Orphan Abduction History

Signed in as:

filler@godaddy.com

Account

The Arizona Orphan Abduction

The Story Behind the Play

On October 2, 1904, Sisters Anna Michaella and Teresa Vincent arrived in Clifton, Arizona with 40 small children between the ages of 1 and 6 - Irish Catholic orphans from the New York Foundling Hospital. They had arranged with Constant Mandin, the parish priest in Clifton-Morenci for the children to be adopted by Catholic families there. These families, like most Catholic families in Arizona at the time, were Mexican. When they children arrived, the nuns dressed the children in their best clothes, brushed their hair, and prepared them to meet their new families, who welcomed them. When the Anglo families saw these white children being given to Mexican parents, they became enraged. They formed a mob to kidnap the children and redistribute them to white families. The Mexican families and the Catholic church sued to get their kids back and the lawsuits went all the way to the United States Supreme Court. The courts ruled in favor of the kidnappers.

Life in New York City, 1904

Around 1830, the number of homeless children in large Eastern cities such as New York City exploded. In 1850, there were an estimated 10,000 to 30,000 homeless children in New York City. At the time, New York City's population was only 500,000. Some children were orphaned when their parents died in epidemics of typhoid, yellow fever or the flu. Others were abandoned due to poverty. Many children sold matches, rags, or newspapers to survive. There were very few systems in place to support impoverished families, and some were separated from their families through arbitrary “truancy laws.”

Many of these children were of Irish descent. The 1845 famine in Ireland caused millions of deaths but also significant emigration to New York City. In the 1840s, the Irish comprised nearly half of all immigrants to the US. Anti-Irish sentiment combined with extreme poverty and long working hours made parenting extremely difficult for many families, - it was hard for Irish people to get jobs, find housing, or build stability for their families, resulting in many children being left to orphanages or hospitals - including the Foundling Hospital where our story begins.

Life in Clifton / Morenci 1904

In 1904, Morenci and Clifton were tough mining towns, more camp than town really, with high cliffs on all sides and rivers that flooded frequently, washing away houses and businesses. Violence was routine and health and sanitation were poor. Morenci had no sewer system, and a typhoid epidemic swept through in late October 1904, shortly after the orphan episode. Both towns had bad water and bad air, polluted by the smelter's sulfurous emissions. There were high rates of infertility in both towns, likely related to this pollution, as well as the general hard living, even for wealthy families.

Mexicans and Mexican Americans (called Mexicans no matter where they were born) were a majority in both towns but the copper mines enforced a rigid hierarchy in jobs and wages. It was a given that whites got the best jobs and the best pay. But "white" was more broadly defined here: It took in Americans of English descent, Scotsmen and, a notch down, Irish, Italians and Spaniards: anyone, in short, who wasn't Mexican or Chinese.

The local Anglos were not particularly religious--in 1904, Clifton had only one Protestant church, Presbyterian--but Mexicans were generally devout Catholics. It was the Mexicans' religious faith that inspired the nuns to place Irish New Yorkers in an Arizona mining camp in the first place. The nuns held fiercely to the idea that Irish Catholics, no matter how poor, had a right to their own religion. For their immortal souls to be saved, the orphans had to be raised in the "one true church."

The Orphan Trains

The Orphan Trains were part of a social welfare program that transported children from crowded Eastern cities in the United States to foster homes located largely in rural areas of the American west. These orphan trains operated between 1854 and 1929, relocating about 200,000 children. The co-founders of the Orphan Train movement claimed that these children were orphaned, abandoned, abused, or homeless, but this was not always true. Some were orphans, others were the children of new immigrants and the children of the poor families living in these cities. The program was primarily run by Charles Loring Brace and the Children’s Aid Society in New York, who believed that “street children would have better lives if they left the poverty and debauchery of their lives in New York City and were instead raised by morally upright farm families.” Brace also recognized the need for labor in the expanding farm country. Children were taken from the city on a train with stops throughout the west. While it’s clear that many children found loving homes in their new communities, many others were abused and exploited. Criticisms of the program include ineffective screening of caretakers, insufficient follow-ups on placements, and that many children were used as strictly slave farm labor. What is most clear to us as modern readers of this history is that the children themselves had little to no agency in what happened to them on these trains and beyond.

October 2, 1904

On October 2, 1904, Sisters Anna Michaella and Teresa Vincent arrived in Clifton, Arizona with 40 small children between the ages of 1 and 6 - Irish Catholic orphans from the New York Foundling Hospital. They had arranged with Constant Mandin, the parish priest in Clifton-Morenci for the children to be adopted by Catholic families there. These families, like most Catholic families in Arizona at the time, were Mexican. When they children arrived, the nuns dressed the children in their best clothes, brushed their hair, and prepared them to meet their new families, who welcomed them. When the Anglo families saw these white children being given to Mexican parents, they became enraged. They formed a mob to kidnap the children and redistribute them to white families. Children were forcibly taken from their new parents and moved to the Clifton Hotel for the night, where it took until 2am for all of them to finally fall asleep. The nuns who arrived with the children were driven out of time, as was the parish priest who originally set up the adoptions.

Court Cases

The Mexican families and the Catholic church sued to get their kids back and it was over a year before the suits were settled. Every court, all the way The courts ruled in favor of the kidnappers.

According to Linda Gordon:

“The families’ return to Clifton was a festival. Hundreds gathered at the train station and when their train came into sight, a brass band struck up “America.” The crowd screamed as the first mother and child alighted, and the cheers grew louder as each successive family appeared. The Mexican people stayed home that day but it is hard to imagine whether they laughed, or cursed or did both."

The Kids

Record keeping and documentation of what happened to each child is minimal. We only know small details on a few of the children who were part of this event, and as they were so young at the time there are no firsthand accounts of their memories available. We can assume that some went to loving families and others were faced with abuse and hardships as they grew into adulthood. We also wonder about some of the other possibilities. According to writer Elena Díaz Bjórkquist, who grew up in Morenci in the 1940s and '50s, a legend persisted in the Mexican community that one of the orphans escaped the vigilantes, fleeing with her new family into the stormy night. When the family returned after some years, they had a pale-skinned daughter in tow, and her hair was flaming red” (Tucson Weekly)

Pictured above, 5 of the orphans after they had been adopted by Anglo families in Clifton / Morenci, From L to R, Anna Louise Simpson (Doherty), Leah Abraham (Elizabeth Kane), Raymond Hill (Spencer), Gladys Freeman (Sadie Green), Katherine Wright (Fitzpatrick)

Of the 40 children who were part of this train of children, we know 20 names, and detailed information on even fewer of them. Our research so far on these children is listed below:

Josephine Corcoran

Age in 1904: 2

Originally adopted by:

Angela Flores and Juan Esquivel (US born, moved to Clfiton from New Mexico. Lived in a neat, frame house on the east side of town)

Ultimately adopted by:

Mr. and Mrs. Jake Abraham (wife’s first name unknown)

Name Changed to:

Josephine Abraham

What happened after 1904:

Died of pneumonia in December 1904 (had been sick ever since her night at the hotel)

Other Facts: “described as ‘the liveliest of all the kids” singing wildly and for a long time until she fell asleep at the hotel around 2am on October 3, 1904

Edward Cummiskey

Age in 1904: 3 ½

Originally adopted by:

unknown

Ultimately adopted by:

Mr. and Mrs. JT Kelly, and was given as a gift from Jeff Dunagan (deputy) to curry favor with the Kellys “since the children were staying anyway, why shouldn’t he get to choose some”

Name Changed to:

Edward Kelly

What happened after 1904:

unknown

Anna Louise Doherty

Age in 1904: 3

Originally adopted by:

Abigai de Villescas and Andrès Villescas

Ultimately adopted by:

Tom Simpson and Mae Wright Simpson

Name Changed to:

Anna Simpson

What happened after 1904:

remained in Clifton

Katherine Fitzpatrick

Age in 1904: 4

Originally adopted by:

Cornelio and Margarita Chacon, a widely respected Mexican family in Morenci

Ultimately adopted by:

Harry and Muriel Wright

Name Changed to:

Katherine Wright

What happened after 1904:

Grew up relatively wealthy with her adoptive family. Stayed in Clifton

Other Facts: Was featured in the supreme court trial. “At one point, Katherine Fitzpatrick, now in the possession of Muriel and Harry Wright was brought forward and placed on top of a desk. ‘She turned her attention to the justices, laughed and waved her little hand at the court en banc" and pretty much put a stop to the judges' efforts to keep the courtroom quiet.’ She was credited with inducing the judges to quit trying to maintain silence in the courtroom”

Edward Gibson

Age in 1904: 4

Originally adopted by:

Trancita and Francisco Alvidrez

Ultimately adopted by:

Mr. and Mrs. Hargis (first names unknown)

Name Changed to:

Edward Hargis

What happened after 1904:

Unknown

Sadie Green

Age in 1904: 3

Originally adopted by:

Josefa Villescas

Ultimately adopted by:

Olive and Charles Freeman

Name Changed to:

Gladys Freeman

What happened after 1904:

The Freeman family moved to LA with Sadie (Gladys). There, in 1914, a grocer raped her and made her pregnant (she would have been 13). This was reported back to the Foundling sisters as Gladys having “got in trouble” (the typical and brutal double standard of the time)

Elizabeth Kane

Age in 1904: almost 2

Originally adopted by:

unknown

Ultimately adopted by:

Sam and Laura Abraham

Name Changed to:

Leah Abraham

What happened after 1904:

unknown

Hannah Kane

Age in 1904: : 3

Originally adopted by:

unknown

Ultimately adopted by:

Mr. and Mrs. George Frazer (wife’s name unknown). Was given as a gift from Jeff Dunagan (deputy) to curry favor with the Frazers (his boss) who said “since the children were staying anyway, why shouldn’t he get to choose some”

Name Changed to: Hannah Frazer

What happened after 1904:

Unknown

Pearl Kendricks

Age in 1904: unknown

Originally adopted by: unknown

Ultimately adopted by: unknown

Name Changed to: unknown

What happened after 1904: unknown

Ambrose Lamb

Age in 1904: unknown

Originally adopted by:

unknown

Ultimately adopted by:

unknown

Name Changed to:

unknown

What happened after 1904:

Unknown

Age in 1904: 2 ½

Originally adopted by:

Trancita and Francisco Alvidrez

Ultimately adopted by:

Mary Quinn (husband’s name unknown)

Name Changed to:

Gabriella Quinn

What happened after 1904:

Unknown

From the New York Foundling Hospital

Sister Anna Michaella, assistant secretary

G. Whitney Swayne, western placement agent

Sister Teresa Vincent, head sister

From the Arizona Catholic Church

Henri Granjon, bishop of Tucson

Constant Mandin, Clifton-Morenci parish priest

Clifton Morenci Mexican Families

Cornelio Chacón, smelter worker

Margarita Chacón, teacher and foster mother

Franscisco Alvidrez, smelter worker

Trancita Alvidrez, foster mother

Rafael Holguin, smelter worker

Josefa Holguin, seamstress and foster mother

Ramón Balles, shopkeeper

Baleria Balles, foster mother

Lee Windham, smelter worker

Fefugia Windham, foster mother

Juan Esquivel, mill worker

Angela Flores, foster mother

Clifton Morenci Anglo Families

Charles E. Mills, superintendent, Detroit Copper Company, Morenci

James Colquhoun, superintendent, Arizona Copper Company, Clifton

John Gatti, rancher and butcher, Clifton

Louisa Gatti

Jake Abraham, Clifton Hotel Manager

Mrs. Jake Abraham

Sam Abraham, Clifton Hotel Owner

Laura (Mrs. Sam) Abraham

George Frazer, smelter superintendent, Arizona Copper Company, Clifton

Mrs. Frazer

Neville Leggatt, deliveryman, Arizona Copper Company store

Tom Simpson, locomotive engineer, Clifton

May (Mrs. Tom) Simpson

Harry Wright, saloon owner, Cliftonm

Muriel (Mrs. Harry) Wright

A.M. Tuthill, M.D. Detroit Copper company physician and state legislator, Morenci

The Arizona Orphan Abduction

The Story Behind the Play

Life in New York City, 1904

Life in Clifton / Morenci 1904

The Orphan Trains

October 2, 1904

Court Cases

The Kids

Josephine Corcoran

Edward Cummiskey

Anna Louise Doherty

Katherine Fitzpatrick

Edward Gibson

Sadie Green

Elizabeth Kane

Hannah Kane

Pearl Kendricks

Ambrose Lamb

Violet Lanwick

Marie Mack

Agnes Mullen

William Norton

Henry Potts

Joseph Ryan

Jerome Shanley

Raymond Spencer

George Weber

Gabriella Welsh

From the New York Foundling Hospital

From the Arizona Catholic Church

Clifton Morenci Mexican Families

Clifton Morenci Anglo Families

Photo Gallery

This website uses cookies.