For
Muscatine County Iowa
1911
| Biographies For Muscatine County Iowa 1911 | |
Source: History of Muscatine County Iowa, Volume II, Biographical, 1911, page 496
JOHN M. O'BRIEN....John M. O'Brien, is one of the homored citizens of Muscatine county, who not only attained success as a farmer, but by his public spirit and generosity has assisted many others on the road to prosperity. He was born in County Carlow, Ireland, October 31, 1830, a son of Michael and Anna ( Maher ) O'Brien. The father was born in the same county and came to America in 1847 on a sailing vessel which required eight weeks for the voyage. After spending three years in St. Louis he located in Muscatine county, Iowa, on the farm where the subject of this review now lives, renting land for one year before he began acquiring property in his own name. Politically he gave his adherence to the democratic party. From the time of reaching his manhood he devoted his attention to farming. He passed away in 1861. The mother was also a native of the Emerald isle and was there married, coming with her husband to America. She departed this life in 1864. There were seven children in the family : Dennis., a farmer of Muscatine island ; Patrick, deceased ; John M., our subject ; Daniel, a farmer of Seventy-six township ; Michael, of California ; James, deceased ; and Catherine, who died at twenty-two years of age.John M. O'Brien was educated in Ireland and came to this country with his parents when seventeen years of age. After engaging in the quarry business on his own account for a time, he began renting land in Seventy-six township, Muscatine county, in 1850, then being twenty years of age. He prospered in his farming, and in 1851 pruchased a farm on sections 19 and 20. However, the stories of great fortune acquired quickly in the gold mines aroused his interest and in 1854 he started for California. He proceeded first to Chicago, then to New York, and on by ship to the isthmus of Panama, where he paid ten dollars for a mule to carry him across to the western coast. From that point he took ship for the Golden Gate, landing at San Francisco. After a journey up the Sacremento river he went into the mountains and succeeded in securing enough of the yellow metal to enable him to make a good start as a farmer in Muscatine county. After the death of his parents he purchased the old homestead and at one time was the owner of four hundred acres of good farming land. He now owns two hundred and forty acres in one tract and forty-eight acres in another and is quite prosperous as a general farmer.
In 1864 Mr. O'Brien was united in marriage to Miss Margaret Byrne, and nine children, three of whom are now deceased, blessed the union : M. Francis, of Denver, Colorado ; James Stephen and Anna Marea, both at home ; John, a farmer of Seventy-six twonship ; Agnes, at home ; and Catherine. The beloved wife and mother was called away in 1901 at the age of fifty-eight years.
Mr. O'Brien has experienced a great deal of the pleasures and not a little of the sorrows of life, but he has always maintained a brave heart and stood for what he believed to be right and true. He is greatly beloved by his friends and by a wide circle of acquaintances in Muscatine county. Politically he is identified with the democratic party and in religious belief he has ever since his childhood been an adherent of the Catholic church, to whose teachings he yields devout assent.
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