Boston's Irish-Born Mayor Patrick Collins Died on September 13, 1905

Memorial to Patrick A. Collins on Commonwealth Avenue, Boston 

 Patrick  A. Collins (1844-1905), the city's second Irish-born Mayor, died suddenly while on vacation at Hot Springs, VA, on September 13, 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.  

The Collins family settled in Chelsea, where the anti-Irish Know Nothing movement was fully blown in the 1850s.  As a ten year old boy, Collins witnessed the Catholic Church in Chelsea being burned to the ground in 1854. 

Patrick began working for a fish and oyster supplier when he was about ten, and then his family moved to Ohio for several years, where Collins worked in coal plants.  Upon returning to Boston in 1859,  he entered into an upholstery apprenticeship, where he eventually became foreman.  

As a boy, Collins worked as an office boy with Robert Morris, an African-American lawyer, which inspired him to study law.  He attended law classes at Harvard Law School while studying at the Boston Public Library evenings.  He received his law degree from Harvard in 1871. 

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. 

When he became mayor of Boston in 1902, Collins was praised for mastering the business of the city, and noted for his protection of historical Boston spaces 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. 

The Boston Irish Heritage Trail includes the Memorial to Patrick Andrew Collins. It was originally sited at Charlesgate West, and in 1968 was moved to its present location  on Commonwealth Avenue Mall, between Clarendon and Dartmouth Streets. 

Patrick Collins is buried at Holyhood Cemetery in West Roxbury.

Here is a list of Boston mayors of Irish descent. 

For more on Boston Irish history, visit IrishHeritageTrail.com.

For year round activities on the Boston Irish, visit IrishBoston.org.