Irishmen often brought regional feuds from Ireland to the United States. Due to the number of Irish workers on canal projects, these were prevalent in Indiana. Two groups— the Corkonians and the Fardowns—held a longstanding feud. The Corkonians came from the Irish province Munster, specifically in County Cork. The Fardowns came from the provinces of Connaught and Leinster. The hostility between the two groups was ultimately due to competition for employment. The Corkonians and Fardowns had violent encounters near many canal and railroad worksites in Indiana, later referred to as the Irish War.
In 1835, groups of Corkonians and Fardowns were working on the Wabash and Erie Canal. Construction contractors knew about the feud and tried to keep the groups separate. The Corkonians worked the northern section of the fifty-mile line, leaving the southern section for the Fardown men. The men stayed in separate camps and often worried that members of the other party would burn down their shelters or kill them at night. Contractors reported that some men camped in the woods to avoid such a fate. Most men came to work armed, sometimes with weapons they had stolen from locals. Small-scale brawls became so frequent that worksite authorities planned to remove one of the groups from the line entirely.
In July, rumors of a big clash began to spread around the canal camps. The groups planned to meet in the middle of the two camps, near Lagro. As men on both sides prepared for the fight, work on the canal slowed to a halt. On July 10, a reported 600 Irishmen met in Lagro, about 300 from each faction. Canal Commissioner David Burr managed to arrange a truce that lasted long enough for Indiana militias to arrive. The militias arrested over 100 Irish laborers a few days later. Without a nearby jail to hold so many men, officials took eight of the faction leaders to Indianapolis and released the rest to return to work. The eight leaders were released shortly after arriving. One Corkonian leader, Jeremiah Sullivan, was later re-arrested and sent to the state penitentiary. He was the only participant in the clash to receive legal punishment.
]]>A canal craze swept the nation after the Erie Canal was completed in 1825, resulting in many states looking to create canal systems. Indiana began planning a man-made waterway to connect Lake Erie in Toledo, Ohio, to the Ohio River in Evansville as early as 1826. The United States Congress gave Indiana a large amount of land to begin canal construction the following year. Construction on the Wabash and Erie Canal finally began with a groundbreaking ceremony in Fort Wayne on February 22, 1832. Advertisements for available construction jobs in Indiana were a major draw for Irish immigrants coming to the United States in the 1830s and 1840s. By 1837, about one thousand workers were employed on canal projects throughout the state. Newspapers circulated advertisements to recruit more workers. Though not explicitly recruiting Irish workers, advertisements appealed to immigrants who needed a well-paying job.
Arriving at the canal corridor, Irish men found jobs as contractors and laborers. Some advertisements in news publications around the state promised laborers lodging and $20 a month for their work and offered plots of land around the canal for $1.25 per acre. However, most laborers only received $10 a month, roughly worth about $363 today. Contractors often docked workers’ pay to account for food and lodging costs. Sometimes, the canal company paid laborers in certificates for small pieces of land rather than money.
Canal workers faced many hardships. Irish immigrants working on the canal lived in small, unhealthy shelters. The men, some with their wives and children, usually lived in cheaply built camps of 100-200 people. Contractors often had small homes to themselves, while most laborers lived together in larger buildings. Diseases were common in the canal environment, especially among the camps. Insects carrying illnesses, poor sanitation practices, and hard labor resulted in a high death rate among canal hands. The work itself was brutal. Men first cleared wide paths through trees and brush. Diggers followed, using picks and shovels to load cleared earth into horse-drawn carts. Many camps had nearby mass graves to bury laborers who died in work accidents and malaria or cholera outbreaks.
Thousands of Irish laborers survived horrible conditions and backbreaking work to complete the Wabash and Erie Canal in 1843. At 468 miles, the canal was the longest in the United States. Navigable water systems were important to the transportation of both goods and people. Indiana became more involved in national trade routes with the canal connecting the state to the Great Lakes via Toledo. However, the state did not have enough money to maintain the canal for long. The Wabash and Erie Canal closed in the 1870s.
]]>By 1880, Indianapolis was the third-largest meat-packing city in the country. One of the businesses in the city was the Deschler meat packing company in the backyard of their property on 423 California Street.. The Deschlers immigrated to Indianapolis from Germany in the 1860s and quickly established themselves in the food industry. They later would merge with another food industry company nearby and continue to build a prominent food business in the city.
The Kingan and Company meat packing plant at Maryland and Blackford Street in Indianapolis, Indiana, was larger than Deschler’s. Belfast resident Samuel Kingan founded his meat-packing company in Northern Ireland in 1845. Kingan opened additional factories in Brooklyn, New York, and Cincinnati, Ohio, before establishing the Indianapolis plant in 1863. An article in The Indianapolis Star boasted that workers at the new facilities would kill and pack 2,500 hogs per day.
Kingan and Company recruited mostly Irish immigrants for jobs at the plant. Employment opportunities drew more Irish to the nearby community. Some new arrivals sent their belongings directly from Ireland to the Kingan plant. Immigrants from all over Ireland lived in small homes and boarding houses in the neighborhood surrounding the plant.
The workers at the Kingan and Company meat-packing plant often endured long hours and dirty, dangerous conditions. The factory was loud with the sounds of squealing hogs and processing machines. Witnesses described conveyors of dead animals passing through crowds of workers at all hours of the day. The workers used cleavers to chop the meat going by, leaving blood and entrails all over the factory floor. Most of the employees were Irish men, but photos from the time show some women and children at work in the plant. Child labor was not uncommon in the 19th century. Many working-class children needed to earn money to help support their families, even though child labor is harmful to kids’ health and development.
The multiple stops on Blackford Street encompass the sites where both the Deschler and Kingan meat-packing facilities operated. Further north on Blackford Street, looking toward California Street, the Deschler Meat Packing Company operated. Further south on Blackford, at the intersection of Blackford and Maryland Street, one can look at the former site of the Kingan and Company meat-packing plant. Both sites played a major role in the history of Indianapolis and its industry.
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