Legacy Letter : The Hotel Keeper’s Secret
The Hotel Keeper's Secret
A Letter to Terrence's Descendants
❦
What your great-great-great-grandfather wants you to know
From County Clare, Ireland to the corner of Fulton and Church
Dear ones who carry my blood and my boldness forward,
They tell me I died with a secret on my lips. That I called for Father Farley, told him I had valuables I wanted to place in his hands for my children, and then asked for a drink, laid back on my pillows, and my life went out in an instant—before the priest could return.
What they don't tell you is that the secret wasn't just about the bonds hidden in the kitchen wall.
The real secret—the one I wish I'd had time to tell you—was about how to live a life worth living, even when the world is trying to burn it down around you.
The Boy Who Arrived With Nothing
I came to Jamaica, Queens when I was barely more than a boy—almost in my childhood days, as the newspapers would later say. I'd resided in that village for nearly forty years by the time I died. Ireland was hungry and America was hungry for workers, and I had nothing but my hands, my wits, and the stubborn belief that I could make something of myself in this strange village at the end of Long Island.
My first job? Chief stableman at Remsen's. I knew horses—their temperaments, their moods, their secrets. Jamaica was a favorite resort for Brooklyn drivers back then, men who kept good horses and drove them hard. I became acquainted with that whole race of drivers, and they became acquainted with me. The newspaperman who wrote my obituary said my "knowledge of horses, and his attention to his business, made him many friends."
That's the polite way of saying I watched and I learned and I saved my money and I waited for my chance.
That's the first thing I want you to know about who you are: You come from a man who started at the bottom and learned everything he could from every place he stood.
Building the Empire
In that position at Remsen's, I acquired some money. Not much, but enough. And by 1856, I wasn't working for anyone anymore. I opened a hotel of my own, known as the Railroad House, right near the train depot. The railroad was changing everything—bringing travelers, businessmen, opportunity. I positioned myself right where the future was arriving, one train at a time.
Succeeding in that enterprise, I opened a larger house—the Union Hotel, at the corner of Fulton and Church. It was a landmark, a gathering place, the heart of Jamaica. And now it was mine.
Do you understand what that means? The boy who arrived with nothing, the stableman who'd cared for other men's horses, now owned the finest hotel in the village.
So I built a liberty pole. Not just any pole—a 148-foot flagstaff, the tallest in Queens County, topped with a silhouette of Dexter, the most famous racehorse in America. It cost me $200, a fortune in those days. Lightning destroyed it, and I built it again.
Some people thought I was showing off. They were right. But I was also proving something—to Jamaica, to myself, to whatever part of Ireland was still watching. The hungry boy from County Clare had planted his flag in American soil.
Of course, the fortunes of Jamaica were shared in their ups and downs by me. The village had been the halfway house to Rockaway—summer travelers stopped there in large numbers. But the horse railroad and the opening of other resorts turned those who drove good horses in other directions. When direct railroad communication opened to the south side of Long Island, people could go straight to the beaches without stopping in Jamaica. The place went backward, and the business of the hotels decreased accordingly.
But I kept going. That's what O'Briens do.
The Colorful Life
I won't pretend I was a saint. Your great-great-great-grandfather had his share of troubles with the law, and I won't lie to you about them.
The federal government came after me for running an illegal distillery at Valley Stream. They found casks marked "T. O'Brien" and "Terry O'Brien." They arrested me for selling liquor without a license. The newspapers called it "The Whiskey Frauds."
And do you know what I did while I was being prosecuted for violating the Excise Law? I hosted the Rotten Corks—a society of liquor dealers whose very name mocked the law I was accused of breaking. They came to my hotel, and I fed them a fine dinner.
Was it wise? Probably not. But it was bold. And boldness was always my way.
I hosted the John J. Scott Guards—seventy-six men in military uniforms who came for their annual excursion and shot for silver prizes and dined elegantly at my table. I hosted the Queens County Democrats when they needed a place to meet. Soldiers and sailors gathered under my roof. My hotel was where Jamaica came to celebrate, to argue, to do business, to live.
That's the second thing I want you to know: Don't be afraid to be noticed. Don't be afraid to take up space. Don't be afraid to build your liberty pole as high as it will go.
The Loves and the Losses
I married Ann Higgins about 1857, and she gave me three children—James Henry, Mary Ann, and Elizabeth. She was the daughter of Thomas Higgins, and she brought respectability to a man who sometimes needed it. When she died in the early 1860s, still so young, I thought the light had gone out of my world.
My mother Bridget came to help with the children. She'd crossed the ocean with me all those years ago, and now she was keeping my household together while I kept the hotel running. When she died in October 1869, I lost my anchor.
And then Cornelia Bedell came into my life. She was young—barely eighteen when we married—but she gave me Miles, my youngest, born in 1873. She was the mother of my baby when I died, and she followed me to the grave just six months later, leaving all four of my children orphans.
I know the pain that followed. I know James Henry was sent to his uncle Patrick in Kentucky. I know Mary Ann and Elizabeth stayed with the Higgins family. I know baby Miles, not even two years old, went to live with Mrs. Madden. I know they were scattered like seeds in a storm.
But I also know what I couldn't know then: They found each other again. The bonds between them were stronger than the miles that separated them. And their descendants—you—are proof that scattering doesn't mean losing.
The Secret in the Walls
Yes, there were bonds hidden in the kitchen wall. Eleven thousand dollars in government bonds—a fortune that could have kept my children together, could have given them everything I'd worked for, could have been the inheritance I meant them to have.
Why didn't I just tell someone where they were? Why did I wait until I was dying to try to share the secret?
I wish I could give you a good answer. Maybe I didn't trust anyone. Maybe I thought I had more time. Maybe I was the same stubborn, secretive Irishman who'd always played his cards close. The newspapers said the discovery of those bonds was "Good Luck"—but the real luck would have been if I'd lived long enough to place them in Father Farley's hands.
Let me tell you what I've learned from watching my story unfold from wherever I am now:
What I Want You to Know
You carry my blood. That means you carry my boldness, my stubbornness, my refusal to stay small. It means you carry my flaws too—my secrets, my recklessness, my tendency to build things up and then watch them burn.
But here's what I've learned, watching James Henry become a congressman, watching Mary Ann and Elizabeth stay together until the end, watching Miles raise ten children of his own, watching the family tree grow branches I never could have imagined:
The hotel is gone. The Union Hotel where I hosted the Rotten Corks and the John J. Scott Guards and the Queens County Democrats—it's gone now. The site is a family court, which seems fitting somehow. Where men once gathered to drink and argue and do business, families now come to sort out their futures.
The liberty pole is gone. The 148-foot flagstaff with Dexter on top, the one that announced to all of Queens County that Terrence O'Brien had arrived—lightning took it, and time took whatever I rebuilt. Nobody remembers it now except through old newspaper clippings.
The bonds are gone. The $11,000 hidden in the walls—spent, divided, absorbed into history. Money doesn't last.
But you are here.
You are the real legacy. You are what I built that lasted. Every one of you who refuses to stay small, who takes risks, who builds something from nothing, who gathers people around your table, who loves fiercely even when you know you'll lose them—you are the O'Brien inheritance I always meant to leave.
That's the secret I wish I'd told Father Farley. That's what I wanted to place in his hands for my children. Not the bonds in the wall, but this:
Final Words
I was forty-one years old when I died. I'd lived in Jamaica for nearly forty years—since almost my childhood days. I'd risen from stable hand to hotel proprietor, from immigrant boy to Queens County institution. I'd married twice, buried both wives, fathered four children, faced federal prosecution, hosted military companies, and built a liberty pole topped with a racehorse.
On November 21, 1874, at about two o'clock in the morning, I sat up in bed and asked for a drink. When the nurse laid me back on the pillows, my life went out in an instant.
I didn't get to finish telling my secret. But maybe that's the point. Maybe the real secret isn't something you tell—it's something you live. It's something you build. It's something you pass down not in bonds hidden in walls, but in blood and bone and the stubborn refusal to be forgotten.
You are reading this because Mary Hamall Morales spent years tracking my story through census records and newspaper clippings and courthouse files. She found the Rotten Corks and the lightning strike and the liberty pole with Dexter on top. She pieced together what I couldn't finish telling.
The hotel keeper's secret is finally out. And the secret is you.
With all my boldness and all my love,
Terrence O'Brien
Your great-great-great-grandfather who planted his flag at Fulton and Church
P.S. — If you ever find yourself in Queens, look for the corner where Fulton Street meets Jamaica Avenue. The Union Hotel is gone, but stand there for a moment and remember: A hungry boy from Ireland once built an empire on that spot. And everything you are started there.
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