Slater House is a super fun investigative rabbit hole that my pandemic self hyper-fixated on. Now that the world has reopened, it’s just a mild but lingering obsession.
In 1900, Ireland-born John Steven MacDonald and his wife Elizabeth (my great-great-great-grandparents) lived at 114 Slater St. with three of their four daughters: Agnes, Mary, and Nellie. Their oldest daughter, Jennie, was already married by 1900 and living with her husband, John Morrison, and their four daughters.
The house at 114 Slater Street was large. In 1900, three other families shared the house with the MacDonalds, including my great-great-granduncle John Brown, their half-Dutch, half-Scottish son-in-law. John Brown’s father George was a boilermaker in Scotland and George was able to find work in Paterson’s factories as a boilermaker. Over roughly 60 years, the house would shelter immigrants from Italy, Russia, Cuba, Syria, France, Spain, Mexico, and more.
Today, a freeway ramp covers the ground where the house used to stand, but I hold hope that I may find a photo of it eventually.
Through censuses, city directories, newspapers, and other documents, I’ve gathered stories from the lives of many residents of this home. Newlyweds started their lives here, and babies were born within these walls. Both John S. MacDonald and George Brown—my great-great-great-grandfathers—passed away in this house. I have records of bridal showers, funerals, petty thefts, dog bites, deadbeat ex-husbands, street fights, phonographs for sale, car accidents, lawsuits, and countless other stories that bring the residents of this home to life in a way plain genealogy records never could.
Join me as I sort through all these details to compile stories from the life of the house at 114 Slater st