The Evidence Trail
Every dated record in the O’Brien case, in the order the events happened: from Terrence O’Brien’s years in Jamaica, Queens, through the 1875 deposition that named an uncle in Kentucky, to the Newport family traced to its last generation. Where the research turned, the moment is marked beside the records it concerns.
Irish & Irish-American Research›The O’Brien Legacy›Evidence Timeline
Origins and Arrival
A mother born about 1802, a son who came to America before he was eighteen, and a village he would live in for nearly forty years.
Birth of Bridget O’Brien
Bridget O’Brien was born in Ireland about 1802. Her maiden name, birthplace and husband are unknown.
The estimate comes from her age, 67, at her death in Jamaica in 1869.
Source Death notice, New York Herald, 3 October 1869
Birth of Patrick O’Bryan
Patrick O’Bryan of Newport was born in Ireland, on 5 May 1830 by his death certificate. His censuses give years from 1830 to 1836.
His parents are entered on his death certificate as “Dont know.”
Source Kentucky death certificate no. 28763, 1913; U.S. censuses 1870–1910
Birth of Terrence O’Brien
Terrence was born in Ireland. He was 25 in June 1860 and 31 in June 1863.
Neither of his death notices gives an age.
Source U.S. Census, Jamaica, 1860; draft enrollment, 1st Congressional District, 1863
Terrence in Jamaica
By his obituary’s count, Terrence had lived in the village of Jamaica “nearly forty years” when he died in 1874.
If the figure is close, he arrived as a small child, well before the Famine.
Source Obituary, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 27 November 1874
Patrick’s arrival
Patrick O’Bryan gave his year of immigration as 1850 in the 1900 census and 1849 in 1910.
Source U.S. Census, Newport, 1900 and 1910
Naturalization of Terence O’Brien
Terence O’Brien was naturalized in the Queens County Court. He swore five years’ residence in the United States and that he arrived before his eighteenth year. Bernardus Hendrickson and Denis Moloney were his witnesses.
He signed his own name.
Source Naturalization papers, County Court of Queens County, bundle 1, no. 48; NARA, New York
The Hotel Years
A stableman becomes a hotel keeper, and his mother comes to live under his roof.
Marriage of Patrick and Mary O’Bryan
Patrick and Mary had been married forty-three years in 1900. Two of their children’s death certificates name her as Mary McNamara.
Where they married is not yet known. Their first children were born in Indiana.
Source U.S. Census, Newport, 1900; Kentucky death certificates, 1953 and 1954
“T. O’Bryen, R. R. Hotel”
A map of the village lists T. O’Bryen, R. R. Hotel, among Jamaica’s four hotels.
His obituary says that after working as chief stableman at Remsen’s hotel he opened a hotel of his own, “known as the Railroad House.”
Source Map of Jamaica, undated, about 1859, New York Public Library; obituary, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 27 November 1874
The 1860 census
Terence O’Brien, 25, real estate $5,000, personal estate $1,000, with Ann O’Brien, 24, Ann O’Brien, 22, and two men of other surnames.
No occupation is entered for him, and the census states no relationships.
Source U.S. Census, Jamaica, Queens County, 1860, dwelling 87, family 92
Draft enrollment
Terrence O’Brien of Jamaica, 31, inn keeper, born Ireland.
No former military service is entered.
Source Consolidated enrollment lists, Class II, 1st Congressional District of New York, 1863; NARA RG 110
Excise assessment
Assessed $25 as a retail liquor dealer and $20 for a hotel with a rental value of $400.
Source Internal Revenue assessment lists, New York District 1, Division 4, May 1865; NARA M603
Licensed
Terence O’Brien of Jamaica appears among the licenses granted by the Excise Commissioners.
Source “Names of the Licensed,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 26 May 1866
Fire at the Union Hotel
Fire broke out in the basement of Terrence O’Brien’s Union Hotel, two doors west of the Dutch Church in Fulton Street. His uninsured liquor stock was largely lost.
The report notes that “Mrs. O’Brien, the mother of the landlord, who is a very careful woman,” had seen all safe before retiring.
Source “Fire,” Long Island Farmer, 14 August 1866
Before the U.S. Commissioner
Terence O’Brien and others were charged with owning a distillery at Valley Stream. A witness testified to carting five barrels of whiskey to O’Brien’s premises.
A charge and testimony at a preliminary hearing; the outcome has not been found.
Source “The United States vs. Terence O’Brien and others,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 19 April 1867
The liberty pole
Lightning destroyed the $200 flagstaff, or liberty pole, in front of T. O’Brien’s hotel.
Source Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 14 May 1867; New York Herald, 15 May 1867
Death of Bridget O’Brien
Bridget O’Brien died at Jamaica, aged 67. Her funeral was held from “the residence of her son, Terrence O’Brien.”
The record that names Terrence as her son.
Source Death notice, New York Herald, 3 October 1869
The Orphans and the Uncle
A railroad man settles in Newport. Four years later a deposition in Queens names a Patrick O’Brien there.
Patrick O’Brien in Newport
Patrick O’Brien, 40, railroad conductor, with his wife Mary and six children born in Indiana and Ohio.
The earliest record of the family in Newport.
Source U.S. Census, Newport, Campbell County, Kentucky, 1870, dwelling 2099
The Union Hotel on the atlas
“T. O’Brien Union Hotel” on the south side of Fulton Street, just east of Church Street, beside the Reformed Church.
Source “Jamaica Village,” Beers Atlas of Long Island, 1873
Death of Terrence’s wife
Terrence’s wife and one child were “laid at rest” a few months before his own death.
The child is not named.
Source “Good Luck,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 27 January 1876
Death of Terrence O’Brien
Terrence died at his residence in Jamaica at about two in the morning, after a short illness, without a will. His funeral was held on Tuesday, 24 November.
Source Death notice, New York Herald, 23 November 1874; obituary, Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 27 November 1874; administration file, 1875
The administration
The Surrogate ordered letters to Thomas Higgins, maternal uncle of Mary Ann and Elizabeth. His petition places James Henry, over 14, in Newport, Kentucky, “with his uncle Patrick O’Brien,” the girls with himself, and Miles “with his great aunt Mrs Madden” in Jamaica.
The only record that connects the Jamaica family to Kentucky.
Source Queens County Surrogate’s Court, administration of Terrence O’Brien, Liber 20, p. 35
The bonds in the ceiling
Repairing the old hotel’s kitchen ceiling, Thomas Slowey found $11,000 in West Virginia railroad bonds wrapped in calico and laid across two laths.
Source “Good Luck,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 27 January 1876
Before the Surrogate
Higgins, as administrator, had Slowey before Surrogate Hagner to produce the bonds. Slowey refused and was threatened with contempt.
Whether the bonds were recovered is not yet known.
Source “Good Luck,” Brooklyn Daily Eagle, 27 January 1876
The Newport Family
Patrick’s family, followed to the end of his life and his children’s.
The Maddens of Jamaica
Catherine Madden, 75, born Ireland, living alone, next door to John Madden, 30, his wife Catharine and their infant son.
Possibly the “great aunt Mrs Madden” of 1875. Miles is not in either household.
Source U.S. Census, Jamaica, Queens County, 1880, ED 277, p. 27
Miles with his Bedell grandparents
Miles O’Brien, 8, at school, was living in Flushing as the grandson of Anthony P. Beadle, a French-born farmer, and his wife Anastatia, born in Newfoundland to an Irish mother.
By 1880 the youngest child had moved from his great aunt’s care to his mother’s parents.
Source U.S. Census, Flushing, Queens County, 1880, ED 266, p. 40, dwelling 346
Pat. O’Bryan in Cincinnati
Pat. O’Bryan, 48, foreman in the Ohio & Mississippi railroad shop, River Road, with Mary and eight children.
James Henry is not in the household.
Source U.S. Census, Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio, 1880, ED 180
619 Patterson Street
Patrick O’Bryan, locomotive engineer, owns his house free; married 43 years; Mary the mother of ten children, nine living.
Source U.S. Census, Newport Ward 4, Campbell County, 1900, ED 20
Death of Mary O’Bryan
Mary O’Bryan, 65, of 619 Patterson Street, died and was buried at St. Joseph New Cemetery, Price Hill.
Source Newport register of deaths, October 1905
Death of Patrick O’Bryan
Patrick O’Bryan, widower, locomotive engineer, died at 619 Patterson Street and was buried at St. Joseph New Cemetery, Price Hill, on 25 November.
Terrence had died on the same date thirty-nine years earlier. Patrick’s certificate gives his parents as “Dont know.”
Source Kentucky death certificate no. 28763; Cincinnati Enquirer and Kentucky Post, 22 November 1913
Two children’s certificates
William O’Bryan (d. 23 April 1953) and Katherine Cronin (d. 23 February 1954): father Patrick O’Bryan, mother Mary McNamara.
One informant, Margaret Collins, for both.
Source Kentucky death certificates, 1953 and 1954
The Research Journey
The order the records were found, which is not the order they were made.
The full account of each stage, the conflicts between the records and how each was weighed, is on the methodology page.
The Evidence Trail So Far
From a mother’s death notice in 1869 to a daughter’s death certificate in 1954, the trail runs through records that were never meant to be read together: a guardian’s sworn petition in Queens, a railroad conductor’s census line in Newport, a Cincinnati shop foreman’s household, and a Kentucky certificate on which a daughter could not name her father’s parents.
Terrence O’Brien (c. 1832–1874): Irish-born, raised in Jamaica, stableman and hotel keeper, son of Bridget, father of four, and, on the evidence so far, brother of the railroad man in Newport who gave his eldest son a home.
Continue the Case Study
Read the findings, or the record-by-record account of how each was established.
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