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"William Martin Connery is my name. I came from Ashgrove, Bansha, County Tipperary, Ireland by ship Rip Van Winkle to New York April 11, 1852." (Copied from
a pocket memorandum book dated May 26, 1867 that Aunt Elizabeth Connery
had)
Info below is from Illinois Memoriam: Founders and Makers of Illinois - A Memorial History of the State's Honored
Dead, S. J. Clarke Publishing Company, Chicago, about 1930, copy owned by Boetius Henry Sullivan.
Additional comments have been added.
William Martin Connery, pioneer ancestor of the family so well known in the business and political life of Chicago since 1862, was born in
Tipperary, Ireland, in 1831 and was there educated. In early manhood he and his brother Thomas Connery left the home land for the new world. One the same boat
(the Rip van Winkle, landed at NYC April, 1852) came Thomas Tobin and his family, which included a daughter Ellen, who became the wife of Thomas Connery in Rhode Island,
where they
spent their remaining days. Thomas Tobin (age 53) and his wife Ellen
Doherty (age 51) died within months of their arrival in the U.S.
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Mary Tobin 1836-1896 |
This is also said to
be Mary Tobin |
The images above were both said to be Mary Tobin;
to me, they don't look like the same person.
On the 6th of November, 1853, William Martin Connery was married in Warren, Rhode Island, to
Mary (pictured above), daughter of Thomas Tobin. The early years of their married life
were passed in Bristol, RI, where five of their children were born, while the younger members of the family were natives of Chicago.
James Patrick (born 1865) was the first child to be born in
Chicago.
 There were fourteen* children in
all: William Martin, who was born January 29, 1855, and died January 25, 1911; Thomas, who was born in 1857 and died in 1858; Robert, who was born in 1859 and
died in 1861; John Tobin, born January 10, 1861; Michael Morgan, who was born in Bristol, October 5, 1862, and died June 3, 1923; James
Patrick, who
was born in Chicago, May 5, 1865 and died June 30, 1929; Francis Daniel, born April 12, 1867;
Ellen Maria, born in January, 1869; Joseph F., born March 2, 1871;
Helena Bowen, born
December 14, 1872; Henry T., who was born September 22, 1874, and died October 31, 1927; Catherine A., born December 21, 1875;
Vincent Augustus, born January 22, 1878; and Elizabeth M., born October 21, 1879.
* There may have been an unnamed boy born
between Michael and James, as James was said to have been a seventh
son.
William Martin Connery, following his removal to Chicago in 1862, worked for a time on the construction of a pier in the Chicago river and later engaged in the work of
bridge building on the Kansas City, Fort Scott & Gulf Railroad. The early home of the family in Chicago was on Desplaines street and Grand avenue. The father
conducted a grocery store at the corner of Grand avenue and Desplaines street and was engaged in business there at the time of the memorable Chicago fire of 1871.
Shortly after the fire he established a retail coal business in the same block in which his grocery store was located. In 1881, however, feeling that he would like to have
his children grow up in the country, he brought a farm near Jewel Junction, Iowa, about fifty miles north of Des Moines. In 1883 illness induced him to return to Chicago
for medical treatment and here he passed away August 27, 1883. In a short time the family, with the exception of the son Michael, returned to make their home in
Chicago and after the Iowa farm had been traded for a building on West Lake street near Ashland avenue, Michael also returned to this city.
No history of Chicago would be complete without extended reference to the Connery family, so important has been the part which its members have played in the
commercial, financial and political life of the city. They have done much toward shaping its progress in many ways, giving their aid and influence to further projects
looking to the material, civic and moral welfare of the city. They are prominently known, not only by reason of what they have achieved, but also by reason of those
social qualities which have gained them the warm friendship of all with whom they have come in contact, including many of the leading and representative residents of
the Illinois metropolis. Click here
for more on the Connery children.
1860
Census, RI Bristol Co Bristol M653_1202 page 62A family 793: William
CONRAY(30)Ire Sugar Refiner, Mary(24)Ire, William(5)RI, Robert(1)RI;
Michael TOBIN(30)Ire Sugar Refiner, Patrick Greene(26)Ire Sugar Refiner,
James TOBAN(25)Ire Factory Opperative, Dennis McCARTY(30)Ire Sugar
Refiner, Bridget(28)Ire Factory Operative, Bridget CARTY(23)Ire Domestic
1870 Census,
18 July 1870, p. 315, IL, Cook Co, Chicago, 11th Ward, street address is
probably at or near 186 N. Desplaines, Wm. M. Connery age 35 day laborer
born Ire, psnl prop value $1,000; Mary Connery age 35 keeps house born
Ire; Wm. age 15 boy in store born RI; John age 10 born RI; Michel age 8
born RI; James age 5 born IL; Frank age 3 born IL; Ellen age 1 born
IL
William Martin Connery wrote
from Chicago to his sister Mary Ann Connery Nerone in Bristol Rhode
Island 26 Oct 1878.
 Here's William & Mary in the 1880
census. 1800 Census, 10 June 1880, Chicago, Cook Co., IL, 48 West
Indiana St., p. 35, E.D. 102, William Connery age 45 laborer; Mary 43
keeping house; William 25 coal wood ___; John 19 coal office; Michael 18
laborer; James 15; Francis 13, Ellen 11, Joseph 9, Helena 8, Henry 6,
Catherine 4, Vincent 3, Elizabeth 8 mos.
 William
is also enumerated in the 1880 census at his Jewel Junction, Iowa farm
along with his sons Michael and James. 8 June 1880, Lyon Twnshp,
Hamilton Co., Iowa, p. 13, E.D. 105, Wm. M. Connery age 48 farmer born
Ire; Michael M. 16 born RI; James 13 born IL
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