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O'Brian and McGonigle Families

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The O’Brian and McGonigle Families

By Brian Hicks

My great aunt, Agnes O’Brian, died last month at the age of 105 (November 2005).  She was a Carmelite nun in Seattle, Washington.  She sent me

a tape of her memories of her grandfather, Peter McGonigle, who was born in Ireland on December 16, 1843.  I wrote a family history based on

this information.

JOHN O’BRIAN (1820- ?) and BRIDGETT COOPER (1824 - ?)

John O’Brien was born in Ireland in 1820.  Family tradition as handed down by his grandson, Leo O’Brian, suggests that he was from County Clare.

We do not know exactly when he immigrated to the United States, but logic suggests that it was during the Great Potato Famine of the 1840’s.

He appears in the 1870 census in Belvedere, Illinois.  He had married a widow, Bridgett Cooper, also originally from Ireland.  Bridgett was born

in 1823.  She and her first husband, John Cooper, had four children, William (b.1844), Catharine (b.1845), Elizabeth (b.1847) and Margaret

(b. 1849).  Bridgett must have immigrated before 1844, since her son William was born in Vermont.  They appear in the 1850 census in Brandon,

Roland County, Vermont.  John Cooper is listed as a laborer and Bridgett as a housewife.  Oral History as handed down by John and Bridgett

O’Brien’s granddaughter, Mother Teresa (Agnes O’Brian), is that John O’Brien and John Cooper were partners together in a hauling business.

Sometime between 1850 and 1860, John Cooper died, John O’Brien married his widow, Bridgett, and the O’Brien family moved to Belvedere,

Illinois.  John and Bridgett O’Brien had two children, Mary (b.1860) and James Henry (b.1863).

Regarding the spelling of the O’Brien / O’Brian family name, it seems that years later in Kansas City, Missouri, James

Henry O’Brien began receiving mail addressed to someone else with the same name.  He therefore changed the spelling from O’Brien to O’Brian to avoid confusion.

PETER McGONIGLE (1843-1912) and ANN MURRIN (1844-1908)

Peter McGonigle was born in Ireland on December 16, 1843.   In later years he often spoke of the beauty of County Donegal with Mary Crow,

his son-in-law’s housekeeper, so it is possible that he came from there.  However, Mother Teresa recalls that she was told the family came from

County Sligo.  This writer suspects the McGonigle family came from Donegal and the O’Brians from either County Sligo or County Clare, but has

no proof other than the fact that Peter’s younger brother, Neil, told the census taker in 1930 that he was from the “Irish Free State.”

Ann Murrin McGonigle, daughter of Patrick Murrin, was born in Ireland on April 13, 1844.  She died in Colorado on November 16, 1908 and is buried

in Denver in an unmarked grave.  Oral history indicates that the Murrins were originally from France and immigrated to Ireland during a period of

religious persecution.  This is probably around 1561, when the Huguenots in France began to persecute Catholics.

Peter McGonigle and Ann Murrin were married sometime in 1864. Their daughter, Mary Ann, was born in New York in 1866, so they immigrated

sometime between 1864 and 1866.  The trip to the U.S. supposedly took three months, and a child was said to have died during the trip.  This

writer has been unable to find any record of their arrival in the United States. They first lived in New York, where Mary Ann was born.  They then

moved to Pennsylvania, where their son Peter, Jr. was born in 1870.  By 1877, when their son Hugh was born, they were living in the Village of

Cable, Illinois, and Peter Sr. was working as a coal miner. They had one other son, John M., born in Illinois in 1880.  Ann McGonigle reported in

the 1900 census that she had fourteen children in all, only five of whom lived to adulthood.

Sometime between 1877 and 1890, Peter moved his family again, this time to Leadville, Colorado, where he also worked as a miner and smelter.

His daughter, Mary Ann, had met James Henry O’Brien, and Peter was very much opposed to any association.  Mother Teresa said that she

believes that this opposition resulted from the fact that Mary Ann was his only daughter, and that he would have reacted the same way to any

suitor.  In any case, moving the McGonigle family didn’t do Peter any good because James Henry followed them across the United States to

Colorado, where he and Mary Ann were married sometime in the late 1880’s.

(Editor’s note:  An allergic reaction to a quinine prescription left Mary Anne McGonigle nearly deaf.  This happened when she was a young

woman.)

Peter McGonigle had some sort of accident in the smelter and was badly burned.  This supposedly seriously affected his personality, and he was

supposed to have become very melancholy.

Ann Murrin McGonigle died of kidney failure in 1908.  Peter then went to live with the O’Brian family in Kansas City, where his son - in – law

welcomed him despite his opposition to James Henry’s marriage to Mary Ann.  (Editor’s note:  By this time Mary Anne McGonigle O’Brian had

died.)

He was very strict with his grandchildren and didn’t make any allowances for their behavior.  Mother Teresa also remembered that he was very

concerned with his appearance, and would dress up “like he was going to a party” every Sunday to go to Mass. He died of “apoplexy” on

December 11, 1912, while on a visit to one of his sons in Horton, Kansas.  He was buried from the O’Brian home in Kansas City, Mo. and was

interred in St. Mary’s cemetery.

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