References
My 2nd Great Grandparents were Patrick and Catherine (Lane) Lynch both born in the late 1830s in County Waterford and lived in the village of Bunmahon, County Waterford, a scenic mining town on the edge of the Irish Sea.
They were married in Stradbally, a neighboring town, in 1859. Bunmahon had been a thriving copper mining town until the copper ran out and many of the residents had left Ireland to seek work in England and America. Patrick and Catherine had lived in England and Wales where two of their six children were born.
Patrick had gone to America to find work and, according to family lore, he landed New York in 1864 and while working as a miner he was blinded in an accident. atherine had remained behind in Wales with their daughter, Ellen and son Franklin, and came to America to find Patrick who had ceased communication not wanting to be a burden to his family. Catherine became an indentured servant to a family in Massachusetts in order to gain passage fare to search for Patrick. By a stroke of luck the family was reunited and several more children were born in Massachusetts and Maryland: Bartholomew, Thomas, Catherine and Bridget.
The family, bankrolled by money from the Boston family where Catherine was employed, traveled via a covered wagon to Colorado, Together they opened the Shamrock Saloon in Leadville, Colorado which became a haven for notorious gunfighters and outlaws They were some of the earliest settlers in what was then Indian Country. Both Patrick and Catherine lived, died and were buried in Colorado in the early 1900s. Most of their children lived in Colorado until their deaths, except for my great grandmother, Catherine (Lynch) McCaughan who move to Washington State with her husband and 10 of their children.
