Ancestors

Nicholas J. Farley

Nicholas J. Farley was born in County Meath, Ireland. His parents were Patrick Farrelly and Bridget Davis, who married at Kells on 22 February 1846. A Nicholas Farrelly, son of Pat Farrelly and Biddy Davis, was baptized in the Catholic parish of Kells on 12 April 1848, between an elder brother James in 1846 and a sister Judith in 1850. He is very probably this Nicholas. The priest wrote the entry on one line, with the two sponsors on the line below, and their names have faded almost to nothing. American records later gave his birth year as anything from 1849 to 1855. The family gave 1851, and when he died the cemetery wrote his age as 64.

The family remembered that he came to Troy, New York, as a toddler of about twenty-two months, and that his brother James was left behind in Ireland with grandparents. The records tell a less settled story. His sister Judith was baptized at Kells in October 1850, so the family was still in Ireland then. In the New York state census of 1855, Pattrick and Bridget Farley were living in the Sixth Ward of Troy with a baby daughter, Mariah, and two lodgers, Christopher Smith, 45, and Pattrick Smith, 18. Nicholas, who would have been about seven, is not listed with them. In 1900 he told the census taker he had come to America in 1855, and in 1910 the answer written down was 1870. By 1860 he was certainly in Troy, a boy of 10 in his parents' household.

The Sixth Ward was South Troy, along the Hudson at the south end of the city. In 1860 the federal census found Patrick Farley, 40, his wife Bridget, 33, and the children Nicholas, 10, Maria, 5, and Julia, 1. In 1865 Nicholas, 13, was still at home with Pat and Bridget, Mariah, Julia and a younger brother Patrick. By 1870 his brother James had come over from Ireland, and the household held Patrick, 55, Bridget, 45, James, 22, Nicholas, 21, Maria, 15, Julia, 11, and Patrick, 9.

Nicholas went to work at the Burden Iron Works, the great ironworks on the Wynants Kill at the south end of Troy. It ran in two parts: an upper works driven by an enormous water wheel on the creek, and a lower steam works on the Hudson. His father worked there too. In June 1880 the census found father and son both living in North Greenbush, the town at Troy's southern edge where the works stood, and wrote the same work against both names: works in iron works. The city directories also list a Nicholas Farley as a roller, the man who fed hot iron through the rolling mill. In later life he became a night watchman for the New York Central Railroad.

On 1 February 1880 he married Bridget Smith at St. Joseph's Church in Troy. St. Joseph's was the Jesuit church of South Troy, on Jackson Street between Third and Fourth. Men from the nail works had dug its foundation in 1847, and it was dedicated in 1853. The witnesses were Thomas Keating and Johanna Smith. Bridget was also an emigrant from County Meath, baptized at Kilskyre in 1846. The two families had known each other a long time: the Christopher Smith lodging with the Farleys in 1855 was very probably her father. In the census that June the newly married couple were living in North Greenbush. Their children were James, who died in infancy, Patrick Joseph (1882), Christopher Francis (1884), Nicholas A. (1886) and Jane Gertrude, called Jennie (1888).

The family lived on in the Sixth Ward. In 1900 Nicholas and Bridget had Patrick, Christopher and young Nicholas at home. The state census of 1905 listed all four children with them, Patrick J., Christopher F., Nicholas A. and Jennie G. So did the federal census of 1910, which wrote him as Nicholas J. Farley.

His son Nicholas died on 2 January 1915, in his late twenties, and was buried in St. Mary's Cemetery in Troy. Nicholas himself suffered from diabetes. The family remembered that he declined an amputation that was recommended for gangrene. He died in Troy on 27 February 1916, and St. Mary's entered his age as 64. He is buried in Saint Mary's Cemetery, Troy, in Section F, under a granite stone shared with his wife: NICHOLAS J. FARLEY, DIED FEB. 27, 1916, BRIDGET SMITH, HIS WIFE, DIED NOV. 13, 1916. Bridget outlived him by less than nine months.

If Nicholas J. Farley is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "Nicholas J. Farley (1848-1916)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/nicholas-j-farley-1848-1916-d42a65.