The Journey From Ireland to Minnesota — Mary Butler

B. 1807 in (probably) County Wexford, Ireland
M. 27 Aug 1828, Rathangan Parish, County Wexford, Ireland
Husband: Martin Furlong
D. 29 Sep 1898, Kilkenny, Minnesota

When the Catholics in Ireland were hit by the potato blight of the 1840s, each family had to decide how best to survive. Do they remain in the country of their birth? Or do they pick up and move to a new land far from home? For Mary Butler’s family, they made the decision to start over in the United States, in a place called Minnesota.

Mary was born in 1807, probably in County Wexford, Ireland, to M____ Butler and Annie Murphy. Nothing is known of her childhood, although she seems to have attended school enough to learn to read and write. When she was about 20 years-old, she married Martin Furlong, a widower from Rathanagan. Along with becoming mother to at least two of the children from his first marriage, she bore him nine daughters and one son between about 1827 and 1848. It’s believed that two of the daughters died young. 

Rathanagan parish register showing marriage of Martin and Mary Furlong.

When the potato crop failed four years in a row starting in 1845, the Catholics in Ireland were hit hard. With no money and little charity, there wasn’t enough to eat in most households. For Mary and her husband Martin, there were a lot of mouths to feed during that time, so the famine likely had a terrible impact on them. People started leaving Ireland in large numbers starting in about 1846, but the Furlongs held out for a few more years, perhaps because they needed to scrape up enough passage for their large family. In late 1851, they were ready to embark, taking a boat over to England so they could ship out from Liverpool.

The vessel that took Mary and her family to America was the Essex, one of the many ships configured for poor emigrant families. The Furlongs boarded on about October 9th; there were 350 steerage passengers on the ship, and an overwhelming amount of them were Irish. One Englishman who was onboard with his family later wrote about his experience during the voyage. He described that his wife gave birth to a child who didn’t survive, and that “the only means of burial [was] for the body to be stitched up in a sheet and slid down a board into the water.” Poor Mary also lost a child on the trip — her only son John, age 12 — so we can imagine she faced a similar burial at sea for the boy.

Instead of sailing to New York, the Essex went to New Orleans, arriving after nine weeks at sea on December 13th. Mary, Martin, and the surviving children (all girls) were in a weakened condition, but their trip was far from over. Now they had to get to their final destination far up the Mississippi River, and this was done via steamboat. They may have transferred to a steamboat right after landing in New Orleans, but it’s also possible they faced a layover of up to a month. The lines that ran up and down the Mississippi were doing a booming business with all of the people escaping Europe, and only recently had they been going all the way to Minnesota. 

New Orleans as it looked when Mary arrived there.

Mary and her family settled in West St. Paul, a new community on a bend in the Mississippi River. They were among the first people of European heritage to be living there; largely the settlers were German, Irish and French-Canadian immigrants. Like many people desperately leaving a bad circumstance, Mary found herself having to adapt in a land that was unfamiliar The soil was said to be so rocky, that it was impossible to dig a well, and they had to bring water from a long distance away. One of Mary’s daughters was noted to have been the first death in West St. Paul during 1854, although the source doesn’t state which one it was. Likely it was 20-year-old Mary since she was on the passenger list of the Essex and disappeared from records after that.

The Furlong family would spend the next 25 years in West St. Paul; their farm was shown to be worth $2,000 in 1870. As St. Paul to the north encroached upon their community, the area where the Furlongs lived was annexed into the city in 1874. So in 1878, Mary and Martin moved to the town of Rosemount where they continued to have a farm. The couple lived long enough to celebrate their 60th wedding anniversary, but Martin passed away on July 28, 1889. After his death, Mary moved in with her daughter Catherine Furlong in Le Sueur County, where she died on September 29, 1898. She is buried in St. Michael’s Cemetery in Kilkenny, Minnesota. 

Children:
1. Margaret Furlong – B. before 26 May 1829, Rathangan Parish, County Wexford, Ireland; D. 24 Nov 1889, Dakota County, Minnesota

2. Eliza Furlong – B. 18 Sep 1830, Rathangan Parish, County Wexford, Ireland; D. 3 Feb 1912, Maple Lake, Minnesota; M. Francis Labree (1828-1909), 23 Jan 1854, St. Paul, Minnesota

3. Frances Furlong – B. before 30 Aug 1832, Rathangan Parish, County Wexford, Ireland; D. (probably) young

4. Mary Furlong – B. before 21 Sep 1834, Rathangan Parish, County Wexford, Ireland

5. Ellen Furlong – B. before 14 Jul 1836, Rathangan Parish, County Wexford, Ireland; D. 24 Apr 1921, St. Paul, Minnesota; M. Michael Kennedy (~1830-1895)

6. John Furlong – B. about 18398, (probably) County Wexford, Ireland, D. before 13 Dec 1851, at sea

7. Catherine Furlong – B. 26 Jul 1841, Rathangan Parish, County Wexford, Ireland; D. 21 Jun 1923, Le Sueur County, Minnesota; M. Thomas Furlong (1828-1908), 21 Jan 1869, St. Paul, Minnesota

8. Alice Furlong – B. before 19 Dec 1843, Rathangan Parish, County Wexford, Ireland; D. (probably) young

9. Bridget Furlong – B. about 1848, Ireland; M. William Maher, 2 Jan 1873, Ramsey County, Minnesota

10. Jennie Furlong – B. 10 Jan 1849, County Wexford, Ireland; D. 30 May 1935, Kilkenny, Minnesota

Sources:
Marriage and baptismal records of Rathangan Parish, County Wexford, Ireland
Passenger list of ship Essex, Liverpool to New Orleans, December 1851
1857 and 1875 Minnesota State Census
1860, 1870, and 1880 U.S. Census, Minnesota
Obituary of Margaret Furlong, Hastings Gazette, Hastings, Minnesota, 30 Nov 1889
Tombstone inscriptions of St. Patrick's Cemetery, Inver Grove, Minnesota
Obituary of Patrick Furlong, Hastings Gazette, Hastings, Minnesota, 17 Mar 1917
Marriage record of Patrick Furlong and Catherine Fox, 14 Jan 1862, Ramsey County, Minnesota
Death certificate of Eliza Labree, 14 Mar 1912, Maple Lake, Minnesota
Death certificate of Francis Labree, 28 Dec 1909, Minneapolis, Minnesota
Marriage certificate of Francis Labree and Eliza Furlong, 23 Jan 1854, St. Paul, Minnesota
Minnesota death certificate index
Death certificate of Catherine Furlong, June 1923, Kilkenny, Minnesota
Death certificate of Thomas Furlong, 1 Aug 1908, Kilkenny, Minnesota
"Pioneer Woman Buried Monday," Montgomery Messenger, Montgomery, Minnesota, 29 Jun 1923
Death certificate of Jennie Furlong, 31 May 1935, Kilkenny, Minnesota

“Review of an Active Life,” Juvenile Instructor, 17:4, George Goddard, 15 Feb 1882

History of Dakota County and the City of Hastings, Rev. Edward D. O’Neill, 1881