The Dunnigan Family

Rosemary K. Nunnally writes about her family, the Dunnigans and their Lowell Irish story.  What's your story?  Be a guest blogger as Rosemary has. Keep your family's story alive!

Balbriggan

According to Lewis's Topographical Directory of Ireland, from 1837, Balbriggan was    “a sea-port, market, and post-village, and a chapelry, in the county of Dublin, containing 3,016 inhabitants. The inhabitants are partly employed in the fishery, but principally in the manufacture of cotton; there are two large factories.”

Perhaps it was the connection with cotton mills that brought the Dunnigan family from famine stricken Ballbriggan, Ireland to Lowell, MA.  Teenagers Margaret and Alisa Dunnigan came to Lowell and worked in the mills.  Their mother Margaret Dunnigan, age 38, along with her children Mary age 12, Philip 9, John 7, Jane 4 and Stephen 3 arrived in Boston on the ship Macedonia on September 20, 1848 and joined the elder girls. Though Philip Dunnigan is listed on the death and marriage records of the children, I did not find reference to him in Lowell and Margaret did not have more children. Perhaps he died in Ireland prompting the family’s emigration.  

The family settled on Market Street and a few years later moved to Salem Street. They lived as the other Irish immigrants of the time.  They worked as mill hands and in the leather industry as curriers.  Eleven year old Philip died of cholera in 1849.  Young Jane died from typhoid fever in 1855.   

As the children got older they married at St. Patrick’s Church.  Fr. John O’Brien married John Dunnigan to Jane F. Jewett in February of 1864. He also married Margaret Dunnigan to William Sullivan, a baker, in December of 1865. Mary Dunnigan wed Michael Garrity and Alisa married Frank Kelly.

USS Albatross

The Civil War began and called many Lowell men to war.  John Dunnigan was 20 years old and working as a currier. The naval ship USS Albatross came to the port of Boston for repairs in 1862.  John enlisted for one year as a landsman on July 24 aboard the Albatross.  He was described as 5 feet, 7 inches tall with a fair complexion, hazel eyes and brown hair. He was discharged the following July 1863 as an ordinary seaman.

Stephen Dunnigan left his job as an operative in the mill and enlisted in the army on April 18, 1864. He was nineteen years old. He was in Company A of the 6^th Regiment of Massachusetts Infantry.  Records show he was promoted to corporal on July 1, 1865.  He served another year and mustered out on July 6, 1866 in Charleston, South Carolina.

Following their service in the War of the Rebellion, the brothers returned to Lowell. Stephen continued to live with his mother on the corner of Salem and Clark Streets.  He worked at the Merrimack Print Works.  At age 25, Stephen died on the 27^th of August in 1873.  His death record listed the cause of death as an accident.  An article in the Lowell Daily Citizen and News on August 28^th reported on the tragic circumstances of his death.  Stephen was at home sick with a cough. His mother brought him the bottle of cough balm from the closet.  Stephen drank a heavy dose and immediately felt a burning sensation and exclaimed to his mother that he was poisoned.  In her haste, his mother had grabbed the wrong bottle from the closet and that bottle contained bug poison.  A doctor was called but Stephen lingered for an hour and died.  The newspaper reported that young Dunnigan had served acceptably in the 6^th and 30^th Mass. Regiments during the rebellion, after which he entered the naval service, in which he continued for some time. Among his companions, he was greatly esteemed.  Stephen was buried in the “Catholic Ground’, St. Patrick’s, in Yard 1 and later in 1879 had a headstone provided for deceased Civil War Veterans.  In 1886 Stephen’s mother was receiving his Civil War pension.

After his war service, John became a naturalized citizen in Superior Court in Lowell on October 30, 1864.  The Lowell City Directories in 1868 and 1870 show John Dunnigan worked as a currier at the corner of Willie and Broadway.  His house was diagonally across the North Common at 34 Common Ave.  He may have walked across the Common on his way back and forth to work.  In the latter 1870’s John moved his family to Salem, MA for a few years. By 1880 he was back in Lowell living on Hancock Ave.  John died from consumption in June of 1882.  His obituary in the Lowell Weekly Sun stated he was a respected citizen.  “He was in the navy under Farragut in the late war and was on the Albatross when she ran by Port Hudson, lashed to the Hartford, and always exhibited great bravery while in the service.”  His funeral was attended by members of Post 42, G.A.R. and six fellow veterans were the bearers.  John was buried in the Catholic cemetery, presumably in the family plot.

St Patrick Cemetery

Following John’s death, his widow Jane Dunnigan was to receive his pension as a Navy Widow by the Act of June 27, 1890.  Jane would receive $8.00 a month and an additional $2.00 a month for each child under the age of sixteen.  She filed a lot of paperwork to explain how she used the name Jane F. when she was christened “Philomene Jane Jewett” and also had to prove that her daughter was Alicia and not “Eliza”.  She had to show that her husband’s middle name was Thomas though he did not use it and he died of consumption caused by disease contracted in the Naval Service and not resulting from bad habits.  One of her witnesses was her brother-in-law Michael Garrity.  Jane died in 1904 and is buried in the family grave at St. Patrick’s, though her name is not on the headstone.

The matriarch of the family, Margaret Dunnigan, lived to a fine old age of 86. She died in Woburn at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Frank Kelly, in May of 1893.  She was interred in the Catholic cemetery, St. Patrick’s in Lowell.  Margaret’s death record revealed her Irish parents were Joseph Fadigan and Eliza Hay.