Canal – The Welsh of Harpers Ferry

- Georgetown University

Selected Papers of John McElroy, S.J.

by John McElroy,

Published 1829

ISBN: Not Registered

John McElroy, SJ was born in Ireland in 1782, and came to the United States in 1803. Fr. McElroy entered Georgetown College in 1806, the same year in which he joined the Society of Jesus as a lay brother. Fr. McElroy eventually assumed the management of Georgetown’s financial affairs, and in 1817 was ordained a priest. In 1822 he was sent to Frederick, where he was to remain for 23 years. While there, McElroy frequently visited and held mass for C&O Canal workers. During the Mexican War, McElroy served as an Army chaplain, and on his return from Mexico, he went to Boston, where he was instrumental in the establishment of Boston College. Fr. McElroy died in 1877. The Rev. John McElroy, SJ Papers contain Fr. McElroy’s diaries and some correspondence, as well as early 19th century business records of Georgetown College.

- Amazon

Common Labor: Workers and the Digging of North American Canals, 1780-1860

by Peter Way,

Published 1997 • 304pgs.

ISBN: 0801855225

Canal construction played a significant role in the rise of industrial America opening up new markets, employing an army of workers, and initiating the ties between capital and government that remain important to this day. The work went forward using simple tools and the brute strength of men and animals, with diggers working twelve-hour days and suffering the ravages of disease and injury. In this highly acclaimed study, Peter Way challenges conventional views of the part these workers played in the early republic and of the culture they created.

Increasingly made up of Irish immigrants, Way explains, the work force was housed in shanty towns hastily thrown up along the path of canal construction. Unlike the vibrant, proud working-class communities so beloved in labor history, these towns were the scene of considerable off-hours vice and violence. As wages fell throughout the 1830s, workers’ discontent mounted to the point where riots were frequent and militia units often descended on the towns to enforce order. Common Labour traces a dark picture of powerlessness, depravity, and rage in the lives of America’s canal diggers.