Returning to Bridget

 

Photo by Patrick Jones. Street art in Dublin. 18 Feb 2020.

From time to time I've dug into the hints of information on my 3rd-great-grandmother Bridget. I know she was a young widow (about 26 in 1850) and mother in La Salle County, Illinois, who started a family with my 3rd-great-grandfather John O'Brien in the early 1850s, but died young sometime before 1860. John and Bridget acquired land in La Salle County in 1853 and 1854, along the Illinois and Michigan Canal.

I also know that John and Bridget had three daughters - Anna Maria, Isabella and Agnes - and one son, my 2nd-great-grandfather John J. O'Brien. I have posted previously about Bridget's first family with husband Patrick Dooner, who died of cholera in La Salle County in August 1849, along with young sons John and Hugh.

In the 1850 US Census, Bridget and surviving infant son Michael appear in Salisbury Township, La Salle County. Salisbury was renamed Peru Township in 1856. The township is located along the western edge of the county, directly below Dimmick Township, where the related Dooner families of Bridget's husband were living. Michael can be seen living in the household of his uncle Owen Dooner in Dimmick Township in the 1860 US Census.

Source: Infobahn Outfitters.

It is still unclear to me where Bridget and Patrick were married, if that happened in Ireland, or after their arrival in the United States. I lean toward they were married in Ireland and made the journey from Ireland to the United States together sometime between 1840-1844. Bridget's first son John was born about 1845 in Illinois. It is also not clear when and how Bridget met John O'Brien, whether they were formally married, or where that may have occurred.

I now think Patrick Dooner was the son of Hugh Dooner, who immigrated to La Salle County and also died of cholera in August 1849. A will for Hugh Dooner was filed in August 1853, leaving Hugh's property to his sister Catherine Dooner Cody. She was a much younger sister of Hugh Dooner, likely born in Longford, Ireland about 1824. Catherine married James Cody in Longford on 8 March 1842. Hugh purchased land in La Salle County in September 1848.

Catherine and Hugh's brother Owen may have arrived first in La Salle County. He married Fanny McLaughlin on 15 February 1846 in La Salle. In the Illinois Public Domain Land Database on the Illinois State Archives website, it appears Owen purchased 80 acres in La Salle County on 6 August 1842.

More to follow on this branch of the tree.

Note* - The photo above shows a stencil made by Dublin-based artist Pawel Iljin. I took the photo in February 2020, and the stencil was placed on a street-side box outside a pub in the Temple Bar area of Dublin. The same artwork was displayed in a 2016 exhibition by the Kemp Gallery in Dublin. I don't know more about the painting, but it struck me when I first saw it on that Dublin street. Now I associate it with Bridget.