Healy's from Ballyvourney in Chicago, 1870 onward

There is a considerable clan of Healy's based in Chicago, Illinois from 1870 to 1960 (though the present generation is scattered all over the U.S.).  They lived on the south side, near the famed Union Stockyards.  Thomas Healy was described as a saloonkeeper, as was his son John Henry Healy (1875-1928).  My grandfather, William Healy (1868-1955) also had a saloon, at 39th and Union Avenue, Chicago.  There are many stories in my family of southside gangsters, particularly Dion O'Bannion, probably the best known of the Irish gangsters, killed by Capone henchmen in his flower shop.  My father told me that when the saloon was a speakeasy during Prohibition, O'Bannion used to put a $20 gold piece on the counter and buy drinks for everyone.  I also recently learned that my granduncle Mike Healy, who worked in the Chicago post office, was a fundraiser for the old IRA.  My cousin says he has a bond signed by Devalera.

Family lore has it that two brothers left Macroom, Ireland in the 1850s under contract to work on the Panama Railroad.  Supposedly they worked two years, then came back to New Orleans, faced a cholera quarantine, jumped ship and went up the Mississippi to Chicago.

My research finds that P [eter] and P [atrick] Healy, age 22 and 16, took the ship St. Lawrence from Cork to New Orleans, arriving March 17, 1853.  Peter (my great-grandfather) appears in Kansas City, Mo. in the 1870 census and in Chicago in the 1880 census.  A third brother, Thomas, appears in Chicago in the 1880 census, date and place of arrival uncertain. There is no further record of P [atrick]. I suspect that on first arrival they worked building railroads in various parts of Illinois and Iowa.  They have multiple interactions with the O'Brien's, I'm not sure from where, and Margaret O'Brien Healy age 18 was on the same ship.  A Margaret O'Brien appears in 1859 in Kansas City and marries Peter, has five kids and dies in 1870 in Chicago after giving birth to granduncle Mike.

I have quite a bit of detail  on the family in Chicago from 1880 onward.  I've learned from
Griffith's Valuation that Thomas lived along the road between Macroom and Ballyvourney and also that sons Michael, Thomas and Peter (1834) were baptized in Ballyvourney church.  [But no record of Patrick, presumably born about 1830].  The elder Thomas died in 1885 but I could not find a tombstone in the cemetery of the old Ballyvourney church when I visited a couple of weeks ago.  Can anyone add to this saga?

I've become quite interested in the general subject of men from Cork working on the Panama Railroad.  Apparently hundreds did so, and many died of yellow fever.  There is very little documentation of this, either in U.S. or Irish sources.  If anyone has any information or even family stories, please let me know.

Robert Grogan Healy  (retired professor at Duke University)

Durham, North Carolina, USA

healy@duke.edu