William Morwood & Agnes Kelso

William P Morwood was born in 1819 in County Antrim situated in Northern Ireland. During the years of the potato famine, William was in his mid twenties and single. In 1849, he married Agnes Kelso, also from County Antrim, and they started a family. Despite working as a provision dealer, which would have afforded protection from the starvation occurring due to the potato famine, William and Agnes made the decision in 1850 to immigrate to America with their newborn daughter Mary.

Their ship, the Scotia, arrived in Baltimore in September of 1850. From there, the family disembarked and started their life in America. Coming from northern Ireland, William and Agnes would have likely been raised Protestant. After Immigrating, the majority of Irish they interacted with would have been Catholic. In 1853, William converted to Catholicism, followed in 1857 by Agnes. They became members of St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church which was the local parish for the Irish Catholics in the 8th Ward. Together, William and Agnes raised a family of nine children: Mary, Elizabeth, Jane, John, Agnes, William, George, Margaret, and Cornelius. They lived in the 8th Ward of Baltimore, nicknamed “Old Limerick” for the large Irish population that made their homes there. By 1860, William had a job as a marble polisher with High Sisson & Sons Marble Works. They specialized in marble statues, furniture, slabs, counters, tombs, gravestones, and monuments. William worked there for forty years as a marble polisher.

By 1880, the family was living on Forrest Street, and William was able to purchase the house at 727 Forrest Street. The building was a 2 1/2 story brick rowhouse on the east side of the street with a one-story frame structure attached at the rear and a small yard behind. The HABS photo to the right, taken circa 1930’s, shows the block on Forrest Street that the Morwood Family lived on. Their unit was just around the curve of the road in the back of the photo.

Agnes passed away in 1895 at the age of 67. After her death, William sold the house on Forrest Street to his son William and moved in with one of his children on Calhoun Street. William passed in 1899 at the age of 79.