Matthew Mack (1878-1957)

My grandfather, Matthew (MacNamara) Mack, was born on the 16 September 1878 on Taylor's Row, Tirpil, Merthyr Tydfil,  Glamorgan, Wales, the son of Irish parents, Daniel MacNamara and Catherine Donovan of County Cork.  Matthew was baptized Roman Catholic in Rhymney Parish, Glamorgan, Wales on 13 Oct 1878.  His baptism sponsors were Michael O'Dwyer and Catherine Foley.

On the 1881 Wales census, Matthew Mack was living with his parents and brothers at 8 Glandwr Terrace, Ystradyfodwg, Glamorgan, Wales.  The family surname was MacNamara and all ten children’s’ births were registered as such, but by the 1881 census the entire family was using the surname Mack.  It is unknown why the surname was shortened.  After the death of his father, Daniel Mack in May 1881, Matthew, age three, along with his mother, Catherine and brother, Daniel, moved in with older brother, John Mack and his wife, Julia in New Tredegar, Glamorgan, Wales.  As a young boy of about eleven years, Matthew worked in a brickyard near New Tredegar as a water-errand boy and at the age of fifteen, started working in the colliery.

            On the 1901 Wales census, Matthew, age 22, was listed as a boarder living with William Morris, his wife, Margarat, and their two daughters, Annie, and Elizabeth, at 119 Commercial St., New Tredegar, Monmouthshire, Wales and his occupation was a colliery horse driver.

Matthew Mack migrated to the United States the first time in 1903 on a work contract with the Ellsworth Colliers Company to work in the Ellsworth Mine, Washington County, Pennsylvania.  Matthew left Liverpool, England on 7 October 1903 on the S.S. Haverford and arrived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on 18 October 1903, but he never stepped foot into the United States after that voyage.

He was immediately deported back to Wales by the United States Immigration Service through no fault of his own.  It seems the Ellsworth Colliers Company was violating an 1884 Alien Contract Work law by hiring Welsh miners through an agent in Wales on a contract and paying the miner’s passage and expenses to the United States.  In exchange, the Welsh miners would work in the Ellsworth mines for a specified number of years.  In other words, the miners were being indentured which was illegal at that time.  The government found out about the scheme and the Allegheny County, Pennsylvania District Attorneys office filed a lawsuit against Ellsworth Colliers.  In an article in the New York Times dated December 2, 1903, it quotes, "It has been alleged that during the present year, Ellsworth Coal Company advertised in Wales and secured a large number of miners, who, when they reached here were dissatisfied with the prevailing conditions and sought employment elsewhere.  Several of these miners were returned (to Wales) by the Immigration Bureau at Philadelphia."  On the S.S. Haverford's Philadelphia manifest there is a large "D" written beside every miners name on the same page as Matthew meaning the men had been deported. 

           Matthew Mack emigrated the second time from Wales to Quebec, Canada in 1904.  He left Liverpool, England on the S.S. Lake Manitoba of the Canadian Pacific Line on the 1 November 1904 arriving in Quebec City.   He then traveled into the United States at the port of Black Rock, Buffalo, New York on 23 November 1904.   He listed his last residence as Cardiff, Wales.  His destination was listed as Carnegie, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania to stay with his sister, Johanna (McNamara) Downey McMurray.  

            As his sister Johanna, born in Wales in 1854, had left Wales in 1871 seven years before Matthew's birth, Matthew's arrival in America was the first time this brother and sister had ever met.  Upon his arrival in Pennsylvania, Matthew worked as a coal miner for the Carnegie Coal Company. About 1905, he made his way to Arden, Washington County, Pennsylvania with his nephew, Tim Downey to work at the Arden Mine.  Matthew and Tim were listed as boarders with Archibald and Lucy McIntyre, Matthew's future in-laws, on the 1910 United States Census for Arden, Chartiers Twp., Washington County, Pennsylvania.  He was working as a hoisting engineer in the mine.  

            Matthew left Arden, Pennsylvania and returned to Wales under mysterious circumstances in December 1910.  Matthew did not inform his sister Johanna or the McIntyres that he was returning to Wales.  In a January 1911 letter from Matthew's oldest brother, John living in Hafodrynys, Monmouthshire, Wales to his sister, Johanna in Pennsylvania, John mentions that Matthew had been back in New Tredegar, Glamorgan, Wales  for three weeks and had not yet contacted him.  It is suspected Matthew may have been deported a second time as he had been in the United States for seven years and had not yet filed his intention to become a naturalized citizen.  At that time, the law stated that the intention must be filed within five years of arrival in the United States.

“Well, dear sister, it is strange that Matt did not tell you he was coming back, he has been back this 3 weeks but he hasn’t been over to see me as yet.  My son, Dan, went over to New Tredegar about 3 weeks ago & saw him there that is how I know he is back.  He promised to come over on the Saturday, but he never turned up.  I really think he ought to come & see me before strangers don’t you.   Well, I don’t think I shall break my neck to go & see him until he comes here.”  Letter from John Mack – Hafodrynys, Monmouthshire, January 1911.

           Matthew Mack then returned to the United States for the third time from Wales through Liverpool, England on the S.S. Mauretania leaving England on 4 March 1911 and arriving in the port of New York on 10 March 1911.  He returned to Arden, Washington County, Pennsylvania again to stay with Archibald McIntyre and his wife.  He hand carried in a basket a pair of Staffordshire dogs as a gift for Lucy McIntyre, his future mother-in-law.  These dogs now almost 100 years old are still a family treasure.

In 1914, Matthew and the McIntyre family moved to Hendersonville, Washington County, Pennsylvania to work in the newly opened Henderson Mine.  Matthew Mack and Florence McIntyre, daughter of Archibald and Lucy McIntyre, were married in October 1919: him at the age of forty-one and her at the age of twenty-seven.  They had three children: Archibald Malcolm, Robert Matthew, and Catherine Florence.

            Matthew worked as a coal miner all of his adult life attaining the position of machinist.  He received his Bituminous Coal Miner's Certificate from the State of Pennsylvania on 1 March 1938.  His last place of mining employment was the Henderson Mine, Hendersonville, Washington County, Pennsylvania when the mine closed in 1945.  

           Matthew Mack finally received his United States Naturalization papers on the 11 April 1939 in Washington County, Pennsylvania at the age of sixty.  He bought the company house where he lived and raised his children in 1945 for a sum of five hundred and fifty dollars from the Pittsburgh Coal Company.

            Only two months after I was born, my grandfather, Matthew Mack died on 15 July 1957 at the age of seventy-eight of congestive heart failure in Hendersonville, Pennsylvania and is buried in Oak Spring Cemetery, Canonsburg, Washington County, Pennsylvania. 

Although I was too young to remember him, through finding his family history, I feel I have come to know him.  And it took the journey from Wales to Pennsylvania three times round for Matthew Mack to finally have the life he so desired in the United States of America.