Peter O'Brien
Peter O'Brien was born in Ireland in about 1800. His gravestone gives his age at death as 78 years, 1 month and 7 days, which puts his birth at the end of December 1800. He came to America as a young man and settled in northern Virginia, where his wife Mary was born. Their first children, Samuel in 1837 and Thomas in about 1841, were born in Virginia, in Loudoun County by Samuel's own account.
About 1839 Peter was among the first settlers of Seward Township, in the south-west corner of Kendall County, Illinois, on the open prairie south-west of Chicago. A country school there was called the Peter O'Brien School until the 1860s. The family followed him west: Samuel later said he came to Kendall County with his parents in 1841. The children born after that, Peter, Margaret Ann and James, were born in Illinois.
When the census was taken in 1850, Mary was entered at the head of the household in Kendall County with seven children, Samuel the eldest at thirteen; Peter does not appear in that entry. In 1860 he was at home in Seward, 56, born in Ireland, with Mary, Samuel, Thomas, Stephen, Peter, Margaret, Mary and James, and a woman of thirty from New York named Maria Skinner. He was there again in the Illinois state census of 1865 and in 1870, when he and Mary were living near their son Samuel and his young family.
Peter and Mary sold land in Seward in 1868 and 1873. Their son Peter died in 1870, aged about 24. Peter died on 2 February 1879 and was buried in Seward Mound Cemetery. His tall marble shaft reads PETER O'BRIEN, DIED FEB. 2, 1879, AGED 78 YS. 1 MO. 7 DS. Mary was buried beside him six years later.
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Cite: Heirology, "Peter O'Brien (1800-1879)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/peter-o-brien-1800-1879-0f5258.