The President’s right-hand man
Joe Tumulty was born of a Glangevlin family and went on to be President Woodrow Wilson's private secretary (chief of staff) at the White House as we learn in this week's Times Past column by historian Jonathan Smyth...
Joseph Patrick Tumulty was known to his friends and colleagues as Joe. He was described as the closest politician to the United States President, Woodrow Wilson. Tumulty had a knowledge of politics ‘in areas’ where Wilson was ‘bored and clumsy’, according to the book, ‘Joe Tumulty during the Wilson Era'.
Woodrow Wilson was a trained academic in Greek and Roman history. As a president he pursued a line of neutrality before finally bringing the United States into the First World War, to help make the world ‘safe for Democracy.’ When the war ended, Wilson travelled across America to promote his nation’s application to join the League of Nations. An interesting fact concerning him was that he was the only sitting president up to that time to have visited Europe. In 1913, it was said of Joe Tumulty in The Irish Standard: 'He (Joe) was born in this country (America), but he is as Irish as if he had come from County Cavan, where his father was born.' Cavan Genealogy Centre was very helpful in pinpointing two geographical locations where Tumulty families lived, firstly in West Cavan, and secondly in the Kingscourt region and with the help of Concepta at Cavan Genealogy Centre, more light would be shed on the family’s connection to Glangevlin, Co Cavan. Of which we will return to later.
The Tumultys
Joe Tumulty’s grandfather John Tumulty and his young family arrived in America probably around the late 1840s or early 1850s. The Tumultys came from Co. Cavan and settled in Jersey City. Joe’s grandfather worked as a railroad gang supervisor and eventually ended up working in Illinois. John Tumulty’s sons Philip and Patrick (both born in Cavan) lived in Jersey City and when the American Civil War broke out, Patrick joined the American Cavalry in the West and Philip enlisted with the Seventh New Jersey Infantry as a private. After the war, Patrick began a new career as a Pony Express Rider and there is a reference to his physical appearance during those days when he ‘cultivated long curly hair, a flowing moustache, and a neat goatee’; that was according to the author John M. Blum who wrote about the Tumultys in ‘Wilson and Tumulty in the Whitehouse'.
Philip Tumulty also married a lady from Co Cavan named Alice and they had 12 children. Just four of them lived until adulthood. Alice died young at the age of 45 years. Two of their sons who rose to prominence were Joseph Patrick (Joe) who worked in the White House, and Felix Edward, a trained pharmacist and real estate operator. Joe was born on May 5, 1879, in New Jersey.
Their father Philip was a grocer with interests in real estate and he achieved respectability in the ‘blue-collar’ neighbourhood after having served one term as a ‘state assemblyman.’ Joe in all likelihood went to the local parochial school of St Brides (where Felix attended), and later St Bridget's. The brothers attended St Peter’s College from where Joe graduated in 1899.
While Felix, upon his graduation enrolled at the New York School of Pharmacy and on completing his studies chose a different career as a reporter ‘on the staff’ of the Hoboken ‘Observer.’ After a year and a half with the Observer Felix went to Mayor Mark Fagan as his private secretary. Felix involved himself in several business ventures. He became the Washington District of Columbia representative for an extensive shipping company, opening offices with his business partner Peter A. Kane in the Lerner building in Jersey City. On January 8, 1913, Felix married Lucy Altz, daughter of Andrew and Amy Balzer Altz. The new Mr and Mrs Tumulty had Joseph W., a baby son, in the following year.
President’s man
Joe Tumulty, after finishing school, became engaged in New Jersey's 'Democratic state politics' and served in the New Jersey general assembly from 1907 to 1910. When Woodrow Wilson was governor of New Jersey in 1911, Joe was his private secretary. During Wilson's term as US President from 1913 to 1921, Tumulty served as his private secretary, a job in which today he would be known as the ‘White House Chief of Staff.’ The Clements library in Michigan University which holds Tumulty's papers, record that Tumulty’s role involved him becoming press secretary, public relations manager, and acting as campaign organiser for 'the Catholic and Irish vote.' Joe was thirty-three years old when he first started work in the White House; by profession he was an attorney-at-law.
Joe’s personality was always of a cheerful disposition. On February 22, 1913, The Irish Standard told readers the 'stock of cheerfulness in the District of Columbia' would be expected to increase with his presence in Washington. Tumulty, they said, knew more good stories than anyone and what's more 'he could tell them better than anybody else.' But behind Tumulty’s pleasant face there was a hard-working man. He had the look of a priest, with a ready smile and an eye to meet the people, but was known for his ‘hard, faithful and well executed work.' When Wilson left from the White House in 1921, Joe remained in Washington where for the next 33 years until his death in 1954, he was an attorney.
The man from Glan
As I was completing the column, more information surfaced. The Genealogy Centre found a record for an uncle of Joe Tumulty’s named Thady Dolan from Gub, Glangevlin. Armed with this new information, I found an Anglo-Celt article from March 20, 1920, describing Joe Tumulty as the ‘son of a Glan, Co Cavan man and a nephew of the late Thady Dolan, who twenty-five years ago organised the tenants of the Annesley estate in Glan, and after a considerable fight of eleven years won the land for the people … won after constant watch from the mountain tops.’
Whenever eviction parties attempted to seize Glan sheep and cattle of unpaying tenants, Thady’s helpers on the mountains blew horns, scattering the animals, which were then brought to safer locations away from the sheriff’s grasp.
Thady was invited out to Washington to meet his nephew Joe when Woodrow Wilson entered the White House. On his return to Ireland, he dropped into the Celt’s editor to talk about the lovely time he had in the States with his nephew, who now happened to be the private secretary to the United States President.
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