Historical interpretive essay by Ray Breun. Original historical figures, genealogy and ethnic characterizations are preserved as the author’s 1982 account and require independent verification before factual reuse.
When the census of 1850 was taken in St. Louis, nearly 12 percent of the population was Irish.
Most of them lived in the tenement district around what is now Laclede’s Landing.
The famous Battle Row where the great Irish riots of 1849 focused was along Wharf Street just south of Cherry Street—the latter now called Dr. Martin Luther King Boulevard. Battle Row is named for its builder, a man named Battle, and many have suggested it was more appropriate for what was commonplace in the Irish coffeehouses of the 1840s when Protestant and Catholic Irish kept up their traditional hostilities in the new territories west of the Mississippi. Actually the Irish had begun to come to St. Louis by 1822.
The Mullanphy boys, Bryan and John, were well known for their philanthropy in early St. Louis.
They gave free bread to the poor Irish, formed hospitals to care for the indigent, and helped form the Erin Benevolent Society.
The first documented major celebration of St. Patrick’s Day in St. Louis is in 1827. Robert Campbell, an Irish emigrant in 1823, joined the Rocky Mountain Fur Company and became a rich man in less than five years.
He then got out of the fur business and into the hardware and mercantilist trade, married a richly endowed woman from Philadelphia and settled down in a house on Lucas Place to sire 13 children. Ten died before the age of five. Only three, all males, made it to adulthood, but none married.
Because these three men maintained their parent’s home, the Campbell House survives to this day. Lucas Place is now a continuation of Locust Street and the Campbell House Museum is the last example of that first private street in St. Louis developed by the Lucases from their land just west of St. Louis.
The Irish and the Germans did not get along with any degree of magnanimity.
Even the Catholic Germans and the Catholic Irish Were not on speaking terms for many years. German was a required language in the St. Louis public schools until 1887 when the Irish finally put together a coalition to vote down the German requirement. Over the years, however, the fighting among the Irish has given away to friendly rivalries.
The Germans and the Irish have intermarried, making it rare to find one not mixed with the other. Today the Irish tradition has no neighborhood like many of the other ethnic groups in St. Louis. St. Patrick’s, just north of downtown, was the last vestige of an Irish neighborhood, but it was broken up by Interstate 70 when it pushed through that area of the city.
In a sense the Irish tradition is the most prevalent tradition in St. Louis because it is not localized. Battle Row is just a memory in Laclede’s Landing and we are not even sure of Mr. Battle’s first name.
We are sure the Irish saloons, called coffeehouses, started a tradition of great Irish corner bars found just as commonly in the middle of the block. John O’Fallon, owner of land given to the city for a park now named after him, was nephew to Protestant William Clark and Catholic John Mullanphy. O’Fallon was also a practicing Methodist.
The Irish tradition was a very early one of mixing and matching to make a new stock, keeping the salient elements of the old.
When the tuber root failed in Ireland in the 1840s, it brought a great catalytic group to St. Louis and many other cities in the United States.
Originally published in The Paper, May 1982.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Archival transcription note: Historical figures, family relationships and broad ethnic interpretations are the author’s1982account and require independent verification before factual reuse.
Original source: SD_Times1982_05.pdf, printed page(s) 7; PDF page(s) 3.
