Patrick Cudahy: his life

Preface

Please do not imagine that it is egotism or selfesteem that causes me to write this story of my life, for my story is the same that thousands of other men can tell, only much more flattering to themselves than what mine is.

My purpose in doing so is, that I presumed it might

be of interest to my children, or to their children, when I

have passed away. It has also served as a pastime, and

afforded me some pleasure to call up those old by-gone

days.

Patrick Cudahy.

PATRICK CUDAHY: HIS LIFE

Chapter I

I was born, so I have been told, in a little village or town named Callan, in the county of Kilkenny, Ireland, on the seventeenth day of March, 1849, which, as everybody knows, is St. Patrick's Day. Being born on St. Patrick's Day, they said I brought my name with me, so they named me Patrick.

My father was left an orphan at about ten years of age and was adopted by a religious order known as Franciscan Friars. He was known among the people of the town as the Priests' Boy. Those friars were a community something after the order of the Jesuits. They had no parish assigned to them, consequently were obliged to look for their means of support in a general way, principally from the farmers of the surrounding country. My father used to tell about what they called "questing expeditions." A couple of the priests, accompanied by their priests' boy, would mount horses and ride out into the country, visiting among the farmers in search of means of support, and it was very interesting to hear my father tell of his experiences in this way. Some of the farmers felt highly honored to have the priests call and would prepare quite a feast for them, while others, like the society lady, were "not at home." On Sundays my father also passed the contribution box, or as he styled it, "collected the pennies." In this way he had quite an opportunity of making sheep's eyes at the girls of the

11 Patrick Ci'dahv parish, and he finally succeeded in securing one of the handsomest girls of the parish for a bride.

She was the daughter of a man named John Shaw, who had a little pottery and made flower pots for those they styled "gentlemen" in the old country, holders of large estates, who had greenhouses, etc. John Shaw's daughter was a brunette, about ten years younger than my father, and, according to family talk later in life, I should judge she was something of a belle. She used to tell about the small shoes she wore, how she had to soap her stockings to get them on. It was good fun to hear my father and mother chairing one anotlier. My father would sometimes boast of the girls he might have had, and my mother claim that the only girl he ever knew, besides herself, was one of the dried-up, wrinkledfaced class of uncertain age. named Nellie Shasby. and he in turn would get back at her in the same manner. She certainly made him a splendid wife and a splendid mother to her children. She was the financial manager of the family. My father, as well as his sons, turned over their earnings each week to her and asked no questions.

Grandfather Shaw was a chipi^er, bright sort of a man and was very proud of his pottery. He used to tell of a couple of priests who called on him on one occasion. One of the reverend gentlemen thought he would be witty, and on account of Shaw's trade — making articles from clay — said to him, "Shaw, you come nearer to the Creator than any other kind of work we know of." Shaw returned, "A potter's work, and a potter's air, no man but a potter can compare." He was very proud of the fact that he was admitted within the walls of some of those large estates. At one time he attended a celebra-

Mv 1'.\the:k tion of the blooming- of a century plant, and I remember his telling about how the roof of the hot-house had to be opened so as to allow the stem of the plant to growthrough.

During the years 1847-48-49 there was a famine in Ireland, owing to misgovernment, lack of employment, and the failure of the crops, and anybody that could scrape up money enough left there and came to America. As I have heard my mother say, years before the famine, when people were leaving Ireland, there was great sadness and sorrowing, but during the famine, wherever people had means enough to go away, sorrowing was changed to rejoicing.

Grandfather Shaw sold out his pottery and business, for which he got something like five hundred pounds. He was the capitalist of the party and loaned my father enough money to take his family along with him to ^^merica. They left Callan in June, 1849, three months after your humble servant saw the light of day. They took passage on a sailing vessel named the "Good Wind," but I have often heard my mother say that it should have been called the "Bad Wind," for they knocked about on the ocean for something like three months, lost their course, and had all kinds of trouble. The "Good Wind" was loaded with pig iron, and whenever she would roll from one side to the other there would be more or less rolling of the pig iron with her, I have often tried to imagine the sufferings of my dear mother taking care of an infant three months old under such conditions.

They landed in Boston and came direct to Milwaukee by way of canal and lake, which was another long, tedious journey. Milwaukee in those days was one of the ir» Patkick Cudahv boomed towns. Immigrant agents were sent east to picture the "land of milk and honey," and they did so to the queen's taste. People were made to believe that they could pick up gold dollars on the streets in Milwaukee, but it certainly was a very sore disappointment when they reached their destination.

Our lirst place of residence was somewhere about the corner of Eighth and Clybourn Streets, and in those days a man could get a fifty-foot lot in that neighborhood for a week's work. Grandfather Shaw had still in his possession something over two hundred pounds sterling, and if he had invested it in city lots at that time he would have made everyone belonging to him rich, but as the fellow says, "If your foresight was as good as your hindsight, you would know a great sight."

We moved from this location out to what was then quite a distance in the country, into a little log cabin located directly south of what is now West, or Washington Park. My father got employment with a man by the name of Beecher, who owned a farm and nursery. We lived there for probably five or six years, and I can remember well going to our nearest neighbor for milk. They were an American family by the name of Breed. Mr. Breed was short and chunky. He also carried around something of a corporation. The old lady was just the opposite, pale-faced, tall and slender, of very kindly disposition, and I can today see her kind smile as she would give me the pail of milk free of charge.

In those days there was very little employment to be had. as there were no factories or manufacturing of any kind. About the only employment was what was furnished by brickyards and railroad building. The first portion of what is now the great Chicago, Milwaukee & St. Paul system was then being built as far as Waukesha. There was a brickyard located a short distance east of the Beecher farm. My father moved from the log cabin into a small cottage at a point which would now be Thirty-fourth Street and Cold Spring Avenue and found employment in this brickyard.

The brickyard was owned by a man named Joseph Carney. The Carneys were Irish, but must have come to this country at a very early period, for the son, Joseph, was quite an American in his ways and spoke without any foreign accent. Joseph's mother was a tall, strong old lady, of the genuine Irish type. Both she and her husband used to smoke a pipe, and sometimes one of the pipes would disappear and it would get down to one pipe between the two. The old lady's name was Nell and the old man's name was Michael, but Mick for short, and when they were down to one pipe between them, it would be, "Mick, what did you do with the pipe?" and sometimes there would be lively disputes as to who had it last. Mick w-as one of the old foxy Irish type of a man, and as his son Joe got to be something of a swell, it devolved on the old man to run the business. There were no trades unions in those days and the length of the day consisted in the length of daylight, it was from sunrise to sunset, and no pay for overtime.

The manufacture of brick was very crude. The machine was made by spiking three inch planks, about five feet long, together in the form of a box without ends. This box was set in a perj^endicular position. On the inside were wooden spokes and a wooden shaft set in a socket at the bottom and also at the top, with wooden

IS Patrick Cudahy

spokes. On the lop of the shaft was attached a sweep, and a horse hitched to the end of this sweep went round and round. This machine did the grinding or mixing of the clay, the clay being shoveled in by hand with plenty of water thrown in with it. At the mouth of the machine stood a man in a barrel sunk in the ground, and as the mud came out he took handfuls of it and slapped it into molds, scraping off the surplus mud with a stick made for the purpose. Then the molds were carried out and the brick were laid in the yard until ready to be placed in a kiln.

Now, if there came a shower before those brick were put into what was known as hakes, the brick would be spoiled, and it was a generally understood thing that if there was any sign of rain the employees of the brickyard turned out and haked the brick, without pay, whether it was Sundays or nights, it made no difference. And old Mick Carney was not slow to take advantage of this voluntary, or involuntary, service. Whenever a cloud appeared on the sky of a Sunday afternoon or in the evening before dark, he would go out drumming up the boys to come and hake the brick ; and the boys, knowing what they were to expect in case there was a cloud, generally made themselves scarce.

Most of the men that were married lived in cottages on the property adjacent to the brickyard, owned also by Carney. Then they had a large boarding place with a lot of bunks in it for the unmarried men. On the door of this boarding shanty where the boys bunked was a loose thumb latch that made a terrific noise when it was rattled. Old Mick w^as always up before daylight and one of the means he had of awakening the boys was to rattle this latch, so they nicknamed him "Rattle-thehasp." One devil among the crowd thought he would play a practical joke on the old man, so he got a shot gun, loaded it with a good sized charge of powder and arranged, by tying a string to the trigger, the other end to the hasp, so that it would discharge the gun when the old man came to rattle the hasp in the morning. It worked perfectly — the gun went off as planned — the old man, scared to death, dropped on his knees with his hands up in the air and recited several litanies before rising. Yet, although badly scared, it did not interfere with his rattling the hasp the next morning.

This old man had a pair of lungs equal to any bellows that ever worked an organ. There was no steam whistle or bell to signal the men to begin or quit work. Old man Carney used to stand on the top of a knoll, make a kind of a funnel of his two hands, and yell "choo-oo" and you could hear that "choo-oo" for a mile around.

The younger Carney, as I have already stated, like a great many other Irishmen, could not stand prosperity. The brick making business was quite profitable and they made plenty of money, but the young fellow had to have a couple of driving horses and finally got into politics, was elected a member of the state legislature, and between fast horses, politics and whiskey, it did not take long to wind him up with a long string of creditors and little or nothing to meet his indebtedness. Some of the younger men that were employed by Carney were inclined to allow their earnings to remain with him and when he failed, he was owing some of those men a hundred dollars or more, which was a lot of money in those days. There was not very much recourse to the courts

20 Patrick Cudahv at that time. Physical force was resorted to oftener than courts, and I remember well one good, strong, husky fellow calling at regular intervals to give Carney a thrashing in order to get some of the money that was due him. Every time he whipped Carney or threatened to whip him, Carney gave the fellow some money. So finally things wound up by Carney skipping the country and going off to some place unknown to his creditors. Some said California, but nobody knew where.

While I still have the brickyard in mind 1 must tell something that is quite comical. There was a slaughterhouse adjacent to the brickyard which was used by the Milwaukee retail butchers. They bought their cattle in the country in small lots, brought them to the slaughterhouse and killed them; and, by the way, it was in this slaughterhouse that my oldest brother, who is now in the pork packing business and is several times a millionaire, first got his insight, or taste, for the business, and in fact placed the rest of the brothers in the same line.

Among the other animals around this slaughterhouse there was one particular animal that no one laid claim to. It was an old boar, and this old boar used to go about and do about as he saw fit. One of his favorite walks was over into Carney's brickyard, and occasionally he would get onto the soft brick, walk about on them during the night, and, of course, spoil quite a bit of property. Carney notified the slaughterhouse people that unless they kept that dashed hog at home he would shoot him, but as nobody in particular claimed the ownership of Mr. Boar, nobody paid any attention to Carney's threat. So a night or two after the aforesaid threat, Mr. Boar, in his walks, took in the brickyard again. Carney was laying for him, brought out his double barreled shot gun, loaded with buckshot, and fired, and I presume he imagined that he would have some fresh pork for breakfast, but instead of that, our old gentleman hog simply gave a grunt and walked off as though he never was hit at all. Anybody that understands what a boar's hide is will not criticise this statement as to its truthfulness.

My father and one of my brothers worked for Carney in the brickyard. The character of the men that were employed at such work those days was very different from the character of the men that are employed at such work today, for, as I have stated before, it was about the only employment there was at the time. Some highly educated men, as well as men that had once seen good times, left their homes in the East and came West and were obliged to go into brickyards, or anywhere they could, to make a living.

Directly in front of our little cottage was a piece of heavy timber land. Some of the trees would cut three cords of wood. It was commonly called Cudahy's woods. The owner of it I think was an eastern party, but my father assumed ownership and whenever a tree blew down he was ready with his axe to cut it into firewood, and if anybody else turned up and wanted one of those trees he would order them off.

My brother and myself one day got some of the offal from the slaughterhouse, such as lungs, livers, etc., and gathering some sticks and branches, made a toy shop alongside of an old fallen tree three or four feet in diameter, near our house, and went through the form of keeping a butcher market, or, in other words, we played butcher market.

22 Patrick CroAiiv

The next day my mother, after washing and wringing out a towel, snapped it in the air to take the wrinkles out of it, making a report which started up a big black bear from where we had our butcher shop the day before. Mr. Bruin was having a feast all by himself. He ran off through the woods, and the men in the brickyard, on hearing about it, left their work, picked up shovels, picks, or anything they could get hold of, to chase the bear. Finally an old fanner, who was in the habit of shooting deer in the wintertime, put an end to Mr. Bruin and also to the excitement, with his rifle.

The bear incident illustrates how thinly settled the country, which is now a part of a great city, was at that time. It was a common thing to have Indian callers at your house, tratlinj:;- baskets, beads, etc., for food.

My father was a very simple, honest Irishman. To illustrate : He and I were out walking one winter day and he found a very handsome shawl that fell out of some sleigh in which some well dressed woman was riding, and instead of bringing the shawl home and waiting for the owner to call for it, he hung it up on a rail fence near the spot where he found it, feeling that he had no right to take it with him. I have often heard about people being so honest that they lean backward, and I think my father must have been troubled that way. When he got home he told about his experience and received a curtain lecture from my mother for being so foolish.

There were no such things as delivery wagons for delivering meats or groceries at that time. The housekeeper had to take her basket on her arm and carry home her purchases. From where we lived to the first store in the city was a good three miles, and my mother used to tramp that distance back and forth and carry home her large basketful on her arm. Whenever she happened to be late in getting home, some of us would be out to meet her half way and help to carry the load. I remember one evening my father took me with him for that purpose, and as I was only a child he thought it was rather hard on me to walk so far, so he picked me up and carried me for a short distance. Just then a man came along with a horse and wagon and father pitched me in the hind end of the wagon, thinking he would walk behind. The fellow must have been a pretty mean kind of a chap, for as soon as he got me into the wagon he whipped up the horse and drove away and left my father running as fast as his legs could carry him behind, yelling out, "Let out my boy. Let out my boy." I seemed to have had sense enough myself to take in the situation, for I jumped out the hind end, or rather tumbled myself out in a bundle on the road.

About this time father bought a clock, and I want you to understand that a clock was quite a dignified piece of furniture in those days. People that could afford to buy clocks were considered working up. The clock was one of the old fashioned square kind, with a couple of heavy iron weights that were hung on fish cord. It was wound with a key made in the shape of a crank. The space between the floor and ceiling of our cottage must have been fully fourteen feet, and father fastened the clock to the wall, or placed it on a shelf, snug up to the ceiling, so that when he went to wind it he was obliged to stand on a chair to reach it. Presume his object in hanging it so high was to place it in a position where the youngsters could not get at it.

The winiling of this clock was as regular as though automatic. He wound it e\ery night just before going to bed at nine o'clock. Like all other clocks, of course, it got out of repair now and then and would not keep proper time. We had a man in the neighborhood, a sort of jack-of-all-trades, named Kelch, and whenever the clock got out of repair, Kelch was called in. The clock was taken down off the shelf, laid on its back on the table, and Kelch would take some of the wheels apart, get a bottle of castor oil or goose oil, or something like that, and with a goose feather proceed to oil up the clock. This was quite a piece of work and Kelch generally had an audience. If the weather was real warm and the flies were kept out of it, the clock would continue to run, but if it got cold the oil or grease got hard and the clock balked.

I had this old clock in my possession at the time that I got married, but my wife was not much of a hand for heirlooms and it disappeared, where, I know not.

CHAPTER 11.

As employment in the brickyard was only for a short period during the summer, the men were obliged to save up what they could during the summer season and put in supplies to take care of them for the winter. Outside of the brickyard there was little to do, only chopping cord wood for fifty cents a cord, so my father bought quite a piece of standing timber from our friend Breed, which he chopped and sold. I was his partner at the chopping. There was a great deal of snow that winter and when a tree was chopped down it would pretty nearly bury itself in the snow, so the first thing that was to be done was to dig away the snow in order to work at the tree. As soon as the snow was shoveled away my father got at the trunk of the tree and I at the limbs. 1 chopped off the limbs and cut them in four-foot lengths, piled up the brush, and after he had split the logs into cord wood I did the piling. The weather was dreadfully cold and the sap was frozen in the wood. The iron wedges with which we split the logs were like ice, so when one attempted to drive the wedge into a log it would bound ten feet in the air after each blow with a mall. To overcome this, we had to make a fire and heat the wedges. We also found a fire necessary to thaw out our coffee, which was frozen into a solid chunk. Our bread, too, froze and we had to cut it in little square pieces with the axe in order to eat it.

2C> Patrick Cudahy

This may all sound like a good deal of hardship, yet we did not seem to mind it and rather enjoyed our work. I do not think that I was over ten years old at the time I was helping to chop this wood. Such a thing as getting a boy ten years old nowadays to undertake such hardship is out of the question. If there was such a thing it would be written up in the papers in large headlines.

After telling this story of hardship I can also tell of a good many pleasant days, for it was in the neighborhood of Carney's brickyard that I spent my boyhood days. Through the woods and meadows on a farm nearby ran quite a stream, where we used to go lishing with bent pins for hooks. This little stream was full of bass and bullheads, large turtles, and occasionally we saw a large black water snake sunning himself out on the bank of the stream. In the spring of the year, during what we called the freshets, those streams would fill up and large fish, known as suckers, would swim up from Lake Michigan to spawn. The neighbors and farmers all around would turn out and go fishing for two weeks during this sucker season.

The suckers were caught with a square dip net, made with two hickory bows crossed and the net fastened to the ends of the bows. This net was dipptd into the stream and hoisted out again every little while. If there was a fish, or a number of fish, passing over the net at the time it was lifted out, they were caught. The fishermen built campfires all along the stream and camped out until twelve o'clock at night, and sometimes all night, fishing.

The red glow of the campfires burning at intervals on the edge of the little river and the fishermen moving quietly about, dipping and hoisting the nets, the splash of the water and shouts when a good haul was made, all made quite a picture, especially on the mind of a young boy, as I was then.

One family of boys that I used to play with, by the name of Kirk, quite a numerous family, had one boy who used to stammer terribly, so much so that it was painful to look at him making faces while trying to talk. During this fishing season, if he saw some of those large fish in the water, he would get so excited that one could not understand a word he said. He went off something after this fashion, "Yook-yook-yook 3ate-yite-yite in th-there. S'saw yate bid sutter yun yi-yite onder yot yog.''

The Kirks were north of Ireland people and the old lady could quote scripture by the yard. She was one of the slovenly kind that would sooner tie a knot in her skirt than put a stitch in it. They subscribed for the "New York Ledger," which was a very popular weekly at that time, containing continued stories, and she put in most of her time reading the New York Ledger. She would say that it did not make much difference about the back, but the belly had to be kept up, meaning that it did not matter what she had to wear, as long as she had something good to eat, and she looked it. The poor old drudge of a man was at work all the time and was a fair wage earner, but they always appeared poverty stricken.

The Kirk boys and I used to run together and fish and swim and play, as boys always did play and always will. One day we went to what was known as the old Cold Spring House, which was run by a man named Borum. Borum was an old sport. He kept a meat market in the city before he became proprietor of the Cold Spring

House and people used to tell this about him : that if any fellow who was handy with his fists came into his shop, Borum and he would spar a bout, no matter how many customers were waiting to be waited upon.

Borum got the oldest Kirk boy and myself, made a ring for us and set us sparing. We punched each other until I got a bloody nose, then I begged my opponent to wait until I had stopped the blood, when I went at him again and fought it out to a finish. I was somewhat heavier, and although Borum called it a draw, I think that Kirk got a little the worst of the fight.

When I was about eight years old I was packed oft* to school. The school was in a small frame building, contained but one room, twenty feet by forty feet, with desks in the rear end and one bench down along the wall in front. Our teacher was a woman of about forty, a very fine looking person, named Pendergrass. There was only one other of my own size and age attending the school. She was a rolly-poly little German girl with the waist of her dress up under her arms. The teacher did not dignify us enough to put us in a class, but had us recite at her knee while she sat in a chair, yet there was rivalry enough between my little German friend and myself to make me work good and hard.

This Miss Pendergrass boarded with a family named Rood. There were three of the Rood girls and their brother, attending the school. The girls were young ladies of twenty and over and the brother was probably sixteen. It was in the summertime, and a large square stove that had been used for a heater during the previous winter still remained out in the middle of the floor. The Rood boy had done something that was not just proper, and the teacher, in order to punish him, called him out and sentenced him to sit on top of the stove for a certain number of minutes. The second oldest of the Rood girls became infuriated at the sight of her brother sitting on the stove and went out to the teacher and demanded of her that she release the brother. The teacher refused, whereupon Maria let go with a third reader and hit the teacher over the right eye, blackening her eye as much as if she had been through a fight in the slums.