John McCafferty

John McCafferty remains a man of mystery. Born in 1843 he doesn't appear in the 1850 federal or 1855 state censuses for Easton. He doesn't appear to have lived in any of the Ames tenements. Chaffin, however, writes as if he is familiar with the man. As noted yesterday, McCafferty died on July 10, 1899 and is buried in the Immaculate Conception Cemetery. A check yesterday showed he died of accidental drowning, but whether that occurred in Easton or elsewhere awaits the discovery of an obituary.

Chaffin notes he left college in Worcester in April, 1861 when he was 18. This would be Holy Cross founded in 1843 by the Jesuits under the auspices of Boston's Bishop Fenwick when Protestant opposition prevented him from starting the school in the capital. The valedictorian of the first graduating class in 1849 was James Healy, the son of a slave, who became the first African American bishop. This is interesting because Protestant Abolitionists were often "down on" the Catholic Church for failing to take a stand opposed to slavery. Tuition was expensive-$125 per year in 1843 so McCafferty would have had to have come from a family that was more well off than the average Irish family of the time or had a scholarship or patron. I've been unable to determine whether Holy Cross was exclusively aimed at producing members of the priesthood in its early years, but it seems that many graduates did go on to to become members of the clergy. Was it patriotism or the desire for an adventurous life that caused a bright young man to drop out of school and join the service?

In the Star Trek universe the USS Cairo is an Excelsior class starship. That would have been an adventure for Mr. McCafferty! However, he joined the USS Cairo that was a City class ironclad, designed by James Eads at Mound City, Illinois. The ironclad was 175 feet long and displaced 512 tons. Designed for river use, it could operate in only six feet of water and make 4 knots. If Chaffin is correct, McCafferty was assigned to the ship, then owned by the US Army  in April, 1861 when it was still being built. The ship was officially commissioned only in January of 1862, however. Again, according to Chaffin, McCafferty transferred off the ironclad in April, 1862 to join another river ironclad, the New Era. If McCafferty was on the Cairo when Chaffin said he was, he participated in the capture of Clarksville and Nashville, Tennessee in Febraury, 1862. After McCafferty supposedly left the Cairo it became the first ship in world history to be sunk by an electronically detonated mine on December 12, 1862. Here's a picture of the USS Cairo:

 The Cairo was raised in 1964 and the rich trove of artifacts now resides in the National Park Service's Vicksburg National Military Park. You can view these really interesting relics here.

The National Park Service  has researched the shipmates who served on the Cairo. These records tell a different story about John McCafferty. According to the NPS McCafferty enlisted on April 4, 1862 on the Cairo, the date Chaffin has him transferring to the New Era. The record calls him a landsman-he became a cook so check out those cooking artifacts-who had been born in Boston and enlisted from Boston. He was 19, had no occupation, and was described as of fair complexion with brown hair, blue eyes and standing a Napoleonic 5 feet 2 and three quarters inches tall. By the way, the downloadable PDF file of the crew list, available at the link above,  also includes many pictures of the ships artifacts.

So, with apologies to the Cairo, today's research blows Chaffin's story right out of the water! He joined the ship just as it was headed into its most important action not at the relative easy work in February. And when did he join the New Era? Do we have another Lyman Wheelock here? Wheelock was the last Revolutionary War soldier to die in Easton, but he moved to town after his wartime service. Stay tuned!