52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks- Week #36: Labor. John McGlynn, Lamplighter

 

John McGlynn, Lamplighter

John McGlynn was a lamplighter in the ritzy Belle Haven area on the Greenwich, Connecticut waterfront in the early 1900s.

 

John McGlynn was the husband of my first cousin, 3x removed (1C3R), Mary Duffy. He was born about 1856 in Ireland, spent time in Scotland as a coal miner, and died in Greenwich, Connecticut on 18 April 1935, where his obituary stated that he had been a resident of Belle Haven, for 35 years. [1]

 

When John McGlynn came to America in 1896, he settled in Greenwich, Connecticut, where many of his and Mary's relatives resided. Belle Haven, in the early part of the 20^th century, was an area of the rich and famous along the Greenwich waterfront. John McGlynn was not.

 

According to the book “A History of the Greenwich Waterfront (CT) by Karen Jewell, “John McGlynn used to be the neighborhood lamplighter. It would take McGlynn the better part of three hours to light all of Belle Haven.” [2]

 

What does a lamplighter do? According to Wikipedia, “a lamplighter is a person employed to light and maintain candle or, later, gas street lights." [3] A lamplighter usually carried around a ladder and gas lamps were lit using a wick on a long pole.  

 

                                                                                     

                                            Credit: 11 jobs that no longer exist today                                  

                                                                                   https://imgur.com/gallery/S 3lOX

In the early 20^th century, gas was transported through pipes to the gas lamps and lamps were placed on the posts. Lamplighters lit them in the evening and put them out in the morning. Gas lamps started in Europe and then spread to America. The first gas lamp in America was installed Feb. 7, 1817, at the northwest corner of Baltimore and Holliday streets in Baltimore, Maryland. A replica of the original, with appropriate plaque, adorns the spot today [4] as a reminder of this long-forgotten, but important, occupation.

 

                                                                            Credit: American Oil and Gas Historical Society

                                                                            https://www.aoghs.org/technology/manufactured-gas/

 

 

[1] “John McGlynn Dies At Home Today,”

The Greenwich News & Graphic, Greenwich, Connecticut, 18 April 1935, clipping from Greenwich Library

[2] Karen Jewell, A History of the Greenwich Waterfront: Tod’s Point, Great Captain Island and the Greenwich Shoreline (Charleston: The History Press, 2011, 71.

[3] Wikipedia, “Lamplighter,” 4 September 2020 [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamplighter]

[4] The History of Lighting. http://www.historyoflighting.net/lighting-history/history-of-gas-lighting/: 2020