Cornelius Madigan

1820s–1840s

Born in or near Limerick, Ireland, the son of Margaret McGrath; his records place his birth anywhere from 1826 to the mid-1840s.

1850s–1860s

Came to North America as a boy, settling in Canada at about ten, and later worked as a logger in Michigan before reaching Oregon (in 1861 or about 1870).

1870s

Bought a lot at NW 17th and Flanders in Portland about 1873. Married Anna Murphy at the Church of the Immaculate Conception on 13 October 1875. A truckman for the Oregon Transfer Company.

1880s–1890s

Raised nine children, from 1889 in the house at 547 Flanders Street. Joined the Couch Fire Engine Company in 1881. A teamster and driver for Oregon Transfer and then the North Pacific Lumber Company.

1900s–1920s

Widowed in 1901. Worked as a watchman and railroad flagman, lived with his daughter Margaret's family, and died at home on Flanders Street on 8 May 1924.

Limerick, Canada, Michigan

Cornelius Madigan was born in or near Limerick, Ireland; his mother's maiden name was Margaret McGrath. His records disagree wildly about when, anywhere from 1826 to the mid-1840s. He left Ireland as a boy and was about ten when he settled in Canada. From there he went to Michigan and worked as a logger, and he came west to Oregon, by different accounts in 1861 or around 1870. A brother, Thomas, also lived in Portland, and a cousin named O'Neil ran a saloon in Eureka, California.

A Portland Teamster

In about 1873 Cornelius bought a fifty-by-hundred-foot lot at the corner of what are now NW 17th and Flanders Streets. On October 13, 1875, he married Anna Murphy, an immigrant from County Wicklow, at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Portland. For some thirty-five years he made his living as a truckman, expressman, teamster, and driver, working for the Oregon Transfer Company in the 1870s and again from 1889 to 1893, and for the North Pacific Lumber Company, whose mill and dock were on the riverfront, from 1898. He also worked on building the Steel Bridge across the Willamette, where he lost part of his right index finger.

Cornelius and Anna had nine children: Thomas, who died of appendicitis at six; twins, Jack and Joseph, of whom Joseph died as a small child and Jack of tuberculosis at thirty-seven; Margaret (Meghan's great-grandmother); Sallie; James; Peter; Kate; and William. From 1889 the family lived at 347 F Street, renumbered 547 Flanders in 1892, the house that stayed in the family for decades. In 1894 Cornelius bought another lot in the neighborhood. On February 7, 1881, he was elected to the Couch Fire Engine Company No. 6. He lived just a couple of blocks from the firehouse at 14th and Glisan, and the first volunteer to reach the station when the bell rang won a two-gallon keg of whiskey, a prize Cornelius collected often.

The Old Man of Flanders Street

Anna died in 1901, and their daughter Margaret became the woman of the house. Cornelius kept working into old age, as a watchman at the Columbia Engineering Works and the Columbia Steel Company and, in 1920, as a railroad flagman; his grandson Pete remembered his last job as grade-crossing watchman at NW 17th and Upshur. He served on circuit court juries in 1909 and 1911, and in 1910 he was on the reception committee that met the national leaders of the Ancient Order of Hibernians at the Portland station. In 1915 he took the steamer George W. Elder to Coos Bay with his daughter Kate. His sons ran the Madigan Brothers Transfer Company from a garage beside the house, and in 1917 Cornelius took out a permit to build a frame garage there. He also rented out a second house.

Pete, who grew up in the Flanders Street house, left a sharp portrait of his grandfather. Cornelius "was not a well-educated man. He could read slowly but he could not write." He was "short, with thin gray hair, a bit of a bald spot showing, a full gray mustache and piercing blue eyes. He dressed well most of the time. Black derby, a black thorn cane, a heavy gold watch chain across a vest. His mustache had sort of a brown ridge at the bottom from smoking a stinky pipe and drinking coffee." He also made his own sauerkraut.

In 1920 Cornelius was living with Margaret, her husband, John Baptiste Leineweber, and their five children, along with his daughter Sallie and her husband. In the summer of 1921 he went with them to The Rolfe at Long Beach, Washington. That year he was found to have colorectal cancer, and he died at home on Flanders Street on May 8, 1924. He was buried at St. Mary's Cemetery; like Anna's, his remains were later moved to Mount Calvary Cemetery.