two of them. And "Where to find them" Hughie thought. As for the few sheep, that was no great problem. His own fifteen year old Ellen, who, like all of the Irish children, could not attend Uncle Hughie's, or should I better say, Victoria-Regina's school, had time on her hands while her father was a-teaching. She could, and so became his "Little Bo Peep." But as for the cows, that was another thing. But here, he didn't have to look far either. His niece, Margaret, who was then, and even after, much with Ellen her other self underfoot around Uncle Hughie's house. So after a word with Margaret's mother, he asked Margaret, who was then thirteen years old, if she would pasture the two cows while Ellen tended the sheep and he taught at school from nine to three and from Monday to Friday. He didn't have to ask twice.
And so it was after that, that every weekday morning Margaret would come to Ellen's home and the two girls would take the sheep and the cows out to pasture along with their lunches and would stay with them all through the day and watch over them through sunshine and rain, through the hot summers and cold winters for the next two whole years.
Now in April of the second year, that is when Margaret was fifteen years old, one of the cows had a baby girl calf, which is called a heifer, and you know what, her Uncle Hughie gave the heifer to Margaret Lee for her very own self for taking care of the two cows for the two whole past summers and winters.
And was Margaret happy? Now she had a pet all her own, not a kitten as some girls have or a puppy as some boys, but a sweet little heifer that followed Margaret wherever Margaret went and would come to her when Margaret called, except when the heifer was taking milk from her mother, the cow.
That summer, that is in July of 1872, Uncle Hughie sold his sheep and Ellen, who was then seventeen years old, and seeing nothing for her to do all day after that around the farm or around the house, while her father taught school, wanted to come to America. And she asked her father, Uncle Hughie, if she could go. First he wanted to know where in America or, perhaps better said, to whom had she a mind to go, because he knew though Annie Lee was married to Willie Fleming and Tommy Lee was still at his brother Johnnie's place in Jersey City and so, perhaps not able to take Ellen in, he was not sure enough to say "yes." But when Ellen said "to her Uncle Phillie" (Agnew), her father's youngest brother in Brooklyn, New York, he said, "yes" and he gave her the passage money out of that he got from his sale of the sheep, which she had tended for two whole summers and winters.
The next morning when Margaret came over Ellen told her all that had happened and that she was going to Uncle Phillie's in Brooklyn. At this Margaret started to cry. She burst out, "Oh Ellen, whatever am I going to do with you gone?"
Ellen tried to comfort her, but Margaret could not stop crying and then Ellen said in a sort of desperation, "Why don't you come too?"
Now remember Ellen was only seventeen years old and Margaret was but fifteen years old, but when Ellen asked "Why don't you come too?", Margaret said "Where would I get the passage money?" At which Ellen, who then and all her later life got right down to the bottom of things, said laughingly "You ninny, you can sell you heifer." And though Margaret truly loved her heifer, she loved Ellen more and couldn't bear to be parted from her, and she did just that and sold her heifer and got enough for the passage money to New York in America; out of Skibereen and Cobh, or Queenstown, if you will, Margaret went to her sister Annie Fleming's house on lower Grove Street in the parish of St. Mary's, Jersey City, New Jersey and Ellen to Uncle Phillie's in Brooklyn. "Aunt Annie" soon found service for Margaret with a family named Ainsworth at 253 3rd Street, two doors from Jersey Avenue, from whose home she was married, as if she was the daughter to the house, with a dowry and in the family phaeton in St. Mary's Church, Jersey City, New Jersey, in 1876 at the age of nineteen years to Timothy Francis Collins. And that my dears, is the story of Margaret and Ellen, two Irish lassies and of their sheep and heifer, far away in Fermanagh near the River Boyne far across the sea in distressed Ireland.
"More of Young Timothy"
Young Timothy, if you recall from the "Story of Captain John and Timothy", arrived in the City of New York in May of 1851 and lived with his father, Captain John, and his mother, Julia Lockett Collins on Cherry Street in the lower east side of New York in St. James' Parish on Oliver Street near-by. His father was the Port Agent for his company's shipping line. The family lived modestly, but a cut above the average Irish immigrant of the time.
In September, 1857 he started in St. James' parochial school, but before he reached the grammar grades the Civil War broke out in 1861 and the first important battle between the union and Confederate forces, that of Bull Run or Manasas Junction, took place on Sunday July 21st with a defeat and heavy losses to the Union Army. Some days later President Lincoln issued a call for 75,000 volunteers and Captain John, Timothy's father, enlisted the next day in the Union Army, but leaving Timothy to continue school at St. James.
When school opened in September of 1861, he came under the instructions of the Christian Brothers, one of whom was Brother Ambrose, an able teacher but a strict disiplinarian, respected, revered and yet liked by each class as it came up and passed out into the world, which young Timothy Collins did, graduating with the top of his class in June, 1865, right after the close of the Civil War and the assassination of President Lincoln. He and the other three top ranking members of that graduating class of 1865 of St. James' parochial school were offered appontments to West Point and Annapolis because the Academies were empty of "cadets" and '"plebes" due to the Civil War when the Academies were closed, so that the officer corps of both services could be quickly built up to fill the many vacancies due to the war.
But a military or naval career was not to be for Timothy. As all shipments of goods and wares to England from the Port of New York had ceased at the out break of the Civil War in 1861, due to England's espousal of the Confederacy, Captain John's income as Port Agent for his company's line had also ceased, and the family was somewhat hard-put to get along. Knowing this, and that his help was needed at home, young Timothy reluctantly declined the appointment to West Point and then went to work at the New York World on Park Row as a printer's "devil" and copy boy.
He was attentive to his work and three months after he started, in December, 1865, he began his apprentiship and after three years, in 1868, he "ran out of his time" and became a full-fledged compositor with the New York World, which was a morning paper and whose publisher was Joseph Pulitzer. This was at the time that Mr. Raymond was Editor of the N.Y. Times and Horace Greeley was Editor of the N.Y. Herald.
Young Timothy, who was then 17 years old, was still living at home on Cherry Street with his father, mother, sister "Lolly" and uncle Johnnie Lockett. Timothy was the principal support of the family at that time.
During the next eight years, changes took place in the family and in the household. First, Timothy's mother, Julia, died about 1871. Second, Uncle Johnnie met and married Maria O'Neill and shortly thereafter the couple moved to 94 Bleeker Street in Jersey City Heights in St. Anne's parish. Next, sister "Lolly" met and married Bill Baker and they moved to Vroom Street in N.Y. City. About l873, "Captain John", Timothy's father passed on around the age of 55, and Young Timothy, the last of the Collinses, left the house on Cherry Street.
He took a room with some friends on Oliver Street and continued to work on the New York World, becoming more proficient at his trade and he started to save much of his wages. Sometime in late 1874, or more likely in early 1875, he met Margaret Lee at an Irish social, in New York, probably a St. Patrick's Day celebration. He began courting and in 1876 Timothy Collins and Margaret Lee were married in St. Mary's Church in Jersey City, as you may well recall from the earlier story of "Margaret and Ellen." Timothy and Margaret took up roots on Railroad Avenue, not far from the Cortland St. ferry to New York, which enabled Timothy to get to work at the New York World on Park Row in New York City.
While they were still living on Railroad Avenue in the year 1879 "Johnnie" Collins was born and Timothy and Margaret named him after Timothy's father, Captain John. In 1881, Julia was born and they named her after Timothy's mother. On January 1st, New Years Day, 1883, Anna, my mother was born and they named her after "Aunt Annie", Margaret's oldest sister. As mentioned earlier, Timothy was earning good wages on the New York World and before his marriage had been saving the greater part of them and even after his marriage and the coming of the children, he managed to save some part of them every week, the rent being low for the rooms they occupied on Railroad Avenue, and Margaret being a thrifty housekeeper.
In 1886, Margaret expressed a wish to go back to Fermanagh to see her mother once again before she died. Timothy readily agreed, always wishing to please Margaret. He secured passage for the five of them, gave up their rooms on Railroad Avenue where they had so happily lived for ten years, and they set sail for Ireland, "Johnnie" being seven years old, Julia four years old, and my mother three years old at the time.
It was truly a joyous occasion for all when they reached the little farm house in Fermanagh. Margaret's mother was so happy to see her once more and was very pleased that Margaret had married "so well." Johnnie Lee and his wife made them most welcome. They all liked Timothy from the start. The family [stayed] in Fermanagh over a month and everybody was reluctant to see them leave.
As the time approached for them to leave, "Pretty Rose" the grown-up baby of the Lee family got Timothy aside and, as Margaret earlier had said to "Ellen", "What will I do when you're gone?" Rose said the same thing to Timothy and he, knowing the story of how Margaret had come to America, was sympathetic and when Rose added "I can't even get a husband here", Timothy, full of his own happiness and feeling sorry for Rose, agreed to take her with them to America and to pay her passage, it being agreed with all that Rose, like Margaret before her would go to her sister, "Aunt Annie" Fleming's house on Grove Street in lower Jersey City. So finally they left with Rose along with them and all her beauty. This was to be somewhat of a disaterous mistake, not only for Rose herself, but for many other people in the family, not excepting "Aunt Annie."
When they arrived in Jersey City in the fall of 1886, they took rooms on the south side of Plymouth Street so that Timothy would be able to walk to the Exchange Place ferry to Cortland Street and so get to work on the New York World on Park Row.
On the other side of Plymouth Street wrere the tracks and yards of the Pennsylvania Railroad, the great railroad to Washington in the South and to Chicago and St. Louis in the West, in which yards I myself in later days worked while going to law school. My mother used to tell me how they enjoyed watching the crack trains, the Congressional Limited and the Broadway Limited leaving the Station at Exchange Place bound for Washington and Chicago, the dining cars and observation cars all lit up and aglow.
Though they were actually living in St. Peter's parish, they continued as parishioners at St. Mary's Church at Second and Erie Streets, though it was eight long blocks to church and school. Timothy attended the printer's mass at 2 A.M. on Sundays in St. Andrew's Church on Duane Street, close to Park Row and the New York World.
The pastor of St. Mary's Church at the time was "Dean" Senez, a French Salesian, from the Sorborne. He had erected a school, the "Catholic Institute" and had engaged the Christian Brothers as Teachers of the boys after the fourth grade and the Sisters of Charity of St. Elizabeth, for the girls and the earlier grades of the boys.
He had founded and erected St. Francis Hospital on a site on the eastern side of Hamilton Park and had asked the Francican Sisters from Germany to staff and conduct it. He was the most able pastor of his times in the United States of French civilization. In 1890, he founded the Holy Name Society for the men of the parish and erected for them a four-story club house on Jersey Avenue between Second and Third Street with auditorium and gymnasium on the top floor, meeting rooms and offices on the third floor, a billiard room and reading rooms on the second floor and bowling alleys and showers on the main floor and the heating plant in the basement. He was years ahead of his times.
"Johnnie" Collins, who was now six years old, started school in the Catholic Institute in September, 1886, Julia 1888 and my mother, Anna, Collins, in 1889. My father, John Corcoran, in the meanwhile had started school with the "Brothers" in the Catholic Institute in the fifth grade in 1888 and was two years ahead in class and one year older than "Johnnie" Collins and they were quite friendly with each other. My father had to leave school in 1892 when he was fourteen years old and in the eigth grade and go to work as a plumber's helper in Jimmie Murray's shop on Grove Street between Newark Avenue and Bay Street.
When "Johnnie" Collins reached the Brother's classes in 1890, his first teacher was was a Brother Ambrose. One day Brother Ambrose asked "Johnnie" "Is your father's name "Timothy?" and when "Johnnie" answered "Yes", Brother Ambrose told him "I taught him many years ago in St. James' School in New York City; try to be as good a pupil as he was." "Johnnie" graduated in 1895 at the head of his class and his first class teacher was a Brother Malachi, of whom we will hear at a later date. Julia graduated second in her class in 1896, and my mother, Anna Collins, graduated at the head of her class in 1897.
But to go back a bit in our story and, as related earlier, when they returned from Ireland with the Pretty Rose in tow and had "parked her" in Aunt Annie Fleming's house, the family took rooms on Plymouth Street and Timothy returned to work on the New YorkWorld. And as also mentioned earlier, the New York World was a"morning" paper, as were all the other important papers in New York Citv. That meant that Timothy (who no longer could be called "Young" Timothy) worked from 4 P.M. until midnight, with the exception of Sundays. He had, perhaps, at this time become the best news paper printer in the whole of New York City.
The "Mail & Express", a newspaper published on Dey Street in New York at the time, was also a "morning" paper and when the presses finished printing the newspaper about 6.30 A.M., they were idle until late that evening. The owners, to increase their revenue, wished to do "Job" printing during the idle part of the day and they looked around and asked around to secure a "good" and able shop foreman. Their invariable answer was "Try and get Tim Collins away from the New York World." In time, Timothy was asked to come to their offices for an interview and they offered him the position as a "working" foreman at an increase over his salary at the New York World. That, and the fact that he would be working "days" and able to be more with his growing children, made up his mind for him and he accepted the position. He was to have charge of employing the printers, pressman and composers for the "Jobs" shop, as well as supervision over them and the work. All this was in 1887. He took one or two of the printers with him from the "WORLD" who also wanted"day" work to the Mail & Express and at the same salary they were getting on the "WORLD", and he picked up five or six more who had reputations in the trade for ability. From the start the "Job" shop made money under him.
Timothy was at the time and remained so to his death, a great admirer of Eugene V. Debs, who several times was the Socialist candidate for President of the United States. Debs was a great believer and protagonist of "Organized Labor" for all industries, (a forerunner of John L. Lewis and the C.I.O. by many years). Timothy believed very strongly in the dictum of Debs that all industrial employees should organize, not by craft, but by industries; "one union for each industry."
At that time, no newspaper in New York was unionized and the International Typographical Union was just being formed with a few members from here and there from the daily newspapers joining it. With such thoughts in his mind, Timothy gradually brought into the "Job" shop of the Mail & Express, as replacements as soon as vacancies occurred, men in the trade that he had come to know felt as he did - "That the time had come to have a union." In the three years from 1887 to 1890 through replacements, he now had under him seven men, who like himself, wanted a union.
In 1890, he took out membership in "Big Six", the New York City Chapter of the "I.T.U." and persuaded one other employee of the "Job" shop to join with him. The remaining six promised to join up if they or the Union could get a contract with the publishers. A meeting was held off the premises of the Mail & Express and all eight reached the same conclusion, "Somehow or other they would try to get the publishers to enter into a contract recognizing their union.
They got in touch with the officers of "Big Six" of the I.T.U. and asked them to have a Union representative approach the publishers of the Mail & Express and ask for a contract recognizing the Union as the bargaining agent for it's "Job" shop employees The Union officers agreed to do this and a representative was sent to the publishers who promptly rejected the request for a contract. All of the "Job" shop employees went out on strike and started to picket the plant. All of the newspaper employess of the plant, though not yet unionized, respected the picket line and did not go into work and the newspaper had to shut down. After a week, the publishers gave in as the strike was not over wages but only over union recognition. The publishers of the Mail & Express signed the first union contract in the United States in the printing industry and the first newspaper to do so. It recognized "Big Six" Chapter of the International Typographical Union as the bargaining agent for the "Job" shop employees of the New York Mail & Express. All of the employees came back to work and the newspaper resume publishing, but with disasterous results to Timothy Collins. Whether it was because it was he who had gone on strike, or that one of the seven through jealousy, disclosed to the publishers that Timothy was the one instrumental in bringing in the union, Timothy was discharged by the Mail & Express. At the request of it's publishers, he was blacklisted on all of the newspapers of the City of New York, and never again in his life time could he secure employment at his trade anywhere in the United States. The newspaper publishers throughout the United States, starting in New York and extending to San Francisco, abhored all unions and stood steadfast in blacklisting this man, Timothy Collins, because he had brought about the first union contract in the printing industry and had brought unions into "their" newspaper trade.
In time, (about 1908) he became the first printer in the United States to receive the "I.T.U." pension, which is provided by the International for all it's retired members and their widows and children. When he first received it, it was but Thirty Dollars per month, but this sum was sufficient and most welcome because it made him independent once again and no longer wholly dependent on my father and mother's charity. He was able, out of his meager means, to pay for his room in our house and to purchase his modest wants of manly comfort, his pipes (clay), his tobacco (Ivanhoe) and an occasional drink of good liquor. For him in the end, membership in the International Typographical Union was the "good" thing that he believed union membership should be for all working men; but in his case he received it's benefits when he had ceased working at his trade. He treasured his union membership until he died on June 26th, 1928 at the age of 77. His two grandsons, my brothers, Donald and Cyril, followed him into the printing trade, becoming members of "Big Six"; Donald working on the New York Daily News until he retired in 1975, and Cyril, after he returned from the Army at the end of World War II, working on the New York Journal-American and Mirror, where he was Chapel Chairman until he died in 1957 at an early age.
And so we come to the end of the tale of Timothy Francis Collins, born at sea on May 10th, 1851 and who died in St. Mary's Hospital in Hoboken, N.J. on June 26th 1928; never naturalized, but exercising all of the prerogatives of citizenship, voting in every election until he died and discharging all of the obligations of citizenship, keeping his adopted country's laws and serving on juries whenever called.
He lived an eventful life and lived to see the lot of the working man, of which he was a proud member, become one of dignity and financial security, mainly through the medium of the "industrial union", in which he believed so deeply and to which he unstintingly gave so much.
Trip To Convent Station
On Sunday, July 5th 1914, when I was not quite 11 years old, "Timpa" was up and at 7:30 Mass, but he woke me up before he left for church and told me to get up, get dressed and have breakfast before I went to the 9 o'clock Mass and while there, ask to be excused from the choir that day, that would sing the 11 o'clock High Mass, because I was going to visit my aunt "Nanny" at Convent Station, New Jersey.
The occasion was the first day that Sister Nanny (Timpa's daughter and my Godmother) could have visitors. For on Thursday, July 2nd, the feast of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to her cousin Saint Elizabeth. Sister Nanny had taken her first postulant's vows, after being on a sort of probation for the 13 weeks from March 25, 1914, the feast of the Annunciation, until July 2nd, the feast of the visitation.
I readily secured permission to miss the 11 o'clock High Mass that Sunday to see my aunt and Godmother in the convent. When I came out of the 9 o'clock children's mass, Timpa was waiting for me and asked if I had been excused from the 11 o'clock Mass and when I assured him that I had been, he said " Let's be on our way - It's a long way to go."
At Newark Avenue and Erie Street, we waited for a "Turnpike" trolley car to come along and then boarded it. Up Newark Avenue it went to the "Five corners", down West Newark Avenue past Lorrilards cigarette factory and on to the bridge crossing the Hackensack River into Kearney. There past the "Meadow Shops" of the Pennsylvania Railroad and stopping at the grade crossing of the Newark bound tracks of the Lackawanna, while the conductor went ahead and pulled back on the lever to switch off the "derail" as was necessary at all grade crossings in the State. Having safely negotiated that, we proceeded towards Harrison and the Quaker Soap factory, and it's smelly odor on the town's east side.
Along Harrison avenue, past the Town Hall and Peter Daelger's brewery and then Holy Cross Church at 4th Street and still along Harrison Avenue for the next 8 blocks till the trolley came to the bridge over the Passaic River. Up and on the bridge and over the river to Newark itself on the west side of the bridge. Up Bridge Street to Broad Street, south on Broad Street to Park Place, east on Park Place to Mulberry Street and south on Mulberry Street to Market Street where we transferred to a "Springfield" trolley bound west.
Up Market street, on to Springfield Avenue, through Irvington, South Orange and at last to the village of Springfield, where we debarked at the village square and park. Our carfare from Erie Street, Jersey City with transfers was 20 cents.
Timpa brought along ham sandwiches for our lunch. There was a news stand on the corner, where he bought me a bottle of orange soda and we went over to a table and its benches and proceeded with our lunch. It was now about a quarter after 12. Timpa, to wash his down, had a "nip" from a pocket flask while I drank my orange soda.
After Timpa had a smoke of his clay pipe, we went over to the west side of the village square and park to wait for a trolley of the Morris County Traction Company, which left on the hour. At one o'clock, with us aboard paying 20 cents fare getting on and another 20 cents when later we got off, through Millburn, Short Hills, Chatam, and Madison, the trolley journeyed and four or five miles out of Madison, we came at last to our destination, Convent Station and the tall towers of the College of Saint Elizabeth. It was now just 2:00 PM. We had been four hours on our journey, counting lunch time.
As we got off the trolley, we stretched our legs and slowly and sedately walked up to the center door of the college administration building and rang the bell. The door was opened by the Sister Porter, who invited us in. We were presented to the novice mistress who asked us whom did we wish to see. Timpa, who yet did not know Sister Nanny's or Sister Dolly's names in religion, replied "My daughter, Julia Collins and my grand-niece, Theresa McMurren." The Novice Mistress looked into a very large book on her desk and said "You mean Sister Rita Aloysius and Sister Grace DePaul. I'll send for them - have seats in the parlor", which we did.
In a few minutes Sister Nanny and Sister Dolly came in and there was huggins all around. Sister Dolly, who was the older, religious-wise, suggested we go out into the sunshine outside. All four of us were glad to do just that.
First, Sister Dolly took us over to the "novice house" where she lived, worked and studied. It had wide spacious halls and many small visiting parlors on the ground floor. Each of the novices had her own room upstairs, the newest on the top or 4th floor, those a little older on the 3rd floor, and those about to be "professed" on the 2nd floor. Sister Dolly's room was on the top floor.
It was then she told us that the previous Wednesday, July 2nd, the feast of the visitation of the blessed virgin Mary to her cousin Saint Elizabeth (the patron saint of their order) she had taken her first vows. It would be eight long years and after seven of them on mission service, before she would take her final vows.
After this, Sister Nanny suggested the four of us go over to where she and the other "postulants" lived, worked and studied, which we did. Her building was in the other wing than Sister Dolly's and the other novices. This building was a replica of the novices residence building; wide halls, many visiting parlors and bedrooms upstairs for the 60 or so postulants that recently had joined the community. When we asked, that is Timpa and I, we were told that the college and the academy were closed for the summer and the boarding students had all returned home, not to come back until the day after Labor day in September when a new college year would begin.
Having seen the dormitories, the classrooms, (now vacant) and having glimpsed into the kitchen, where a supervisory sister was instructing some 30 lay women and 3 or 4 men (chefs and butchers), we then went up to God's acre, the Community burial ground. It was peaceful and serene there with but some 30 to 40 plots filled (each marked with a headstone) and room for many more burials. At Mother Xavier's grave we knelt, with heads uncovered (Timpa and I) and said a prayer for the repose of her soul and for the repose of the souls of all the sisters of the community buried there, since the founding of the order, some 30 years earlier. It was now approaching 4 o'clock and the sisters from all the buildings and on the grounds were hurrying over to the college church (it was much bigger than a chapel) for Vespers and Benediction to be celebrated by the Community Chaplain.
Sister Nanny and Sister Dolly went, each to join her own group and Timpa and I and other lay visitors took seats in the last few pews. To those who do not remember vespers (I was not one of them - I sang it twice on every Sunday, in the afternoon and again at night) the Psalms are the "Defit Dominum", the" Confidebur Tibe", the "Laudate Anima", and last but best of all the "Magnificat" - "My soul doth magnify the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior." I have never heard Vespers sung so beautifully as on that Sunday afternoon of July 5th, 1914. Then came benediction. We of Saint Mary's Catholic Institute, with our all male choir did do better than the Sisters choir that afternoon. We had a magnificently trained quartet of James Dolan, John Neer, Joseph Scanlon, and Jack Sweeney. It may be that I was then and am now more moved by Tenors and Baritones than by Sopranos and Contraltos, but when Jack Sweeney soloed the "O Salutaris" in a darkened church, there was not a dry eye in the church. He was both Cherubim and Seraphim and when the 4 of them (the quartet) sang "Tantum Ergo", all one could think of who heard them was the "Heavenly Choir" that chanted "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord". The nuns were at a disadvantage though in attempting to sing the "Tantum Ergo" - it calls for lustiness of expression, not the sweet plaintiveness of very young novices and postulants.
After Benediction, Sister Dolly and Sister Nanny joined US once more. This time they took us down to the Rose Garden and the glassed-in hot house covering at least a 1/2 acre. The Community's gardener came out of the hot house with roses and smilax for Sister Dolly and Sister Nanny and boutonnieres for Timpa and me.
It was now approaching six o'clock (there was no daylight saving time in those years) and Sister Dolly and Sister Nanny had to go into dinner. Timpa and I walked them to their respective dormitory buildings and with a new series of huggins and kisses, we parted company, with a promise to be back the Sunday nearest September 8th, the Nativity of Our Blessed Lady and the birthday of my Father.
Slowly and with hesitant steps we made our way, not this time to the trolley cars, but to the Lackawanna Railroad Station where Timpa went in and, out of his very meager resources, purchased one full fare and one 1/2 fare to Hoboken, New Jersey at a cost of $1.20. We waited on the platform until, with a darkness-piercing headlight, the powerful Steam Locomotive, drawing 14 cars behind her, out of Buffalo, New York, throttled down and came to rest. With that, Timpa and I boarded the "Smoker" behind the baggage car and took our seats on the south side of the car, I at the window to watch our passage through the towns that we had crawled through on the Morris County Traction Company's trolley car.
Soon I fell asleep as Timpa lit his pipe, took another nip from his pocket flask and settled down for the next 26 miles. At 7:20 PM we arrived at Hoboken, left the terminal and picked up a Grove Street car for Third and Grove Streets, and so ended the happiest day of my life until then.
John J. Corcoran Jr.