Rudolph Row and the Boland/McCaffery Connection

​I recently wrote a post about my paternal grandfather’s boxing career and mentioned one of the venues he fought at was known as Rudolph’s Open Air  Ring located in front of of a group of employee row-houses known as Rudolph’s Row. 

After I wrote the post, I remembered my maternal grandmother Ann Marie McCaffery’s birth certificate that stated she was born in a house on the grounds of Pencoyd Iron Works. On a hunch, I went back to look at my research records on the McCaffery (also spelled McCafferty) clan. Lo and behold, I was able to connect the dots and solve another piece of the puzzle. My grandmother was born in one of the Rudolph Row houses. I discovered that employees of Pencoyd Iron Works also lived in Rudolph’s Row-Houses. At first I thought it was only the employees of Sebastian Rudolph’s paper mill known as Ashland that resided in those homes. I discovered that John and Agnes (Bridget) Boland McCafferty resided at Rudolph’s Row and that my grandmother was born there. John McCafferty immigrated from Letterkenney Ireland to Philadelphia Pennsylvania in 1908 and found employment at Pencoyd Iron Works. John’s brother Columb (later Americanized to Collum) was already living in Manayunk and working at Pencoyd. Later, I discovered the the connection between Letterkenney, Ireland and the neighborhood of Manayunk and Pencoyd Iron Works.

Before John McCafferty left his home in Ireland, he already had a place to live and work in Philadelphia Pennsylvania. 

By 1908 and even as early as Columb’s immigration in the late 1800’s, the worst of the Great Famine had passed. However, it left County Donegal economically “stagnant”. At the same time, Manayunk in Philadelphia was booming in textiles, locomotive manufacturing and steel production. As a result, young men from County Donegal left in the thousands to travel to a little section of town known as Manayunk “Workplace of the World” to seek employment. 

Rudolph was a historic collection of connected mill worker houses that housed the employees and their families of Ashland Paper Mill and Pencoyd Iron Works. Though the houses were located on the west side of the River known as West Manayunk, it was deeply connected to the industrial and social fabric of next door Manayunk. Today, West Manayunk is Belmont Hills and Rudolph Row was removed to build the Schuylkill Expressway in the 1950’s. 

I believe my maternal great grandfather was an employee of Pencoyd Iron Works who lived with his wife and his wife’s family. In the 1910 census records, my great great grandparents John and Ellen Boland resided on River Rd with their children. What is interesting about that is my great great grandfather did not work at Ashland Paper Mill or Pencoyd Iron Works but worked digging graves at nearby Westminster Cemetery. I always thought 137 River Rd was on the grounds of Westminster Cemetery only to discover it was a Rudolph Row house. In 1911, John McCafferty married their daughter Agnes (Bridget) Boland and Agnes gave birth to their daughter (my grandmother)  in that house in 1912. 

Living at Rudolph Row meant you shared one water well located on the sidewalk, had no indoor plumbing, lived between a river and railroad tracks which had locomotives belch out thick coal smoke, high noise and pollution levels from nearby industries and close to prize boxing fights and carnivals at the Rudolph Open Air Ring that was located across from the row houses.

Work conditions at Ashland Paper Mill and Pencoyd Iron Works were physically grueling and dangerous. At Ashland Paper Mill, workers were crashed by machines or drowned in large vats that contained bleaching agents. At Pencoyd, there were blast furnace accidents, intense heat, toxic gases and ash that polluted the air. Employees worked 12 hour shifts six days a week without overtime or benefits with few breaks. Child labor was abundant where children worked long hours with even less pay. It was a time where industry was unregulated and life threatening. 

Attached are pictures of my grandmother Ann McCaffery/McCafferty’s birth certificate and the 1910 census records of the Boland family on River Rd. I also added the pictures of Rudolph Row, John and Ellen Boland, marriage certificate of John and Agnes Boland Mccafferty/Mccaffery and Ann McCaffery Gallagher. The last picture of Rudolph Row, I added a white line pointing out the Boland House (137) where my grandmother (Anna) was born.