Bonner Family Archive

The Story

St. Cloud

In May, 1870 Patrick Shea emigrated from Fremoyle, County Longford, with his wife Margaret Kelly Shea and three daughters: Winnifred, Mary, and Bridgit (called Agnes). They sailed to Boston and then traveled by train to Saint Cloud, Minnesota.

Shea Memorial Page

Finding Minnesota

That was the end of the railroad so they rode the stagecoach to a station called Chippewa, later called Brandon, Minnesota. The 160-acre homestead they purchased was about seven or eight miles northeast of Brandon in Leaf Valley Township.

Shea Memorial Page

The Homestead

As late as 1870 - twelve years after Minnesota entered the Union and five years after the Civil War - The Red River Railroad they came on was still the only major track through the western part of the country. Patrick bought the homestead from a man in Indiana for one thousand dollars.

Shea Memorial Page

Settling Down

The purchase price included land, the log house, a stable, and a building used as a granary. The Homestead Act of 1862 made possible the settlement of this fertile land in the midwest. Every American citizen could obtain title to the land after settling it for five years and making improvements. Patrick was very proud to own the homesteaded claim as England would not let them own land in Ireland.

Shea Memorial Page

Life In Leaf Valley

Patrick had three brothers and seven sisters, as follows: Brothers - Michael, Thomas,and Richard; and Sisters - Mrs. Nell Shea Noonan, Mrs. Matte Shea Carney, Mrs. Hyland, Mrs. Rattigan, Mrs. Canarton, Mrs. Kenney, and Mrs. Costello. He was the only on of his immediate family to leave Ireland so he never saw them again. His daughter, Mary, planed to take him back to Ireland for a visit but then her husband Jack Conway, a Great Northern Railroad engineer, was killed and that was the end of the plans. (His daughter, Margaret Shea Kehoe, was the only on one of his 14 children ever to visit Ireland which she did twice - in 1959 and 1972.)

Shea Memorial Page

The Shea Family Grows

A niece, Elizabeth Shea Delaney, daughter of his brother Thomas, and her husband Timothy and two children - Catherine (Kindregan) and Thomas Delaney - visited the farm in 1919. We have kept in touch with the Delaneys through the years at their homes in Philadelphia.

In addition to the three daughters born to Patrick and Margaret in Ireland, two more daughters were born in leaf Valley - Elizabeth and Anne. Soon after the baby, Anne, was born Margaret died of Pneumonia on February 2, 1872, Mrs. Hubert Murrey who lived about one and one-half miles away took care of the two little girls in her home. On November 12, 1873 Patrick Shea and Catherine Mullins were married in Millerville, Minnesota in a log mission church; a priest came only every few months. Catherine was 27 years of age and Patrick was 43 - sixteen years older.

Shea Memorial Page