MATTHEW DARRAH

DARRAH

Posted By: Jake Tornholm (email)
Date: 4/22/2020 at 13:12:48

MATTHEW DARRAH, a farmer and stock-raiser of section 9, Mercer township, was born in county Antrim, Ireland, October 13, 1837, a son of Robert and Eliza (McAfee) Darrah, natives of Ireland and of Scotch ancestry. Robert Darrah was a weaver by trade, and died in the old country in 1878, at the age of eighty-four years. His wife died in 1843. They had a family of nine children, all of whom lived to be grown, and four still survive. Five of the children came to this
country. The oldest sister, Sarah, was the wife of John Awl, came to America and died in Philadelphia. Robert came in 1856, when twenty-one years of age, and at the breaking out of the late civil war was one of the first to answer the call for three months’ men to go out in defense of his adopted country, enlisting in the Twentieth Illinois Volunteer Infantry, and was killed at Raymond, Mississippi, May 12, 1863. In the spring of 1857 our subject came to America and located in Peru, La Salle county, Illinois. Daniel was the next to come, but returned
to his native country a few years subsequently, where he died. Charles came next, and is now a resident of Corning.

The first three years our subject worked on a farm by the month, working ten months in the year for $16 per month, the other two months working for his board. He afterward rented land in Marshall county, Illinois, for twelve years. He was married in Ireland, February 13, 1857, to Miss Jane Bryson, a daughter of James and Jane (Hassen) Bryson. In 1876 Mr. Darrah removed to Adams county and purchased 160 acres of land, and now lias a line farm of 320 acres in a high state of cultivation, where he makes a specialty of stock-raising. In 1878 he rented his farm and took charge of what is known as the Vernon dairy farm, which he managed successfully for eleven years, until 1890.

Mr. and Mrs. Darrah are the parents of sixteen children, fifteen of whom are still living: James, Eliza, Sarah Jane, Maggie, Mary, Robert, Matthew, Charles, Samuel, Haney, John, Minnie, Frank, Carl, Benjamin. Mr. Darrah and wife are consistent members of the Presbyterian Church. He is a member of the A. F. and A. M., Instruction Lodge, No. 275. Politically he is a Republican.