I was much amazed to find a large and impressive monument dedicated to the Roane family in Lowell’s St. Patrick’s Cemetery. On a second visit to the cemetery, I located a Hurney monument that is nearly as large and as impressive as the Roane obelisk. The four faces are inscribed:
(A)
Martin Hurney - Born 1804 – Died 1877
His wife Bridget Hurney – Born 1810 – Died 1893
Ann Hurney – Born 1847 – Died 1884
(B)
Frank Hurney – Born 1853 – Died 1890
John Hurney – Born 1831 – Died 1901
Frank F. Begley – Born 1914 – Died 1979
(C)
Catherine Cummings – Born 1857 – Died 1918
Mildred Hurney Begley – Born 1916 – Died 1969
John J. Begley 1942 – 1973
(D)
Robert F. Begley 1948 – 1980
The monument indicates that Martin and Bridget and four of their seven children (John, Anne, Catherine Cummings and Frank) lie buried here, as well as their great-grandchild, Mildred Hurney, her husband, Frank Begley, and two Begley sons.
Lowell Daily Sun - Wednesday, December 27, 1893 – (Front page)
The funeral of MRS. BRIDGET HURNEY took place from her late residence, 167 Sargent street on Monday, many friends in attendance. Mrs. Hurney was a native of County Galway, Ireland and had resided in Lowell 42 years. She lived to the ripe old age of 83 years and was beloved by all who knew her. She is survived by three daughters.
Of the three Hurneys missing from this plot, Mary Hurney Roane O’Neil, sleeps not far away in the Roane lot and Sarah Hurney Quinn rests in Meeker County, Minnesota. The younger Martin Hurney, , a Civil War soldier, was unaccounted for until 2005. He led me on a merry chase, through the wat years, to Chicago and finally to Detroit, Michigan.
I’m proud to think I scored a point for women who get lost to history and for affirming the legacy of Irish-born Sarah Hurney Quinn (1839-1903), sister of my family's matriarch, the redoubtable Mary Hurney Roane O’Neil (1836-1919).
Sarah Hurney and her husband Owen Quinn were pioneering settlers of former Indian lands that became Meeker County, Minnesota in the years following the Civil War. The Meeker County Historical Society preserves several documents related to this couple and their descendants, however, Sarah’s original family name had not only been lost, but was wrongly given as McCaffery. This error, unfortunately, has been promulgated by several researchers who have posted their family histories on the Internet. I suspect these folks are novices and unaware that every bit of information requires documented evidence, most reliably in the form of a primary source document, such as a birth, marriage or death record. It was driving me crazy that folks had gotten this wrong!
To begin at the beginning, both Sarah and Mary came to Lowell from County Galway, Ireland with their parents, Martin and Bridget (Fahey) Hurney. They arrived sometime after 1850, the birth of Irish-born Catherine, and before 1853, the birth of American-born son, Frank. The couple and six children made the perilous and uncomfortable journey across the Atlantic.
I believe that Mary and Sarah were particularly close. They were born within three years of each other. They were married in Lowell by the same priest, in the same year (1859). Both gave birth to firstborn sons in 1861 (John F. Roane in June and Thomas H. Quinn in September). Each sister bore another son before they gave birth to a girl. Mary Hurney Roane named her only daughter Sarah, but it is uncertain whether her sister Sarah ever knew of her namesake. The Quinns had been in far-off Minnesota for some time before Sarah Roane was born.
The census record for 1870 state that Mary Hurney Roane was illiterate, a condition common among Irish immigrants. It is likely that Sarah was, too. With the two sisters unable to write letters across the distance between Massachusetts and Minnesota, it is easy to understand that Sarah Hurney Quinn’s children might indeed know nothing about their mother’s birth family.
It must have been a poignant and painful good-bye for these two young women, knowing they would never see each other again. The sisters’ fates rested in their choice of husbands. Mary’s husband, John P. Roane, the immigrant from Galway, seems to have adapted well to city life. He was a grocer who owned real estate valued at $1,000 in 1860. Sarah’s Owen Quinn, was from County Tyrone and seemed to have been an Irishman with a drive for land that couldn’t be quelled by life in the industrial city of Lowell. Though he worked in the mills as a weaver, he was biding his time and saving money for his chance.
In 1865, after reading advertisements for homestead lands out west, Owen and Sarah packed up their their two young sons (Thomas and John) and left Massachusetts for the wilds of Minnesota. Owen staked a claim in the town of Manannah and the little family grew rapidly from two to seven children. Owen won title to his 160 acres of land in 1870, with a document signed by President Ulysses S. Grant.
Sarah Hurney (1839-1903) + Owen Quinn (1834 – 1912)
1. Thomas H. Quinn (1861-1922) + Lovina Lucinda Butterfield (5 children)
2. John Quinn (1864-Aft 1912) + Charlotte Shaw (5 children)
3. Rose Ann Quinn (1866-1936) + William D. Johnson (8 children)
4. Lizzie Quinn (1870-1893) + Eleazur Godbout (1 child)
5. Sarah J. Quinn (1872-1939)
6. James Quinn (1874-1888)
7. Kate Quinn (1877-?) + Charles Getchell
Sarah Hurney Quinn died of tuberculosis in 1903 at the age of 64, two months after having been injured in a "runaway" (a horse and wagon incident). Sarah’s isolation from her birth family was so complete that in the 1930s, her eldest daughter, Rose Ann Quinn, gave an account of her parents' arrival and early life in Minnesota in which she gives her mother's maiden name as McCaffery, along with many other glaring inaccuracies. Rose Ann’s transcribed history is preserved by the Meeker County Historical Society and, as mentioned, has been used as “proof” by unwitting family researchers.
Misinformation is not always easy to refute. Sarah was born in Ireland and not knowing her exact place of origin, we have no birth record for her. Death records were not required to be kept in Minnesota until after 1903, therefore, there were no local or state documents to supply the names of Sarah's parents either. Luckily, I have a copy of Owen and Sarah’s Lowell marriage record and a birth certificate for their eldest son, Thomas. I forwarded copies to the Meeker County Historical Society, so this evidence now can be made available to future researchers.
For all she went through, – co-managing a 160-acre claim, farming crops, tending animals and raising seven children in a two-room house, to feeding hungry Indians who came to their door in winter, - Sarah Hurney Quinn deserves to have her origins properly remembered.
Update for 2005: In my research on Martin Hurney, Jr., I discovered that between hiches in the military, Martin stayed briefly with Owen and Sarah in Milford, Massachusetts. Prior to this, I assumed the Quinns had stayed in Lowell until they left for Minnesota. I took this clue and wrote to the Milford town clerk for John Quinn's birth record (not in Lowell), but was disappointed again. Though John was born in Massachusetts in 1864, I've yet to find documentation.
The Missing Martin Hurney…Found at Last
The sad tale of a US Veteran’s illness, early death and a widow’s battle for justice
My preliminary searches of census records led me to think Martin Hurney, Jr. settled in Chicago and founded a family dynasty of his own. I got in touch with a researcher of that clan and was disappointed to learn that her Martin Hurney was not our Martin Hurney. However, because of the rarity of this surname, the fact that both individuals were born in Galway, and both were shoe and/or boot makers…somewhere, there’s a connection between these men yet to be discovered.
I gave up on Chicago and began to scrutinize the Martin Hurney I found in Detroit, Michigan. According to the 1870 US census, he was about the right age, had a wife named Mary (born in Massachusetts) and a year-old son, Frank. Additionally, there was 53-year-old, Ellen Monahan in the household, a possible mother-in-law.
Going to the next census year (1880) I found Mary Hurney again, now a widow with three sons, Frank, Edward and Martin. Noting that the youngest child was seven, I knew Martin died sometime between 1873 and 1880, but how to find out more?
My only other significant piece of information about Martin was that he was a veteran of the “war of the Rebellion” (Civil War). If Mary filed for a widow’s pension, I might be able to get some answers and, for a change, luck was with me.
The pension file I received from the National Archives is a jumble of forms, affidavits, letters and notes that cover more than a decade in time. I found the answers I was seeking, but more than that, between the bureaucracy and legalese, I stumbled onto a wrenching human story.
The bare facts are these: after the war, Martin Hurney, Jr. left Massachusetts and traveled west in search of work at the boot-making trade, his occupation before enlisting in the army in 1861. In Detroit, Michigan Martin found work - and Mary Monahan. On October 11, 1866 the couple married. They had four children together, though only three were living when Martin died of tuberculosis in 1874. He was 34 years old.
To be continued...