Working Class Men

Occupations often give a clue to what type of life and what talents our ancestors had. My own tree has a lot of laborers and farmers. But a few have interesting labels: scythe  sharpener, scholar, as well as occupations common years ago such as blacksmith and teamster. The immigrants from both sides of my family came from rural areas where farmer or farm hand was the most common occupation but with some exceptions they did not turn to farming in the US. James Leary (right) and his family lived as tenant farmers, as can be seen in the excerpt from tax records. His father worked 133 acres of farm land with two other tenants. They lived in what was a simple cottage based on the amount of tax charged for it. The property still has the remants of a stone cottage with one room, a loft and a couple of windows.

The railroad system in the US was expanding in the mid 19th century when most my Leary family arrived. John may have come over with his two eldest daughters as the Irish potato famine reached its peak in 1848. He is found in the 1850 census on a railroad building crew. His wages enabled him to return for the rest of the family, his wife Abbie, my great grandfather James and children Catherine and John Jr. in 1853. John and his son James, my great grandfather stayed with the railroad. James was a switchman all his life working well into his 70's. As a young immigrant to Concord NH in 1853 he had shaken the hand of President Franklin Pierce and he was on the voting rolls as soon as he was able to be naturalized. Another ancestor, Michael Shea, a tenant farmer in Ireland,  also worked for the railroad and it probably enabled him to buy a farm just outside St. Johnsbury, VT. But he lived on the farm only briefly and became a landlord, renting it for years. Was this the fulfillment of a dream?

Most of my French Canadian side stayed with farming or worked as blacksmiths, farriers (who shod horses) or teamsters (wagon drivers). On my Chicoine side I come from a long line of blacksmiths. My grandfather was a scythe sharpener who traveled from farm to farm making sure a farmer's tools were ready for harvest as well as farming his own land. 

My great grandfather Dominick Corbett was a skilled carpenter and owned his own tools. He may have gotten a start with  a set of ship building brothers, the Duanes, from his hometown of Turkstown, Co. Kilkenny who had a nearby shipyard on the Suir river. In the US he became a ship's carpenter and served in that capacity in the US Navy during the Civil War. After the war he worked on construction projects in his hometown such as the  local Athenaeum. Family tradition was that he worked on installing the frames of the many paintings displayed in this building.

Atheneaum built 1873

He worked at the Fairbanks scale factory where his carpentry skills were probably employed in producing made-to-order cases for some of the smaller and more delicate scales sold by this company. He also made furniture that found its way to the governor's mansion.

Some of my family who lived in Concord NH were employed making the "Concord Coaches" which were the main transportation out west before the advent of the railroad. Wells Fargo used the coaches to deliver passengers, mail and freight.

On the French Canadian side there were voyagers who traveled west in the fur trade. Some did a little exploring such as Nicholas Perrot. He served as an apprentice but quickly became an explorer, trader and interpreter. He was one of the first explorers to study the Potawatomi peoples and served as mediator between them and other tribal nations as well as the French. He wrote a book about his experiences.

The first generation born in the US tried to move up to more skilled occupations and my tree includes a yardmaster for the railroad, a barber, a tailor, cook, machinist and saloon keeper. Some of these owned their own businesses.