The Hibernian Society of Baltimore was or organized in 1803 and
incorporated in 1818 to do all such...as shall be necessary, for the purpose of
affording charitable assistance and advice to such emigrants from, or natives
of Ireland arriving at, or residing in any part of the State of Maryland, as
may be in want and deemed worthy.
The Society meets annually on St. Patrick's Day, and holds regularly
scheduled meetings throughout the year. The St. Patrick's Day meeting has
evolved into a lavish Anniversary Dinner to which are in invited state, local
and national political figures.
In 1823 John Oliver, a former President of the Society, died and bequeathed
$20,000 to the Society for the purpose of establishing a free school in
Baltimore... for the education of poor children of both sexes, one at least of
whose parents must be Irish... And should it ever happen that said school
should not have sufficient number of scholars of Irish parentage as aforesaid,
it is my wish that it should be fitted with poor children... and no distinction is
ever to be made in the school as to the religious tenets of those that may
apply for admission. In 1824 the Oliver Hibernian Free School opened and in
1827 the school moved into its new building on North Street, which it
occupied until 1904 when the property was sold. The advent of the public
school and the development of parochial schools caused a decline in the
number of pupils and in 1893 day classes were suspended. The school then
became a Free Night School at which the rudimentary branches were taught
as well as skills such as book-keeping and stenography.
In 1937 the Society changed its educational policy and began a scheme of
awarding scholarships to local students to attend colleges in the Baltimore
area. This Scholarship Program continues to the present. The Society's major
fund -raising activity for this program is its Annual Deluxe Luncheon usually
held in November or December.
SCOPE AND CONTENT
The history of the Hibernian Society of Baltimore is amply documented in the
wide variety of papers preserved in this collection. These include minute
books, financial ledgers, membership lists, correspondence, invoices and
receipts as well as extensive material pertaining to the annual luncheons and
banquets held by the Society, a historical scrapbook and a box of papers
relative to a court case brought by the Society in 1895.
The papers have been grouped by type of document and chronologically
ordered but the sections are not mutually exclusive. Information on
membership may be found among the financial records, some minutes are
located in the papers relating to the annual banquets etc. The correspondence
section suffers particularly in this regard. Virtually all of the material in
Boxes 11-14 could be apportioned to the other sections but its chronological
sequence should make it possible for readers to easily locate the papers they
are seeking. In Box 16 there is some overlap between dates as the files are
left in the order in which they were created by various officers of the
Society.
The collections contain the Society's two original minute books, the first of
which predates the incorporation of the Society. In 1944 the officers of the
Society ordered transcribed these first two minute books and a carbon copy
of this transcription has also been deposited (Box 2). This transcript is an
enormously useful tool for quickly scanning the official records of the first
109 years of the Society's history.
