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Patrick Mulvehill came to Pennsylvania from Lislea Church, town of
Kilcomick, County of Langford, Ireland. He and Ellen Josephine
McMeel were married there and then came to the United States where
they joined other Mulvehill families near Johnstown, Pennsylvania.
Ellen left two sisters and a priest uncle in County Connaught, (Connacht),
when she came to America, but it is not known how many other family
members came to the United States. Records show that a brother,
Barney, and perhaps others, came Iowa and settled near Manchester
and Delhi, McMeels living in Kansas and in Tennessee may be members
of the group, further research is needed, however, to fully
establish it.
It is not known how many of Patrick's family came to the United
States from Ireland but there was a rather large group living in
Pennsylvania. My Grandmother, Catherine Mulvehill Devine, recalled
the times when after Mass on Sunday mornings, eighty Mulvehills
would gather just outside the town at a little crossroads. (Family
gatherings and fun were very much a part of their lives.) Patrick's
brother John, had a son who visited the family in Iowa on several
occasions. Another brother Michael, had two daughters who were
Sisters of St. Joseph in Johnstown.
Many people who came West followed the Ohio River into
Missouri, then proceeded up the Mississippi River. This was perhaps
the patterns followed by Patrick and Ellen and those who came with
them. There is some evidence that the family stayed at Cherry
Valley, Illinois, for two months, then moved into Dubuque County and
settled near the Monastery of the Trappist. Some members of the
family were married in Farley, some in Bankston, Iowa.
The Mulvehill family moved into Delaware County about 1869, and
bought land in the area near Masonville, and in Buchanan County.
Patrick was buried in the Cemetery in Monti, Iowa, but his wife,
Ellen, who spent the last years of her life after Patrick's death,
with Patrick and Catherine Devine, is buried in Mount Calvary
Cemetery in Ryan. Since Ellen died in the Winter, and the families
were very poor, it was no doubt, next to the impossible to travel
the distance from Hazel Green, south of Ryan, to the Catholic church
on the Buffalo in Monti, Iowa.
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