Kieran "Carey" Heaton : Short Biography

Born in 1839 to John Heaton and Margaret Guinan in the Ferbane (Tisaron and Galen) parish in what was then King's County. The family immigrated to Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania in 1842, where John found work in the coal mines. In 1859 Kieran, who by that time was known as Carey, married Bridget Trumple, who had emigrated from Ireland as a teenager. Two years later he enlisted with the Union Army and served in the 48th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry Regiment during the American Civil War. In December of 1862 Carey was wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg, but he recovered and remained in the army until the end of the war. He then returned to Schuylkill County and resumed working in the mines. He and Bridget had eight children (John, Catherine, Michael, Margaret, Thomas, Mary, Elizabeth, and James) together, but Bridget died shortly after James' birth. Carey later married the widow Susanna Frantz Eich, whose husband had also served in the war. They had one child together, a son named Walter. Like his father, Walter would also serve in the army - during the First World War. As Carey got older, he suffered from ill health as a result of injuries from the war and from working in the coal mines and he spent some time in a home for disabled veterans. He died in 1906 a the age of 67.