Rainsford Island

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Rainsford Island © Bill McEvoy is a US Army Veteran (1968-1971). He earned a BA from Bentley University, MBA from Suffolk University, and MA in Political Science from Boston College. While at BC he had the privilege of participating in a semester long colloquium with Dr. Thomas H. O’Connor, the Dean of the History Department. In 2009, Bill retired as a Massachusetts District Court Magistrate. He has volunteered for eight years with the “No Veteran Dies Alone” program at the Bedford Veterans Hospital, as well as continuing as a pro bono Magistrate, one day per week, until October 1, 2019. Since his first month of retirement, he has performed many large-scale cemetery research projects, several as a volunteer at Mount Auburn Cemetery (MAC). In addition to Rainsford Island he performed a four year study of the 23,000+ people (primarily Irish immigrants or their first generation descendants) buried from 1854 to 1920 at the Catholic Mount Auburn Cemetery (CMAC), Watertown, MA. The CMAC project made him aware of the high mortality rate of Boston’s children. Of 15,562 burials, from 1854-1881, 80% died in Boston. During that period: forty-nine percent of all CMAC burials were children who did not reach age 6. Forty-five percent did not reach age 4. The residents of MACC, and its history, are highlighted in his latest publication, Mount Auburn Catholic Cemetery East Watertown, MA Most of the people buried at Rainsford, and CMAC, resided in Boston’s tenements. Having combined both cemetery databases, Bill’s latest project will measure the positive impact of Boston's men and women whose philanthropic efforts were directed at tenement reforms during the last half of the nineteenth century. Alice North Towne Lincoln, who is prominent in this book, and her husband Roland, were very active in that movement. In addition to the rehabilitation of properties, the reformers attempted to change the lives of their tenants by setting boundaries of behavior, providing encouragement and life skills, as well as closely overseeing the operation of the properties. Bill’s research has brought him back to Mount Auburn Cemetery, as the Lincoln’s, and many other reformers, are buried there. Robin Hazard Ray has written for the MIT News, the Boston Herald, and many other publications. Her published novel, The Stranger’s Tomb, is the first in a planned trilogy of murder mysteries involving cemeteries. 2 © RAINSFORD ISLAND A Boston Harbor Case Study in Public Neglect and Private Activism First Printing September 3, 2019 Second Printing October 15, 2019 Revised Edition February 18, 2020 Copyright: May 13, 2019 William A. McEvoy Jr, & Robin Hazard Ray Dedicated to my wife, Lucille McEvoy 3 © Table of Contents Preface by Bill McEvoy ....................................................................................................................... 5 Introductory Note by Robin Hazard Ray .............................................................................................. 9 1. The Island to 1854 .................................................................................................................................. 10 2. The Hospital under the Commonwealth, 1854–67 ............................................................................... 15 3. The Men’s Era, 1872–89 ......................................................................................................................... 32 4. The Women’s Era, 1889–95 .................................................................................................................. 44 5. The Infants’ Summer Hospital, 1894–98 ............................................................................................... 61 6. The House of Reformation, 1895–1920 ................................................................................................. 72 7. The Dead of Rainsford Island ........................................................................................................ 95 Epilogue .................................................................................................................................................... 111 Appendix 4. 2: Inventory of Rainsford Island, 1890………………………………………………………………………….117 Appendix 7.2: Known burials at Rainsford Island…………………………………………………………………………….123 Pictures…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..155 Cover illustration: Sweetser, M. F. (Moses Foster), 1848-1897, Charles George Copeland, illustrator, and Moses King. King's Handbook of Boston Harbor. Cambridge Mass. Moses King, publisher, p 181 4 © Preface by Bill McEvoy I first became acquainted with Rainsford Island, located in Boston Harbor, during my research on the Catholic Mount Auburn Cemetery, also known as the Sand Banks Cemetery, located in Watertown, MA. That four-year study, which began in February 2012, included recording the cemetery’s history, as well as gleaning all available vital statistical information on the 23,205 people interred there. Nearly all of the 5,311 Catholic Mount Auburn Cemetery’s burial lots were sold between 1854 and 1864. From 1854 to 1881, 81 percent of those buried there died in Boston. With a few exceptions, all were Irish immigrants who had fled the great famine of the late 1840s, or their descendants. That research made me aware of the hardships that newly arrived immigrants faced: poor living conditions; scanty health care; a lack of skills that allowed most to only work as laborers; dangerous working conditions; a prejudiced press, law-enforcement, and judicial system; and an extremely high rate of childhood mortality. Between 1854 and 1881, 49 percent of the 15,562 people buried at Catholic Mount Auburn died before age 6; 44 percent were under 4. The cause of death for 306 was listed as “teething.” Between 1856 and 1893, thirty-six of the people buried at the Catholic Mount Auburn Cemetery were noted as dying at Rainsford Island. Their ages ranged from nine months to eighty-six years. James Tubman, nine months old, died in 1863 at Rainsford Island from starvation. Prior to going to Rainsford, he had been Baptized at St. Joseph Church, Boston. Mary E. Sullivan, died in 1858 at Bennett Avenue [sic], Boston, from lung inflammation. She was born at Rainsford Island. What was Rainsford Island and why did so many indigent Irish immigrants die there? After a cursory review of the City of Boston Records of Death, as well as an attempt to determine the extent of work done by other researchers, I put those questions on hold while 5 © working on the Catholic Mount Auburn Cemetery project. With that work completed in February 2016, I was at last able to turn to Rainsford.1 Methodology My research on Rainsford Island involved many sources. Using online resources, I found over 1,000 newspaper articles and scholarly articles from the early 1800s to 1984 that included the words “Rainsford Island”. I reviewed all the City of Boston’s Records of deaths from 1800 to 1920 for mentions of the island, and I read every available governmental report from the City of Boston and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that mentioned it. I searched the Military records of Ancestry.com to discover the names of Civil War Veterans connected with the place and any who may have been buried there while still on active duty. Photographs and illustrations gleaned from various archives and databases helped to visualize the changing island landscape. I visited the City of Boston Archives for information on Rainsford Island, and I wrote to, as well as, personally searched the City of Boston cemeteries to see whether anyone originally buried at Rainsford Island may have been reinterred at another cemetery. The collections of the Boston Public Library turned up a limited amount of information on Rainsford Island, including historical maps. The City of Boston’s Archaeologist, Joseph Bagley, and other written sources, helped me figure out the former placement of buildings on the island. With the exception of the base foundation of the former piggery and the scattered foundations of one old hospital, no structures remain. Rainsford Island changed hands and uses many times. It was owned privately from 1636 to 1736. Thereafter it passed through various forms of governmental ownership, beginning with the Province of the Massachusetts Bay, followed by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the City of Boston. Today the island is part of a National and State Park. 1 The database, methodology, and PowerPoint presentation from that project are available on the website of Historical Society of Watertown, MA. The database is also held at Boston College’s Irish Studies Collection. All are welcome to utilize it. I request only that I be acknowledged as the source. 6 © Per the National Park Service’s Boston Harbor Islands web page: “The Boston Harbor Islands Partnership, together representatives from nonprofit organizations, federal agencies, and city and state government oversee the day-to- day operations of the Boston Harbor Islands. The Partnership meets regularly to report on island activities and develop overall strategies for this national and state park area.” The island’s complex history is best told by segmenting the various uses of the island, from fishing spot to summer retreat to sanitorium. Its story took a sinister turn in 1854, when the island started to be used as an off-shore dumping ground to deal with the mass immigration from Ireland. At first, the term “quarantine” was used to justify the segregation of unwanted persons far from any family or civic oversight. Later this
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