Image by Lowell Historical Society
Joao Goncalves Rocha (1878-1921) was one of Lowell’s few Portuguese business owners in the early 1900s. Born on the island of Terceira in the Azores, he immigrated to the U.S. in 1895 and settled in Lowell, initially working as a weaver before opening a grocery store on Charles Street around 1906.
Like other ethnically diverse cities in the United States, Lowell has long possessed neighborhoods that reflect the culture of immigrants who settled in particular, often densely populated enclaves. One such neighborhood, “Back Central,” has been, since the early 1900s, the premier Portuguese section of Lowell. Originally an early antebellum suburb of the expanding cotton manufacturing city and known as Chapel Hill, this neighborhood, populated primarily by native-born New Englanders, featured several large estates and a number of single-family homes. But by the 1850s, aided by the establishment of St. Peter’s parish, Chapel Hill became home to growing numbers of Irish immigrants. The area, more commonly known as Back Central, emerged in the post-Civil War years as a predominately Irish working-class neighborhood.