Anthony James Farrell

1850s–1860s

Baptized 17 February 1855 in Keelogues parish, County Mayo, Ireland, the son of Patrick Farrell and Bridget Mitchell.

1870s

Came to Syracuse, New York, as a young man, living with his aunt Mary Brennan on Orange Street. A laborer in 1877; naturalized in 1879 and started work at Danziger Brothers, wholesale clothiers.

1880s–1890s

Rose from shipper and stock clerk to salesman at Danziger Brothers. Married Anna Hughes Rafferty on 28 January 1891; their daughter Alice was born in 1892. Bought a lot on Tallman Street in 1895.

1900s–1910s

A traveling clothing salesman. Argued with the SPCA over a dying horse on his front steps in 1906. Bought a large house at 106 Fitch Street in 1912.

1920s

Wrote his will in 1921 and died at home on 3 March 1924 after eight months of illness.

County Mayo to Syracuse

Anthony James Farrell was baptized on February 17, 1855, in Keelogues parish, County Mayo, Ireland, with David Farrell and Maria Geraghty as sponsors; his parents were Patrick Farrell and Bridget Mitchell. (Later records put his birth anywhere from 1855 to 1858.) He came to Syracuse, New York, "at an early age," in the early 1870s, and in 1875 he was a student living at 101 Orange Street, the home of his aunt Mary Brennan. By 1877 he was working as a laborer, and in 1879 he became a naturalized American citizen.

A Clothing Man

Anthony spent his whole working life in the men's clothing business. In 1879 he went to work for Danziger Brothers, a Syracuse wholesale clothing firm on North Salina and later West and East Washington Streets, where he was a shipper, clerk, and stock clerk through the 1880s and a salesman from 1888 to 1900. After that he went on the road as a traveling clothing salesman, a "commercial traveler," until shortly before his death, and he belonged to the Commercial Travelers Association. As a single man he lived at the Jervis House on East Fayette Street.

His aunt Mary Brennan gave him half of her Orange Street property in 1885, on condition that he rent it out and pay her the income for life, and in 1895 gave it to him outright; he and Anna sold it in 1900 for $1,500. Anthony was active in Syracuse's Irish Catholic life. In 1886 he was elected a trustee of the new Hess Council of the Catholic Benevolent Legion, and in 1897 he served on the floor committee for the Ancient Order of Hibernians' grand ball at Freeman Hall, where the orchestra played behind a screen of potted palms.

Family on Tallman and Fitch Streets

On January 28, 1891, Anthony married Anna Hughes Rafferty in Syracuse. Their daughter Mary Alice, known as Alice, was born in March 1892, and their other children included Helen, Florence, James, John, and Anthony. In 1895 Anthony bought a lot in the Tallman Park tract, and from 1896 to 1911 the family lived at 235 Tallman Street. In January 1912 he bought 106 Fitch Street, a house of ten or eleven rooms with a reception hall, oak finish, and hardwood floors, and moved in at once. It was the family home for the rest of his life and of Anna's.

One January morning in 1906 Anthony woke to find a crowd outside and an abandoned horse lying at his front steps, where it had been dragged after slipping on the ice and breaking its hip. When O. R. Casey of the SPCA arrived to put it down, Anthony objected. "I told Casey that he shouldn't shoot the horse on my front walk, but to drag it out to the curb and shoot it there," he told a reporter. "He asked me what I had to say about it and I told him that I owned the place. He said that didn't make any difference. I said: 'I suppose if he was inside the house you'd shoot him the same.' He said: 'I'd shoot him if he was in your parlor.'" Casey shot the horse where it lay, and Anthony had to call the reduction company to haul it away. "It was enough to make any man mad," he said. He tried to call a lawyer about suing, but the lawyer was out of town, and he let the matter drop.

Last Years

Anthony was a member of the Holy Name Society at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, and in 1913 he gave $20 to the Democrat James E. Dolan's unsuccessful campaign for mayor. In March 1921 he made his will, leaving everything to Anna with instructions to care for their two youngest sons, John and Anthony, until they were twenty-one, and afterward to divide the estate evenly among the children; his son James was named executor. After eight months of illness, Anthony died at home at seven in the morning on March 3, 1924. His funeral was held at the Cathedral, and he was buried at St. Agnes Cemetery in Syracuse two days after his death.