The modern history of our branch of the family began on February 4, 1903 when Michael E. O'Brien and Nell V. Harrington were united in marriage.  The couple then settled into a house at 123 Pewabic St. in Laurium, where they were to live for the next eight years.   

Linda and I (okay, mainly Linda) found this up in the Keweenaw, at the Houghton County Courthouse in the city of Houghton, the home of Michigan Technical University.  An important document, given all of the info that it imparts.  Take a close look at it, keeping in mind that this union was yet another essential link in the genealogical chain that brought you to where you are today....WOM

  Commuter Train

The above passengers and crew are unidentified.

From the Michigan Tech University Archives - Back circa 1909, before the automotive boom made it superfluous, this Houghton County Traction Company streetcar began service between Laurium and Lake Linden, a four-mile stretch.  It was a substantial improvement over the horse and buggy and far faster and more comfortable.  One can imagine Nell Harrington regularly availing herself of this quick link after marriage and her move to Laurium, hopping on from time to time to visit the folks over in Lake Linden.  By this time, of course, Michael O'Brien was District Manager of the Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company and President of the First National Bank of Laurium. He employed some of his Harrington in-laws who may have used the train to commute back and forth between the two towns.

  Note the overhead ads, the exotic hats with floral motif on the women, and the modest, formal clothing of all.  This era of fashion is the polar opposite of today's trend, in which bottomless cleavage, stray thong straps, and ultra-tight attire are the tacky norm.

Interestingly, the C&H Mining Company, led by the powerful Alex Agassiz for some 40 years, vehemently opposed the building of this trolley system, even forbidding the placement of tracks on their property.  This meant, in some cases, routing the lines considerably off the beaten path in order to circumvent C&H land holdings, which were considerable.  The ultra-paternal mining company feared that such a trolley would permit the easy gathering of its workforce and thus increase the potential for union organizing which, of course, they also strongly opposed, sometimes with a vengeance (to understand my meaning more fully, read this story):

The Horror of the Italian Hall

Let there be light

 Brass panel of light switches in the former First National Bank, located in downtown Laurium, MI.  M.E. O'Brien was president of this institution from 1907 until he left the Keweenaw for good in 1911.  Simultaneously, he operated his insurance business in offices above the bank, which is now an antiques' shop.  This pushbutton style of turning the lights  off and on (white button on, black button off) was the original design for the common switchplate, emerging with the popularization of electric lights in homes and businesses beginning in the 1890s.  Now having long since given way to toggle/rocker switches (not to mention The Clapper), the old push buttons still serve to conjure up nostalgic images for those of us who've experienced their use. 

M.E. wuz here.

For you geographically challenged sorts, Calumet is nearly midway up the Keweenaw Peninsula , deeply imbedded in Copper Country, surrounded by always-icy Lake Superior, in the far western region of Michigan's Upper Peninsula.

* * *

The O'Brien homestead, 2006 Calumet, Calumet, MI.  The O'Briens lived here during the 1890s (and possibly for many years before then) up until 1903 when M.E. and Nell got married.  At that point, the whole clan (Mother Mary, Annie, James, and Timothy) moved into the newlyweds' home at 123 Pewabic in Laurium.  (Note: Patrick was a practicing lawyer by then, had also married, and was living nearby.) We have reason to believe (and truly hope for the sake of the young couple) that the Pewabic home (no longer standing) was a duplex. That M.E. and Nell were able to produce six children in the ensuing eight years suggests that they did, indeed, have their fair share of privacy.... 

This is a classic miner's house and was owned by the mining company, the Calumet & Hecla.

The O'Briens

(1898)

Here is the page in Polk's Directory for the O'Briens of Calumet that corresponds with the one just below.  Great-Grandma Mary O'Brien, a widow now for eight years, still has a large flock at home on 2006 Calumet Street, a careworn building a little north of town that remains occupied to this day (see photo above). Daughter Annie (later known to her nieces and nephew as simply "Auntie") is a teacher; Timothy is a laborer (with the H&C, just like his late father Patrick had been); James is a timberman with the same H&C, another dangerous job -- particularly, if you happen to be standing in the way of a freshly-sawn tree as it hits the ground, not an uncommon way to go in those days; youngest son, Michael E., now 21, works for an insurance agency, Friedrich, Stringer, & Harris as a "solr," which is a Polk abbreviation for solicitor, or salesman.  This was M.E.'s first taste of the work that he would in time make a fortune doing, and he was a natural:  Before long, he was named a partner with the firm.

O'Brien Clan, 1900

Click above for another census pulled from a genealogy site, HeritageQuest Online.
By this time, great-grandpa Patrick J. had been dead for nearly 10 years, and Mary O'Brien is listed as head (of family).  Son Patrick H., 32, has returned home to open his law firm in Laurium after practicing several years in Superior, Wisconsin, bringing his wife, Bessie, with him.  All the rest of the children remain at home from the oldest, Timothy, a laborer, to Michael, who at 22 has already embarked on his insurance career.  Sadly, brother Jim remains a copper miner, despite the tragic fate of his father and brother Daniel, both of whom died in mining accidents.  Anna (Auntie) is a school teacher.  

The O'Brien residence (which still stands) is at 2006 Calumet, and their neighborhood is a polyglot combination of Poles, English, Finns, Norwegians, Swedes, Austrians, and even an Australian -- not to mention a goodly number of Irish.  Although the quality of this census image is poor, it still yields an enormous amount of important detail about the O'Briens at the turn of the century.

A serious-minded M.E. and friend (cousin?), back in the day. 

CALUMET DISTRICT PERSONS RECEIVING POOR AID THRU SEPT QTR

Click on the above link for a transcription of The Mining Gazette, a newspaper of The Copper Country that has been published since 1858.  Then scroll down about two-thirds of the way, looking for the above heading. The names under it are listed alphabetically and include that of our great-grandmother Mary O'Brien, of Opechee, who by then had been a widow for twelve years. (Note: Opechee is also listed on Michael E. O'Brien's birth certificate as his birthplace.  It was a neighborhood or area in Calumet relating to a C & H mine shaft near where the family lived.)  The entry gives a clue about her difficult financial state at the time, 1902.  It's also worth scanning the other transcribed entries, particularly the death notices of miners, of which there is no shortage....

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Think you have it bad?  Check out the weather for Calumet the weekend of February 3-4, 2007.  Then project back a century or so when central heating, indoor plumbing, and even electricity were rare in the Keweenaw.  How the hell did they do back then?  How do they do it NOW?

*** Calumet Weather -in the throes of a UP winter-
Winter Storm Warning in effect until 7 PM EST this evening... Winter Weather Advisory in effect from 7 PM this evening to 1 PM EST Monday...
	Today Breezy...cold. Snow showers and blowing snow. Snow accumulation of 2 to 6 inches. Highs 3 below to 2 above. Northwest winds 15 to 25 mph. Wind chill readings 18 below to 28 below zero. � ZIP Code Detail
	Tonight Snow showers. Snow accumulation of 2 to 5 inches. Lows 4 below to 9 below zero. Northwest winds 15 to 20 mph. Chance of snow 80 percent. Wind chill readings 23 below to 33 below zero.
	Sunday Breezy. Bitterly cold. Snow showers. Snow accumulation of 1 to 3 inches. Highs 3 below to 2 above. Northwest winds 10 to 20 mph increasing to 15 to 25 mph. Chance of snow 80 percent. Wind chill readings 22 below to 32 below zero. � ZIP Code Detail
	Sunday Night Breezy. Snow showers likely. Lows 6 below to 11 below zero inland to around 3 below at the shore. Northwest winds 15 to 25 mph. Chance of snow 60 percent. Wind chill readings 23 below to 33 below zero.

  ***

With good reason, M.E. had no desire to work in a copper mine, despite that being the career of choice of so many of the Swedes and Finns and Polish and Russians and Brits and Welsh and, yes, Irish who were out to create a new life for themselves -- even if half of that life would be spent underground in treacherous conditions. Then again, it was at Cliff Mine that his oldest brother, Daniel, had died at age 15, a couple of years before Michael was born.

And it was down a Calumet & Hecla shaft that his father Patrick -- our great grandfather, a pioneering miner with nearly 30 years of experience in the field -- had died in 1890 when young Mike was just 12-years-old. 

The old man was Irish through and through, having been born in 1834 in Glengarriff, Cork, Ireland.  He had departed home and hearth forever somewhere around his 20th year, landing in America where an entirely new life awaited.

 Boston Bound. 

When Patrick O'Brien, 20,  and Mary Green, just 17, left an embattled Ireland behind 1850s, they were destined never to set foot again on the green grass of their homeland.  Although they were both from County Cork, they hadn't met yet (to the best of our knowledge) and arrived in America on separate ships.  At some point not long after they had both settled in the Irish slums of Boston, they became acquainted, fell in love, married, and as good Irish Catholics are wont to do, started a family (for which we should all be eternally grateful).

The links posted above and below are worth perusing, as they give us an idea of the pitiful conditions that Irish immigrants faced upon their arrival in the port city of Boston.  It's no wonder that Pat and Mary pulled up stakes within a few short years there and ventured into the unknown in Northern Michigan on yet another life-changing adventure.... Click here for more on the Irish in Boston.

Boston was his first stop, and it was there that he met Mary Harrington Green (there's that Harrington name again!) whom he would marry in 1856.  The couple's first two children -- John and William -- died in infancy, but their next two -- Daniel and Mary Ellen -- accompanied them as they set out for Michigan:  The word was out that work was plentiful in the newly established mining communities of the Keweenaw.  Copper mining was big business in Glengarriff, so Patrick's undoubted familiarity with it must have been what prompted the move.

Patrick J. O'Brien

An Incredible Item from the 1850s

The partial ship manifest displayed above shows that one Patrick O'Brien (9th name from top), 20, left Ireland via the Port of Liverpool for Boston on the Chieftain.  In all, he was accompanied by nearly 300 compatriots, the ones on this page being listed as Farmers and Servants, all escaping from the depressed Emerald Isle in the wake of the potato famine.  Is this OUR great-grandfather?  The fact is, Patrick O'Briens were a dime a dozen in those days, and there's not enough information here to confirm it, but it could be, as his age, the year of immigration (circa 1855), and the port of arrival -- Boston-- are all correct. What would be helpful is a middle initial or his hometown in Ireland -- anything more than the bare bones' facts offered here. It's no wonder, then, that Michael found his way into life insurance, a relatively new business concept in those days that must have had particular appeal to miners. Every few days, a falling rock, a full-fledged avalanche, or a freak accident claimed one victim or another.  Here, for instance, is one such horrid account, taken directly from early 1903 excerpts of The Daily Mining Gazette out of Houghton, Michigan, just 14 miles south of Calumet-Laurium: 

 January 14 Wednesday-- Herman HESSE, died on Wednesday from being scalded at work at the Adventure mine, William BRITTEN, who was badly scalded and died also when they accidentally opened up a valve in pipe that was full of hot water.  Mr. BRITTEN's body was shipped to Port Huron, Michigan for burial.

And then there was this story, taken from the same publication:  January 6 Tuesday-The frozen body of Charles KOSK. Hancock. He had been a miner for 10 years at the Quincy mine. He was found in a drunken condition and apparently fell down and hit his head on rocks in the field, leading to his death. He leaves a wife and 5 children. His body was taken to a Finnish Undertakers in Hancock. And yet one more: January 14 Wednesday- Dolphe BRAULT, aged about 45 years old formerly of
Lake Linden, dropped dead yesterday morning while at work. He leaves a wife and three children, 2 sons and one daughter. Also a brother , Arthur BRAULT of Lake Linden. He left $2000.00 life insurance (ed. note:  Sold to him by ME O'Brien???) He had resided at Lake Linden for a long number of years before moving to the Champion mill. The funeral will be Thursday morning from St Joseph's church, Lake Linden. Burial will be at Mount Calvary cemetery, Lake Linden.

***********

In short, it was a good time to be buying and selling insurance in Copper Country, with life expectancy at about fifty for the average male, and TB, pneumonia, and appendicitis being among the most common causes of death -- apart from mining, that is.

Click here for more info on mining and Copper Country. 

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Click below and get an excellent idea of what life was like for our ancestors up in the Copper Country:

The Keweenaw Irish

O'Brien Clan, 1870

Click above for a look at the family of our great-grandparents Patrick and Mary O'Brien up in the Keweenaw Peninsula a few years after their arrival in The Copper Country from Boston in the early-to-mid 1860s (we haven't ascertained the exact year yet, but estimate that it was between 1862 and 1865).  Interestingly, a 10-year-old girl -- Margaret Green -- is listed as part of the O'Brien household, but we're not sure who she is.  We speculate that she was a niece, the daughter of a brother of Mary, whose maiden name is Green, but we know virtually nothing about her extended Irish family. Since Margaret was 24 years younger than Mary, it's doubtful that she's a sister...but you never know.  In those days, families were huge, often consisting of 10 children and up, spread out over many years. 

Grandpa M.E., the youngest child of the family, had not yet been born as of this census, nor had his siblings Jim and Annie (Auntie).

At this point, Patrick must have been employed by the Phoenix Mining Company, one of the earliest copper extraction operations in the Keweenaw (and ultimately among the least successful). We know for certain that son Patrick Jr., later the legendary attorney and circuit judge of The Copper Country, was born here in 1868, as was the above-mentioned brother Jim in November 1870, just a few months after this census was taken. Other names on this document that may be somehow connected to the O'Briens/Greens as cousins, in-laws, or close friends include O'Neil, Sullivan, Harrington, and Shea.  

MMM, circa 1943

One of Martha Mary Marion's pet phrases was "Count your blessings."  She would pull that line out as a response to the carping or lamenting of one of us when things weren't going our way.  It was her way of saying that it wasn't as bad as it seemed and that we should stop and appreciate all the good things in our lives instead of dwelling on the bad.  Right she was, but that's easier said than done, caught up as most people get in their own misery, frustration, and negativity.  

The bottom line?  As bad as you may think you have it, there's always someone who has it worse.  That came mind as I was leafing through the massive old handwritten Record of Deaths for Keweenaw County for 1874.  Our Great Uncle Daniel died, as described below, of a Fractured Skull in a mining accident. He was a victim of his time and place, as young workers, even at just 15, were often expected to take on dangerous -- and deadly -- jobs back then.  There were no child labor laws, families were large and needed all hands on deck to put food on the table, and school wasn't compulsory.  That was the formula that sent Daniel to an early grave.

In addition to Daniel's severe head injury, there were many other causes of death in that grim book that caught my eye, most of which are unheard of in modern times.  On impulse, I made a list of them. Take a look, and then...Count your blessings:

fits, brain fever, teething, childbirth, consumption, liver complaint, cold on lungs, old age (60!), typhoid fever, whooping cough, dropsy, nervous asthenia, blasted by powder in mining, poisoning by tainted meat, drowned in old shaft, bowel complaint, water on the brain, spotted fever, convulsions, scarlett fever, blood poisoning, innervation, pleuresy, measles, killed from the kick of horse, frozen to death.... 

The historic Keweenaw County Courthouse, Eagle River, MI, where we found the information shown below.  So far, none of the old books have been digitized.

Just behind this wonderful old building are the (now arctic) shores of Lake Superior.

This is a difficult document to read even after some refinement (danke, JP), as it is a photograph, not a photocopy.  We'll just have to make-do for now.  What you're looking at is page 12 of the Record of Deaths of Keweenaw County, State of Michigan, for the year 1874.  However, if you start at the bottom and go up six entries, you'll be able to make out the name of Daniel O'Brien, Grandpa's ill-fated oldest brother, who was killed in an accident at Cliff Mine, one of the Copper Country's most profitable operations.  (Note: I've also extracted the vital info and made a fairly legible quick-reference composite beneath the two pages.)

Daniel's date of death is recorded as May 11, 1874, in Clifton Township.  He was single, 15 years old, and died of a Fractured Skull.  It says here that he was born in Michigan (though there's evidence that he was actually born in Boston).  He was a laborer.  Patrick O'Brien of Clifton, Michigan, is listed as his parent. 

Here's what M.E. O'Brien had to say about him more than 80 years later "...before I was born, the oldest boy, age 15 in the family, lost his life at Cliff Mine. A tram car for the mine which he and a fellow workman were pushing out to the mill went over the trestle and Dan (his name) went with it. He lived unconscious for about 10 days and finally died. My mother never got over his death. She spoke of him very often. He must have been a good boy. He started to work to help such a large family, and when mother was ill she says he used to make the breakfast and take care of her. He was a lovely penman. We had some of his school exercises. One of his teachers told my brother, the Judge, that Dan was the best student in his school."

-From a letter to Jacqueline Enthoven in November, 1959-

Given how long ago this tragic event took place (just nine years after the end of the Civil War), and because these two generations of the O'Briens -- and the one just after -- are all now long gone, nobody has given a thought to young Daniel in decades.  That's why I'm glad that we discovered this record (many thanks, again, to Linda), as his story is pivotal to our family's history.  It was his horrible end and the similarly sad fate of Daniel's father, Patrick O'Brien -- who sixteen years later would also perish in a mining accident -- that motivated M.E. O'Brien to get out of the mining rut and create a better, safer world for himself and his family.

August 21, 1890: A most tragic day in O'Brien history

As a result, he became a banker and an insurance executive, and building upon his great success (astonishing, considering his very humble origins), he left Laurium for a thriving Detroit in 1911.  He was accompanied by his wife Nell Harrington O'Brien; their six children (Martha Mary O'Brien had just been born); his widowed mother, Mary; his sister, Annie; and assorted other family members and relatives including, of course, the Harringtons, several of whom worked for his company, the Detroit Life Insurance. 

So, in a sense, Daniel's death planted the first seed in the eventual branching out of the O'Brien and Harrington families.  And even though M.E. never knew his brother (Daniel died three years before M.E. was born), he witnessed his mother's ongoing grief over his loss.  Fifteen-years-old and "the best student in his school,"  yet there he was, working in a copper mine at a job that, with one false move, could fracture your skull.  Incomprehensible today, but a cold, hard fact of life -- and death -- back then.  WOM 

A monkey on a high swing performing for several bystanders at the Wonderland resort. The resort opened in 1872, and was called Lueddemann's on the River, later changing its name to Zweitusch's Mineral Springs Park, Coney Island, Wonderland, and finally Ravenna.

Note:  In his postcard to sister Annie (just below), M.E. writes that the photo-portrait was "taken at the Wonderland."  When I googled 'Wonderland, Milwaukee', I got this vintage postcard from a private collection.  For a couple from provincial Calumet, going to the big city and Wonderland Resort with their young daughter must have been like us taking our kids to DisneyWorld.... WOM

Just a century ago...

This gem of a card came from Auntie's scrapbook, which Anne Franco pulled out at the recent O'Brien-athon -- attended by all the cool O'Brien offspring.  A true relic, the album contains valuable newspaper clippings, greeting and post cards, and other family memorabilia that Grandpa's sister, Annie O'Brien (AKA, Auntie), collected in the first half of the last century. What a great find.  When this card was sent from Milwaukee, WI, to Calumet, MI, Mike, 29, and Nellie, 31, had been married some four-and-a-half years, and their oldest child, Eleanor (seen here), was nearly three.  Anne, not yet two, and Kitty, just 6-months-old, were also on the scene by then and presumably at home with Annie, who not only lived with the couple and their brood at 123 Pewabic in Laurium, but also worked as a bookkeeper at Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance.  Michael was the District Manager of NW Mutual by this point and president of the newly-formed First National Bank in Laurium.  He may well have been combining business with pleasure in Milwaukee, as the company headquarters were there. The couple's next child, John, wouldn't be born for more than a year, so this was a period of respite for the perennially pregnant Nell. 

Clearly, 1907 was the Year of the Big Hats, for both men and women (and little girls)....

photo by Skeckbauer Studio, Calumet, MI

Note:  In researching via the Detroit City Directories from 1910 through 1940 or so (available at the Detroit Public Library on Woodward across from the DIA), I have concluded that M.E. left Laurium before the rest of the family to set up his business (the Detroit Life Insurance Company).  The firm was not listed in the 1910 edition, but it was there in 1911. 

Click here to read more on this subject.

The death notices above are for Mary Green O'Brien, the mother of M.E. (or "Insurance Man," as he's dubbed in one clipping), Judge Patrick  H., James, and Anna (or "Auntie"), the sole surviving children of nine.  We know that John and William died at birth in Boston; Daniel was killed in a mining accident at 15; Mary Ellen succumbed at just 17, not long after M.E. was born; and Timothy had been laid in his grave in 1918, and little is known of him. 

So, Mary Green O'Brien was our Great Grandmother (and the Great Great Grandmother of the likes of Jason, Annie, Mavourneen,  Amira, Matt, Chris, Stephen, Nicole, Logan, Michelle, and Maggie). Now, what's significant about these obituaries -- hand-dated February 22, 1923 -- is that they create some questions... For instance, is that the day Mary died? Or is that the date of the newspaper?  In truth, such discrepancies are the potholes of exploring one's roots.  Just because something is printed, or written, doesn't mean it's correct. For example, two of the obits above state that Mary's age at death was 87.  The other one has her at 85.  According to other info in our possession, she actually may have been 83!  So, we'll have to hunt down clarification on this.  

We DO know that Mary Green O'Brien emigrated to the U.S. from Bear Island, County Cork , Ireland -- which brings us to this quick geography lesson: In the very southwest of County Cork, below the city of Cork, and just to the left of the town of Bantry, is Bantry Bay.  Smack in the middle of this fabled Bay is the wee land formation called Bear Island. THIS is where Mary Green lived some 150 years ago before she decided, for reasons we'll never know, to join the hundreds of thousands of her fellow Irish men, women, and children who left their distressed homeland to start a new life in America. From other sources -- primarily, from a wonderful family history compiled by Rosemary Enthoven, which will eventually be posted on this website -- we know that in 1857, when young Mary Green left Ireland, she left alone. What's more, she was just seventeen-years-old. (And to think that these days, we parents worry when our seventeen-year-olds want to go to the mall alone!)

At the time of her death, Mary O'Brien was living with M.E. and family in Detroit at 1158 Putnam Ave. near Trumbull.

A rare photo of our Great-Grandma Mary and her sole surviving daughter Annie (Auntie), circa 1912.  Mary was in her 70s, worn down from giving birth to nine chldren and living the most difficult of lives in the unforgiving Keweenaw during the pioneering days of copper mining. 

For the Celsius-diabled, check out this conversion chart.