“There was an old woman who lived in a shoe. She had so many children, she didn’t know what to do.” Or, that is what Mother Goose and “The Dorling Kindersley Book of Nursery Rhymes” says.
Margaret Martin had a lot of kids — six to be exact. She, however, did not live in a shoe.
She lived at 14 Cottage St.
According to a Massachusetts Cultural Resource Information System (MACRIS) document, Margaret and her husband, John Martin, lived in the Cottage Street property by 1872 with their two sons, Patrick and Michael, and a boarder.
We know they lived in the house by 1872 because that is the year John died. On the death record, he is listed as 44 years old and having died of lung fever. His occupation was laborer.
In the 1880 census, the next after John’s death, it becomes apparent that he left this widow with her hands — and house — full. At the age of 47, Margaret Martin was taking care of six children ranging between the ages of 12 to 27: Patrick, Michael, Annie, Mary, Margaret, and John.
A child who appeared in the household on the 1870 census, four-month old Catharine, does not appear in the 1880 census. She was born in February 1870.
At the time of the census, Patrick, 27; Michael, 21; Annie, 20; and Mary, 17, worked in a shoe factory. It is also listed that Michael, Annie, and Mary were unemployed for two months in 1880.
By the time of the 1900 census, Patrick was widowed, like his mother. He lived in Beverly and was the head of a household that included his four daughters, Ethel, Margarett, Annie, and Florence, as well as his younger sister Annie. He worked as a grocer.
The next oldest son, Michael, was living in Marblehead with his wife, Catherine. He worked as a shoe maker.
Annie, as stated above, lived with her brother Patrick at the time of the 1900 census. She is listed as a housekeeper. She is also listed as a resident of 2 Cottage St.
Mary Martin became Mary Harris when she married Winslow Harris. Winslow worked as a “laster” in the show industry, according to his entry in the census. The two had a son named Martin, who was born in 1890.
MACRIS states that Margarett married and became (Margaret) Slattery, and worked as a domestic servant. I was unable to find a definitive record of Margarett Martin in the year 1900, as there are multiple census entries of women born around the same time with Irish parents. However, the 1870 census, in which she was only 5 years old, lists her under the nickname “Maggie.”
The youngest, John, died in 1908 of pulmonary tuberculosis.
Though Martin is a relatively common name in the United States, perhaps 124 years on, there are descendants of these Martins still in town today.