Barry, William David

English

University of Maine

Maine History Volume 41 Number 3 James Berry Vickery III, 1917-1997 Article 7 10-1-2002 Jim Vickery and The Grady Manuscript Collection William David Barry Maine Historical Society Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mainehistoryjournal  Part of the Cultural History Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Barry, William David. "Jim Vickery and The Grady Manuscript Collection." Maine History 41, 3 (2002): 249-252. https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/mainehistoryjournal/vol41/iss3/7 This From the Collections is brought to you for free and open access by DigitalCommons@UMaine. It has been accepted for inclusion in Maine History by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@UMaine. For more information, please contact um.library.technical.services@maine.edu. FROM THE COLLECTIONS:JIM VICKERY AND THE GRADY MANUSCRIPT COLLECTIONIIM VICKERY was an established legend by the time I entered the field of Maine history in the early 1970s. Indeed, one o f the first things fellow researchers said was that if I needed to find out any tning to do with Bangor, eastern Maine, or the Penobscot River region (not to mention the town o f Unity whose history he wrote), Jim was the first logical point o f inquiry. In the years that followed, as a researcher for the Portland Museum of Art, the Maine Historical Society, and on my own mercenary endeavors, I tapped Jim’s knowledge frequently on a variety of subjects ranging from nineteenth-century artists to Bangor’s notorious “Devil’s Half Acre” to furniture makers, ethnic groups, and possible forerunners of L.L. Bean’s “Maine Hunting Shoe.”A unique com bination of antiquarian, collector, exacting historian, and enthusiastic appreciator o f the men and women who shaped our state and nation, Jim was exceptionally generous with his inform ation and ideas. He was involved in the past, not for ego or academic glory, but because he loved it and through his own remarkable family was an inte­gral part of it. Tom Weber o f the Bangor Daily News aptly dubbed him “Bangors’ Greatest Natural resource” in 1992. Jim was a born teacher who shared his latest finds with such extraordinary contemporaries as Francis M. O ’Brien, Dorothy Healy, and Elizabeth Ring, as well as younger scholars including William B. Jordan Jr., James H. Mundy, and Earle G. Shettleworth Jr. He was a vital presence at Brewer High School, the Bangor Public Library, Bangor Historical Society, Fogler Library at the University o f Maine, Maine Historical Society, and the Maine His­torical Preservation Commission. In my friendship with Jim we traded numerous discoveries by post, during visits, but mostly by telephone. I deeply miss not being able to ask advice, check a fact, pose a question, or on those very rare occasions, tell him something fresh about the past.It is said that no one is indispensable and the study o f local and re­gional history has not ground to a halt since Jim’s death in 1997. How­ever, a vibrant and unique personal and professional connection wasMaine History 41:3 & 4 Fall /Winter 2002250 Maine Historylost. Not a week goes by at the Maine Historical Society Library without some question or discovery that brings recollection of Jim and his great retentive memory to the fore. Jinks presence was particularly missed in June 1999, when the Maine Historical Society held its Irish American Round Table, the second in a continuing series of conferences on ethnic­ity bringing together scholars, genealogists, and students. Jim would, no doubt, have loved the reports on Irish sports, immigration, business, and, in particular, James H. Mundy’s talk on nineteenth-century Hiber­nians in Bangor and Portland.Like the rest of us Jim Vickery would probably have been astonished bv what followed the conference. Having read about the Irish American Round Table, John O’Grady o f Bedford, Massachusetts, offered to do­nate his late uncle William H. Grady’s extensive research papers on the Irish in the Penobscot River region to the Maine Historical Society. While the Society’s library was delighted to accept this donation, the manuscripts that arrived were more wonderful and enlightening than anyone expected. Furtherm ore, they introduced W illiam H. Grady (1875-1953), a serious scholar of Maine history who seemed to have worked in near total isolation.Vital records, city directories, and obituaries in the Bangor Daily C om m ercial and the Bangor Daily News reveal that William H. Grady was born in Bangor, Maine, in 1875, the son o f John W. and Margaret Murray Grady. After attending community schools, William went on to graduate from Georgetown University and then Boston University Law School in 1899, a remarkable accomplishment for an Irish American of his time and place. Returning to Maine, William practiced law for a year or two and, according to his obituary, “taught in the Bangor Gaelic School.” Now the mystery; in 1903 the Bangor City Directory showed “William H.” as having joined his stone-mason father in the contracting and building firm of John Grady 8c Son, where he remained for decades. William never married and, aside from being a life-long member of St. Mary’s parish, he seemed not to have participated in any other com m u­nity activities. After he retired sometime between 1940 and 1946, he de­voted himself entirely to researching and writing local Irish American history.MAINE AND THE IRISH: TH E GRADY M AUNSCRIPT COLLEC­TION  (M HS COLL.1960) comprises three major sections and some ephemera. Section One is William H. Grady’s herculian (or M cCoolian) study, “Irish Immigration on the Penobscot and Its Envirions, 1735-From the Collections 251Contractors and BuildersSTONE, BRICK AND CARPENTER WORK.HILLS, DAMS AND BRIDGES.OFFICE, 39 HAMMOND ST., BANGOR. Telephone Connection.1865.” The first o f three parts in Section One focuses on Irish settlers in Warren, Thom aston, Orrington, Holden, Brewer, Frankfort, W interport, Hampden, Eddington, Bradley, Orono, Old Town, Milford, Hermon, Carmel (with a map o f Irish households), Greenbush, Passademkeag, Enfield, Lowell, Lincoln, W inn, Mattawamkeag, Veazie, Glenburn, Brad­ford, Hudson, Stetson, Garland, Pvmouth, Newburg, Corinna, Dexter, on the Piscataquis River, and in Penobscot Bay. Also included is an essay, “An Irish Utopia in Maine, 1830-1870, Benedicata” with an accompany­ing plot map. Part two in Section One is “The Maine Irish Immigration: 1760 to 1840,” a rich volume focused on Irish families in Bangor with a table o f contents and an index o f people and the year they arrived. Part three in Section One covers Irish immigration to Bangor from 1841 to 1865. Section Two is entitled “Footprints o f early Irishmen and others on the Penobscot and it Environs: Miscellaneous.” It comprises thirty- two articles and over 400 typed pages. Finally, Section Three is William H. Grady’s ninety-one page summarization o f William D. Williamson’s classic work he called, “A Digest o f W illiamson’s History o f Maine (Ban­gor: 1832), from earliest Days to Separation, 1820.”It is most baffling that William H. Grady never did anything with his substantive, exhaustively researched work. The papers are all neatly252 Maine Historytyped and seemingly ready for review, if not publication. Were his friends or other scholars aware of his work? Why did William not de­posit the material in one of Maine's historical societies? One wonders if it had to do with a lack o f interest about Irish Americans on the part o f such institutions, William’s modesty, or the lack o f interest on the part of local Irish Americans. Certainly by the middle of the twentieth century enthusiasm for Irish history, culture, and genealogy had waned among M aine’s Irish. Indeed, antiquarians and historians from  Francis M. O ’Brien to Matthew Jude Barker believed that sustained participation in Irish societies, language groups, and the study of local ethnic research was at its height in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In 1944 M aine’s great Irish American benefactor James A. Healey (1890- 1975) observed: “interest in Irish history or literature is non-existent in Portland, that is among the Irish.” There can be little doubt that the same was true in Bangor, where the scholarly William H. Grady labored.Aside from W illiam, the man most able to validate this theory would have been the consummate Bangor researcher, Jim Vickery. My first call would have been to ask Jim if he had ever known or heard of William. If not, he would certainly have known whom to ask, and he would have made a fast trip to the Maine Historical Society to survey the collection. Unfortunately, we cannot apply Jim’s special insight and knowledge to help solve this mystery, though his own publications, An Illustrated History o f  the City o f  Bangor  (1969) and M ade In Bangor (1984), might help with the broader historical context. Now it is up to new generations of historians to assess the Grady Collection, unknown these fifty years and more. The study of Maine history moves on with new researchers and writers, all o f whom will owe a large measure of thanks to the contributions o f scholars William H. Grady and James B. Vickery III.W il l ia m  D a v id  B a r r y

Jim Vickery and The Grady Manuscript Collection

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Jim Vickery and The Grady Manuscript Collection

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