A few weeks ago, I wrote about my O’Hara ancestors from Salford, Lancashire in England and their careers as shoemakers.

Well, it just so happens that I was inspired to research my ancestors on my mother’s side of the family, the Quirks of Chicago, when I stumbled across an 1850 census record for one Francis Quirk, born Ireland, living in Byron Township in McHenry County, Illinois. (Old Byron seen below)

Francis, it turned out, was my great-great-great-grandfather — and guess what he did for a living? Saints be praised, he was a shoemaker!

The Quirks came to the United States sometime around 1838, according to an old passport application I found filled out by my great-grandmother Helena Jane Quirk Reed in 1917. It is astonishing the types of things one can find on Ancestry.com. Not only did I find salient facts such as birth dates and immigration years, but it includes a photograph of her. This allows me to go back through some of my family photographs and verify which picture I have might be her. Since none of them are marked or identified, it is difficult sometimes to know who is who. I have to admit that it is hard not to notice Helena Reed, however. She was a bit on the zaftig side. A trait I seem, in middle age, to be inheriting.

How am I related to the Quirks and who are they? My mother, nee Muriel Blanche Reno, was the daughter of Muriel Agnes Reed, a devilishly handsome young Irish girl from Chicago — one of a trio of girls known about town as “the beautiful Reed Sisters” — whose father was an executive with a large street paving firm named R. F. Conway & Co. It had always been family lore that my mother’s clan had repaved Chicago after the Great Fire of 1871. I never doubted it, but it seemed pretty far-fetched and hard to prove.

(Chicago post-conflagration above).

But after doing some research, I’ve discovered that R. F. Conway & Co. was in fact instrumental in building and repaving many of Chicago’s streets at that time. One can still find old paving medallions bearing the mark R F CONWAY embedded in the concrete and asphalt blocks of old streets in downtown. (Below: one of Chicago’s streets c. 1909, courtesy of the web. They were in much need of improvement, prone to mud.)

My grandmother’s father, Lawrence Joseph Reed, held a key position there, due in no small part, I am sure, to the fact that his mother Annie Conway Reed, was the sister of Richard Francis Conway, the head and founder of the firm. Lawrence in turn had married a plucky Irish lass named Helena Jane Quirk, the lady of the passport which proved so helpful.

The Quirks, as she noted, had come to the States from Castle Gregory, Ireland, about 1838. They first settled in Albany New York, but must have yearned for the wide open frontier for they show up in the 1850 census in rural Illinois. Old man Francis, born about 1790, had bought a small farm, and was married to Ellen Lynch. They had numerous children, as all good Irish families did back then, but it was their eldest son Bartholomew who made a name for himself in Chicago and who was my direct ancestor. By 1860, the Quirks are living in Chicago. Bartholomew and his siblings attended the old Planter’s House, and later the Old Dearborn School (below).

Young Francis Quirk joined his father in the shoe business. Daniel opened a saloon which was frequented mostly by firemen, and was apparently a popular watering hole during the Great Fire. (The photo below, courtesy of the web, shows an old fireman rescuing a little girl, a scene typical of that found in Chicago at the time.)

Six of the Quirk boys joined the legendary Mulligan’s Irish Brigade in the Civil War, the 23rd Infantry from Chicago and served with distinction. According to the book, The Great Revolution, a history of Chicago’s Irish immigrants, Bartholomew Quirk “accompanied Mulligan, Sheridan and Cook through all of the engagements, mostly in Western Virginia; witnessed ‘Sheridan’s Ride,’ and was within fifty feet of Colonel Mulligan when he was killed.” (artist’s representation of Mulligan’s Brigade in battle, below)

Upon his return, Bartholomew tried his hand at printing, carpentry and finally contracting. He became a successful builder of residences, and later Alderman for the 14th Ward in 1872. He lived until 1908, eulogized affectionately in the local papers as old “Captain Quirk.”

Curious to know more about the Quirks, I dug up a death certificate and found out that Bartholomew’s wife was born Jane McCarthy in New Brunswick. Her parents, Michael and Helena McCarthy, had come over from Ireland in the 1820s and settled in that province (this was before it was part of Canada), later relocating in Illinois. They appear in Chicago in the 1850 census. Old man Michael McCarthy, aged 65, is listed as — you guessed it — “shoemaker.”

Next week: more on the Conways and Reeds of old Chicago.