Francis O'Neil and the O'Neil Family - Part 1

The O'Neil Family, Ireland, Scotland, Wisconsin, Iowa

This post, about Francis O'Neil started off as part of my Short Biography series but is has grown significantly as more information has come to light. For that reason, I have pulled this one out of the Short Biographies and have elevated it to a Family Story.

Francis O'Neil was born in 1812 in County Armagh in Ireland (now Northern Ireland). He is reported to be the son of James O'Neil (b.1785, d.1817) and Nancy (Agnes) Hughes (b.1787). James was born in County Antrim and is reported to have had a least two brothers, John and Barney. Not much else has been found about this or prior generations of the O'Neil family. When Francis was about five years old, his father died, and his mother took the children and moved to Scotland.

Francis O'Neil and Elizabeth Nevin

Francis is known to have had two siblings, a brother John, who reportedly married, had five children, and remained in Scotland; and a sister Hannah (b.1811, d.1903), who married John Devlin (b.1810, d. 1896) in 1835 in either Ireland or Scotland. John was noted to be a tailor. They came to America in 1847, and for a while, they lived in Columbia County, Wisconsin, near Francis. It has been reported that they moved to Milwaukee but the 1880 Census records show them in Lawrence, Massachusetts, where John is noted as operating a dry-goods store. In that Census, it shows that one of their children was born in New York and two in Wisconsin. Hannah and John had at least eight children and they are buried in Lawrence in a large family plot with a number of children and grandchildren.

In Scotland, Francis would grow up in Glasgow and as a young man, was noted to have worked for a while as a potter. At some point, he may have gone back to Ireland. In 1830, he married Rosa Hoy (b.1812, d.1854). After their marriage, they may have lived in both England and Scotland in the 1840's and some of their children were born in Scotland.

Francis is reported to have sailed to America in 1848 on the ship New Zealand, which departed from Ireland and arrived at the Port of New York in May. If this is the correct Francis, he is listed as a single passenger so it would seem that Rosa and the children followed, perhaps about a year later. Francis would have arrived in south central Wisconsin in the same month as Wisconsin achieved statehood. Nearby, Fort Winnebago was still standing, though operations at the fort had ceased a few years earlier. Francis, Rosa and six children show up in the 1850 U.S. Census living in the Town of Springvale in Columbia County. Springvale is located just west of Portage, Wisconsin and Francis was farming. They would have two more children before Rosa died in 1854. After Rosa died, Francis would marry Elizabeth Nevin.

Nevin Family

Elizabeth Nevin (b.1826, d.1905) was from Renfrewshire, Scotland. Her parents were William Nevin and Mary Raeside. William Nevin was a weaver by trade but the family was split up and there was little contact between father and daughter. She came to America with an aunt, Margaret Raeside and Margaret's husband, John Hamilton. They sailed on the ship Elijah Swift, arrived at the Port of New York in September 1849 and settled in Portage, Wisconsin. In 1850, she married Cooper Pixley (b.1814, d.1855) and they had three children. Cooper's family can be traced back to colonial Massachusetts and his grandfather, also named Cooper, was a Revolutionary War veteran and is buried at the Old Fort Winnebago cemetery. After Cooper died, Elizabeth would marry Francis O'Neil.

The children of Elizabeth Nevin and Cooper Pixley were: Elizabeth (b.1851, d.1943), Margaret (b.1853, d.1855) and James (b.1855, d.1856). Only Elizabeth would live to adulthood. She would go to Iowa with her mother and stepfather, Francis O'Neil. In 1870, she married Charles Pickney (b.1847, d.1932) in Iowa and they had a least one child. They were noted as living on 2nd Street in Mapleton and Charles was listed as a Teamster in the 1900 US Census. They lived out their lives in western Iowa and are buried at Heisler Cemetery in Mapleton. Their son, Francis, was noted to have served in the army in World War I.


West-central Wisconsin Territory in 1847. The county named Portage (center) would be
changed to Columbia and would be home to the O'Neil Family in the 1850s and 1860s.
When Francis arrived in 1848, most of the area north of the Wisconsin River had yet to
be divided into counties and surveyed townships and was still the domain of Indian Tribes.

The Movement West

By the time of the 1860 census, the Francis O'Neil family had moved to the Town of Caledonia on the west bank of the Wisconsin River but still in Columbia County. The 1860 snapshot shows a family from three marriages; besides Francis and Elizabeth, there was: James, Frank, William, Agnes and Edward (from Francis and Rosa), Grace and Hannah (from Francis and Elizabeth) and Elizabeth Pixley.

In 1866, Francis and some of the O'Neil family packed up and headed west. They traveled via covered wagon and arrived on 'old' Mapleton in Monona County, Iowa on July 14th. Mapleton is located in far west-central Iowa, about 45 miles southeast of Sioux City. In the spring of 1867, they moved just west to Crawford County, where Francis set up a roadhouse on the stage route between Denison and Sioux City. 

Hotel Arlington, one of the hotels operated by the O'Neil Family and an
add in the Mapleton Press from the time, son Loren O'Neil is running the hotel

    
They returned to Monona County and farmed a homestead that was 1-1/2 miles north of the old town. When the town moved and was laid out, he ran the first hotel, called the 'Farmer's Home.' When the railroad was being constructed, Francis built a large frame building at Battle Creek for the purpose of feeding and housing the railroad workers. The building was moved to Mapleton as the railroad moved west. In 1877, Francis moved into Mapleton, where he built a small house with a loft above. He then hauled lumber in from Dunlap to build a larger house.  After the death of Francis in 1890, Elizabeth lived with her son Loren and his family. He was listed as "Hotel Keeper" in the 1900 census.

Francis O'Neil Land Acquisition

From his two marriages plus the adoption of at least one child from Elizabeth's first marriage, Francis would rule over a large blended family with births taking place over a 35 year span. Eldest son, James, was in his 30s by the time the last of the O'Neil Children, Flora (who died as an infant) was born. As they grew into adulthood, the children would be spread out from Wisconsin to Iowa and behind. You can read about them in Part 2 of this series.

Hannah, Sara, Grace and Maggie O'Neil, the daughters of Francis and Elizabeth..

Extended Family - the O'Neil's, taken at the Arlington Hotel probably about 1910.

Francis and Elizabeth are buried at Heisler Cemetery, located in the countryside just northwest of Mapleton.

The gravesite of Francis and Elizabeth.

Part 2 - All the Children - the Next Generations can be found here . . .