Patrick A. Collins (1844-1905), the city's second Irish-born Mayor, died suddenly while
on vacation at Hot Springs,
VA, at 10:15 on September 14,
1905. The cause of death was acute gastritis, an ailment he had endured for
some time. His son Paul was at the bedside with him when he died.
His sudden death shocked Boston's political establishment and its
residents, as well as the Irish-American community, because Collins was
considered one of the city's great statesmen.
Born in 1844 in Ballinafauna, a townland
outside of Fermoy, Cork,
Collins came to Boston in
March 1848, with his widowed mother, part of the mass exodus from Ireland due
to the Irish Famine.
They settled in Chelsea,
where the anti-Irish Know Nothing movement was fully blown in the 1850s.
Patrick got a job as an office boy with Robert Morris,
an African-American lawyer, and later become a lawyer himself. He entered
into an upholstery apprenticeship, where he eventually became foreman.
All the while he was attending classes at Harvard University while
studying at the Boston Public Library evenings.
Collins made his first foray into American
politics when he became a state representative from South
Boston in 1868-69,and a state senator in
1870-71. He became the first Irish Catholic elected as a US Congressman (1883-85).
He campaigned for President Grover
Cleveland and was appointed as Consul General in London from
1893-97.
As Mayor, Collins was praised for mastering
the business of the city, and noted for his protection of historical Bostonspaces
such as Boston Common, Faneuil Hall, Old South Meeting House, and Old Granary
and Copps Hill burying grounds.
Funds for a memorial were collected by public
donations within a week of Collins' death, and the memorial was created by
noted sculptors Henry and Theo Kitson. The bronze memorial was unveiled
in 1908, and contained a bust of Collins along with twin statues on each side depicting
Erin and Columbia,
representing Collins' native and adopted lands.
