52 Ancestors Week 32: In the City

 From Amy Johnson Crow: "They went and built a skyscraper seven stories high / About as high as a building oughta grow!" (Sorry -- it's been awhile since I've thrown in a random song lyric.) Were any of your ancestors "city folk"? Did your farming ancestors leave any tales of trips to the big city? What was the "big" city they would have visited -- and how is it different today?

The irony of using the "Friends" font over the Boston skyline.

   I see Amy's "Kansas City" and raise her "Beat City" from "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". Before we get into the meat of the blog, I should mention that I have two new pages of content for readers to explore. First up we have a breakdown of my family tree. On that page I have outlined how many people in my family tree I've discovered and some notable ancestors I've found along the way. The next page is all about resources and what I've used in my genealogical arsenal. The big five (Ancestry, FamilySearch, WikiTree, Geni and MyHeritage) aren't mentioned because let's face it. Everyone knows what those five sites are and they're already linked on the sidebar. I hope everyone enjoys the pages! I will be adding more amazing content soon! Stay tuned! Onto the blog!

Home of "Benedetti's Deli".

    It was bound to happen. It's as inevitable as the tide. What else was I going to write about when this prompt was announced? Sure I could have written about Newburyport, which is another city near and dear to my heart. I decided to go with Haverhill because it's in the blog's name and I have a one place study dedicated to the "Queen Slipper City". Perhaps there will be a sequel for 52 Ancestors 2022? Hint! Hint! Nudge! Nudge!

    Haverhill is a city with a very long history. It was established in 1640 and one of the men who helped settle the area was actually my 11th great-grandfather, Tristram Coffin! How's that for an amazing coincidence? I was absolutely floored when I found that bit of trivia because I've lived in the area all of my life. That's pretty amazing and there's no doubt in my mind that Haverhill changed so much since his time.

    Where is Haverhill located anyway? Haverhill is just thirty-five miles north of Boston, Massachusetts in Essex county. The city is situated on the banks of the Merrimack river, a river which became very important in the city's history. Surrounding the city are the towns of West Newbury, Merrimac, Groveland, Boxford, Methuen and North Andover, Massachusetts. The city also borders the New Hampshire towns of Salem, Atkinson and Plaistow.

    As you can tell by the chart, the population exploded by the time of the 1870 census. There's a very good reason for that because around that time the Industrial Revolution came to Haverhill and forever transformed a quiet riverfront town into an industrial powerhouse. The 1870s gave rise to factories up and down the river from as far north as Franklin, New Hampshire to the mouth of the Merrimack in Newburyport.

    The factories needed workers to help run things and so the owners encouraged immigrants from all over the world to put their skills to good use. In doing so, the population of the Merrimack valley exploded and kept rising exponentially well into the twentieth century. Immigrants such as my 2nd great-grandfather Antoine Legault and my great-grandfather Vincenzo Ferraiolo raised their families and thus caused a great population boom. The population grew so much that in between 1910 and 1920 the children of those immigrants began to spread out all over the valley bringing with them the customs and traditions of "the old country".

    One of the major ethnic groups in the area of course were the Italians. I really think Tristram would have been shocked to see how much of an impact Italians had on his own city. Italians in his day weren't even called Italians because in the 1600s the Italian peninsula was divided into several areas such as the Kingdom of Sicily. And while the Renaissance was booming in the northern part of the nation we call Italy, conditions were still poor in the south.

Mi nonno and nonna.

    Poverty in the south was commonplace and after unification in 1861, Italian immigrants left in droves. Many of them went to places like New York and New Jersey. However, a fair few went to Haverhill and it left such a huge mark on the city that there was even a book published about the changes they made! Of course I made a free-space page on WikiTree about this topic. Check it out here.

    The Italian immigrants went on to establish credit unions, societies to help immigrants, bus companies and more. All of this went on to service the growing population in the city and the valley as a whole.

    The city gave them and other immigrants from around the world to thrive in a new environment free from the constraints back home. Because of this feeling of freedom more people were brought over from their old home and neighborhoods were formed. We normally think of these "Little Italies" as being only in places like Boston or New York. The truth is even Haverhill has it's own Italian neighborhood. Newburyport even had a French quarter! It was there that people like my grandparents, Marco and Olympia met and connected despite Marco's family being from Calabria and Ollie's from Campania.

Bonjour!

    Sadly, there were some stumbling blocks along the way. Italians and French-Canadians suffered a great deal of prejudice and were not always welcome with open arms. People who had far-flung roots in Haverhill weren't always quick to accept anyone different from themselves.

    Luckily, that didn't stop my great-grandfather Austin Felker from marrying Henrietta Legault in the early 1900s. She was a daughter of two French-Canadians, Antoine Legault and Lucie Cadran. Austin's roots were very much tied to America's past and Henrietta's family was new to Haverhill. They still managed to make it work. Hey. He even helped her own in her twilight years when a seizure caused Henrietta to only speak in French. Good thing my mother was always on hand to help translate!

    In three-hundred and eighty-one years, Tristram's city of Haverhill transformed from a quaint farming community on the banks of the Merrimack to an industrial powerhouse that supplied footwear to most of the nation to a city that is home to many different cultures from around the world. Today, Haverhill, Massachusetts is seen as one of the most diverse cities in New England. Abandoned factories from the dawn of the twentieth century have ironically become housing units for immigrants. Riverfront boardwalks opened up and the city continues to grow. Travel to Boston now takes mere minutes instead of hours on horseback. 

    Who knows where the "Queen Slipper city" will go from here. Tristram Coffin's city of Haverhill no longer exists and yet monuments to his time remain as the city celebrates its roots and moves forward. Museums dedicated to Haverhill's past exist and he'd have to visit them or even the old burying grounds to see something---anything familiar to him. Time travel is great and all. But, even the Doctor would warn you about changes to the timeline. Imagine what will happen tomorrow!

    Would he have liked the changes? It's hard to say. In many ways Haverhill's transformation reflects America's ongoing transformation today. There would definitely be a culture shock because Haverhill in those days was definitely more British and Puritanical than it is today. After all a small farming community can transform in the blink of an eye. For good or bad, change is inevitable and the city of Haverhill is proof that change can be a good thing. Just keep that river clean, guys!

See ya next time!