Eagle Feathers #158– The Highway

By Bob (Monty) Doherty

Since 1922, Route 28 has been the longest state numbered highway in Massachusetts. Beginning at the Orleans rotary on outer Cape Cod, it pushes its patchwork way north for 152 miles to the New Hampshire border at Salem. Route 28 meanders through six counties and, coincidently, 28 different towns. Today, as it traces its way over a half dozen former Colonial Turnpikes, it is called by many local names. In Somerville, it has been referred to as the Middlesex Fells Parkway, Route 28, the Northern Artery, and sometimes more affectionately as Monsignor McGrath Highway.

On November 29, 1869, Father Christopher T. McGrath founded Saint Joseph’s Church in Union Square which was the first Catholic Church in Somerville. It will be 150 years old next year and was founded three years before Somerville became a city. Father McGrath kept his post there for over sixty-two years, and his residence during the initial church construction was at Poplar and Washington Streets in the heavily Irish-populated Brick Bottom section of the town. This was his original flock. They had come to America after fleeing the devastating famine of Ireland that had taken one million lives and reduced that country’s population by half.

Father McGrath studied theology at St. Mary’s Seminary in Baltimore during the Civil War where he was ordained a priest on December 23, 1865. While a seminarian, he had marched in President Lincoln’s funeral procession just eight months earlier. Before his arrival, Somerville Catholics had to travel far to attend religious services; and by the end of his career, they had close access to seven parishes. He was a priest for sixty-six years and sixty-two of them were spent at Saint Joseph’s Church and Schools helping and aiding Somerville residents. He did this for over three generations regardless of their faith and needs.

One of his students at Saint Joseph’s achieved national fame by discovering Babe Ruth. It was Somerville’s Brother Gilbert Cairns who worked at Baltimore’s Saint Mary’s Industrial School for Boys who scouted and coached the 18-year-old future “King of Swat” into the major leagues.

Father McGrath was elevated to Monsignor in 1920, and by that time had helped seven parishes including the beautiful Saint Catherine of Genoa, eight schools, and a home for the aged poor unfold. His cherished St. Joseph’s Church, minus its 125-foot steeple, still proudly overlooks the city’s oldest square.

At the time of his death, the citizens of Somerville poured out their grief. The city’s flags were lowered to half-mast for thirty days. Businesses and city offices closed and thousands turned out to pay their respects during the funeral. A platoon of police and a detail of firefighters representing eight stations and eleven companies escorted the body from Union Square through Teele Square to the Arlington line where he was buried at St. Paul’s Cemetery.

In 1925, the state built an expanded Route 28 connecting the road between the Charles River and the Mystic River. The section running through Somerville honors one of her favorite sons, Monsignor Christopher T. McGrath. Today, McGrath Highway is going through changes. Its size will be altered to accommodate motorists, bicyclists, pedestrians, and train travelers. With these changes, Christopher’s highway may be turned into a boulevard, but the memory of a young priest who nursed thousands of Somerville residents through dark times, will always be remembered.