A Bunch of Squatters

A Bunch of Squatters

For the last few generations, on the outer fringes of Buffalo’s waterfront, lay an old industrial area that had lain waste for generations. Nothing much grew there but weeds. A small boat harbor is the only bright spot that drew people to the area.

In the first decade of the 21st century this all started to change. Under the leadership of a young South Buffalo Congressman, named Brian Higgins, the area started to blossom. Many layers of government contributed over a span of years to the redevelopment, but the “go to” guy became Brian Higgins.

The Tift Nature Preserve had evolved over the last few decades. It is an area where garbage had been buried and fluorescent puddles of noxious chemicals once sparkled in the noonday sun. It is now a wonderful nature preserve for all to see and enjoy many types of wildlife.

In addition, the once-worn roadways are now flower-lined boulevards accompanied by bike trails that link the downtown area to the outer harbor. Gallagher Beach, the Bouquard’s small boat basin, the NFTA boat harbor, Wilkeson Park, The Times beach Nature Preserve and the remains of the old coast guard base, with its iconic, 1837 China Lighthouse, all line the waterfront. The concert venue here draws tens of thousands to it, employing aging but big names bands like “Guns and Roses.” The area had literally risen, like an urban phoenix, from the ashes of the old. We were both stunned and pleasantly pleased to enjoy the sights and sounds of Buffalo’s place on the sea. From the quiet headland of the New Wilkeson Park, you can watch the sailboats cruising inside and outside the old seawall.

One day, I walked into the quiet precincts of the “Times Beach Nature Preserve.” It is a bucolic and restful place with two wooden blinds to observe the flocks of geese and birds that settle in the reeds or make their nests here. On the deck of one viewing area there is a series of metal plaques that spell out the history of the area for all newly arrived visitors. I was enjoying the verbiage until I cam upon the few sentences that drew blood to my neck and face. It said that in 1917 The City of Buffalo had evicted a “bunch of squatters” from the site for industrial development.

“A Bunch of Squatters?” I thought to myself. Was this anonymous functionary referring to “The Beachers,” this grand origin of Buffalo’s Clan Na Gael? It must have been an inadvertent slur. The writer had probably been raised in a middle class home with clean sheets, hot and cold running water, central heating, free education and three meals a day. All wonderful benefits of the grand Republic of America that we enjoy today.

But, it wasn’t always that way. Buffalo Mayor Samuel Wilkeson had coordinated the erection of the stone “break-wall,” just off the mouth of Buffalo Creek, to form the Buffalo harbor area. The ten-ton, limestone cap rock barriers kept the November storms and winter ice from crushing the fragile wooden ships and harbor areas. It was the beginnings of a prosperous modern Buffalo.

Just before this break wall’s construction, the first wave of Buffalo’s Irish immigrants had arrived, digging the Erie Canal to its completion. They now populated the city’s West side and near south side. But it was the next wave that were to settle near the brekawall in the area where I now stood, so peacefully gazing upon the avian life along the shore.

During the 1840’s, the famine Irish hit these shores like a beggared tsunami. They left a million of their own behind them who had fallen in the fields, victims of starvation and disease. Many had green stains around their mouths from eating grass, the last signs of a beggar’s attempts to stay alive. These famine Irish flocked across the ocean in rickety coffin ships, which lay waster large numbers of them from starvation, scurvy and rickets. And yet, still they came on. They crowded atop the narrow canal boats, of the newly dug Erie Canal, in great hordes, yearning to settle in this place on the eastern end of Lake Erie. It is here in Buffalo, where they hoped to make a new life for themselves, a place where they could work and practice their religion and raise their families without persecution. It wasn’t streets of gold they were looking for, but a place to earn their daily bread and live their lives in peace.

Many arrived here with the shirts on their backs, their shoes and pants held together with bits of rope or twine. They were dirty and poor and hungry. They had no one and nothing to sustain them. The good offices of the kindly Sisters of Mercy and the sainted Bishop John Timon helped ameliorate their misery. They had not even the wherewithal to settle in the slums and tenements, for those cost money, which they did not have. In desperation many chose bits of barren land, plots of stones, sand and scrub grass in the lee of Buffalo’s new seawall as a place to lay their heads until something better could be arranged. They gathered bits of wood and stone and grass to create miserable shanties along the seawall to keep the elements from themselves. One can only imagine laying there, freezing, struggling to survive, during the harsh months of Buffalo’s winter. But they did “squat” there and they survived.

The first waves of cholera during the 1830’s and then in the 1850’s mowed the immigrants down like newly grown summer wheat in a farmer’s field. And yet, they still they survived and perservered. They wanted to be part of the grand new Republic of America. My own great, great, grandfather earned his citizen ship in 1857, wanting to be part of the new republic. Many others earned their citizenship with the barrel of a gun, in the Irish American Regiments, during the American Civil War. It was the sweat of the Irish that helped build the rising cities of Eastern America.

Slowly, these ragged peasants made their way in a new America. Through the auspices of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Elementary School, and other generous Catholic institutions, the immigrants learned to read and write and enter the work force. The miasma of politics also proved to be an avenue for these many new voters to climb out of their misery.

The Erie Canal, the railroads and Lake Erie freightage poured industry and commerce into the area during the 1800’s.The new Immigrants worked on the ships and new grain elevators as “scoopers,” unloaders of grain from the many boats from the vast interior of America. My own grandfather was one of them. The Union Steel, company, the railroads and many local industries enabled the newly arrived immigrants to build their stake in America.

Along “Times Beach,” the mean huts had been replaced with grand shacks that the residents were proud of. By today’s standards they would not be much, but then they were symbols of ownership and property, a concept foreign to most of them. Some even prospered enough to add a bit of paint to the trim of their house. The Irish, ever mindful of those trying to act above their station, sardonically referred to these huts with paint on them as “Mansions.”

The Gaelic American Rowing Club served as a central community center for the settled in Irish. To be sure, there were rascals and crooks among them, but most of the beachers were now becoming immersed in their new society, paying taxes and earning a living.

The fourth generation of these immigrants was now being born during the period just before the First World War. The city of Buffalo, pressured by railroad interests who wanted to build tracks on the land, agreed to the eviction of the colorful settlement. Rail crews tore down the shacks and forcibly evicted the settlers, amidst much consternation of the inhabitants.

“The Beacher’s,” as they were then called, didn’t like it, but they moved into houses along Louisiana and Fulton streets to join the other members of Buffalo’s Clan Na Gael, who already settled there. It is from this point on that the “Beacher’s” and their colorful history slipped into the mists of fading memories of the “old ones” among us. They were mentioned not often, usually after a few beers at a tavern or family picnic. But it is here on Times Beach that many of Buffalo’s Clan Na Gael got our start in America. Three lines of my own family, the Carney’s, Martins and Tevingtons hail from these humble beginnings.

It is with fierce pride that I remember and commemorate these early immigrant settlers who risked everything to come to these far shores of Lake Erie and found our families in America. Thus it is with mild umbrage that I reacted to the term” Bunch of Squatters” on the plaque at Times Beach Nature Preserve. Perhaps some other scion of "The Beachers," now holding public office, will kindly rectify the error in phrasing and give these hardy immigrants their proper due. And whomever that kindly soul is, generations of descendants of “The Beachers” will give a silent nod to you, for your respect for and appreciation of those hardy settlers who came before us.

A “Bunch of Squatters” indeed!

-30-

(1642 words)

Joseph Xavier Martin