Jerry McAuley

McAuley was born in County Kerry, Ireland in 1839.{{Cite web|title=The Life and Ministry of Jerry McAuley|url=https://www.citygatenetwork.org/agrm/Jerry_McAuley.asp|access-date=2022-02-13|website=Citygate Network|language=en-us}} While McAuley was an infant, his father abandoned the family to escape law enforcement officers pursuing him for counterfeiting. Jerry's mother sent him off to live with his grandmother.{{cite web|last=McCarthy|first=Thomas C.|date=March 17, 2005|title=Jerry McAuley, Ex-Inmate of Tombs & Sing Sing, Rescue Mission Pioneer|url=http://correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/mcauley/mcauley.html|access-date=February 13, 2022|website=Correctionhistory.org|publisher=New York Correction History Society}} He did not go to school and was prone to mischief. When he was 13, McAuley was sent to live with his sister and her husband in New York City. He said that arrangement did not last, and soon he boarded with a family in the slums of Water Street on the Lower East Side. He became a thief to fund clothing and alcohol, evolving into a "river thief" who stole from boats at night. Later he said, “Stealing came natural and easy. A bigger nuisance and loafer never stepped above ground.”

For his childhood petty crimes, McAuley spent time, ranging from days to months, at the local jailhouse. In 1857 when he was 19 years old, McAuley was falsely accused of highway robbery. He was convicted and sent to Sing-Sing Prison for fifteen years and 3 months.[https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/BT2310008051/GPS?u=wikipedia&sid=GPS&xid=0763e1bf "Jeremiah McAuley." Dictionary of American Biography], Charles Scribner's Sons, 1936. Gale In Context: Biography. Accessed 14 July 2020. Sing Sing was A maximum security prison, Sing Sing's cells were 7 ft long, 3 ft 3 in wide, and 6 ft by 7 in high. Despite the prison's prohibition on talking, McAuley was able work in the carpet weaving shop and learned to read.

His fifth year in prison, McAuley heard a man by the name of Orville Gardner testify of his conversion to Christianity and was brought to tears. He got permission to use the prison library and sought religious readings. After about a month, a female missionary visited the prison and prayed with McAuley. Although he would continue to have challenges with alcohol and crime, McAuley considered that night as "his conversion to Christ." On March 8, 1864, aged 26, McAuley was pardoned and set free.

File:316 Water St Mission House.jpg

Once out of prison, McAuley wanted "a sober and righteous life", but soon fell back to crime. McAuley's faith was reinvigorated by Water Street missionaries, and he began to work honest jobs between 1870 and 1872, saving and raising money to start a mission.

McAuley met Alfrederick Smith Hatch, a banker and later president of the stock exchange, who became McAuley's benefactor. In October 1872, Hatch donated a property on Water Street, and McAuley used the money he had raised to repair the building. Soon after, the mission at 316 Water Street named "Helping Hand for Men" was open, but soon had a name change to McAuley's Water Street Mission.{{cite book|last1=Kurian|first1=George Thomas|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=73xfDQAAQBAJ&pg=PA1446|title=Encyclopedia of Christianity in the United States|last2=Lamport|first2=Mark A.|date=2016|publisher=Rowman & Littlefield|isbn=978-1-4422-4432-0|volume=5|page=1446|language=en|chapter=Jeremiah 'Jerry' McAuley}} The purpose of the Mission was "to provide food, shelter, clothing and hope to people in crisis."

In 1882, after twelve years, McAuley left the Water Street Mission to the care of others and opened Jerry McAuley's Cremorne Mission near Times Square, which focused on women in need, especially prostitutes and other fallen women.

In 1872, McAuley married Maria Fahy a former prostitute who also had been "rescued from a life of degradation."

In September 1884, McAuley died from tuberculosis he contracted while in Sing Sing.{{cite book |last1=Fahey |first1=David M. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UXHYAQAAQBAJ&q=Jerry+McAuley&pg=PA418 |title=Alcohol and Drugs in North America: A Historical Encyclopedia [2 volumes]: A Historical Encyclopedia |last2=Miller |first2=Jon S. |date=2013 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-1-59884-479-5 |pages=418–419 |language=en}} His widow continued his work running the Cremorne Mission. In 1892, she married architect Bradford Gilbert who had been a supporter of McAuley and a trustee of the mission.{{Cite news |date=May 13, 1892 |title=Pertinent Paragraphs |pages=3 |work=The Courier-News (Bridgewater, New Jersey) |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/94843311/ |access-date=February 12, 2022 |via=Newspapers.com}}

In June 1911, Bradford Gilbert donated a yacht named the Jerry McAuley to The Salvation Army to give them access to sailors on ships.{{Cite news |date=June 23, 1911 |title=The 'Army's' Navy: The Jerry McAuley Going to Sailors in Many Ports |pages=The Raleigh Times |work=The Raleigh Times |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/96240397/jerry-mcauley-yacht/ |access-date=March 5, 2022 |via=Newspapers.com}} Bradford spoke at the dedication of the yacht, as did a Mrs. Whittemore who told of her conversion by McAuley. Bradford said that McAuley was "the missing link between what the church thought it could do and what God could really do."{{Cite news |last=Brinton |first=Arthur J. |date=August 2, 1911 |title=Salvation Army Finds It Needs a Navy and Sends of the First Boat, The Jerry McAuley, to Fight Satan |pages=6 |work=The Asheville Weekly Citizen (Asheville, North Carolina) |url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/96219347/missionary-ship-jerry-mcauley/ |access-date=March 5, 2022 |via=Newspapers.com}}

{{Reflist}}

• {{Internet Archive author |sname=Jerry McAuley |birth=1839 |death=1884}}
• {{Librivox author |id=10765}}
• [https://archive.org/details/jerrymcauleyana00hatcgoog Robert M. Offord (1907) Jerry McAuley: Apostle to the Lost, George H. Doran Company, New York (Google eBook)]
• [http://www.nycrescue.org New York City Rescue Mission] - Water Street mission today
• [http://correctionhistory.org/html/chronicl/mcauley/mcauley.html Jerry McAuley] - from the New York Correction History Society

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Category:Date of birth unknown

Category:People from County Kerry

Category:American people convicted of theft

Category:1839 births

Category:1884 deaths

Category:Irish emigrants to the United States

Category:Converts to Protestantism from Catholicism

Category:Former Roman Catholics

Category:Protestant missionaries in the United States

Category:Prisoners and detainees of New York (state)

Category:Irish Protestant missionaries

Category:American Protestant missionaries

Category:Recipients of gubernatorial pardons in New York (state)