Books Passage Under Assumed Name. Identified as Old Employee of Street and Electric Roads.
Friends Do Not Know Why He Went to Portland.
Bailey Shackford, 74 years old, for 50 years an employee of stage lines and street railways in Boston and Cambridge, died on the steamboat Governor Dingley at 10:30 Tuesday evening, as the boat was making her way to Boston from Portland. He took passage under the name of "Mr Gay," and his identity was unknown until his landlord, Hiram H. Miller of 3261 Washington street, Jamaica Plain, visited the morgue.
About an hour before the old man died he complained of feeling ill, while strolling along the deck, and was removed to his stateroom.
Two men remained by him for nearly half an hour, and departed when they believed he was sleeping. Shortly after that, he was found to be be dead. When the boat reached her berth at Union wharf Capt Linscott notified the police. Medical Examiner Magrath, who viewed the body, pronounced death due to natural causes.
Shackford was employed as a watchman by the elevated railway, and when it was learned that the name "B. Shackford" was on clothing worn by the dead man, Mr Miller, who is a motorman, was sent to investigate, and he identified the body.
Mr Shackford had recently suffered greatly from rheumatism, and had been unable to work for two months. Last Sunday, when talking with his landlord about his physics; infirmity and inability to earn money, he said: Something has got to be done in a very short time if I don't get my pension." Shackford referred to a pension from the elevated road, which he had expected and which he was to have got Wednesday, the officials of the road having determined to place the old and faithful employee on its pension list.
Bailey Shackford had been in the employ of street railroads in Cambridge and Boston for about 50 years, coming to Boston from Pembroke, N. H., when about 20 years old. he was driver of a stage coach line from Cambridge to Boston when a young man, and drove horse cars on the old Union line running to Cambridge; then on the old Metropolitan railroad, also on the old Highland road, West End and Elevated roads until he was incapable of handling the reins on account of his infirmities. He was then given the work of a watchman on the elevated road, and for two years was the watchman of the car burns on Washington street, near Beech street, Roslindale, until two months ago.
He leaves a brother, Charles Shackford of Cambridge; a sister Mrs Nellie Bartlett, of Suncook, N. H. None of his relatives or friends understands why he made the trip to Portland.
REFERENCES
1850 United States Federal Census, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire, population schedule, City of Manchester, page 91 (penned), 46 (stamped), dwelling 1576, family 1663, Bailey Shackford; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 24 November 2013
The Cambridge Directory and Almanac for 1851 (Cambridge: John Ford, 1851), page 130, Shackford Bailey, teamster, bds Coffran's, Austin court; digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 24 November 2013
"Massachusetts, Mason Membership Cards, 1733-1990," digital images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 18 June 2013), Bailey Shackford
"OLD STREET RAILWAY MAN," Cambridge Chronicle (Cambridge, Massachusetts), 23 November 1907; digital images, Cambridge Public Library (http://cambridge.dlconsulting.com : accessed 2 June 2013
Copyright 2014 Joanne Shackford Parkes