Meeker County MN Archives Biographies.....Casey, Patrick 1810 - 
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Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 December 28, 2019, 10:40 am

Source: Alden, Ogle & Co.
Author: See Below

  PATRICK CASEY, Prominent among the old pioneers of Meeker county that still remain
here is the gentleman whose name heads this personal memoir. He is a native of
County Tipperary, Ireland, and was born in March, 1810, being baptized on the 12th
of that month. He was reared in the Emerald Isle and there made his home until the
sad and eventful year of 1848, when, with a laudable desire to better his condition,
he came to this country, landing at the port of New York on the 22d of January,
1849. After a short stay in the metropolis he removed to Allegheny county, Pa.,
where he remained some six years, and where he was married July 8, 1851, to Miss
Hannorah MoRaith. Leaving the “Keystone State” in the spring of 1856, he came west
to Manitowoc, Wis., and from there by way of Chicago, to Dubuque, Iowa, and from
there by steamboat to St. Paul. There he met Captain Hayden, with his corps of
surveyors, William and Michael O’Brien and Patrick Condon, and the whole party, in
the month of May started in a bee line for Meeker county. With them was one ox team,
the wagon being loaded with four barrels of flour belonging to Hayden. On the 1st of
June, the little party struck the Big Woods and for sixteen days they struggled
through the thirty-five miles that lay between them and their destination, reaching
Kingston on the 16th of June, 1856. Two days later Mr. Casey took his claim on
section 33, Darwin township, where he' now lives, and which has been his home ever
since, except during the Indian troubles.

   Putting up a cabin for himself and assisting the others to do the same, he paid
Captain Hayden thirty-five to dollars plow up an acre of ground for him, so that he
could hold the claim. He then returned to Pennsylvania, where he had left his
family, but hearing that his claim had been “jumped,” he returned to his land and
found that Captain Hayden’s brother in-law had laid claim to the land, but no one
was occupying it at the time. He took up his residence in his humble cabin to guard
the place, but found no trouble. He and Patrick Condon “batched” in Condon’s shanty,
where they had plenty of provisions, and spent that winter. In the spring Mr. Casey
sent for his family, and waited in St. Paul for them. On their arrival he brought
his wife and three children to this county, they arriving here May 9,  857. That
year he raised but a few potatoes, and in 1858 he bought a few bushels of wheat,
which he sowed and had to thrash with a flail, From a bushel and a half, which he
sowed upon an acre of ground which he broke, he harvested over forty bushels.

   On the evening of the 18th of August, 1862, our subject heard of the Indian
outbreak that had commenced that day, and immediately took his family to Forest
City, and two days later to Clearwater, stopping several times on his way, and from
the last place sent the family on to Minneapolis, and returned to look after the
stock. He found all in good shape but one steer, and gathering them together, drove
off some twenty-seven head, leaving six cows with John Peiffer to keep for him.
Going to Minneapolis, he did not return here until the spring of 1865, when he again
took up his abode on his farm. He got about $300 from the State to indemnify him for
his losses, which helped give him a new start.

   Mr. and Mrs. Casey are the parents of twelve children, of whom the following is
the record — Bridget, born April 16, 1853; Mary, whose birth took place August 31,
1851; Patrick, born April 18, 1856; Daniel, born April 3, 1858; John, born March 21,
1861; Edmund, born December 21, 1862; Margaret, born August 20, 1865; Thomas, born
January 20, 1867; Ellen, born February 3, 1869; Hannorah, born June 27, 1870;
Joanna, born May 11, 1872; and James, born February 9, 1871.

   The family are devout members of the Roman Catholic church. Mr. Casey is in
politics a democrat, and has held the offices of chairman of the town board and town
treasurer.


Additional Comments:
Extracted from
Illustrated Album of Biography
Meeker and McLeod Counties, Minnesota
1888


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