John L. Gallagher
John L. Gallagher, farmer, was born in Sligo County, Ireland, on the good Friday before Easter, of the year 1826. His parents, Patrick and Ann (McDermont) Gallagher, emigrated to America in 1849, and located in South Charleston, where they remained one summer, after which they moved to Madison County, where the mother died in 1857. The father still lives, and resides with a daughter at Newport, Ky. Our subject came to America two years before his parents, and landed at New Orleans. He came to South Charleston, after spending two years in Cincinnati, and engaged with his father in working out a lease in that county. Ten years later, he took a lease himself on David Herold's land, where he worked six years. He then purchased 153 acres, where he now lives, to which he has added, from time to time, until now he owns 515 acres. When twenty-five years of age, he married Bridget Gilmore, of Cincinnati, by whom he had one child—Mary Jane, born eighteen months after marriage, and died in infancy. Three months after the child's death, the mother died, and one year later Mr. Gallagher married Ann Dare, of Xenia, by whom he has had thirteen children, viz.: Frank, Margaret (died aged one year), John, Anna, Mary, Peter, Catharine, Mary, Ellen, James, Thomas, William and George Edward. Mr. Gallagher is a Democrat and a member of the Catholic Church. He is a steady, hardworking man, and by dint of industry has become one of the large landholders of the county.
From History of Madison County - W. H. Beers [Chicago, 1883]