Patrick McGinnis, AKA, Patrick McInnis,
First Child of John McGinnis, of Monaghan, Ireland,
A Businessman and a Politician-
More Insight to the McGinnis Family-
Patrick’s Election Campaign Photo
Seattle Post IntelligencerNovember 1908
At the moment it occurs to me that our current generation really needs to be introduced to a rather obscure but still very important person in the overall story of the McGinnis family and how they finally firmly planted their roots in Western Washington. That person is Patrick McGinnis, or as he preferred, McInnis. Being the eldest son of John McGinnis Sr., he was really the one individual that is most responsible for our current family to be primarily settled in the Puget Sound area. He really is the one person that most certainly inspired his siblings to leave Chicago and join him in Seattle. I cannot prove that statement but all evidence really leads to that conclusion. Be assured though that at the very least he had to have played a role in guiding the Irish of our beginnings to Washington State. Factual, not entirely, circumstantial, very much so, but regardless, very significant and extremely probable.
Interestingly though, contrary to all my early conclusions regarding both sides of our family history, I have come to find out that the McGinnis family was well established in Washington State some twenty years before any of the Jones family arrived from Arkansas. I was always impressed as I grew up knowing the fact that Dad came to Washington in 1909. It always seemed so long ago. I should have paid more attention to Mother. Her entire story would have really impressed me.
Patrick suggests a story that remains unproven, only speculated on. Forgive me if I allow my thoughts to focus on personalities based on few or even any facts, only several suspicions. Such a practice is really only valid in fiction but I have a picture in my mind that has developed and for my own sake I would like to attempt to bring some clarity to the images that have begun to appear. How valid this picture I have of the family is certainly questionable but here is what has formed in my own mind regarding Patrick. Without question it also involves Brother John, Sister Sarah and the rest of the Fitzpatricks. Sounds like the beginning of an Irish joke and maybe it is when one thinks about it. All that’s missing is a Priest and a Rabbi. I jest of course. Actually I am most respectful of the relationships these people had over many years.
Patrick was actually the step son of Margaret McCarron, the woman that raised him as her own and one can be certain that having a stepson to care for made no difference to Margaret McCarron. There is no doubt in my mind that Patrick always considered her his natural mother. Patrick was the first child born to John McGinnis and his first wife Mary Buchanan in New Brunswick. Mary may have died during childbirth or shortly after for John’s second child, James, our grandfather, was born two years later in 1847 after he married Margaret McCarron.
If you are able to read Patrick’s church baptism record, notice the Godmother, Mary McCarron. Assumedly this is a sister or more likely a cousin of Margaret’s, John’s second wife, our Great-Grandmother. Obviously the families were all friends at the time. Sometimes in the old parish records it was fairly common to abbreviate Margaret as “Marg”, looking very much like Mary in some cases. This originally made it appear that Margaret was both a Godmother and later married John McGinnis and became his stepmother as well. Looking closely at the entry now it is definitely Mary McCarron as the Godmother. In the 1871 census Mary McCarron, age 40, is living in the McGinnis home. This is more likely to be a sister for their Father, James McCarron, is also in the household. The span of years between the baptism and the census suggest that there was an earlier generation of McCarrons present in Chatham and most likely related to our Grandmother. One does have to also consider that the baptism record is incorrect and the Godmother, Mary, may have been Margaret after all.
After the death of John Sr. in 1861, at a relatively young age of 50, it is obvious the family John left behind in Chatham worked closely as a family unit to provide for themselves after the loss of the main provider. This closeness is very well what explains why and how the family maintained the family unit over the years from New Brunswick through Chicago and on to Seattle. Sarah married Patrick Fitzpatrick in Chatham in 1884 and based on the birth of her first two children, John and Marguerite (also sometimes found as Margaret) somewhere in New York State in 1886 and 1888, shows that the overall family was temporarily separated.
Patrick was 16 years old when his father died and he may have been forced by financial circumstances to begin work at this young age in order to help support the family. This path obviously led him into a Carpentry trade and by the time he left Chatham sometime after the 1871 census at the age of 23 he very well may have seen that the future need for carpenters in New Brunswick was diminishing quickly. Shipbuilding was beginning to phase out and he was young and as the young quite often are, rather adventurous. If he had been required to begin working around the time of his father’s death then by the time he left some seven to ten years later he would have had time to acquire a fair level of carpentry skills.
Just when Patrick emigrated is very difficult to answer. There are conflicting dates. His 1900 census entry states he left Canada in 1875. That is somewhat confirmed since he is listed in the McGinnis household, living with his Stepmother and her children in the 1871 Chatham, New Brunswick census. Personally I believe he left home in the last part of 1871.
The conflicting date stems from his short 1908 election biography as published in the Seattle Post Intelligencer in November of 1908. He relates that he had spent 14 years in Chicago prior to coming to Seattle in 1882 to establish himself in the contracting business. This would have placed him in Chicago in 1868. There is also some vague proof of that for one Patrick McGinnis can be found in the Chicago 1870 census working as a laborer. If this is the case he would have been living in the city the year Mrs. O’Leary’s cow kicked over the lantern that set the city on fire. If this is our Patrick it cannot be verified currently since this fact would mean he was in two places in 1871, both Chatham and Chicago. Very, very unlikely. The 1882 date in the newspaper article is highly suspect and for my purposes he did not arrive in Chicago before 1871.
The family separation, when ever it began, though temporary, was not total separation for the family core remained in Chatham and Sarah was beginning her family some where in New York State. Chicago would have given Patrick opportunity to improve his skills and observe the workings of the construction trades in a large setting. His insight of the opportunities the city had to offer certainly influenced his younger brothers, James, Arthur and Hugh to eventually follow him there and certainly with the aid of their older brother, they also became involved in the construction trades and commenced their paths in life.
According to Patrick’s political biography he arrived in Seattle in 1882, after living in Chicago for 14 years. That would mean he arrived in Chicago in 1868 at the age of 23. This was but three years following the end of our Civil War. He would have been living in the city at the time Mrs. O’Leary’s cow supposedly kicked over the lantern in October of 1871 resulting in that city’s famous fire. Immediately following the fire would have placed him in the right time and place for possible employment as a young man
A possible trace of young Patrick does tend to coincide with the 1868 arrival in Chicago and that is the following entry in a Chicago city directory of 1870 found at http://www.chicagoancestors.org/downloads/1870m.pdf
Is this our Patrick? Very possible but unlikely after fitting all the facts together. The person is working as a laborer. What is more interesting is that the address is on Clark Street where his younger brother James was living after his marriage in 1883. There was something about that neighborhood and the eventual marriage of James and Mary Ellen that suggests Patrick was established there at one point and when James arrived in the city he may have shared Patrick’s quarters. As mentioned elsewhere, this is the very neighborhood that Mary Ellen’s older brother, Patrick Donahue owned a grocery store.
Another possible trace of Patrick McGinnis in Chicago is also from a Chicago city directory of 1880, two years before striking out for Seattle. This particular Patrick McGinnis is a partner in the business of “Boyle and McGinnis” located at 927 N. Halstad. All these directories can be found at http://www.chicagoancestors.org/#tab-tools. Probably not our Patrick for the firm is listed in the business section as “Ice Dealers” but that remains to be seen.
If his political bio from the Seattle newspapers of 1908 is correct, then he was in Chicago from 1868 to 1882. His 1900 Seattle census entry gives the emigration year as 1875, the 1900 census provides no date, the 1920 census states 1885. Solid evidence for dates just does not exist.
Regardless, Patrick eventually came to Seattle and probably immediately began his contracting business, using the business skills he must have learned during those 14 years in Chicago. It is rather frustrating not to find the man after 1871 in any record until 1900. We only know that he was in Chicago for fourteen years prior to heading west. Rail travel out of Chicago to the west coast during much of this time was really only available to San Francisco along the first Transcontinental Railroad although there were many projects in various stages of construction, some partially completed, attempting to reach the Northwest. All in all it was not a simple task to finally find your way to Seattle from Chicago until late in the 1880’s. But the man definitely made the journey and once again the “Pied Piper” eventually beckoned, this time from the west coast.
The question of when and where Patrick decided to change the spelling of his surname remains unresolved for now. Such an over worn statement in researching a families past but sadly it states the truth of the matter. I am confident that eventually the time will be established. The reason is also conjecture but due to his ethnicity it may have been the prudent thing to do for a young man attempting to establish himself in the business community.
The immigrant Irish bore an ethnic prejudicial stigma for many years just as any new immigrant group unfortunately will somehow have to endure. Its human nature and it will always exist in my opinion. The Italian’s in our history endured it as did the Chinese and the list goes on. Reading bits of history of our countries evolvement reveals that the Irish beginning in the early 1800’s and through much of the rest of the century at different times and in various places were treated as badly as the free Negro of the North. There was rampant discrimination for many years for both groups. The Irish and the free blacks actually competed for many of the same employment opportunities. The citizens of the day seemed to associate the traits of one group with the traits of the other. Chicago and Boston are a curiosity though for the early Irish of those cities really succeeded, certainly politically, but it took time and hard work for that to happen.
In the late 1800’s the conditions that the McGinnis clan faced in America may still have included a high level of prejudice. This was not the case in Eastern Canada however so it was a very new experience for all of them if it existed. The degree of the stigma remains questionable but still quite possible that it was present in their every day lives. The surname spelled as McInnis is a common Scotch variant spelling of McGinnis. McInnes is another variant as well and there are many more. Which is proper and correct I suppose might just depend on where one was located. But McInnis is and was accepted as a Scottish or an English name. Perhaps Patrick decided that for business purposes, in order to avoid possible stumbling blocks in his business dealings, in a new location and not knowing what his Irish roots might burden him with, that he would adapt the more English version when he began his new life in Seattle. He was out to find a new beginning and he did succeed to some degree and probably while using a different surname spelling.
Patrick left a mark on Seattle, a minor one perhaps, but enough so that he does appear at least twice in the local newspapers. Sadly one of those was his obituary. Rather obscure mentions perhaps but they add small facts that aid in expanding the overall story.
The following is copied from his political biography from the Seattle Post Intelligencer of November 1st, 1908. He was running for a seat in State House of Representatives for Seattle’s 43rd District, always an important legislative district in Seattle politics, then and now. The district today covers the central core of the city roughly from Lake Union east to Lake Washington and from the University District south to the Pioneer Square area. Two days later Patrick was elected, placing second in the polling which enabled him to take a seat in Olympia the following January 11th, 1909.
"P. McInnis, candidate from the Forty-third district, is a Canadian by birth and came to the United States when a young man. Chicago was his first home city in this country, and he lived there for fourteen years, following his trade of carpenter.
In 1882 Mr. McInnis arrived in Seattle and his since lived continuously in this city. The first few years were spent at the bench as carpenter, but when the city began to grow, Mr. McInnis shared in the general prosperity. He laid aside apron and tools and became a contractor.
Far sighted enough to foresee the future of Seattle when it was but a village of 5,000, Mr. McInnis invested his savings in Seattle real estate, and today he owns much valuable property.
As a large taxpayer he is opposed to extravagance in public affairs and will support all measures directed towards an economical administration of the business of the state."
The Washington State Archives has provided the following election results for the 43rd District for the November 1908 General Election.
Tuesday, February 9, 2009
The vote tally from the 1908 Election for the 43rd district is as follows:
Ole Hanson 1653
P. McInnis 1577
Harry T. Traynor 389
Frank B. Wilson
J. Willon 11
J. Solar 11
Homer Bull 5
O. St. Stone 1
Fred St. Pettys 1
I also checked the 1906 and 1910 election results but Mr. McInnis apparently didn't run in either of those years.If you have any other questions please feel free to contact us again.
Phil Stairs, Research Assistant
Puget Sound Regional Archives3000 Landerholm Circle S.E.,
MS-N100Bellevue, WA 98007-6484
(425) 564-3940
Official Record of the Opening Day Session, Washington State House of Representatives, January 11, 1909-
The conflicting emigration dates for Patrick as mentioned above that have surfaced leads into the rest of the story and it involves the possible influence of younger sister Sarah.
Sarah McGinnis Fitzpatrick
The Fitzpatrick Home
Sarah and Husband Patricks Grave is the Only Marker on the McGinnis Plot-
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