Bridget Reilly Jordan
- Born
- 1896-01-01 12:00:00
- Gender
- Female
Bridget Reilly Jordan was my great-grandmother who was born in Ireland, supposedly in Castlerea, Roscommon. I do not know her maiden name, but she was born about 1808-09.
She married Thomas Reilly about 1830, had a family of 4 or possibly more children. Thomas died by about 1842.
She then married Thomas Jordan, and had two children, James Thomas and Ann, before leaving for the USA about 1850. James Thomas was left with relatives as a toddler in order to "get the land". Both Bridget and Thomas Jordan are mentioned in Griffith's Valuations for the Tibohine area. J T decided to give up the land rights and left to join the family in Jersey City, NJ, as a young boy.
By 1860, Bridget had lost her second husband, and was taking in boarders. JT and his half-brother, Patrick Reilly, decided to join the Union Navy, JT being only 16 at the time, and hid away as they took a ferry across the Hudson River to New York City. Their guardian, Patrick Jordan, a policeman in Jersey City, went after them, swinging his nightstick on the top of overturned rescue boats on the deck---where the boys were hidden. They enlisted, JT using the name "James Reilly" since he was underage. They served during 1865 and 1866, then came home.
JT and a friend set up a crockery store by 1870, and he later married first, Mary Kenny, and after her death in the late 1880s, he married Margaret Frances Shaw and had 4 more children, of whom 3 survived to adulthood. My mother, Madeleine M. Jordan, was the youngest, born in 1898.
Bridget, who was busy with her grandchildren and working to do washing, died in 1896, aed 86.
JT died in 1919 after a busy life as engineer on Mallory Lines ships which took cargo and passengers up and down the North American coast.
