Port Huron City

Postcard:  Port Huron circa 1902 - Photographer Unknown

This city is one of the most naturally attractive, as well as pleasantly located, in the State. The streets are nearly all broad, and richly shaded with large trees, the growth of forty years, and the entire aspect of the place is one that Goldsmith would have delighted to describe, so quietly restful and peaceful is the scene, and so far removed from the restless and, more portentuous (sic) activities of large commercial centers. To the north, the broad river trails its beauteous way throughout the land, basking like a silvery serpent beneath the sun's glorious beams, while to the southeast and west extend the farms - the richest portion of the county, presenting to the eye a most magnificent rural view. Any lover of nature will acknowledge the perfection and beauty of the whole picture, and perchance, may indulge a sigh that all the world, and every place in particular, is not so happily conditioned. The inhabitants are generally from the North Atlantic States, or are representatives of the Eastern States, all well known in our vernacular as Yankees, who dropped out of the ever-westward-flowing tide of their brotherhood, and settled down here.

To the people who came and remained we can say - you found a wilderness and cleared a place for habitation. You have taken from the mountains wealth to pay for labor; you have found at hand the clay for brick, the pine trees for lumber, and out of these materials built your towns. No better illustration is afforded anywhere of the skill and ingenuity of man. There is nothing great in this world but man, there is nothing great in man but mind. He found materials in nature's great storehouse; but he was the master, they his slaves. He found the land wild and inhabited by savages - lo! the change! The great stores, the busy banks, the restaurants, the hotels, stand where a few years ago the tangled underbrush gave [489] shelter to wild beasts and creeping reptiles. The morning whistles, the school and church bells ringing from the hillside, have supplanted the wild yell of the Indian. The newspaper, the great modern missionary, is abroad in your midst, and reports to you the outside world. The telegraph and telephone are yours; a railroad system is yours; a well organized society is yours. These are your statistics! This is your civilization! Withal, your neighbors in the old countries may enjoy some advantages which you do not; many live in the midst of culture, in a region of accumulated wealth, yet would you change places with them? Would you go back to the quiet life, so poor in experience, as the old past you left in your old home? Nay, tarry here, amid these scenes, full of the romance of promise, the mysteries of illimitable possibility, where opportunity - a goddess shy in the older communities, and coy and hard to win - extends a friendly hand on hill-top and in vale, and fairly leads you to the summits of success.  (History of St. Clair County: Port Huron Township and City - A T Andreas 1883)

Port Huron, which is located in St. Clair County, Michigan was grew quickly after the 1850's due in part to the shipbuilding and lumber trade.  In 1857 it was incorporated.  By the time Michael and Bridget (Dunn) Murphy had moved there in was a thriving town.  By 1870 the population had exceeded that of the surrounding villages and in 1871 the Supreme Court designated it as the county seat. That same year the city and surrounding areas burned.  Ten years later the Thumb Fire again engulfed the city.

LOC Collections

The  Port Huron City Directory, Brown, 1871-2 and the Port Huron City Directory, Leath & Talbot, 1881 show Michael living on Chestnut, between 7th and 8th.   The Port Huron & St. Clair County Directory, Sherman, 1893-4  lists Bridget as a widow living at 2211 Willow.  The directory also lists Michael, a fireman, living at the same address.  It seems likely that this is in fact her son, John, who was a fireman later in Chicago.  It is also possible that Michael was not deceased, but rather absent and living in Chicago.

Neither of these areas were included in the detailed Sanborn Maps of 1898, however, you can see the streets in the main map above.

 

• Port Huron - Wikipedia
• Michigan County Histories and Atlases
• St. Clair Online Historical  Directories

Michael Murphy: An exploration of possibilities

There is one in every research project, the man with the common name who disappears in the records.
In the Madden genealogy that man is Michael Murphy. Michael was supposedly born in Ireland to James Murphy and Mary Brien about 1833.

No record of that birth has been found.  One possibility is a christening record for Michael Murphy, the son of Edanus Murphy and Mary Brien. He was born 21 Apr 1833 and christened the next day in the parish of Ballycullane (Tinturn), Wexford.  This is in the diocese of Ferns.

Edanus is considered a latin form of Aidan, a diminutive form of Aodh.  The name means "fire" and is sometimes anglicized as Hugh ... not James.

Could it be the right record?  Michael Murphy is such a common name, but it is the right year and the right mother.

Another possibility is Michael Murphy the son of Cons Murphy and Mary Brien baptised 29 Dec 1833 in Rosnacaharach, Muintervarra, Cork.

There are others, but I have not found one with James Murphy and Mary Brien and birth dates get further from an age of 28 which he gave when he  married..  In fact the only mention of his parents names is the marriage record of Michael and Bridget.  

I have not been able to find the family of Michael in Canada.  I believe I have found him as a servant age 25 in the 1861 census in Stratford, but with no other names to check,  this it might not be him. The record of his marriage just a few weeks later says that he lives in Stratford.  The census would put his birth in 1835/6 but 25 is one of those nice round ages that an employer might give. Like many Irish his age is inconsistent in nearly every record. 

It is my hope that some record might miraculously appear and give a few more clues.

Máedóc of Ferns

Sarah Lonergans Legacy

Oops...newly confirmed name change

Sarah Bridget Lonergan was lace curtain Irish.  She could have been the owner of the Mills of Golden, Co. Tipperary, but instead married poor farmer, John Dunn and had her life disrupted by emigration to Canada.  The poor lady never recovered from the poverty and sadness .... or so my grandmother told me.

Some fifteen years ago I encountered a fourth cousin and sharing notes, the story told by her great grandmother was the same.

As we delved into the story of John and Sarah, reality set in.  There is absolutely NO evidence that Sarah had any claim at any time to any mills in the town of Golden.  At no time did anyone with the name of Lonergan own the mills.  And even more telling, there was no eligible bachelor owner or son of an owner at any time that Sarah might have married. 

Ah, a tradition broken.  But then this is not the story of John and Sarah, but rather the story of the legacy that Sarah left to her family.  A legacy of discontent.  As Ruth and I compared notes a pattern emerged, a pattern of unhappy unsatisfied women, disrupting lives of husbands and children with cries of woe as the world mistreated them.

Bridget Dunn Murphy

Sarah's daughter Bridget was born in Ireland and accompanied her parents and older sister Mary to Brant County Ontario about 1840.  Little is known of her life there until she married Michael Murphy.  Michael, the son of James Murphy and Mary Brien was born in Ireland about 1838-.  Bridget and Michael emigrated to Michigan early in their married life, settling in Port Huron.  There Michael worked as a chauffeur until suddenly the family pulled up stakes and moved to Bay City.  Word is that Michael was in trouble.  Perhaps with the law, perhaps with the family he worked for, perhaps with Bridget.  

Mary Murphy Haffey

It was not too long before Bridget kicked Michael out of the house in Bay City. In the early days Michael sent money home to Bridget, but she would send it back.  And so Michael disappeared into the streets of Chicago, final destination still undiscovered.   Bridget lived on to age of ninety eight.  

According to Ruth's grandmother, Bridget was always unsatisfied with her life and always creating turmoil in the family...Ruth laughed in the telling and said that so she remembered was her grandmother.

Bridget's daughter Mary Murphy was born in Ontario in 1868.  While living in Port Huron, Michigan she met a promising young law student.  

Joseph Phillip Haffey was born in Adjala, Ontario in 1854,  the son of Irish immigrants John Haffey and Margaret Keenan. Joseph attended St. Michael's College in Toronto and then remained as a tutor for another five years.  In 1880, he pulled up stakes and emigrated to the US, to attend the University of Michigan School of Law in Ann Arbor. 

Isabel Haffey Madden

Joseph was an honest and ethical man.  Much as he loved the law, he grew to hate the legal scene, it was a time of corruption at every level and he refused to he corrupt.  Thus the family was comfortable but did not reach the ranks of the wealthy.  Mary lived the life of leisure but longed for the life of the rich, poor Joseph never met her expectations as a provider.

Mary had five children, both sons and one daughter never married.  But the legacy lived on. The eldest and the youngest daughters both carried the germ.  

Isabel, the youngest,  was my grandmother.  Though I loved her dearly,  I can honestly say she was always unsatisfied with the cards life dealt her and she created major turmoil in my family ......

Will the legacy continue..... or will the telling of the tale allow it to be finally at an end.