Father John Waldron, Chicago, USA

[From The Waldron Journal, No. 1, 1996]

Introduction and supplementary material by Paul Waldron

From a squatter settlement of 200 people in 1830, Chicago's population grew phenomenally through the nineteenth century. By 1860 Chicago's population was 100,000, and, despite having been almost wholly destroyed in the Great Fire of 1871, its population soared to 1,700,000 by 1900! One of the key players in the development of community and the enhancement and enrichment of ordinary, everyday life in Chicago during this remarkable period of growth was Father John Waldron, a native of Cloontumper, Ballyhaunis.

John Waldron

John Waldron was born and reared in Cloontumper, Ballyhaunis in 1830, son of John Waldron (Fardy) and Mary Sweeney. After spending some years at Saint Jarlath's College, Tuam, he emigrated to America at the early age of sixteen in 1846, during the great potato famine. He entered Saint Vincent's College and Seminary, Cape Girardeau, Missouri where he continued his education and graduated in 1854. He came to Chicago and, on the 22nd of September 1855, was ordained a priest in Saint Mary's Church, by Dr. Anthony O'Regan, Bishop of Chicago. Bishop O'Regan, incidentally, was a native of Levallyroe, Cloonfad, Ballyhaunis, about three miles from John's own birthplace, so, no doubt they knew each other. An account of Father John Waldron's life and work in the Diocese of Chicago appeared in "The Archdiocese of Chicago, Antecedents and Developments", published in 1920, from which the following is largely taken:

Father Waldron at Saint Louis Church

"Immediately after his ordination (in 1855) Father Waldron was appointed to take direction of the French Mission known as Saint Louis church. It was no flowery charge. Saint Louis was as poor in this world's goods as it was rich in dissentions. The majority of the congregation were French, and they clamoured for a priest who could address them in their own tongue. They had their will during the administration of Father Roles, who had learned French at the Grand Seminary, and preached it for years to the Acadians. Father Waldron had never seen Acadia or the Grand Seminary. French is not the language of the Mayo. The "Mayonese" speak English - under protest to be sure - attuning its harsh tones to the music of their own melodious rills, and they have a language of their own which philologists term the Erse. Father Waldron had the both of these on the tip of his tongue, but of the French he was barren. But he would not have been a true Mayo man if his mother wit did not rise to the solution of such a difficulty. He stood up in his pulpit the first Sunday and said to the malcontents: "I'll preach to you in Irish, and you can understand that as well as the rest of them." Dazzled by this strategic compromise all the French lost their discontent on admiration of the new priest, and thus the Gael triumphed over the Gauls.

Father Waldron remained in charge of Saint Louis for four years. If he lived to be a hundred it is not likely that the father would experience four years so difficult, so beset with adventure and danger. His parish was truly in the wilds. His flock claimed for a time most of the labourers on the then new canal - a riotous, Godless set. They made "Conley's Patch" a synonym of terrorism and outlawry. The whole region was unkempt and a bedlam. It triumphed in its excesses over a puerile authority of a half-formed government. That government had no powers to compare with those exercised by the industrious, enthusiastic priest working daily among his people, learning their wants and administering to them of his slender means, serving them as doctor and lawyer, as well as priest, governing them, in short, with the word and hand of a father. Few in America who now live, within or without the Church, have any notion of the importance of a priest in those early pioneer days. He was all in all to all men. Long John Wentworth recognised the fact when, despairing of control over the untamed South Side during his term as Mayor, he called Father Waldron to his office and conferred upon him the authority of a "Deputy Chief of Police." "I'd rather have your help than the whole police force without," protested the old leviathan. And the priest humbly assumed the new honour and continued his work. As an instance of the phenomenal appreciation of real estate since the fifties, Father Waldron often recalled a case which came within his experience during his pastorate at Saint Louis. He had among his congregation a very old man and wife, who had accumulated a small property. They recognised that they were not long for this world, and called the father to them for the purpose of making over to him a portion of their estate for the use of the Church - a proposition which Father Waldron in financial stress regarded with entire complacency. The old man owned the lot and house in which he lived. He proposed to the priest to make over his property or to give a donation of one hundred dollars in cash as the good father should elect. The lot was a dirty piece of ground, and one hundred dollars in hand was not an offering to be despised. Father Waldron accepted the money and lived to see the day when the Board of Trade was built on what might have been his property.

The Beginning of Saint John's

In June 1859, Father Waldron left Saint Louis and began the work of organising Saint John's parish. The property to be occupied had been donated by a Mr. Corrigan. On October the 30th, of the same year, he had his building ready for dedication. It was a huge affair for those days, built of pine, squatty, and in dimensions about 40 by 80 feet. The church stood on the Northwest corner of Butterfield Street (later known as Armour Avenue, now Federal Street) and Old Street, now Eighteenth Street. On the first page of a Record for Baptisms Father Waldron made these annotations: "I baptised in the Saint Louis church, from October 1st 1855 to October 1st 1859 one thousand nine children, and married three hundred couples," and anent the beginning of his new charge, "Saint John's church, dedicated by Rt. Rev. James Duggan, assisted by Rev. John Waldron, pastor; Very Rev. Dennis Dunne, V.G.; Very Rev. Arnold Damond, S.J.; Rev. Father Higginbotham and Very Rev. Patrick Dillon, president of Notre Dame College, Indiana. Chicago a small city in those days." In the spring of the following year he built his parochial residence just to the west of the church on Old Street.

Men marvelled at the folly of the priest, who dared go so far south as Eighteenth Street. But his experience was the same as that of Father Damen on the West Side. He built a church and the people came to it. In a remarkably short time Saint John's was numbered as one of the most flourishing parishes in the city. Its greatest increase came immediately after the Chicago fire. The County Hospital and Toby's packing house, located on West Eighteenth Street, the Illinois Central shops came to Sixteenth Street, near the lake, and the Rock Island shops to Twelfth and Clark; Libby's establishment was at Fourteenth and State Streets; all along the river was the lumber district, and the stock yards were at Twenty-second between State and Cottage Grove. "McFadden's Patch" was to the Northeast; "Kerry patch" to the north and west, and "Cleaverville" near the stock yards. Wabash Avenue was the home of the elite.

Saint John's School

In 1869 more property was purchased and a school erected facing Clark Street. It was one of the first an finest in all the city, built at a cost of more than $75,000, and to accommodate one thousand children. Lay teachers were first engaged, and then in time came the Sisters of Mercy and Christian Brothers. A fine, three-storey brick residence for the brothers was built facing on Butterfield Street. Many, many men and women now prominent in business life or Catholic social circles, received their primary education at Saint John's school and never tire with telling about their old-time teachers. With the sudden collapse of the parish the schools were abandoned shortly after Father Waldron's death, and the buildings have long since been razed to the ground.

The Present Church Building

On October the 7th 1877, a very wet day, as any of the 20,000 who attended may remember, Father Waldron began the erection of the present church. Bishop Spalding, the brilliant prelate of Peoria, preached the sermon. At about this very time some of the parishioners questioned the prudence of building on the present location, but after much controversy Father Waldron settled the dispute with the declaration that he "would rather build in the hearts of the people than over east on the avenue." The church was dedicated on October 7th 1881, Archbishop Feehan officiating. Archbishop Ryan of Philadelphia spoke at the mass, and Bishop Spalding at Vespers. It was an occasion worthy of these two most eloquent men. The church cost $150,000, and stands to this day a model in its style, strong in appearance, beautiful in its every line, always the chief pride of its gifted architect, the lamented Mr. Egan. In 1886 a parochial residence was completed entirely in keeping with the style and beauty of the church.

Decline of the Parish and Death of Father Waldron

The exodus from Saint John's began about two years after the dedication of the new church. Father Waldron had forced the Rock Island road to abandon Clark Street and move west to the alley, but could not check the inrush of half a dozen other railroads seeking a terminal east of Clark Street. Failing to buy him out they built around him, and practically took up all the property to the west and north of the church. In a few short years, hundreds and hundreds of his beloved poor and faithful families surrendered their humble homes to the railroads, and moved in affluence to help build up and be the first families in the many South Side parishes.

The good pastor died with a broken heart within a years time after he had moved into his new house. Few priests are ever mourned by the good old folks as he was mourned. As an evidence of his administrative abilities, there was only a debt of $40,000 on the entire plant when he laid down his burden on May 8th 1887. As a priest, Count Onahan, in an appreciation of his character, tells how "he was not a man of great learning, neither was he an eloquent preacher, but he possessed qualities more valuable than either learning or eloquence. He had great good sense and a store of priestly wisdom. He was his people's pastor, and regarded by them as a veritable Soggarth Aroon." Another gifted writer of the early times likens him in many respects to the Father Phil of Sam Lover's story. If by chance he met with one of his parishioners carrying home contraband goods, immediately his trusty blackthorn came into service; if it happened to be a housewife with baker's bread forthwith he delivered a lecture on domestic thrift. Street gangs and alley loafers dispersed when he hove into sight. And yet they all loved him. To the sick and poor he was God's almoner. He is the one whose name must always be first whenever mention is made about the beginning of Catholicity in the South Side. Be his name and memory in Benediction."

The Cloontumper Waldrons

There were a number of Waldron families in the townland of Cloontumper through the nineteenth century and, until the re-organisation of the land in the early 1900s, there were at least three families of the name living near each other at the very south of Cloontumper, near the railway and the mearing with the townland of Drumaderry. The Tithe Applotment Books, which date from about 1830, names three Waldron tithe-payers in Cloontumper: John, James and William Waldron. The Griffith's Valuation of 1856, lists the heads of these families as John F. Waldron, John R. Waldron and Martin Waldron, but how these individuals were related to the tithe-payers of twenty years earlier in unclear. The manuscript valuation books, from which these printed valuations are derived, distinguishes the two John Waldrons more clearly and calls them John Waldron (Fardy) and John Waldron (Richard). The names in brackets are most probably their own father's names, used to distinguish the two John Waldrons from each other, and from the many other John Waldrons in the locality at the time.

Father John's mother Mary Sweeney may have been one of the Sweeneys of Carrowmore, Brickeens. Certainly the surname was rare in the general area, and as far as the acting editor knows, the nearest family of the name to Cloontumper were those in Carrowmore. There is known to have been another Sweeney - Waldron couple nearby in the townland of Cloonbook: Austin Waldron (born c.1770) was married to Kate Sweeney who was definitely one of the Carrowmore family. Austin and Kate's daughter Mary Waldron married John Waldron (Richard) of Cloontumper and they had four sons Edmund, Austin, Father Patrick and Father Thomas. Cloontumper adjoins Cloonbook, so it is possible the Waldrons in both townlands were related. It is possible too that Mary and Kate Sweeney were sisters, and that they married two cousins, both Waldrons.

Father John had at least two brothers, of whom anything is known: Michael, who remained on the family holding in Cloontumper; and an older brother Ferdinand who was a priest in the Diocese of Tuam, and whose life and career will be featured in greater depth in a future issue. His gravestone, at the back of Mountbellew church, Co. Galway, bears the following inscription: "Here Rests the remains of Revd. Ferdinand Waldron R.C.C. of Moylough and Mountbellew who died on the 22nd of August 1855 aged 45 years. Erected by his fond brother Revd. John Waldorn (P.P. Saint John's, Chicago, U.S.)" There were probably others in the family but details of them have yet to come to light.

Epilogue

As an epilogue to the story of Father John Waldron it is interesting to note that he was not the only member of his family to have his life's work affected and encroached-upon as a result of an expanding railroad network. At home in Mayo, the Great Northern and Western Railway Company was building the line from Athlone to Westport during the 1850s, 60s and 70s. Sometime about 1862, in the steady progress westward, land which had been farmed by the Waldron families and their neighbours was procured by the Midland and Western Railway Company and the railway line laid through Cloontumper, where it still stands, in use daily.

In the course of time, two of the Waldron families (headed by Ferdinand and Patrick) moved to new holdings in the adjoining townland of Bracklagh where the land was divided into farms in 1908, and where Paddy Waldron, one of Father John's brother's family, still resides.