Irish Catholics in America

Census figures show an Irish population of 8.2 million in 1841, 6.6 million a decade later, and only 4.7 million in 1891. It is estimated that as many as 4.5 million Irish arrived in America between 1820 and 1930.

Our ancestors were part of this great migration. Kate Lynch immigrated from Ireland to Pennsylvania in 1881. Her future husband, Teddy Hopkins, immigrated in 1881 or 1882. In about 1888, they were joined by Teddy's father Michael. In about 1890 the entire Hopkins family headed west, settling in Tacoma, Washington.

The Library of Congress has an interesting site about Irish-Catholic immigrants to America that can tell us more about our ancestors' experiences. Unlike many immigrants who came with money, the Irish typically were very poor:

The Irish immigrants left a rural lifestyle in a nation lacking modern industry. Many immigrants found themselves unprepared for the industrialized, urban centers in the United States. Though these immigrants were not the poorest people in Ireland (the poorest were unable to raise the required sum for steerage passage on a ship to America), by American standards, they were destitute.

They lived in tiny, cramped tenement buildings in the cities which were hotbeds for diseases such as cholera, typus, and tuberculosis. With poverty came the social problems of violence, alcoholism and crime. Their wilolingness to work for very low wages put them into conflict with other working class immigrants. They were also discriminated against for their Catholic faith.

Because there were so many Irish-Americans in the cities, they became a powerful political force.

Irish-American political clout led to increased opportunities for the Irish-American. Looking out for their own, the political machines made it possible for the Irish to get jobs, to deal with naturalization issues, even to get food or heating fuel in emergencies. The political machines also rewarded their own through political appointments. In 1855, "...nearly 40% of New York City's policemen were immigrants, and about three-fourths of these immigrants were Irish."[Wittke, The Irish in America]

Many Irish immigrants also became union organizers and leaders.

Irish immigrants who settled in Washington state in the mid- to late 1800s had more opportunities than their urban east coast cousins. However, later settlers faced growing anti-Catholic sentiment in the early 1900s.

Our Hopkins ancestors followed the same trades as many other urban Irish: Teddy Hopkins was a mounted police officer in Tacoma in the early years of the 20th century. The older Hopkins son, John J., was also in law enforcement, serving as a parole officer at the Federal Penitentiary at McNeil Island. Younger son Thomas Michael, called Teddy Jr., was the business representative of the grain millers union, beginning in the late 1930s.

It is thanks to the Irish who arrived in the Puget Sount area before them that solid jobs were available to the Hopkins men in Tacoma.

Related Links
• Irish in Washington - The Early Years (1840s to 1890)
• Ancient Order of Hibernians in Washington State, 1890-2000. John J. Hopkins was an officer in the King County AOH, which served both Seattle and Tacoma.
• Irish Heritage Club: A History of the Irish in Seattle
• 1943 photo titled "Labor heads and service men at the U.S.O. (in Tacoma)" which includes Ted Hopkins, Jr. (From the Tacoma Public Library's Photography Archive)

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World War I Draft Registration

In 1917 and 1918, all males born between 1872 and 1900 were required to register for the draft. The draft registration cards are a great source of genealogical information, with registrant's home address, occupation and physical description.

Kay's father, Jess Lewis, and her uncle, Bert Lewis, both had to register:

Name: Justin Betts Lewis
Address: 2923 No 30 Tacoma, Pierce, Wa.
Birth: June 20, 1883 (age 35), native born
Occupation: Plumber foreman; Construction Co., Camp Lewis, Pierce, Wa
Nearest relative: Anna Lewis of 2923 No 30 Tacoma, Pierce, Wa (wife)
Description: Tall, medium build, blue eyes, ,brown hair

Name: Ethelbert Jenkins Lewis
Address: 621 So. 19 Tacoma, Pierce, Wash.
Birth: August 10, 1884 (age 34), native born
Occupation: Machinist, employed by John McRay, 23 and dock, Tacoma, Pierce, Wa
Nearest Relative: Mrs. Sarah Lewis 621 So. 19 Tacoma (mother)
Description: medium hight, medium build, blue eyes, dark hair

Neither Jess nor Bert were drafted into the miltary during the war.

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Where did our Lewis ancestors live?

I've been playing with the Google maps API to generate maps showing where our ancestors on the Lewis side of the family (Lewis, Hopkins, Betts and Metcalfe) lived over the past 150 years.

The advantage of using Google maps is that I can insert "pins" with information at different locations. The viewer can zoom in on any point and see either a standard map or a satellite view. I am still learning how the system works, so comments and suggestions would be appreciated.

The Lewis Family maps page.

At the moment only the most recent web browsers (Firefox/Mozilla, IE 5.5+, and Safari 1.2+) can be used to view the maps. I've found that Firefox works the best.

Download Firefox for free.

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John Walsh: Relative from County Mayo

The 1910 Census of Tacoma lists and family living at 2923 N. 30th (at the corner of Junett). In the household are Teddy (age 49), his wife Kate (47), sons John (24) and Teddy (18), and father Michael (85).
Also living in the Hopkins household was John Walsh, age 18, nephew to Teddy. John emigrated from Ireland in 1909. He was listed as an laboror for the "mill company".

A little digging has turned up more information about John and his family (our relatives) back in Ireland.

Passenger on the Ship Caronia
A search of the database of immigrants who passed through Ellis Island turned up the following listing:

John Walshe on the ship Caronia, which departed from Queenstown and arrived in New York on October 17, 1909.

• passenger record from Ellis Island (registration required, pages 552 and 553).

The passenger manifest gives a description of John: he is 5 foot 4 inches tall, with blue eyes, brown hair and a fair complexion. He declared he was not a polygamist or anarchist, and had no mental or physical problems.

John's last residence was Callow, Ireland. His nearest relative in the old country was his brother, James Walsh of Derrigan, Callow, County Mayo.

Most importantly, John indicated that he was going to join his "Uncle Teddy Hopkins, living at "2923 N. 30th St." in Tacoma.

Traveling with John was his sister Mary, age 16, who gave her occupation as "waitress". She also indicated that she was traveling to join her Uncle Teddy Hopkins.

The Walsh Family in Callow, County Mayo

The information in the passenger manifest gives enough clues to traces the Walsh family back to County Mayo.

The townland of Callow is in the Barony of Gallen in the Civil Parish and Roman Catholic Parish of Killaser, Swinford Poor Law Union, in County Mayo. It is near the town of Foxford. Map.

In the 1901 Census transcription, I have found only one Walsh family living in Callow:
Walsh Thomas(age 51), farmer
Anne(age 37) wife
children: John(10), James(8), Mary(6), Patt(5), Delia(2), Annie(3mo.)

This appears to be a close match to our John and Mary who emigrated to New York, leaving behind their brother James. Additional research is needed to confirm that this is indeed our Walsh family, and to determine the relationship to Teddy Hopkins.

John Walsh in Tacoma
It is unclear what happened to John Walsh after 1910. While there are several John Walshes listed in the 1920 Census, none clearly match the information we know about John. It is unknown if he stayed in Tacoma, or moved elsewhere.

Two men named John Walsh are listed in the 1921 Tacoma City Directory:
Page 767
Walsh John lab r 2016 1/2 N 30th
Walsh John lab Northwest Chair Co r 6320 South D.

It is unknown if either is related to the Hopkins family.

Hopefully researh on this branch of the family will lead to more information about the Hopkins family in Ireland.

Links:
• Steve Morse's one-step search forms for Ellis Island records and other genealogy-related databases.
• Description of Killasser Parish from Lewis's Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, 1837.
• Swineford Poor Law Union
• Museums of Mayo
• 1901 Census Transcription including counties Galway, Leitrim, Mayo, Roscommon, Sligo, Wexford and Westmeath.

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Justin B. Lewis: plumbers' organizations

I recently ran across two group photos which identify plumbers' organizations that Jess Lewis must have been associated with.

The first photo (8" x 41" including borders) is of a large group of people including Jess Lewis and is labeled 18th Annual Convention of Washington State Master Plumbers, May 16-17, 1913, Everett, Washington.

The second photo (8" x 26" including borders) is of a large group of people including Jess and Anna Lewis and their daughter Kathleen and is labeled Local #82 Plumbers and Fitters Picnic, Pt. Defiance Park, Tacoma, Aug. 20, 1922. That's interesting because other records indicate the family moved to Portland, Oregon in 1921 where he worked as a plumber.

When he was a plumbing contractor---J. B. Lewis Plumbing & Heating Co.---in Portland in the 1930s, 1940s, and early 1950s, he was a member of the Oregon State Master Plumbers and a member of the National Association of Plumbing Contractors. He served as President of the Oregon State Master Plumbers, and its Portland Chapter, in 1949 and 1950.

Photo:

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School for the Lewis children in Carbonado, Washington

Richard and Sarah (Betts) Lewis moved to Carbonado, Washington in about 1891. At that time, their children Justin "Jess", Ethelbert "Bert" and Bessie would have been about age 5, 7, and 8. The 1900 Census indicates that they were all "at school" during the previous year.

The Carbonado School District has placed a brief history of the town and school on-line. Included is a photo of the original schoolhouse, built in 1881, and probably attended by the Lewis children.

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Tacoma in the 1890s

Teddy Hopkins and family moved to Tacoma, Washington in about 1891. In about 1901, Richard Lewis and family moved down from the mining town of Carbonado to settle in Tacoma as well.

Due to several factors, including the arrival of the railroad from the east in 1887, Tacoma went through a massive population boom at the end of the 19th century: in 1885 the population was 7,000. By 1890 it was 36,000; and in 1900 had reached 53,000.

As a young reporter, Rudyard Kipling visited Tacoma in 1889 and described the mad grab for land:

So we took a train and killed a cow—she wouldn’t get out of the way, and the locomotive ‘chanced’ her and slew—and crossing into Washington Territory won the town of Tacoma, which stands at the head of Puget Sound upon the road to Alaska and Vancouver.

. . . Tacoma was literally staggering under a boom of the boomiest. . . . . The rude boarded pavements of the main streets rumbled under the heels of hundreds of furious men all actively engaged in hunting drinks and eligible corner-lots. They sought the drinks first. The street itself alternated five-story business blocks of the later and more abominable forms of architecture with board shanties. Overhead the drunken telegraph, telephone, and electric-light wires tangled on the tottering posts whose butts were half-whittled through by the knife of the loafer. Down the muddy, grimy, unmetalled thoroughfare ran a horse-car line—the metals three inches above road level. Beyond this street rose many hills, and the town was thrown like a broken set of dominoes over all. A steam tramway—it left the track the only time I used it—was nosing about the hills, but the most prominent features of the landscape were the foundations in brick and stone of a gigantic opera house and the blackened stumps of the pines. . . . We passed down ungraded streets that ended abruptly in a fifteen-foot drop and a nest of brambles’; along pavements that beginning in pine-plank ended in the living tree; by hotels with Turkish mosque trinketry on their shameless tops, and the pine-stumps at their very doors; by a female seminary, tall, gaunt and red, which a native of the town bade us marvel at, and we marvelled; by houses built in imitation of the ones on Nob Hill, San Francisco,—after the Dutch fashion; by other houses plenteously befouled with jig-saw work, and others flaring with the castlemented, battlemented bosh of the wooden Gothic school.

. . . The real-estate agents were selling house-lots on unmade streets miles away for thousands of dollars. On the streets—the rude, crude streets, where the unshaded electric light was fighting with the gentle northern twilight—men were babbling of money, town lots, and again money—how Alf or Ed had done such and such a thing that had brought him so much money; and round the corner in a creaking boarded hall the red jerseyed Salvationists were calling upon mankind to renounce all and follow their noisy God. The men dropped in by twos and threes, listened silently for a while, and as silently went their way, the cymbals clashing after them in vain.

["From Sea to Sea" , Volume 2 No. XXVII by Rudyard Kipling, published 1899]

In 1900 the Hopkins family lived at 2701 Water St. (now Waterview St.). According to the 1900 census, the home was owned free of mortgage.

In 1903, Teddy Hopkins built a home at 2923 No. 30th St. (at Junett). Photo of house. Map. His daughter Anna and son in law Justin "Jess" Lewis lived in the house next door at 3009 Junett. (enter 3009 Junett into the search fields).

Richard Lewis and family had a house at 621 So. 19th St. Map.

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