Joe Wade (1866–1924)

Joe Wade was born at the White Hart, near Balbriggan, County Dublin, Ireland, on 3 August 1866, the youngest son of tenant farmers, John Wade and Thomasina Lindsey.

Joe left Ireland for the United States in 1885. He arrived in St. Louis, Missouri, with his brother John Wade (baptized Patrick John Wade). The two brothers lived at the home of their uncle, Thomas R. Wade, on Carr Street in the city of St. Louis, in the Irish neighbourhood known as Kerry Patch. Thomas R. Wade was the father of Festus J. Wade, who would go on to become a successful St. Louis banker, White House advisor, and a director of the 1904 World’s Fair which was held in St. Louis. A year after arriving in St. Louis, Joe Wade’s brother died of “typho malarial fever” on 24 July 1886. After the death of his brother, Joe returned to Ireland.

During the following decade, Joe would leave Ireland again; this time for Johannesburg in the Transvaal. Irish Republicans like Joe Wade headed to South Africa as a conflict was looming between the British Empire and the two Boer republics, the South African Republic and Orange Free State.

Joe Wade was one of the organizers of the Irish Transvaal Brigade, formed in Johannesburg to fight alongside the Boer forces, according to brigade leader, Major John MacBride. The Anglo-Boer war began in 1899, and Joe was appointed sergeant of the Irish Transvaal Brigade. Joe excelled as a dynamite specialist, blowing up bridges and railway lines during the conflict. His exploits are documented in books written by the brigade’s leaders, Major John MacBride and Col. John Y.F. Blake, a 6th U.S. Cavalry veteran, born in Bolivar, Missouri, in 1856.

After three years of fighting, Joe was unable to return to his native Ireland and again headed to the United States. Almost immediately upon his arrival, Joe left for Panama where he led Panamanian rebels against Colombian forces until an intervention by the United States resulted in Panamanian independence in November 1903.

Joe then returned to St. Louis for the 1904 World’s Fair, where he met up with Major John MacBride, who was on a lecture tour covering the Irish Transvaal Brigade and its involvement in the Anglo-Boer War. Major MacBride would later be captured during the Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916 and was executed by the British, becoming a martyr for the Irish Republican cause.

Joe Wade spent the rest of his life in St. Louis. He married Sabina Jackson on 29 April 1908. His cousin, Festus J. Wade, was the president of Mercantile Trust Company and purchased a home for Joe at 4425 Arco Avenue in the city of St. Louis. Festus also provided a job for Joe as a clerk at the Mercantile Trust Company. On 7 November 1924, Joe Wade died of endocarditis at the age of fifty-eight. He is buried in section 17, lot 850 at Calvary Cemetery in the city of St. Louis.

Written by Paul Davies
January 2025