MAY 8: THE DESTRUCTION OF THE IRISH CATHOLIC PARISH
Morning Under the Bayonets
Daybreak on Wednesday revealed a neighborhood that no longer resembled itself.
Soldiers stood guard at intersections. Artillery pieces blocked streets. Men of the Jackson Artillerists and other militia companies guarded what remained of the Nanny Goat Market. The smell of charred timber hung over Second Street, and smoke drifted from the ashes of Cadwalader Street.
General George Cadwalader had departed only briefly, leaving Captain Jonas Fairlamb in temporary command. The military presence was heavy, but their authority was uncertain. The troops concentrated near St. Michael’s Church, yet everywhere else, Kensington remained unsettled.
A Ledger reporter sensed a fragile calm and predicted that the worst was over. He would be disastrously mistaken.
The First New Fires
By eight o’clock, people returned to the ruins. Men sifted through scorched frames of houses. Children climbed on broken walls, knocking loose bricks and beams. Firemen tried to extinguish what still smoldered. Irish families who had stayed through the night were escorted out by soldiers, carrying bedding and trunks and whatever possessions they had salvaged. Many walked north on the roads leading toward Camac’s Woods, where hundreds of Irish refugees had already gathered. At the same time, small Nativist bands roamed the district, describing themselves as “searchers.” They claimed to be looking for Irish weapons. But the pattern was unmistakable. Again and again, after these parties entered an abandoned home, flames erupted moments later.
At Whitecar’s Court, Captain Fairlamb confronted one such group and ordered them off. They withdrew. Minutes later, smoke poured from a basement window. Before fire engines arrived, the entire court was ablaze.
Throughout the morning, new fires consumed:
• frame houses along Cadwalader
• weaving shops near Jefferson
• dwellings on Harmony Court
• and houses already vacated by fleeing families
The military could not stamp out the arson. A fire in one block drew soldiers away, only for another to ignite behind them. The destruction had become systematic.
“Pope Property”: The Marking of St. Michael’s
The Nativist aim soon became unmistakable.
Someone painted the words “POPE PROPERTY” across the fence of the St. Michael’s rectory. It was not merely vandalism. It was a public declaration of intent.
The pastor of St. Michael’s, Father Loughran, already rumored to be a primary target, quietly left the parish in a hired carriage. Before departing, he placed the keys to his church in the hands of Captain Fairlamb.
More troops arrived mid morning. Crowds thickened again. And from downtown, the Nativist press renewed its rhetoric, calling for justice, for retaliation, for the “removal” of Catholic power. The violence that had engulfed homes the day before was now turning toward the center of Catholic life in Kensington.
Noon: The Mob Regroups
By midday, groups of boys and young men began pressing against the military lines surrounding the church. There was nothing spontaneous about the gathering. They had watched for two days as homes, shops, weaving courts, and even the hose house were burned without armed resistance. They moved with purpose.
Fires continued in the alleys and weaving courts, drawing soldiers away from St. Michael’s. Then a new cry carried down Second Street.
“On to St. Michael’s.”
The Fire at St. Michael’s: Deception and Attack
Just after two o’clock, two houses belonging to Patrick Magee, located a short distance from the church, suddenly flared with fire. The troops ran to protect the firemen, leaving St. Michael’s poorly defended.
In their absence, the mob surged toward the church. Stones crashed against stained glass windows. Bricks struck the doors and rectory walls. Several militia companies watched from a distance, unable or unwilling to intervene.
But somehow the church door was left unfastened. The sources vary on whether a soldier left it unlocked by accident, or a sympathizer did so intentionally. What all agree on is that entry became possible. Around 2:30 pm, someone slipped inside St. Michael’s and set a fire at the front of the church.
Flames climbed the interior timbers. Smoke poured from open windows. The fire spread to the rectory, then to the priest house, and then to nearby factories and homes. The gothic steeple ignited like a torch. Its burning cross was seen from across Kensington, toppling to the sound of Nativist cheers.
Fife and drum began playing “Boyne Water,” the old Protestant victory march commemorating King William over Catholic Ireland.
Behind the church, in the cemetery, mourners buried an infant while fires raged around them. Gravestones were overturned. Crosses smashed.
The Destruction of the Sisters of Charity Seminary
As St. Michael’s burned, the crowd moved to the final Catholic structure left standing in Kensington: the Sisters of Charity Seminary, attacked two nights earlier but not yet destroyed. This time there was no restraint.
They tore down the fence. They broke windows. They ripped shutters from the hinges. They scattered what the Sisters had left behind.
Then they set the building on fire. It burned completely.
Across the street, they raided and gutted Joseph Corr’s Temperance Grocery, a known gathering point for Irish defenders. Merchandise was thrown into the street. Nothing remained of the business by the time the flames died.
The Targeting of Irish Leadership
With Catholic institutions in ashes, the mob turned to the homes of prominent Irish Catholics.
Their prime target was Hugh Clark, a respected Irish civic voice and controller of the public schools. Nativist leaders blamed him for the Bible controversy, despite official records disproving that claim. His home at Fourth and Master was ransacked.
Witnesses describe smashed windows, destroyed furniture, scattered clothing, and his large personal library thrown into the street and fed into a bonfire. His brother Patrick’s tavern fared no better.
At Jefferson and Germantown, Patrick Murray’s grocery was looted and wrecked. Sources estimate his losses at four thousand dollars, a staggering sum at the time.
This was not random violence. It was the systematic dismantling of Irish leadership and the civic structure they had built in Kensington.
Cadwalader’s Return: Order After Ruin
Only in late afternoon did General Cadwalader return with full reinforcements.
• The Philadelphia Grays
• The State Fencibles
• The First City Troop
• The Junior Artillerists
• Additional volunteer companies
Cadwalader deployed the forces in two directions, sending Colonel James Page toward Phoenix Street, directly into the heart of the riot. Page confronted a large Nativist crowd threatening further destruction. He rode directly into their midst, dismounted, and appealed to them “as Americans” to withdraw. After tense moments, they dispersed, giving him three cheers. His courage likely prevented another round of arson. But it came too late to save St. Michael’s or the convent.
The Mob Moves to Philadelphia Proper
With Kensington’s Catholic institutions destroyed, the crowd moved south into the city. They passed a German Catholic church without incident. The distinction was stark and intentional. The mob’s war was against Irish Catholics.
Shortly after 9:30pm, they converged on St. Augustine’s Church, near Fourth and New Streets.
Mayor John M. Scott attempted to speak but was struck in the chest by a stone. During the momentary confusion, a fire began in the vestibule, reportedly set by a fourteen year old boy. Within minutes the church, rectory, school, and library were engulfed. The heat was so intense that onlookers stepped back entire blocks.
When the steeple collapsed, the crowd cheered again. The destruction was later described as “without parallel in the history of our State.”
Refugees in Flight: The Human Disaster
As the churches burned, the exodus from Kensington continued.
The Ledger described the refugees plainly: “Men with their wives, and often six or seven children, trudging fearfully through the streets, with small bundles, seeking a refuge they knew not where.”
Many walked north toward the swelling camp in Camac’s Woods, where families huddled with little food or shelter. Children cried from fear and cold.
It was a humanitarian disaster in every sense.
A Parish Erased
By nightfall, the Catholic presence in Kensington had been nearly wiped away:
• St. Michael’s Church burned
• The rectory and priest house destroyed
• The Sisters of Charity Seminary burned
• Dozens of Irish homes and businesses in ruins
• Irish leadership targeted and broken
• Refugee camps forming north of the district
• A second church, St. Augustine’s, destroyed in the city
The violence of May 8 did not merely devastate a neighborhood. It dismantled an entire community.
The policing and military structure of Philadelphia had failed, and the Irish Catholic population, displaced and grieving, now lived in scattered encampments, waiting for whatever would come next.