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31 3. An Irish Blacksmith and the Archaeology of Belief Timothy Francis McCarthy was from Ireland’s County Cork. The Bere Peninsula, pointing into the Atlantic toward America, had the most important hard-rock mines on the island in the nineteenth century, and its men knew how to dig underground. When the clarion call of immigration reached Ireland’s miners, America’s West was an obvious choice. There was no need to succumb to the immigrant slums of Boston or New York. Good jobs in places like the Comstock Mining District, Montana ’s Butte copper fields, or any number of other places awaited those with experience, and thousands of Cork miners found the opportunity irresistible.1 Although McCarthy was from a mining district, he was a blacksmith , not a miner, perhaps explaining why he lingered in Boston after he immigrated. He had left Ireland in 1853 in the wake of the potato famine, and like hundreds of thousands of others, he arrived on the eastern shore of North America. Working hard, McCarthy was able to send for his mother, become an American citizen, and eventually wed fellow Irish native Mary Dooley. After the death of his mother in 1866, McCarthy felt free to venture west, where former neighbors from Cork described a better place and vast opportunities without the ordeal that immigrants too often endured in the big eastern cities. A mining town always needed another blacksmith, so the McCarthys traveled to Butte. Eventually, he and his wife went to Northern California, where Mary gave birth to two sons. Always in search of a better situation, Timothy McCarthy considered other possibilities. Perhaps it was former Cork neighbors, working as miners, who drew him to Virginia City in 1872. He went there on a trial basis, and when he felt he could secure good employment, he relocated his family, including Mary, now pregnant with their third child. Money on the Comstock was good. McCarthy descended into the mines, where he worked 32 An Irish Blacksmith and the Archaeology of Belief as a blacksmith belowground, earning between three and four dollars for each of six days a week. His wage was often less than what miners earned, but it was many times more than Irish laborers could expect in the East. The young family paid twelve dollars a month for lodging, and in spite of other expenses, they prospered. Unfortunately, this was not an unblemished American success story. There was tragedy as well. Mary’s pregnancy did not go well. As her time for delivery drew near, she became ill. Her husband frequently brought doctors to the lodging house where they lived, but the prognosis was grim. Timothy tried to attend mass every day, praying for the welfare of his wife. On September 21, 1872, Mary gave birth to a stillborn girl. Compounding the family’s grief, Mary failed to recover. In spite of the best efforts of several doctors , within two weeks, her life slipped away. Timothy McCarthy faced a terrible choice. His sons were one and three years old, and he had no means to care for them. The blacksmith sent them to a California convent that also served as an orphanage. He then struggled to rebuild his life, but it would take hard work and patience to reunite his family. In 1875 McCarthy received a photograph from Robert Dwyer, his nephew. Robert wrote a note in Gaelic on the back, reintroducing himself to his uncle. He was asking for work. Coincidentally, McCarthy wanted to build a house. The two men—Taidhg and Riobard as they were known in their native Irish language—built the new home at a cost of $784.55 for lumber, $115.05 for paint and wallpaper, $36.00 for doors, and $18.00 for windows. Ultimately, McCarthy paid the Lonkey and Smith Mill and Mining Timbers Company $20.00 for interest on the account, which he settled within the year. It cost McCarthy an additional $10.00 to move his furniture into his house. In short order, he was married to Francis Dillion, another daughter of Ireland. The family retrieved the orphaned sons, and new babies soon followed. When Virginia City’s mines failed in the 1880s, friends and relatives encouraged the McCarthys to relocate to Butte, Montana, but the family stayed in Virginia City. In 1914 Timothy McCarthy, now widowed a second time, moved to Jerome, Arizona, where he died a few years later.2 Knowing so much about the McCarthy family is not...

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