Margaret Wolfe Mulvihill (ca. 1845–1888)

Margaret Wolfe was born about 1845, probably near Listowel, County Kerry. Her parents were Maurice Wolfe, a Catholic farmer, and Ellen Catherine Carey. Her baptismal sponsors were J. Carey and M. Carey.

Margaret Wolfe had ten siblings who lived to maturity: James Carey (b. 1831), Ellen (b. 1833), Maurice Carey (b. ca. 1835), Mary (b. 1838), John Carey (b. 1840), Thomas Carey (b. 1843), Johanna (b. 1847), Richard Carey (b. 1848), Catherine “Kate” (b. 1851), and Bridget Veronica (b. 1854).

In 1847, Wolfe, her parents, and several siblings immigrated to the United States, along with Maurice Wolfe’s first cousin John R. Wolfe and his family. (Maurice Wolfe and John R. Wolfe shared a grandfather, James M. “The Barrister” Woulfe.) The families arrived in New York on August 23, and after a stop in Chicago made their way to LaSalle County, Illinois.

Many members of the extended Wolfe family made the same journey. Margaret Wolfe’s uncle John Wolfe immigrated in 1849. John R. Wolfe’s brother Thomas R. Wolfe came from Ireland in 1848 and his brothers Maurice R. Wolfe and Richard Wolfe sailed separately in 1849. Other cousins came, as well, including Margaret and Elizabeth Maher, daughters of John R. Wolfe’s sister Ellen, and Patrick, Dennis, Bridget, and Thomas Sheehan, the children of John R. Wolfe’s sister Margaret. Another cousin, John E. Wolfe, and his sisters Ellen J. and Mary Agatha, also immigrated. All of these Wolfes, except for the Sheehans, settled in LaSalle County, Illinois. A few moved on to Clinton County, Iowa, including Margaret Wolfe’s father Maurice and Maurice’s cousin John R. Wolfe.

In 1871, Wolfe married Cornelius Mulvihill, of County Kerry, in Clinton County, Iowa. Wolfe’s sister Ellen also married a Mulvihill. Although both men hailed from the same county in Ireland, it’s not clear whether they were related.

This was Cornelius Mulvihill’s second marriage. On January 12, 1853, he married Ellen Nolan in Saint Andrew Parish, Dublin. The couple had seven children: William (b. 1853), Katherine (b. 1856), Cornelius (b. 1857), Jeremiah Nolan (b. ca. 1859), Margaret (b. ca. 1861), Patrick Nolan (b. 1861), and Mary (b. 1863). (Katherine Mulvihill later married Thomas L. Wolfe.) The couple appears to have immigrated to Clinton County, Iowa, after the birth of their last child, and Ellen Mulvihill died there on September 23, 1865. She is buried at Saint James Cemetery in Toronto, Clinton County.

Cornelius Mulvihill and his second wife, Margaret Wolfe Mulvihill, had four children: Honoria (b. ca. 1874), Elizabeth “Bessie” (b. 1876), Thomas Edward (b. 1878), and Cornelius (b. 1880).

The Mulvihills farmed for the rest of their lives in Clinton County. Margaret Mulvihill died on January 5, 1888, and her husband sometime before 1900. They are buried together in Saint James Cemetery.

Top of the page: from the Plat Book of Clinton County (1894)