Great Irish Famine immigrant workers in Boston. Pay Ledger.

Somerville, Mass: 1848 - 1850. A Somerville Massachusetts ledger book recording the days worked and payments made to Irish immigrant workers at the height of the Great Hunger (1845 - 1852), when thousands of Irish fled to Boston, making them the largest and most discriminated against ethnic group in the city.

It was Irish laborers who dug the trenches and built the 15 mile long aqueduct which brought Boston its very first municipal supply of fresh water, and it was the Irish who did the back breaking labor of filling in the city's Back Bay. The work recorded in this ledger does include hole digging, as well as brick making and bridge building, with most of the work recorded in the summer months of 1850, May through September.

The owner of the ledger appears to be Edward Clark. His name appears at the top of the first page, along with the notation Do. (continuation) dated 3 April 1848, with a notation to T. Hastings & Co., followed by a short list which includes "tarter" (sic), Saleratus (a precursor to baking soda), and cheese.

Directly below this list the pay ledger begins, in a different hand. The workers names recorded are all Irish American, and include John McElhaney, Mr. Avery, A. Wood, Michael Barry, Patrick Egan, Mr. O'George, George Clements, and John Murphy.

The wages recorded in the ledger are low: John McElhaney began work on May 6 1850 at the rate of $27 a month. On Sept 9th 1850 the ledger records a lower payment than that, a total of only $42 for the entire summer: "Rc'd of Edward Clark, forty two dollars in full for my somer's (sic) work", signed "John McElhaney". While the Irish workers were paid low wages, the last page of the ledger records job payments for the firm in the hundreds of dollars, including a $200 payment made on June 8, 1850.

4 X 6 1/2", 20pp, last blank, hand stitched thread binding. The ledger keeper apparently used the very bottom of some pages as a receipt to the workers, as some are torn off. Statements of payments for the summer are signed in some instances by the worker. Corners slightly ruffled. Good + overall. Item #23933

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