Descendants of John Callahan b.1815 Ireland - d.1861 Saint Louis, Mo

The John Callahan Family 1815 to 1882

Kevin L. Callahan

Minneapolis, MN / Houlton, WI

November 6, 2012

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

This well known 1903 bronze plaque was installed on an interior wall of the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty in New York Harbor. The statue was not originally intended by the French sculptor to be a symbol of immigration but of liberty flowing outward from America. Its words are from the last lines of a poem by Emma Lazarus called "The New Collosus" and this plaque changed the meaning and symbolism of the statue for Americans forever.

Introduction

As we slowly approach the 200th anniversary of immigrant John Callahan's birthday in the year 1815, I think it is worth distributing some of my unfinished research into his family's life and times. By the time he emigrated from Ireland to America around 1842, he was leaving a country that was economically collapsing. He arrived in a country that was rapidly growing and expanding westward (the population of Missouri tripled from 383,702 in 1840 to 1,182,012 in 1860), but it was also polarizing over the issue of the westward expansion of slavery. The United Kingdom abolished slavery in most of the British Empire in 1833 and the exceptions were eliminated in 1843. Unfortunately, in the U.S. the struggle over slavery eventually culminated in proslavery successionists commencing the bloodbath and misery of a long civil war with the violent attack on Fort Sumter in 1861. John Callahan subsequently died in St. Louis before the war ended. John's oldest son, David, was the only one old enough to sign up for the Civil War. Afterwards around 1879, his second son John, Jr., traveled west for the Colorado Silver Boom. Tom Callahan, who was only nine years of age at the time of his father's death, grew up and raised his own children on the family farm in Wentzville, Missouri.. Although most Americans identify themselves as descendants of immigrants,. many traditional Native Americans believe that their ancestors were "always here" and do not think of themselves as immigrants. Most African-Americans were also not "immigrants" to the New World in the usual sense. Eight million people residing in Africa were kidnapped, brutalized, transported, and put into a life of forced labor against their will in the New World in what would today be called a crime against humanity. Most initial enslavement within Africa was done by Africans who brought them to the coast where the European slavers took over. "According to the 1860 U. S. census, 393,975 individuals, representing 8% of all US families, owned 3,950,528 slaves. One-third of Southern families owned slaves" (Wikipedia: Slavery). Although slavery and slave trafficking is outlawed, it is still a widespread problem today with estimates of 12 to 27 million in forced labor of various types worldwide (Wikipedia: Slavery). Even though many people do not know or want to hear about it, most biologists, geneticists, and anthropologists believe that, if we trace our origins back far enough, that all (genus) Homo (species) sapiens (subspecies) sapiens originated from a specific location in Africa about 110,000 years ago and that we are all biologically related. Skin color is a result of living at different latitudes and can change back and forth with enough time. Caucasians in southern India are very dark and in northern Scotland are very light. Lighter skin reduces frostbite and rickets (caused by a deficiency of Vitamin D--too many long cold dark winters and overcast rainy summers) and darker skin reduces skin cancer (from too many hours of sun exposure on long hot days). Most biologists and anthropologists who are familiar with the newer genetic studies reject the notion that there are true biological "races" within our species. We are all one subspecies. As upsetting as this is for some people (They leave this out of Ancestry.com and the Mormon's FamilySearch.org.), your very distant ancestors came from Africa. In many African religions there is a belief that a human life has three stages. This belief is reflected in language. There is the first or usual sense of being alive, and then there is what is called in Swahili, sasha, which might be translated as "still alive in the living memory of others." (Sasha is also the name of one of President Obama's daughters.) Finally, there is the third stage of being alive, which is called in Swahili, zamani, which means the person is no longer in the living memory of anyone who knew them during their lifetime, e..g. George Washington, but they are now a "revered ancestor." I would suppose then that only a wholly forgotten ancestor is truly dead. Each year Americans publicly remember Presidents, Independence, Veterans, Labor, Martin Luther King, and a semi-mythical Pilgrim Dinner. Some of us even celebrate being Irish, but we do not particularly remember much about the actual immigrants--the real people who for the large part suffered hardships and discrimination to physically move here looking for a better economic and political life. If we are a "nation of immigrants" you would think we would be better at remembering the discrimination that immigrants face and be better at empathizing and acknowledging the contributions they make. So why is there often little or no interest in remembering the real immigrant's? Did they have strange clothing, and commit misdeeds--like the Pilgrims and Columbus? Are collective memories of poverty, struggle, and discrimination too painful and too common? Do we think we are better people than them now? Was it too far back in the past to bother being remembered? Was nothing written down about their lives? Are there no relevant lessons to be learned from their experience? There is no Immigrants Day, but their personal stories may be of interest to their families in the future. Although this is the story of one Irish immigrant family, it is typical of those generations and their times.

The World of John Callahan

John Callahan was born in the last half of 1814 or the first half of 1815, or "about" 1815. In the year of John Callahan's birth, the U.S. President was James Madison, the father of the American Constitution, the fourth President after George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson, and, at 64 inches, the shortest President to date. John Callahan eventually would emigrate to America, marry twice (that we know of), work for Henry Shaw, save and buy his own farm, raise a large family, and eventually die, probably in Saint Louis, Missouri, at only about age 46 or 47, in 1861 or 1862. He died during the the war, which in numbers of American casualties, would become the worst in our country's history. Based on recent analysis of 1870 census data by Dennis Hacker, a demographic historian, the death toll has recently been revised upwards by more than 20% to about 750,000 American deaths. The closest overlapping President's lifespan to John Callahan's would be that of our tallest one at 76 inches, and the first President representing the newly created Republican party, Abraham Lincoln, who lived from 1809 to 1865 and who died only a couple of months after he turned 56. According to Joseph F. O Callaghan's The O Callaghan Family of County Cork: A History, an eyewitness account still exists that attempted to describe life in Ireland during the years surrounding 1815. This is a description of the world of John Callahan's parents at the time that he was born.

Based on his personal observations from 1812 to 1822, Thomas Crofton Croker commented that the peasantry, no matter how poor, retained an inordinate sense of pride in their ancestry, claiming descent from the kings of Ireland. They were also well aware that the lands they now cultivated for the benefit of Anglo-Irish or English landlords had once belonged to the Irish clans. The women were "generally short and plump" and the men were "well proportioned, tall and rather handsome." Both men and women dressed in coarse clothing, the former wearing "a brown stuff gown and green petticoat . . . with stockings of the brightest blue," topped off by a cloak. Men usually wore blue, black, or gray. Shoes and stockings were ordinarily reserved for special occasions. The old tradition of hospitality was maintained even if it meant giving the guest the largest potato and the chair closest to the fire. Passersby greeted one another with blessings and good wishes for the journey. An enemy, however, might be charged with a curse such as this example cited by Croker, perhaps one of the mildest: "May you stand friendless and alone in this world." The annual average rent of a cabin was about 40 shillings or 50 with a patch of ground. Men from surrounding villages collaborated with one another in the tasks of husbandry such as turf cutting. Weddings were joyous occasions made more so by the presence of a piper and free-flowing ale and wine. Among annual religious rituals were the patterns or visits to holy wells usually on a saint's feast day . . . After making the rounds of the well its healing waters or a little earth from the grave were applied to sores or other afflicted parts of the body. Gatherings of people from different communities were not only occasions for renewing family ties and friendships, dancing in the night air, and courtship, but also for drinking, and in some instances fighting. Faction fights were common as people from different families came to battle one another with cudgels and stones and whatever other weapons were at hand.. . . At times fights occurred at fairs, such as those of Kanturk and Mallow or even during patterns. Although the causes of such battles probably went back several generations they still provided justification for contemporaries to assail one another (pp. 152-153).

John's first wife, Mary, was also born in Ireland. She was ten years younger than John. It is not known where and when they first met or where and when they were married. According to the June 1st, 1850 U.S. Census, however, all of their children were born in Missouri. Their oldest son David or "Dave" was born during the last half of 1843 or the first half of 1844, and he was 6 years old by June 1st, 1850. John, Jr. was 4 and Patrick was 2. Mary was 25 in 1850, so she was born in late 1824 or early 1825, during the Presidency of James Monroe or John Quincy Adams. In Ireland, the harsh Penal Laws were largely removed by 1793 and Catholic Emancipation occurred in 1829.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, Irish Catholics had been prohibited by the penal laws from owning land, from leasing land; from voting, from holding political office; from living in a corporate town or within 5 mi (8.0 km) of a corporate town, from obtaining education, from entering a profession, and from doing many other things that are necessary in order to succeed and prosper in life. The laws had largely been reformed by 1793, and in 1829, Irish Catholics could again sit in parliament following the Act of Emancipation (Wikipedia: the Great Famine)

If John and Mary's first son, David, was born in Missouri, then this puts their emigration from Ireland and passage across the Atlantic about or before 1842-3. According to Joseph O Callaghan, in 1840 the Irish had begun agitating for the repeal of the Act of Union and to restore the Irish parliament. The political mess has been described as follows:

Starting in 1801, Ireland had been directly governed, under the Act of Union, as part of the United Kingdom. . . . In the 40 years that followed the union, successive British governments grappled with the problems of governing a country which had, as Disraeli put it in 1844, "a starving population, an absentee aristocracy, and an alien Church, and in addition the weakest executive in the world." One historian calculated that between 1801 and 1845, there had been 114 commissions and 61 special committees enquiring into the state of Ireland and that "without exception their findings prophesied disaster; Ireland was on the verge of starvation, her population rapidly increasing, three-quarters of her labourers unemployed, housing conditions appalling and the standard of living unbelievably low" (Wikipedia: the Great Famine). The potato blight was a problem even before the Great Famine.

In 1821 and 1822, the potato crop failed completely in Munster and Connaught, and 1830 and 1831 were years of failure in Mayo, Donegal and Galway. In 1832, 1833, 1834 and 1836, a large number of districts suffered serious loss, and in 1835, the potato failed in Ulster. 1836 and 1837 brought "extensive" failures throughout Ireland and again in 1839 failure was universal throughout the country; both the 1841 and 1844 potato crop failure was widespread. According to Woodham-Smith, "the unreliability of the potato crop was an accepted fact in Ireland (Wikipedia: the Great Famine).

The conditions in Ireland in the 1840s were so bad that even a Royal Commission chaired by the Earl of Devon and composed entirely of landlords could not ignore the misery.

In 1843, the British Government . . . set up a Royal Commission, chaired by the Earl of Devon, to enquire into the laws with regard to the occupation of land in Ireland. Daniel O'Connell described this commission as perfectly one-sided, being made up of landlords and no tenants. Devon in February 1845 reported that "It would be impossible adequately to describe the privations which they [Irish labourer and his family] habitually and silently endure . . . in many districts their only food is the potato, their only beverage water . . . their cabins are seldom a protection against the weather... a bed or a blanket is a rare luxury . . . and nearly in all their pig and a manure heap constitute their only property." The Commissioners concluded that they could not "forbear expressing our strong sense of the patient endurance which the labouring classes have exhibited under sufferings greater, we believe, than the people of any other country in Europe have to sustain" (Wikipedia: the Great Famine). According to Joseph O Callahan, the worsening economic situation was rapidly becoming a national disaster.

In addition to the burden of the tithe [for the maintenance of the protestant "Established Church," which everyone had to pay for regardless of their personal religion], small tenant farmers suffered from the growth of capitalism in the nineteenth century and some of its unfortunate consequences. Often tenants were at the mercy of the gombeen men (Fear gaimbin, usurer), mostly merchants and shopkeepers who lent money at high rates of interest; tenants used the money to subsist and pay their rent, but when they failed in their payments the gombeen men seized their stock and produce. As many peasants were ruined in this way, the people, not surprisingly, hated them.. . . The population had grown steadily during the eighteenth century and as a consequence holdings were subdivided among sons, so that many held plots of an acre or less. Laborers got by with even smaller patches of land.. . . [B]oth large and small farmers were doing well but laborers receiving only a subsistence wage were in dangerous straits. The population was estimated at about 5 million in 1800 but more than 8 million in 1841. Whereas farmers raised grain as a cash crop, they depended for their sustenance on a diet of potatoes and milk. Partial failures of the potato crop in the early 1840s followed by a general failure in 1845 and 1846 brought on the Great Famine and resulted in a terrible loss of life. 1847 was a particularly disastrous year (pp. 157, 162).

From 1841 to 1845 the American President was John Tyler, William Henry Harrison's Vice President and running mate. (Their catchy campaign slogan was "Tippicanoe and Tyler too.") Tyler became President when William Henry Harrison died after one month. In 1842 Mary would have been about 17 and in 1843 she would have been about 18. John would have been an older 28 year old, and he may have been one of the politically oppressed and economically desperate Irish Catholic farm laborers, or a small farmer owning a lot too small to sustain a wife and future family, or a tenant cultivating the land of others, many of whom were absentee landlords. According to Joseph O Callaghan, "Tenants, often living in mud cabins and holding year-to-year at the will of the landlord or middleman, were subject to arbitrary increases in rent should they make improvements and the possibility of eviction if they failed to pay. As the number of those wandering the countryside increased, the Poor Law of 1838 tried to alleviate their condition by providing poor houses where they could find refuge as well as coarse food." (p. 151-152). It is not yet clear where they came from in Ireland. Tipperary, Dublin and Cork have all been mentioned and it is possible they moved. The poor were wandering around Ireland looking for work. They probably emigrated to America about 1842 or 1843, met and married, and had their first child, David, in about 1844. Most Callahans emigrating from Ireland during the nineteenth century were from the southwestern quarter of Ireland, but according to Joseph O Callaghan, some were from northern Ireland who also traveled to America via Liverpool, England. A typical emigration route from Ireland at the time would have been through Cobh, Ireland to Liverpool, England to the U.S. The long ocean crossing would have been a trying and miserable ordeal. I have never found a New Orleans passenger and immigration list or record, so far, that recorded a John Callahan arriving on an immigrant ship around 1842. There is a John Callahan who arrived in Boston on June 30, 1842 at age 28 (making his birth about 1814), whose occupation was "Laborer." It is conceivable that our family's John Callahan might have gone to Boston as his initial port of entry into the country. and eventually taken another non-immigrant ship to New Orleans. He would probably not have needed to have been legally recorded on a second ship from Boston since it would not be a ship of new immigrants coming from a foreign point of origin. A second possible candidate is from the Philadelphia, Passenger and Immigration Lists 1800-1850 for a John Callahan, Arrival 14 May, 1838, Age 23 (making his birth about 1815) Port of Arrival, Philadelphia, Port of Departure Liverpool, Place of Origin, Ireland and Great Britain, Occupation Laborer, Destination USA, Ship name, Ship Mona? That John Callahan could have worked on the east coast for a period before taking a ship to New Orleans. According to the National Archives website these records are kept on microfilm which has been put online.

An act of March 2, 1819 (3 Stat. 489) required the captain or master of a vessel arriving at a port in the United States or any of its territories from a foreign country to submit a list of passengers to the collector of customs, beginning January 1, 1820. The act also required that the collector submit a quarterly report or abstract, consisting of copies of these passenger lists, to the Secretary of State, who was required to submit such information at each session of Congress. There may be gaps in the indexes to the national records that have been kept. U.S. Immigration records do not indicate where in Ireland the person came from, but the correct date and ship information would be important to tracing records in Ireland. In John's case, the family story is that he landed in New Orleans and came up the Mississippi River on a flatboat with a friend John Fitzgerald (or MacDonald), who married a Callahan. Fitzgerald was the same age as Mary Callahan. According to family lore, John Callahan was met and hired at the dock in Saint Louis by Henry Shaw who eventually created "Shaw's Gardens" (now the Missouri Botanical Gardens in Saint Louis) and John was hired as a gardener. John may have been hired to be a gardener or laborer for Shaw's early properties and he may also have worked later as a gardener at Shaw's Gardens after that project was started in 1851. According to one history:

Shaw’s business success provided him with a substantial fortune and allowed him to retire in 1840 at the age of 39. During the next decade he traveled extensively in the United States and Europe and continued buying property. His eventual holdings of about 1,000 acres included the land he had seen his first year in St. Louis. On this land he had a country home built which would become known as Tower Grove House. Shortly after his last trip abroad in 1851 where he viewed the Great Exhibition and walked the magnificent grounds of Chatsworth, Shaw began development of the property surrounding his country home, inspired to give the people of St. Louis a garden like the great gardens and estates of Europe. His unusual gesture presaged the age of American philanthropy and the creation of the great U.S. public parks by several decades (Mo. Botanical Gardens website, citing Text by Joseph M. Schuster Reprinted from Garden, January-February 1983, the publication of The Garden Society, a Division of The New York Botanical Garden).

It is very possible that John Callahan might have been illiterate and may have signed his name with an "X." According to Joseph O Callaghan, a system of national schools was not established in Ireland until 1831 to provide public education for the mass of people and those schools were intended to persuade Irish children to think of themselves as English and instruction was in English not Irish. By 1831 John Callahan was already 16 years old and probably busy doing farm labor. In the 1870 US Census for Benton Township, Knox County, Missouri there is a different John Callahan, age 54, a farmer and born about 1816 in Ireland, along with Winnefer Callahan, age 50, born in Ireland and keeping house. The census enumerator checked box 17 indicating that he could not write. Winnefer also had boxes 16 and 17 checked, so she could neither read nor write. Our John Callahan worked at Shaw's Gardens as a gardener, saved money, bought farm land, and built a log cabin in Wentzville, Missouri. A later deed to son Thomas from his two older half brothers showed 100 acres in total, with a 60 acre and a 40 acre parcel, which were not attached. They may have been bought at different times. Their second child, John, Jr., was born two years after David, about 1846, and Patrick was born 2 years after that in about 1848. During President Polk's administration from 1845 to 1849 Mexico rejected the American annexation of Texas (1845) and the Mexican-American War (1846-47) resulted in the U.S. getting most of the present southwest. The country had also been grappling with the problem of the expansion of slavery for many years. Missouri, the state where John Callahan settled, was integrally involved with this issue.

In 1820, the Missouri Compromise cleared the way for Missouri's entry to the union as a slave state, along with Maine, a free state, to preserve the balance. Additionally, the Missouri Compromise stated that the remaining portion of the Louisiana Territory above the 36°30′ line was to be free from slavery. This same year, the first Missouri constitution was adopted. The following year, 1821, Missouri was admitted as the 24th state, with the state capital temporarily located in Saint Charles until a permanent capital could be built. Missouri was the first state entirely west of the Mississippi River to be admitted to the Union (Wikipedia: History of Missouri).

The June 1st, 1850 U.S. Census lists John Callahan as 35 years old, residing in the south half of central Saint Louis, and married. The 1860 Census, ten years later, lists him as 45 years old, residing in Cuivre Township in Saint Charles County, Missouri. Although the census did not record John Callahan's middle name, Aunt Alva's recollection, told to me during the course of a telephone conversation in the 1970s, was that she thought that John Callahan's middle initial was I. In the June 1st 1850 Census Mary Callahan was listed as 25 (although the first numeral was written over as if the number had been corrected) Mary Callahan died in about 1850 or 1851 and John, a widower with 3 young children, married his second wife, Ellen Rodger, shortly thereafter. They had a son Thomas and two daughters, Julia and Margaret or "Maggie" It is not clear if Julia or Thomas was born first. Their son, Thomas Callahan was born in 1852 or 1853. At the time of the 1860 Census the family resided in Cuivre Township, St. Charles County, Missouri. (Wentzville is a municipality in Saint Charles County.) The census lists John as a farmer with the value of his real estate at $3000 (Was this a recording error and it should have read $300?) and his personal property at $200. No wife is counted since Ellen Rodger died the year after her youngest son was born, about 1858. Seven children ages 15 (David) down to 3 years old were enumerated in the 1860 census. Listed were David 15, John 13, Patrick 10, Julia 9, Thomas 7, Margaret 7, and Timothy 3. If that information was correct, John and Mary's first son "Dave" would have been 18 in 1863 and he would have been born about 1845. According to the later 1880 Census, David was born about 1846 and he was still living in Cuivre township, Saint Charles County. There is a U.S. Civil War Draft registration record 1863-1865 for "all persons, of Class II, State of Missouri" that lists a John Callahan residing in St. Louis aged 44, born in Ireland, with an estimated birth year of about 1819 making this an 1863 record. His occupation is listed as "Porter" and although the last digit of the year is not that clear, it appears to read "March 7/68 Over Age." Several other people on the page have the same remark, so March 7th is probably not a birth date. Most of the people on the page were not born in the U.S. and most were from Ireland. David signed up in the Civil War, but he was the only son to do so. The family story goes that one of the sons had made some controversial statements about his political sympathies, which were not appreciated by other locals in hotly divided Missouri, and so John moved with his family from Wentzville back to St. Louis around the time of the Civil War. There are Civil War Records for a David Callahan, who was a confederate soldier, who served as a Private with the 8th Battalion Missouri Infantry A-J, Company C (1863 record) and the 9th Regiment, Missouri Infantry Company G (1864 record). This is probably an unrelated David Callahan, but his story is still instructive about the times and experiences of people living at this time. He was a Private when he went in and when he came out. The National Park Service's Soldiers and Sailors Database website gives the following information about this unit.

Confederate Missouri Troops 9th Regiment, Missouri Infantry Overview: 9th (Clark's) Infantry Regiment [also called 2nd Regiment] was organized in November, 1862, by consolidating the 8th Infantry Battalion and the Missouri companies of Clarkson's Missouri Cavalry Battalion. The two Arkansas companies of this regiment seceded and merged into Buster's Arkansas Cavalry Battalion. The unit served in D.M. Frost's, J.B. Clark's, and C.S. Mitchell's Brigade, Trans-Mississippi Department. It fought at Prairie Grove, lost 4 killed and 108 wounded at Pleasant Hill, and sustained 52 casualties at Jenkins' Ferry. The regiment disbanded in the spring of 1865. Its commanders were John B. Clark, Jr.,' Lieutenant Colonels M. W. Buster and Richard H. Musser; and Majors Richard Gaines. Harry H. Hughes, and J. Quin Morton.

Associated unit: Clarkson's Cavalry Battalion Independent Rangers [also called the Indian Battalion] was assembled during the winter of 1861-1862 with Missouri and Arkansas companies. The unit operated in the Indian Territory and took an active part in the conflicts at Newtonia and Granby. In November, 1862, it merged into the 9th (Clark's) Missouri Infantry Regiment. Its commanders were James J. Clarkson, Lieutenant Colonel M.W.

Buster, and Major J.Quin Morton.

The information regarding the battles mentioned above is as follows:

1. Prairie Grove Location: AR Campaign: Prairie Grove Campaign Dates: November 1862 Results: Union Victory (strategic)

2. Pleasant Hill Location: LA Campaign: Red River Campaign Dates: March-April 1864 Results: Union Victory

3. Jenkin's Ferry Location: AR Campaign: Camden Expedition Dates: April 1864 Results: Union Victory

There are extensive descriptions of these battles in Wikipedia. Here are three brief summaries: The Battle of Prairie Grove was a battle of the American Civil War fought on 7 December 1862, that resulted in a tactical stalemate but essentially secured northwest Arkansas for the Union. The Battle of Pleasant Hill was fought on April 9, 1864, during the Red River Campaign of the American Civil War, near Pleasant Hill, Louisiana, between Union forces led by Maj. Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks and Confederate forces, led by Maj. Gen. Richard Taylor. The battle was essentially a continuation of the previous day's Battle of Mansfield, fought nearby, which ended around sunset due to darkness — night time provided a brief interlude in hostilities. On April 9, Taylor launched an ambitious assault against the newly reinforced Federals at Pleasant Hill and had the upper hand before Brig. Gen. Thomas J. Churchill's Arkansas division was flanked on its right and repulsed. After the battle, the Federals remained demoralized and unconfident in their commander — they retreated to Grand Ecore, and from there to Alexandria. Officially, the battle was a Union victory — as the Confederates were successfully driven from the field. However, because Banks and his army had retreated so soon afterwards, many argued over who had really won. The Battle of Jenkins' Ferry was fought April 30, 1864, in Grant County, Arkansas during the American Civil War. It was the climactic battle of the Camden Expedition, which was a part of the Union Army’s failed Red River Campaign. Each side sustained a large number of casualties, especially considering the size of the respective forces, and a general was killed on each side. As a result of the battle, the Union force was able to complete a successful retreat from a precarious position at Camden, Arkansas to their defenses at Little Rock, Arkansas.

The family story is that John Callahan died when his son Thomas was 9 years old, which would make John Callahan's date of death about 1861 or 1862, at the beginning of the Civil War. A St. Louis Death Record exists for a John Callahan, born in Ireland, who died 19 April 1864, address St. Louis Hospital, who was buried in Calvary Cemetery. The land in Wentzville, Missouri was later sold by two of the older brothers to Tom Callahan, for a $425 total price.

After the Civil War, Dave Callahan, the oldest son who had signed up for the war, married, moved to St. Paul, Missouri, bought land, and raised a family of 8 children. John Jr., born about 1846, never married, and went out to the "Wild West" of Gunnison County, Colorado, probably during the 1879 Colorado Silver Boom. Silver had been discovered in Colorado as early as the 1860s (Wikipedia: Colorado Silver Boom), but the reference to "Gunnison County" suggests he was there after 1876.

In 1876 Colorado entered the Union and Gunnison County was formed. 1879 was a year of expansion due to the miners, speculators and adventurers seeking wealth. The cattle industry was established by 1880. The short growing season was not conducive to farming and the ranchers had to level fields and construct irrigation ditches to water the fields for hay (Wikipedia: Gunnison County, Colorado). The town of Gunnison was named after a surveyor for the first transcontinental railroad. The first railroad to reach Gunnison was completed in 1881 and a second railroad completed their track in 1882. By late 1882, however, John, Jr. was "of" Davis County, Kansas. according to the Deed transferring the land in Wentzville to his brother Thomas.. Davis County in northeast Kansas was named for Jefferson Davis and is where Fort Riley is located. It was renamed Geary County in 1888. When John, Jr. came back during a visit to the family in Missouri, the story was told that he showed them his six-gun revolvers. A very striking parallel account of two contemporary young men, not related to John Callahan in any way, named Pete and John Berry, fill out the probable motivations of young men at that time who were caught up in the Colorado Silver Rush. John Berry had also inherited farm land in Missouri when his father died, but he wanted to try something else after tiring of farming.

John [Berry] quit Missouri farm life first and joined the "Silver Rush" in Gunnison County, Colorado. In March of 1879, Pete Berry sold his farm, bought a horse, new saddle and bridle, and joined his brother in the Colorado Rockies. The remaining siblings continued the family farm where their mother died in 1906. The Berry brothers were among the first prospectors to scour the carbonate fields around Quartz Creek. They staked several silver claims and settled in a mountain camp that came to be known as Quartzville, up the road from Ohio City, and not far from Missouri Flats--names reminiscent of their family roots. As a young man of 21, tall, lean, sensitive and slow-speaking, with blue eyes and a quiet disposition, Pete learned prospecting and mining skills that he would put to use in later years. He worked hard and supplemented his miner's pay with ranch work, and invested his earnings in the boom town by purchasing some of the first recorded lots in Quartzville that became Pitkin, Colorado when the town was incorporated in 1879. He worked on the Eagle Lode, north of town in the summer of 1881 and he became part owner of the Carthage Lode in 1882. Perhaps predicting his future in Arizona, mines in the Quartz Creek Mining District had the names Flagstaff, Horseshoe, and Last Chance. John Berry tired of rock-hard labor in the mines and left Pitkin in 1883. (Peter D. Berry website) Like John Berry, John Callahan, Jr. sold his interest in the family farm in Wentzville. Tom Callahan continued to farm the land there and raise ten children. By the time he was living in Davis County, Kansas and he had probably also given up on the Colorado Silver Rush. In terms of some of John Jr.'s contemporary western historical figures, Virgil Earp was born in 1843 and according to his testimony Wyatt Earp was born in 1849 (1848, according to his tombstone). Wyatt Earp was the City Marshal of Dodge City in western Kansas and first met Doc Holliday in 1877. The shootout at the O.K. Corral occurred in Tombstone, Arizona in late 1881 and after splitting up with Doc Holliday, he moved to Gunnison, Colorado and dealt faro at a local saloon for a period of time.

Notes: 1. The origin of the Callahan family name comes from Ceallachan of Cashel, the 10th century King of the southwestern Irish province of Munster, who died in 954 AD. Cashel was the capital of Munster. A system of family names was begun in Ireland during the late tenth century and early eleventh century. The McCarthys trace their family lineage and name through Ceallachan's first son, and the Callahan's trace their lineage and last name through Ceallachan's second son

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