Good neighhors: The Tierney family and St. John the Baptist Parish, Quincy, Mass.

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St. John the Baptist Church on a beautiful day in 2008
(Photo thanks to "Slim" at Quincy Daily Photo)

It was in 1909 that my great-great-grandmother Catherine Tierney and her family moved to Gay Street from another home in Quincy (pronounced Quin-zee), Massachusetts. They resided at 52 Gay Street for several years, then moved to 32 Gay Street in 1912: just one house down and across the street from the rectory of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church. The church and the Tierney family would be good neighbors for many decades.

The location of St. John the Baptist Church and rectory in relation
to the Tierney family residences at 52 and 32 Gay Street, Quincy
(Click to enlarge)

The family had moved to Quincy from Boston's North End a few years before Catherine's husband Patrick's death in 1900. They were probably already well-acquainted with the parish around the time of this 1890s era photograph below.

St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in 1893

Over the years the Tierney family would form many connections to the church and many family milestones would be passed within its care. Catherine's daughter Margaret (my great-grandmother) married George William McCue within St. John's rectory on October 11, 1911.

This announcement appeared in the Quincy Patriot Ledger
after my great-grandparents' wedding in the parochial residence of
St. John the Baptist Catholic Church on October 11, 1911

Catherine Tierney was able to purchase her home at 32 Gay Street in 1923. The matriarch of the family known as "Gran" to her family passed away in 1934.

The obituaries of two of her daughters, my great-grandmother Margaret (Tierney) McCue and her sister Elizabeth "Betty" Tierney, tell of their involvement within St. John's Blessed Virgin Mary Ladies' Sodality. A cousin who visited them often as a child (and enjoyed milk and cookies at their home while his father visited with his older sisters) remembers that "both ladies were very active in all facets of the church activities".  Each of their requiem funeral Masses, held in the early 1960s, had at least three priests in attendance. This may be a testament to their long involvement with the church.

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St. John the Baptist Catholic Church, its rectory and also the Tierney home at 32 Gay Street each have historical and architectural significance.

St. John the Baptist, built in 1853 to serve the many Catholic families who had arrived in the area to work in the granite quarries, was the second Catholic church in Quincy. The church was expanded in 1873.

The church backs up to the rectory,
but is located at 44 School Street

Its rectory is located just behind the church on Gay Street. According to the Quincy, Massachusetts Historical and Architectural Survey: "This large house has been the rectory for St. John's Church since at least 1876 and may have been originally built for that purpose." The survey continues:

"When this residence was built in the 1860s it was considered very modern for it imitated the latest French building fashions. It was concomitant with the Italianate and the Gothic Revival Styles which were part of the Picturesque movement. The distinctive roof (which could be convex, concave or straight as in this house) was named for a 17th century French architect, Francois Mansart. In the 1850s, the style was revived in France by Napoleon III, hence the term 'Second Empire' or 'mansardic' for modest structures." 

The porch and a series of additional rooms were added to the rectory during the 1920s. Unfortunately, during the siding of the building with aluminum most of the original exterior features of architectural significance were removed.

The priests' residence at 21 Gay Street

Unlike the priests' residence, the long-term residence of Catherine Tierney and her children at 32 Gay Street has kept its architectural integrity. According to the Quincy survey:

"This residence is one of the fine Greek Revival cottages in Quincy which has retained most of its architectural integrity. Built in the 1850s as gable-end-to-street one and one half story cottage with the typical cornice board around the house and under the eaves and a recessed side entrance, it had added to it during the Italianate period two one-story angular, bracketed bay windows. The windows have stylized pediments atop them; the entrance is framed with pilasters and on top is the same type of lintel as the windows; the door has sidelight to floor level. The house rests on a granite foundation. Unlike the other Greek Revival property listed in the South Quincy inventory list which has been resided with vinyl to its detriment, this cottage has retained its wood clapboards and its architectural integrity. It is a fine component of the Gay Street streetscape."

The Tierney family resided at 32 Gay Street from 1912
until the latter part of the 20th century

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This article is part of the "Doors of Faith" series on our ancestors' Catholic parishes. Visit The Catholic Gene to learn how you can share photos and stories of your family's "Doors of Faith" in honor of the upcoming Year of Faith 2012-2013.

An American treasure: St. Stephen's celebrates 150 years

It's bell was cast by Paul Revere.

It is the only remaining church designed and built by the renowned Charles Bulfinch, the first native-born American architect (who also completed the creation of the U.S. capitol building).

But Charles Bulfinch and Paul Revere have nothing to do with the special anniversary celebrated this week by St. Stephen's Church, though the well-renowned neoclassical architectural treasure is a frequent stop for tourists in Boston's North End partly because of the fame of these two men.

This Sunday St. Stephen's will celebrate the 150th anniversary of its acquisition by the Catholic Church and its origin as a place of worship for Irish Catholics in Boston's North End.

My great-great-grandparents Patrick Tierney and Catherine Kennedy were among those Irish Catholics served by St. Stephen's in the first decades after its conversion to a Catholic parish. They were married at St. Stephen's by the Rev. John W. McMahon on August 16, 1874.

Patrick Tierney and Catherine Kennedy were 32 and 26
at the time of their marriage at St. Stephen's in 1874.

One-hundred-and-fifty years ago, on September 23, 1862, the church made the transition from Unitarian to Catholic. A place of worship was first built on the site as early as 1714: the Middle Street or New North Meeting House, church home to Paul Revere and his father. The year 1804 saw the completion of the current building designed and built by Charles Bulfinch. It was first named the New North Congregational Church and later the Second Church, Unitarian.

This plaque is one of several mounted on the church
building that tells the history of St. Stephen's

By 1862, the North End had become home to thousands of Irish immigrants and the church building began its new identity as St. Stephen's, in honor of the first Christian martyr. Among those Irish who attended the church over the years were Boston's first American-born Irish Mayor John F. "Honey Fitz" Fitzgerald and his daughter Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, mother of President John F. Kennedy.

St. Stephen's is located at 401 Hanover Street, across Paul Revere Mall from the Old North Church, another frequent stop on the tourist trail. My great-great-grandparents and their family lived only a two-minute walk from the church, like many other Irish immigrants who populated the North End during the second half of the 19th century. The map below shows their home in 1877 at Rear 448 Hanover Street, just up the road from the church.

Patrick & Catherine Tierney and their family lived a
2-minute walk from St. Stephen's (Click to enlarge)

St. Stephen's has seen many changes over the years, including a complete 6-foot lift of the entire building (during the widening of Hanover Street), and its return to the original level designed by Bulfinch during a large restoration in 1965.

St. Stephen's Church prior to
its 1965 restoration

Though it was changed by the Diocese of Boston from a full parish into a "chapel" about fifteen years ago, Mass is still held daily at St. Stephen's. It is one of three former parishes administered by St. Leonard's Parish. It is also the headquarters of the Missionary Society of St. James the Apostle.

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The 150th celebration of the parish's founding will be at the 11 a.m. Mass on Sunday, September 23 at St. Stephen's. All are welcome.

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"The North End's changing ethnic and religious groups have always had a good friend in St. Stephen's Church..." - from a St. Stephen's Church plaque

This article is part of the "Doors of Faith" series on our ancestors' Catholic parishes. Visit The Catholic Gene to learn how you can share photos and stories of your family's "Doors of Faith" in honor of the upcoming Year of Faith 2012-2013.

A remembrance: the Tierney family of Quincy, 1908

One-hundred years is a long time. In the case of the Tierney and McCue families and their descendants, one-hundred years had erased all memories of the lives and in many cases even the names of those who had lived just a few generations earlier. That is, until I started looking through U.S. Census records to learn more about my great-grandmother and her family. Basically all I knew was that they were Irish and they lived in Massachusetts.

I had a few names to begin my search, but no stories, no pictures - nothing to tell me about the lives of these family members who had passed only a century (or less) before me. In the process of adding a little more here and there to the puzzle of my family's history, I began to make amazing discoveries. Missing pieces began to fill out the picture of a family, a life in America, and a survival of what was one of the most devastating times in the history of Ireland: the Great Famine that began in 1845 and the subsequent exile of the suffering Irish.

With the help of the U.S. Census, city directories, obituaries and other records, I began to unravel the forgotten story of the Tierney and McCue families of Boston and Quincy, Massachusetts.

Here, thanks to those records, is a remembrance of my ancestors who were living their lives one-hundred years ago in 1908.

The patriarch of the family, Patrick Tierney, had passed away at the age of 59 only eight years before (in 1900). By the year 1908, fifty-one years had passed since Patrick had emigrated from Ireland as a 17-year-old young man. In 1908 the Boston subway, the first of its kind in the nation, had been running for a decade. The nation saw its fifth World Series that year, having ushered in the tradition with the first ever series in Boston in 1903.

The year 1908 found Patrick's widowed wife Catherine (Kennedy) Tierney acting as head of the household. She was 61 years old and the mother of at least seven children who ranged in age from 31 to 17. (There may have been eight children, according to the 1900 & 1910 U.S. Censuses.) Around the year 1895 the family had moved from Boston's North End to the town of Quincy. 1908 found them spending their last year residing at 312 Quincy Avenue, Quincy, Massachusetts before moving to a home on Gay Street. The family had lived in this home at least since 1903, as listings in the Quincy City directories show.


The children of Patrick & Catherine (Kennedy) Tierney were as follows in 1908:

Catherine J. Tierney (age 31) - the eldest child that I have found, she was the namesake of her mother. Catherine was born at the address Rear 448 Hanover in Boston's North End on April 22, 1877. Her occupation is unknown but in 1908 and for the rest of her years she lived with her mother and siblings.

Ann (Annie) P. Tierney (later Haley) (age 29) - the couple's second child, Annie, was born at Rear 442 Hanover Street in Boston's North End on April 22, 1879. (Interestingly she and her older sister share the same birthday.) Annie was a nurse. In 1910 she was single and living with her mother and siblings so I assume that she shared their home at 312 Quincy Avenue in the year 1908.

Elizabeth (Betty) Tierney (age 27) - Betty was born at 78 Cross in Boston on January 11, 1881. An accomplished seamstress who never married, Betty was very close to her younger sister Margaret, with whom she shared a home from the 1920's until her death over forty years later. Betty more than likely helped Margaret raise her five children after the untimely death of her husband. In 1908 Betty was living at home with her mother and siblings. She was probably already working as a seamstress in a dress shop as she was in 1910. Betty was a member of the Blessed Virgin Mary Sodality of St. John's Parish, the Catholic church down the street from her home.

John P. Tierney (age 24) - probably the first son of Patrick & Catherine Tierney, John's birth at Chelsea on February 26, 1884 seems to have foreshadowed his life. He appears to have been born away from home and, interestingly enough, he went on to move to many different places during his lifetime. His birth also occurred in the very year that the Fore River Shipyard began business in Quincy, Massachusetts. Fore River was where John began his long career in the shipbuilding industry. An employee of the shipbuilding industry for many years, John had probably worked at various odd jobs and was already a shipfitter at the Fore River shipyards by the age of 24 in 1908. (Although I also found him working as a laborer in a pancake factory at the age of 16 in 1900). During his time as a young man in Quincy, probably including 1908, John was a member of St. John's Catholic Church Knights of Columbus and Holy Name Society.

Margaret Helen Tierney (later McCue) (age 22) - a lifelong companion to her older sister Betty, Margaret was born into the Tierney family at 468 Commercial in Boston's North End on August 23, 1886. In 1908 she was living with her mother and siblings and probably already working as a bookkeeper, soon to be moved up to chief bookkeeper at the Gallagher Express Company in Quincy Center. Margaret was, along with her sister Betty, a member of the Blessed Virgin Mary Sodality of St. John's parish.

Joseph G. Tierney (age 20) - probably the second son in the family, Joseph was born at 468 Commercial in Boston's North End on December 12, 1888. In 1910 he was an apprentice at the Fore River shipyard, so I assume that he was doing the same type of work as an 18-year-old in 1908 and following in the footsteps of his older brother John.

Leo E. Tierney (age 17) - Leo, the youngest child in the family, was born at 66 Mercer in Boston's North End on September 28, 1891. In 1908 he was probably already working as a helper at Fore River where his brothers were employed. Leo would go on to complete 45 years of service in the shipbuilding industry, spending much of this time at Boston Naval Shipyard in Charleston, Massachusetts.

As you can see by reading the summaries of each of the Tierney family members in 1908, the family had come a long way since their father Patrick's arrival from Ireland and his start as a poor laborer in Boston's North End. By 1908 the family was clearly a "shipbuilding family", one of many who received their income from the Fore River shipyards in Quincy. (If you are interested, a list of the vessels created at the shipyard in the year 1908 can be found at this webpage.)

In the end, John Tierney was the only one of his siblings to leave the Boston area, sharing his skills as a steel hull builder and moldloftsman with various shipyards throughout the nation before later going on to own and operate the Blackstone Hotel in California. John's brothers Joseph and Leo continued to work in the shipbuilding industry in Massachusetts while his sisters Annie, Betty and Margaret continued their work as nurse, seamstress and bookkeeper.

If he had lived a few more years, their father Patrick would have been able to see them each begin their respective careers. I'm sure that he would have been very proud.