Los niños del Dresden

El orfanato irlandés de Capilla del Señor y las vidas que la historia olvidó

En mayo de 1891, mientras el fracaso de la colonia de Napostá se convertía en un escándalo en los medios de la época, un diario de Buenos Aires publicó una breve frase que hoy adquiere una dimensión enorme:

the boys have been located in an orphanage in Calle Cochabamba under the care of a committee of Irish ladies.

Detrás de esa línea había niños de las familias que habían llegado dos años antes a bordo del Dresden. Habían vivido en carne propia todos esos primeros días de arribo al puerto de Buenos Aires, habían viajado al medio de la nada, solo con puesto, para montar el proyecto de colonia que prometía tierras, prosperidad y una nueva vida en la Argentina. 

Algunos de estos niños habían perdido a sus padres. Otros habían sido separados de sus familias por la pobreza, las enfermedades o el abandono mismo.

Ese orfanato de la Calle Cochabamba sería el origen del Colegio Fahy.

Más de un siglo después, los nombres de algunos de esos chicos todavía pueden encontrarse en el Censo Nacional de 1895, registrados en Capilla del Señor junto a Sor Catalina de Cristo Dowling.

En el sitio de la Asociación de Señoras de San José (link del sitio) puede leerse una breve historia institucional sobre la llegada de inmigrantes irlandeses a la Argentina y la creación de una obra destinada a asistir a niños huérfanos. El texto conserva una memoria profundamente valiosa, aunque mezcla fechas, cifras y nombres.

La narración afirma que el barco llegó el 8 de febrero de 1889 y menciona al “City of Dresden”. Sin embargo, las listas de pasajeros y la documentación contemporánea sitúan el arribo del Dresden en Buenos Aires el 15 de febrero de 1889.

También aparecen exageraciones numéricas y simplificaciones inevitables en una memoria transmitida durante generaciones. Pero detrás de esas imprecisiones hay un núcleo histórico indiscutible: el recibimiento de los inmigrantes fue caótico: el proyecto colonizador de Napostá terminó en desastre, muchas familias quedaron en la miseria, familias que se separaron y disgregaron, hubo niños huérfanos o abandonados y la comunidad irlandesa y angloargentina fue la que organizó una red de ayuda concreta para asistirlos.

En mayo de 1891, el Liverpool Mercury publicó extractos del informe del vicecónsul británico Charles Ansell sobre la colonia de Napostá. El cuadro era devastador: malas cosechas, herramientas insuficientes, reducción de raciones, endeudamiento imposible de sostener y prohibiciones absurdas que impedían a los colonos salir a buscar trabajo cuando no tenían nada que hacer en la colonia.

El informe hacía referencia a 76 familias (397 personas) atrapadas en un sistema que prácticamente había colapsado. Las deudas superaban ampliamente el valor de las tierras y los colonos denunciaban haber sido tratados injustamente.

Argentina por ese entonces, entre mediados de 1889 y 1891, cae en una crisis económica fuertísima y una revolución con cambio de gobierno incluido que no hacía más que complicar todo el cuadro antes descrito.

Otro artículo del Irish Times resumía crudamente el problema:

The Argentine Government agents induced the poor people to leave home under false promises.

El sueño agrícola prometido a cientos de inmigrantes irlandeses e ingleses se había transformado en hambre, enfermedad y desintegración familiar.

Las noticias de la época mencionan además muertes por privaciones y enfermedades. La disentería aparece repetidamente en distintos testimonios vinculados a Napostá y a los primeros meses posteriores al desembarco.

Frente al colapso de Napostá, comenzó una vez más a organizarse una red de ayuda impulsada por el Consulado Británico, miembros de la comunidad irlandesa y distintas instituciones religiosas y benéficas de Buenos Aires.

Las noticias de 1891 muestran que la asistencia no fue improvisada ni marginal. Hubo reuniones públicas, colectas, campañas en la prensa y coordinación con el gobierno argentino.

En uno de los artículos más importantes de toda esta historia, The Standard relató el traslado de familias sobrevivientes a nuevas colonias en Santa Fe y Entre Ríos, y agregó un dato fue la piedra fundamental del colegio Fahy:

the Irish nuns hospitably received some of the little girls gratis, and the boys have been located in an orphanage in Calle Cochabamba under the care of a committee of Irish ladies.

La noticia permite además identificar a varias de las mujeres involucradas en la organización y financiación de la institución: Maria M. de Mulhall, Mrs. Thomas Duggan, Mrs. Hanly, Mrs. O’Farrell, Mrs. Nelson y Miss Ryan entre otras.

La red de socorro no fue solamente irlandesa. Participaron también miembros de la comunidad inglesa y figuras argentinas vinculadas al sistema migratorio y a instituciones de beneficencia.

La documentación contemporánea permite afirmar que el colegio Fahy nació primero como una respuesta de emergencia frente a la crisis de los inmigrantes del Dresden.

El 24 de mayo de 1891, The Standard publicó una nota titulada The Boys’ Orphanage donde aparece formalmente el nombre “Fahy School for Irish Boys”, ubicado en Cochabamba 146, Buenos Aires.

La publicación reproduce incluso una carta enviada por Maria Mulhall a Juan Alsina, Comisario General de Inmigración, agradeciendo una donación oficial de 4.000 pesos moneda nacional para sostener el orfanato, què aproximadamente a plata de hoy serían entre USD 60.000 y USD 70.000 (según la inflación histórica estadounidense de largo plazo).

La donación realizada por el gobierno argentino en 1891 representaba, más allá de la actualización, una suma enorme para la época como para sostener durante meses el funcionamiento del orfanato.

También se detallan los aportes económicos, los nombres de los donantes, la apertura de una cuenta bancaria y las instrucciones para solicitar vacantes para los chicos.

Todo esto muestra que el Fahy no surgió inicialmente como un colegio tradicional, sino como una institución creada para contener a niños afectados por una crisis concreta directamente relacionada con la historia del Dresden y el cierre de la colonia de Napostá.

Años más tarde, el establecimiento sería trasladado a Capilla del Señor.

Sor Catalina y el Fahy de Exaltación de la Cruz

Las reconstrucciones posteriores suelen mencionar a “Mother Catherine Dowlan” como responsable del colegio de Capilla del Señor. 

La documentación de las Hermanas Pobres Bonaerenses de San José identifica a la superiora como Sor Catalina de Cristo Dowling, quien asumió la conducción de la casa desde abril de 1893 (https://pobresbonaerensesdesanjose.com/storage/2022/09/Exaltacion-de-la-cruz-1893.pdf).

El establecimiento fue concebido como colegio de huérfanos irlandeses, espacio educativo y casa de asistencia para chicos afectados por la crisis migratoria.

En el Segundo Censo Nacional de 1895, realizado en Exaltación de la Cruz, vuelve a aparecer Sor Catalina de Cristo Dowling acompañada por una larga lista de niños irlandeses e ingleses alojados en la institución.

Esta lista del censo de 1895 incluye decenas de chicos:

• Mauricio Hickey

• Miguel José Lamb

• Orourk Lamb

• José O’Sullivan

• Timoteo Mac Namarra

• Juan Ward

• Santiago Ward

• Miguel Murphy

• Juan Farrel

• José Farrel

• Eugenio Carney

• Ricardo Kiernan

• James Nally

• Francisco Caffrey

Al cruzar esos nombres con la lista de pasajeros del Dresden, comienzan a aparecer coincidencias extraordinarias.

Mauricio Hickey coincide casi perfectamente con Maurice Hickey, un niño de cuatro años que viajó junto a Michael y Kate Hickey en 1889.

Timoteo Mac Namarra parece corresponderse con Timothy McNamara, hijo de Michael y Bridget McNamara.

Los casos de Miguel José Lamb y “Orouk” son todavía más sorprendentes: en el manifiesto del Dresden aparece una familia Lamb con los niños Joseph Lamb y Orourk Lamb. La rareza del nombre “Orourk” convierte ese cruce en una coincidencia extremadamente fuerte.

También aparecen posibles correspondencias para los hermanos Ward, varios O’Sullivan y distintos chicos Murphy y Farrell.

No todos los casos pueden cerrarse documentalmente. Algunos apellidos aparecen deformados, castellanizados o mal transcriptos. Pero el patrón general resulta difícil de ignorar: los niños del Fahy parecen ser, en muchos casos, los hijos de las familias que habían llegado a bordo del Dresden.

Mauricio Hickey: una vida después del Dresden

Décadas después del censo de 1895 aparece un presbítero llamado Mauricio Hickey desarrollando actividad pastoral en distintos puntos de la provincia de Buenos Aires.

La Guía Eclesiástica de la República Argentina de 1915 ya lo menciona como teniente cura en Lomas de Zamora.

Más tarde aparece como párroco en Salto, impulsando obras educativas, proyectos comunitarios y la creación de una Escuela y Banda Municipal en 1929.

También dejó huella en Temperley, donde promovió instituciones parroquiales y educativas vinculadas a Nuestra Señora de la Piedad y a la futura Escuela de Comercio Tomás Espora.

Cronológicamente, todo encaja de manera notable con el niño Maurice Hickey del Dresden y con el Mauricio Hickey registrado en el Fahy de Capilla del Señor en 1895.

Todavía no apareció el documento definitivo que permita afirmar que se trata de la misma persona.

Pero la convergencia biográfica, temporal y onomástica es demasiado fuerte para ignorarla.

Un niño inmigrante posiblemente huérfano terminó convertido, quizás, en sacerdote, educador y constructor de comunidad.

Pero sus padres no aparecen en registro alguno en Argentina. Hay una pista que podría ubicarlos en Estados Unidos en un registro de un nuevo nacimiento algunos años más tarde. Serían ellos? Habrían dejado al cuidado del Fahy a Mauricio y ellos re-emigrado? Ya lo sabremos.

La historia del Fahy School obliga a mirar el episodio del Dresden desde otro lugar.

No solamente como una experiencia migratoria fallida.

Sino también como una historia de infancia, desarraigo y supervivencia.

Detrás de cada apellido del censo había un chico que atravesó uno de los episodios migratorios más traumáticos de la historia irlandesa en la Argentina.

Muchos perdieron a sus padres.

Otros quedaron atrapados entre idiomas, instituciones y mundos desconocidos.

Y sin embargo, algunos lograron reconstruir sus vidas.

El Fahy no fue solamente una escuela.

Para muchos de esos chicos, fue probablemente la frontera entre el abandono y una segunda oportunidad.

The Martins of the Dresden

On the cold winter's night of 23rd January 1889, the docks of Southampton were shaken by a momentous farewell. Hundreds of people gathered to say goodbye to the relatives travelling on the maiden voyage of the steamship SS Dresden, under this new migratory scheme of subsidised passages, bound for Buenos Aires—with a stop at Queenstown (now Cobh)—in search of a future that the agents' promises painted as prosperous and bright.

Among those travellers were two families who shared a surname and a story that, more than a century later, I shall begin to reconstruct with the information within my reach. These were the Martins.

Albert Martin, a carpenter and joiner aged thirty-nine, boarded the ship with his wife Eliza Jane and their four young children: Frederick, Edith, Jessie, and Eliza Rose. He was accompanied by his elder brother, Reuben Barker Martin, a bricklayer of forty-two, who travelled with his wife Sarah Ann and their six children, among them Charles William—Charlie, as he was called—a lad of seventeen who would soon share both roof and trade with his uncle Albert in the Argentine capital.

The Martin family's roots stretch back to the heart of Hampshire. Albert was born in 1851 in Brockenhurst, a small village nestled in the New Forest, and was baptised on 30th November of that year in the historic church of St Mary's, Southampton. His parents, Joseph and Mercy Martin, gave him a name that was fashionable in Victorian England. Reuben, the elder brother, was also born in Brockenhurst, in 1847.

By 1881, the English census provides a revealing snapshot of the lives of both brothers. Albert was residing in the district of Southampton St Mary, a dense and bustling area, and worked as a House Carpenter And Joiner 1st Class Army Reserve—that is, a first-class carpenter and joiner in the Army Reserve. This detail, seemingly minor, is significant: Albert was no mere civilian tradesman; he had received military training as an army carpenter, a distinction that undoubtedly conferred a higher status upon his craft. In this census he was already married to Eliza Jane, a native of Shirley, and they had two small children: Frederick A., aged one, and the newborn Edith F.

His brother Reuben, for his part, had achieved an even more prosperous position. In the 1881 census he is recorded as residing in South Stoneham, Hampshire, with the occupation Master Bricklayer & Grocer Employing 9 men & 4 boys. Reuben had diversified his business and become a small entrepreneur in the local construction and retail trade. He was married to Sarah Ann and they already had five children: Charles W., Amy C., William H., Emily E., and Jessie S. The 1871 census, a decade earlier, had placed them in Ashford, Middlesex, on the outskirts of London, where Reuben, then twenty-four, worked as a simple bricklayer.

The decision to emigrate to Argentina in 1889, despite the economic stability they had achieved, remains something of a puzzle. Perhaps the promises of land and railway contracts in South America, spread by immigration agents and the press, led them to believe they might expand their horizons on an even grander scale. What is certain is that, in early 1889, both families sold what they possessed and embarked upon the adventure.

The Letter

The SS Dresden arrived in the River Plate on 15th February 1889, after nineteen days at sea. What followed the disembarkation comes to us thanks to the letter that Albert Martin wrote on 10th March 1889 to a lady friend in Southampton, which was published some weeks later in the local newspaper, the Southampton Observer and Hampshire News.

Albert's account is one of the most vivid and unsparing descriptions of the immigrant experience in Argentina. The so-called Immigrants' Hotel, in the port of Buenos Aires, was "the most filthy, miserable place it has ever been my lot to live in". Upon their arrival, the premises were crammed with four thousand Italians who had landed in the previous two days. "There was no provision made for us, and no accommodation of any sort. They managed to get us some food about six in the evening, and that is about all the attention we received." Hundreds of men, women, and children spent the night in the open air, on the pavement of the courtyard or the tables of the dining shed. "Everybody was hungry, wretched, but fortunately not cold."

The following day, upon occupying the vacant berths left by the departing Italians, they encountered "rats, mice, bugs, fleas, and those other most unmentionable abominations with grey backs, and a wonderful liking for human bodies". On the fifth day, everyone was turned out of the hotel, whether they had anywhere to go or not.

Despite the chaos, Albert quickly found work in a large carpenter's workshop with modern machinery, and his wage of three dollars a day (about seven shillings and sixpence at the exchange rate of the time) was among the best an English tradesman could hope for. Yet the real ordeal was finding lodgings for a family. After two days of fruitless searching, he came upon "two little rooms, a small charcoal stove cooking-place, and a back yard about eight feet by eight feet", for which he paid thirty-four dollars a month, in advance, and without a single shelf, cupboard, or nail upon which to hang his hat.

His brother Reuben, meanwhile, had obtained a post as foreman bricklayer on the construction of a new railway in Córdoba, about a thousand miles from the capital, thanks to the recommendation of Viscount de Bondy, the French ambassador. One of Reuben's daughters went to live with the diplomat's family, and his son Charlie, aged seventeen, remained in Buenos Aires, working and living with his uncle Albert.

Albert's letter is also a settling of accounts with the official propaganda that had driven them to emigrate: "The papers on which most of us founded our hopes, at Southampton and other places, and the plausible tales told us, are nothing but a tissue of falsehoods, and a mean, contemptible, and a cruel fraud, as hundreds of these poor people (both English and Irish) have found to their cost."

And yet his practical spirit prevails at the end: "With perseverance, and a determination to overcome obstacles, I really think that the fortune I am to return to Southampton to find, though still in the far distant future, is not altogether unattainable."

Until now, Albert Martin's letter was merely an anonymous testimony, a tale of despair without a face. But the combination of the SS Dresden passenger list with the Argentine National Census of 1895 has allowed us to identify the family and to reconstruct their daily life in the country.

The Argentine census shows the Martins scattered across Cuartel 04, the rural population of the district of Morón, to the west of Greater Buenos Aires. Albert, his name Hispanicised as "Alberto", is listed as single—a likely census error, given that he was working away from home—and worked as a carpenter. His wife Eliza, aged forty, and their youngest daughter Eliza Rose, aged just nine, were employed as cooks in the home of an English family, the Bournes.

The head of that household was Arthur Mason Bourne, an English mining engineer who had arrived in Argentina around 1887 and who, in 1895, would publish an adventure novel entitled A Mystery of the Cordillera: A Tale of Adventure in the Andes. Working alongside the Bournes was Mary Fitzpatrick, a young Irishwoman of twenty-three who had travelled on the same voyage of the Dresden as the Martins. Her presence confirms the existence of a dense network of British and Irish immigrants who supported one another in the Morón area.

Albert's eldest son, Frederick, aged fifteen, worked as a labourer on the estate of the Balfour family, in the same rural area of Morón. The Balfours—Nelly, aged twenty-six, and her young children Frank and Dolly—were a family of Scottish origin who owned land in what would become the heart of the prestigious Hurlingham Club, founded in 1888 on the initiative of John Ravenscroft and supported by families such as the Robsons, the Campbells, and the Drysdales.

The dispersal of the Martin family—Albert working as a carpenter on rural building projects, Eliza and little Eliza Rose as cooks, and Frederick as a labourer on an estate—reveals a survival strategy typical of immigrants: every member, even the children, contributed whatever they could to keep the household afloat.

Despite having managed to integrate themselves into the British community of Morón, the Argentine adventure of the Martins did not prosper. Without knowing the exact date or how they obtained the means or managed the journey home, I did find in the United Kingdom census records that by 1901, Albert, Eliza, and their daughters were already back in England.

The census of that year places them in Shirley, Hampshire, the very village where Eliza Jane had been born. If I close my eyes, I can imagine her father giving them a helping hand and welcoming them back. I picture an immense emotional blow, given that what they had envisioned in Buenos Aires had not worked out. Lost years. Frustration. Sorrow. Returning with their heads hung low. That is only my imagining.

Albert, now fifty, had resumed his trade of Carpenter & Joiner. His daughter Eliza Rose, fifteen, was working as a dressmaker's apprentice. Little Jessie, who in 1889 had been five years old, now appears as Elsie L. Martin, aged seventeen. The elder children, Frederick and Edith, are not listed in the household: they had probably already become independent or were working as servants in other homes.

Also living in the house was a widow of eighty-two, Sarah Ballard, as a boarder, which suggests the Martins were renting out a room to earn extra income.

Might Sarah have been the lady who received Albert's letter?

Reuben, the elder brother, also returned to England. The 1911 census shows him at sixty-four in Milton, Hampshire, together with his wife Sarah Ann, to whom he had been married for forty-four years. His occupation was given as Builder, and they lived alone, a sign that their children had already set up homes of their own. The American adventure was definitively behind them.

One of the more curious findings of this investigation was the existence of two contradictory records for Albert Martin in the Argentine immigration database. In one, he appears as Albert Martin, aged thirty-nine, married, carpenter, embarked at Southampton. In the other, he appears as Albert Martin, aged twenty-six, single, labourer, embarked at Queenstown.

This duplication, far from casting doubt, confirms the administrative error we suspected. The SS Dresden had sailed from Southampton on 25th January and made a stop at Queenstown, Ireland, the following day to collect hundreds of Irish passengers. Upon disembarkation in Buenos Aires, Argentine officials often recorded the last European port of call rather than the passenger's actual port of origin. The first record, the one indicating Southampton and carpenter, is the correct one. The second is a bureaucratic error, likely committed when processing a group of passengers en masse.

This administrative detail, which might otherwise have gone unnoticed, serves as further proof of the reliability of the investigation as a whole and of the identification of Albert Martin as the author of the letter.

The story of the Martin brothers is a microcosm of the great European migratory epic to Argentina in the nineteenth century. Albert and Reuben represent those thousands of British tradesmen who, lured by promises of prosperity, left behind a modest but stable life to seek their fortune on the pampas.

Unlike many others, the Martins had the opportunity to return, and they did not let it slip away. By 1901, Albert was back in Hampshire, taking up his carpenter's trade once more and watching his daughter begin her apprenticeship as a dressmaker. Reuben, the prosperous master bricklayer who had once employed nine men and four boys before his departure, also returned and continued to work as a builder well into his old age.

Their story is a reminder that emigration was not always a one-way journey with no return. For many, the "American dream" turned into a nightmare of overcrowding, low wages, and disease. And for others, like the Martins, the solution was to pack their bags and go back home, bearing with them the scars of an adventure that, despite everything, left an indelible mark upon their family history.

Albert Martin's letter, rescued from the pages of the Southampton Observer, still resonates today, more than a century later, as a living testimony of that experience. And thanks to the cross-referencing of censuses, immigration records, and newspapers of the period, I have been able to imagine a face and to weave theories and thoughts about one of the protagonists.

The truth is that this story requires the descendants of the Martins of the Dresden to shed light upon these unknowns. While these matters fall within the private sphere of the family, being able to understand the reality of those days through letters containing first-hand accounts of impressions, thoughts, sorrows, and so forth, makes it possible to construct history from the authority of the testimony of the ship's own descendants.

Searching for the author of the letter

After meticulously reviewing the passenger list of the SS Dresden, I have found a family group that matches the description of the sender of the letter of 10th March 1889 in an exceptional manner.

The primary candidate is Albert Martin, a thirty-nine-year-old carpenter travelling with his wife Eliza and their young children. Yet the key lies with his brother Reuben Martin, who also travelled on the same ship.

The exact records for the entire Martin family, extracted from the Dresden database, are as follows:

Record 1: The family of Albert Martin (Page 30 of the list)

• Albert Martin: 39 years, married, carpenter.

• Eliza Martin: 38 years, married.

Children:

• Frederick (9)

• Edith (7)

• Jessie (5)

• Eliza Rose (3)

Record 2: The family of Reuben Martin (Page 31 of the list)

• Reuben Martin: 42 years, married, bricklayer.

• Sarah Ann Martin: 44 years, married.

Children:

• Charles William Martin: 17 years. This is "Charlie, the son" from the letter!

• Ann Constance (15)

• William Henry (13)

• Emily E. (11)

• Jessie S. (9)

• Archibald (6)

The details given in the published letter present several highly significant coincidences, which I outline below:

Detail from the letter

Looking for coincidence in the Dresden registry with some clues of the letter I found:

• The author is a carpenter or joiner earning three dollars a day. -> Albert Martin is listed as "carpenter".
• The author mentions that his brother obtained work as a "foreman bricklayer" . -> Reuben Martin is listed as "bricklayer". The difference in age (39 versus 42) places them as brothers.
• The author states that his brother has daughters (one went to live with Viscount de Bondy) and a son named Charlie who lives and works with him. -> Reuben Martin has three teenage daughters and a seventeen-year-old son named Charles William Martin.
• The author travelled on the steamship Dresden and arrived in Buenos Aires on 15th February 1889. -> Both Martin families are listed with an arrival date of 15/02/1889, yet only Albert the carpenter is recorded as having embarked at Southampton; the rest of the family are listed at Queenstown (which suggests a possible administrative error or data-entry oversight).
• The newspaper describes him as a "well-known" former resident of Southampton. -> Although not specified in the record, the fact that two large families of skilled artisans emigrated together may suggest that they had roots and perhaps a business or reputation in the city. It is merely an idea, but at this stage of the investigation, I include it.

The Dresden records confirm in a highly suggestive, and nearly unequivocal, manner that the author of the first letter was Albert Martin. His story, and that of his brother Reuben and his nephew Charlie, accord perfectly with the detailed account of the crossing, the hardships in the Immigrants' Hotel, and the search for work in Buenos Aires.

From this testimony, several key lines of enquiry emerge.

What struck me most is that, when speaking of the colony proposal, there is someone who "strongly advised" him against embarking upon that project. Why, if it was presented as a solution, did someone—who I imagine would have been a member of the British immigration committee—"strongly advise" him not to go?

I have the sense, from this letter and from that of Mr and Mrs Clarke, who settled in Temperley, that the immigrants of the Dresden who came from Southampton arrived better prepared and were therefore assessed in a manner more in keeping with the norm.

On the Irish side, a great many of them were also taken on quickly within the first week of being in Buenos Aires, given that only eight hundred ultimately boarded the train for Napostá. Might they also have been advised, like Mr Martin, not to embark upon the Colony project?

On that first day of the initial meeting, it was agreed that Mr Drysdale would adopt a cautious stance and proposed postponing any definitive decisions for a few days—something the committee ultimately did, because it did not yet proceed with Gartland's proposal (and the truth is that Gartland had not fully closed the proposal either).

On the very day the Dresden anchored in Buenos Aires, two members of the committee went aboard the ship to "see" the immigrants: Messrs Johnston and Carroll.

These are merely ideas that we need to shed light upon with new discoveries and further material.

Onwards!