Michael O'Brien 1803-1859

OBRIEN MADIGAN

Posted By: Mag Ferrell (email)
Date: 3/6/2005 at 14:00:57

Dubuque Express March 8, 1859

On Sunday, March 6th, 1859, at his residence at Catfish (Rockdale), Michael O'Brien, late Treasurer and Recorder of this county, aged 51 years.

The funeral will take place on Tuesday, the 8th, at 9 1/2 o'clock A.M. The friends of the family are invited to attend.

Another of the early pioneers of Dubuque has passed from earth into that "mysterious future" which is veiled from human vision, and which can only be perceived by the eye of Faith through the meduim of Divine revelation. Mr. O'Brien, whose demise is announced in the paragraph preceeding these remarks, was born at a little town named Tallow, in the County of Waterford, Ireland, in the month of Sept, 1803. He emigrated to the United States in the year 1831, making his abode for a short time in the State of New York. From thence he went to Kentucky, where, hearing of a prospect of bettering his condition in the mining region of Dubuque, he came hither in the year 1834. Like most of the early settlers, he engaged in mining, which occupation he followed for several years. In 1844 he was elected a member of the first Constitutional Convention of Iowa, and in 1846 he was elected a member of the first General Assembly.

After his term of service expired, he was elected County Clerk of Dubuque County, in which capacity he served two years. In 1851, he was elected County Treasurer, which office he filled for seven years, and which he resigned in September last, on account, as he said himself, of the increased duties and responsibilities imposed upon the Treasurer by recent legislation. For thirteen years he was the servant of the people of this county in the lliteral sense of the term, performing for many of them, acts of kindness ____? service out of the line of duty, which no one else could so well perform owing to his almost perfect knowledge of county affairs.

note: wife named Mary, children Ellen Madigan, Margaret, Richard & Michael

note: have not found proof of being in the first General Assembly, have proof of Convention.