St.

Josephs New Cemetery:

A Prominent Resting Place
for Cincinnatis Irish
By: Colleen OBrien

New St. Joseph Cemetery Plaque

During the 1849-1854 cholera epidemic, St. Joseph Cemetery,

also known as Old St. Joseph Cemetery, reached its capacity,
especially within the Irish allotment. The deceased were
stacked upon one another and buried in mass graves. To relieve
this crowding, in 1853 Archbishop John Baptist Purcell of the
Cincinnati Archdiocese purchased roughly 61 acres of farmland
two miles west of Old St. Joseph and established St. Josephs
New Cemetery, which is more commonly known as New St.
Joseph Cemetery (Grace and White 2004). The digitized
Cincinnati birth and death records, The Cincinnati Enquirer, and
grave markers can be used to provide a more complete
narrative of Irish immigrants buried in St. Josephs New
Cemetery.
Of the 25,348 individuals laid to rest at St. Josephs New
Cemetery from 1865 to 1912, 11,526 (45%) are from the city of
Cincinnati, 8,540 (34%) are Irish, 455 (2%) are Germans, 267
(1%) are English, and 215 (1%) are Italian. The remaining 4,345
(17%) individuals origins could not be determined or were not
listed. The focus of this analysis will be on the interesting cases
of the 8,540 Irish who make up the second largest population
within the cemetery.

Grave of Michael P. Reynolds

Phthisis Pulmonalis, or tuberculosis, and cholera were some of

the leading causes of death during the 1800s due to unsanitary
conditions and close proximity of the diseased to the healthy.
Eight hundred and eight (1%) of the 8,540 Irish buried in New
St. Joseph Cemetery died from tuberculosis, such as Michael P.
Reynolds. He was a married carpenter who lived on 108 Gest
Street and died of tuberculosis on March 28, 1877 at the age of
36, according to his death record. Yet his marker shows he died
on March 27 and was from Cloone, spelled Cloon on the marker,
parish in

Grave of John T. Enright

County Leitrim, Ireland. The discrepancy between dates and

spelling is likely a clerical error. Fifty (.6%) of the 8,540 Irish
perished from cholera. It is important to note these individuals,
who are buried in St. Josephs New, are not from the 1849-1854
or 1866 epidemics [1]. Rather, the deaths range from 1885 to
1893 and the earliest Irish death recorded is that of Julia
Corcoran who died on August 8, 1885 at the age of 60 at her
home on 12 Linnaeus Street Not all deaths were by contracted
diseases. One Irishman, John T. Enright, a native of County
Limerick, for example, died of necrosis [2] on the mastoid
portion of his temporal bone on September 7, 1892. He was a
contractor between 62-63 years of age. Enrights death record
lists the age of 62, while his burial marker lists the age of 63.
He lived at the corner of High and Evans Streets with his wife
Ann.

McCann Brothers Death Notice

Unsanitary and poor living conditions were not the only things
to be concerned about while living in the city. Twenty-five (.3%)
of the 8,540 Irish buried in New St. Joseph Cemetery died by
homicide, as Violent crimes were part of the burgeoning urban
life in early Cincinnati (Grace and White 2004). For example,
two brothers, John and Charles Kennedy, were both shot and
killed on June 10, 1884 by Pat McDermott after attending a
meeting at Bricklayers Hall on Central Avenue. The three men
gathered at Harts Saloon to drink. At about midnight, the men
got into a heated discussion over some trivial matter and
began brawling (Cincinnati Enquirer 1884). A police officer,
accompanied by an Enquirer reporter, broke up the fight and
ordered saloon keeper John Hart to close for the night.
McDermott stormed out of the saloon shouting, Ill get even
with you fellows, and the madness appeared to be over for the
moment (Cincinnati Enquirer 1884). Unbeknownst to the
Kennedy brothers and the other saloon patrons, McDermott left
to fetch his revolver. Not more than thirty minutes later, the
sound of three gunshots rang through the air. The Kennedy
brothers were still alive when the officers found them about
three minutes later, however they expired on the way to the
hospital. A Cincinnati Enquirer article from Saturday, June 14,
1884 states, It developed at the inquest that the right names
of the deceased were McCann, but that they were generally
known by the name of Kennedy, which explains why the death
records did not originally align with what was printed
(Cincinnati Enquirer 1884). The Cincinnati birth and death
records create a more complete story, such as Charles given
name was actually Robert. John died at the age of 43 and left
his wife a widow. Robert, aged 33, was single. Interestingly, the
gunshot wounds of both brothers pierced the heart and Johns
also went through the lungs while Roberts hit his liver. Both the
McCann brothers were laid to rest in St. Josephs New Cemetery
under the direction of the Habig Funeral Home. The exact plot
locations and grave markers of John and Robert have been lost,
but the two are buried in section three of the cemetery.
Incidents such as the homicide of the McCann brothers are
important to examine because they tend to illustrate the anti-
Irish stereotypes, such as the Irish being violent and alcoholic,
along with a trope like the No Irish Need Apply nativist stance
which widely occurred in America and within the city of
Cincinnati.
 Mary Gilmartin Headlines

Almost a decade later, on April 25, 1894, a nineteen year old

female suffered a similar fate as the McCann brothers. As the
story was told, Father Dominick OGrady and Mary Molly
Gilmartins affair began across the sea in Tobercurry, County
Sligo, Ireland. On her deathbed, Marys mother asked the young
priest to be a guardian to her daughter. The pair saw each other
nearly every day and eventually Father OGrady proposed
marriage, but was continually reminded by Mary that he was a
priest. The infatuation soon ended, as OGrady quickly began
controlling Marys life by telling her to go in a convent and even
took the $1,000 given to Mary by her father so she could attend
school in Dublin (Cincinnati Enquirer 1894). He left her a few
hundred dollars and bought her a ticket on the ship Teutonic,
which was sailing to America. Mary wrote a letter begging for
Father OGrady to come to America to set things right. He
obliged and the couple eloped in Buffalo, New York. The pair
made their way to Chicago to visit Gilmartins brother, Michael,
who recently became a priest. Word got back to Ireland that
Father OGrady and Mary eloped and the other priests in Father
Michaels parish advised Mary to return to Tobercurry. Father
OGrady returned instead out of fear of damaging Marys
reputation. She eventually arrived in Cincinnati and stayed at
the home of Mrs. Charles Tibbles. However, Father OGrady
soon arrived because Mary feared she might be pregnant and
did not know what to do. On the night of her death at six
oclock, Mary left the Tibbles residence and took the Avondale
streetcar to meet with OGrady (Cincinnati Enquirer 1894).
Supposedly the couple discussed their future, both frequently
mentioned death. This conversation seemed to be the last
straw for the young priest because he turned Mary around and
shot her in the head. While in custody by the police OGrady
attempted suicide by arsenic, but escaped death until his trial.
A Dr. Querner examined Marys body and a funeral was
arranged by Sullivan & Co.

Mary Gilmartin Headline

Funeral Home. Her final resting place is in section two of New

St. Joseph Cemetery. However, this is only one version of the
Gilmartin tale. Another version has it that her family sent her
to Chicago to get away from the undue influence of the priest
and to be in the care of her brother. When she later came to
Cincinnati, she was living with cousins when the priest, who had
trailed her to America, accosted her on the street as she was
going to work one morning and shot her. Her tragic death was
followed by a funeral in which, again according to one story,
hundreds of local Irish accompanied the body to Price Hill and
New St. Josephs Cemetery. The priest was adjudged insane,
and the Catholic Church stripped him of his Holy Orders.
However, after a period of incarceration in an asylum, he was
released, moved to Philadelphia, and was re-took his vows.
Molly Gilmartins grave was never marked until decades later
when the Gilmartin relatives in Sligo attempted to piece
together this part of their family history. Through the efforts of
the Cincinnati Police Department and the Cincinnati Museum
Center Library and Archives, the full tale was revealed and the
family had closure.

Mary Gilmartin

Oftentimes, the story of an individual can be forgotten. This

analysis attempts to shed light upon those, particularly Irish,
individuals who so often become just names on painstakingly
carved slabs of marble. It is important to remember the Irish
made up the second largest immigrant population in Cincinnati
after the Germans. Overall, the Cincinnati working-class Irish
confronted a difficult life in the city. Not only did they face
unsanitary conditions, which led to contracting tuberculosis and
cholera, the Irish and other city-dwellers were also faced with
the impending risk of being on the receiving end of violent
crimes as Cincinnati grew. Despite these hardships, the Irish
have left important marks within the city, especially its
cemeteries. Graves often list the home county and parish in
Ireland, which illustrates a sense of pride for their rootsa
theme that is common amongst many Irish and Irish-Americans
today.

Entrance of New St. Josephs Cemetery

Bibliography
Cincinnati Birth and Death Records, 1865-1912.
2017. University of Cincinnati Digital Resource Commons.
University of Cincinnati Historical
Records. http://digital.libraries.uc.edu/collections/birthdeath/

Grace, Kevin, and Tom White. Cincinnati Cemeteries: The

Queen City Underground. Charleston SC, Arcadia Publishing,
2004.
Cincinnati Enquirer- Historical Newspapers, 1841-
2017. Cincinnati Enquirer, Newspapers.com,
2017. http://cincinnati.newspapers.com/?xid=527

[1] More information on the cholera epidemics of 1849-1854

and 1866 can be found on Megan Dunlevys post, Cholera and
the Queen City.

[2] Necrosis- a cellular injury in which all or most of the cells in

an organ or tissue die due to disease, injury, or failure of blood
supply.