Below are my father’s notes relating to Phillip McCauley (1875-1914). They were spread over two fragments so it’s hard to capture a complete image.  There are two short notes regarding where the family lived, which is accurate.  The notes state he worked on the Panama Canal and that he worked with another Irish contractor who swindled him.  For many years I thought the two facts were connected, but as I explored the facts I have, it does not appear the two statements have to be related.  Yes, Phillip McCauley spent time working on the Panama Canal, but it was also at the same time he and his wife Nora Sullivan-McCauley were starting their family in Brooklyn. 

So let us lay out a timeline on the life of Phillip McCauley.  He arrives in the United State in May of 1899.  The 1901 U.S. Censes shows him living with his brother Edward and his in-laws, the Phelans, in the Bronx.  Both Edward and Phillip are employed as Bricklayers, (possibly by their brother Patrick a contractor?) Phillip became a naturalized citizen of the United States in 1904. He marries Nora Sullivan in 1905.  In 1907, Phillip and Nora’s first child is born and they name her Norrine. Then in 1908 John was born. 

Beginning in the early 1900’s there was a push from the administration of President Theadore Roosevelt to complete the Panama Canal project.  This was a massive project that once completed would boost trade and become a strategic waterway. I included extracts and links to two posts which show the complexity of the project and also the human toll on the workers.

Beginnings of U.S. commitment to a canal across Central America

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According to historian David McCullough, the building of the Panama Canal can be credited above all to U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1909). It is true that the canal was constructed under three U.S. presidents – Roosevelt, Taft (1909-1913) and Wilson (1913-1921) – and that it is Taft who gave the project his most personal attention. Nonetheless, it was Roosevelt who made the critical decisions – the terms of the Hay–Pauncefote Treaty, the choice of the route through Panama, U.S. support for Panamanian secession from Colombia, his personal backing for William C. Gorgas against his detractors, and the choice of a lock-and-lake design over a sea-level canal. According to engineer George W. Goethals, who completed the canal, “the real builder of the Panama Canal was Theodore Roosevelt.” Goethals wrote that the canal could not have been more Roosevelt’s triumph “if he had personally lifted every shovelful of earth in its construction…”^[43] Just as the personal force of Ferdinand de Lesseps set the construction of the canal in motion, it was Roosevelt’s personal drive which ensured that the canal was completed.^[44]

History of the Panama Canal – Wikipedia

Panama CanalDredges working on the Culebra Cut (later known as the Gaillard Cut) during construction of the Panama Canal.

Where tropical fevers—yellow fever and malaria in particular—had decimated the ranks of French workers with an estimated loss of over 20,000 lives, those in charge of the American effort were determined to prevent the same thing from happening again. American medical staff understood how the diseases were transmitted and how they could be controlled, and by 1906 the Canal Zone had become safer for work to resume in earnest. Even with such precautions, accidents and disease claimed the lives of 5,609 workers during the American effort. At times more than 40,000 people were employed on the project, mostly laborers from the West Indian islands of Barbados, Martinique, and Guadeloupe, though many engineers, administrators, and skilled tradesmen were from the United States.

Panama Canal | Definition, History, Ownership, Treaty, Map, Locks, & Facts | Britannica

At the time of the push to complete the construction of the Canal and the forming of a family with wife Nora, that Phillip departed to the Panama Canal Zone.  Below is his service record.  He apparently only served for three months from July 1908 to October 1908 when according to the form he left the service.  His salary is listed as $150 a month, equivalent to $5,000 in today’s dollars.  With the engagement being 3 months long, and even if his time was ultimately unpaid, this might have been when the “Swindle” occurred.  As I have not been able to locate any other travel related to Phillip, it does not appear he returned to the Panama Canal Zone.  This would have shortened the financial exposure to him and his family.  I did complete searches for the years 1908 to Phillip’s death in 1914.  This does not mean that the working conditions were too horrible to consider staying longer or that he did not become ill from disease as did many workers.  If new information comes to light, I am happy to share new insights.

I coped 1910 United States Censes below which shows the Family living at 12 Washington Avenue in Brooklyn. From Top down, is Kate Sullivan, and her daughter Lena, (who worked in sales at a store), Nora, Phillip, and then the three children, Norrine, John, and Phillip.  They would have lived together for six more years until Phillips death in 1914.  In regard to my father’s notes about Phillip dying poor and broken hearted, as a result of being swindled, there are no other sources that support that notion.  The information had been passed down orally from two generations, so accuracy is questionable.