Archive for August 12th, 2011

August 12th, 2011

In the Merrimack Valley: Lantigua Recall Status Update – 900 Short!

by Marie

From breaking news at the Eagle Tribune:

LAWRENCE – An effort to ouster Mayor William Lantigua fell about 900 signatures short of the 5,232 it needed to prompt a recall of the state’s first Hispanic mayor.

The City Clerk’s office was able to verify 4,366 of the 5,483 signatures as registered voters on the recall petition submitted by group It’s Your Right last Monday.

Both Lantigua and It’s Your Right have until Tuesday to challenge any of the signatures with the city’s Board of Registrars.

Read the full article by Y. Betances and M. Vogler here at eagletribune.com.

CategoryGreater Lowell, History, Politics | Comment1 Comment »

August 12th, 2011

In the Merrimack Valley: Recall Leader Thinks Numbers Could Be Short… But

by Marie

The Eagle Tribune is reporting that Wayne Hayes – a leader in the effort to recall Lawrence Mayor William Lantigua – has e-mailed supporters that not enough signature on the recall petition will be certified. Hayes, however, is confident that the group can challenge these rejections and win.

LAWRENCE — Leaders of the campaign to oust Mayor William Lantigua expect to fall short of the minimum 5,232 voter signatures needed to force a recall election when election officials announce the total of certified signatures later today.

But they hope they will ultimately prevail by challenging decisions to throw out some of the signatures because of discrepancies in the addresses listed on the recall petitions.

The number of certified signatures will be announced by election officials at a meeting of the Board of Registrars today at 5 p.m.

“The numbers will come up short,” Wayne Hayes, one of the recall leaders said this morning. “But we can challenge that. I believe we have that opportunity.”

In an email to recall supporters last night, Hayes said organizers believe many signatures were rejected because those who signed have moved since they registered to vote and listed their current address instead of the one on the voter rolls.

Hayes said he sent the email to reassure supporters that the group is not giving up. In the end, he said, “I think we’re going to be very close or on the money.”

Read the full article here at eagletribune.com.

CategoryCurrent Events, Greater Lowell, History, Politics | CommentNo Comments »

August 12th, 2011

Remembering the Ursuline Convent in Charlestown Sacked and Burned ~ August 12, 1834

by Marie

Mass Moments reminds us today that on August 12, 1834 the Catholic convent housing the Ursuline order of nuns in Charlestown, Massachusetts was sacked by a Protestant mob – then burned to the ground. Catholics were not welcome in the early days of Massachusetts – in fact they were banned by law. By 1780 the state’s new constitution guaranteed freedom of religion and the non-threatening well-educated French Catholics were tolerated as the descendants of British Protestants were overwhelmingly dominant. It was the arrival of the Irish immigrants that turned the tide of feeling. Boston’s Irish Catholic population doubled in the 1830s – thereby, the religious, ethnic, economic and political tensions mounted as fast as the Irish increase. Although the Ursulines – devoted to the education of women – were engaged in teaching both Catholic and Protestant young ladies of good families, they and their convent became the misplaced focus of mob wrath that night – fueled by false stories and superstitious fears. When the night was over, the stately convent lay in ruins as the Protestant firefighters ignored the blaze and the nuns and students who escaped in nightclothes were standing in farm fields. The ruins remained as a reminder of the mob act for forty years. The site was leveled in 1875, and the bricks were incorporated into Boston’s Cathedral of the Holy Cross.

On this day
…in 1834, the Ursuline Convent in Charlestown lay in ruins. The night before, a Protestant mob sacked it and burned it to the ground. The nuns who lived in the elegant building and their students at the female academy they ran were forced to flee for their lives. The rioters were mostly poor Yankee laborers who feared and hated Irish Catholic immigrants. While some of Boston’s wealthiest Protestants sent their daughters to the Ursuline Academy, most Yankees harbored a deep prejudice against Catholics. Long suspicious of “popery,” Protestant Boston was receptive to the malicious rumors that swirled about the convent. The convent burning was a prelude to the fierce anti-Catholicism that would greet the famine Irish who flooded into Boston a decade later.

Read the full article here at MassMoments.com.

CategoryCulture, History, Politics | CommentNo Comments »