A CIVIL WAR SOLDIER FROM OFFALY WHO ALSO SERVED 4 TERMS IN THE MINNESOTA ASSEMBLY

When Thomas Carmichael died at Miss Lizzie Flanagan’s Boarding House in Eau Claire, Minnesota in 1902 he was 72 years of age. He had been ill for 3 months and as Thomas had remained unmarried all his life there were no family members to help him during those last few difficult weeks. It was initially thought locally that his only relative had been a brother named Edward who had died in Eau Claire in 1878. There was much interest in who would inherit the estate of Thomas Carmichael as he had become a wealthy and very prominent member of this Minnesota community.

Thomas Carmichael was born in Clonbollogue, Co Offaly in 1830 to parents Edward Carmichael and Margaret Conlon. There would be six children in total in the family, five boys and one girl. It was later said that Thomas received a “sound education” in the National School of the area before he and 2 other Brothers, Edward & James, made the decision to emigrate to America in 1852. They settled firstly in the New York area and worked in the lumber business. The Brothers would move to Eau Claire in Minnesota in 1857 and would here establish their own lumber yard and saw mill at a time when Eau Claire was a small but expanding settlement based around a busy timber industry.

By the outbreak of the US Civil War in 1861 Thomas Carmichael was already a respected member of the community and he would help to finance a company of men that would eventually be incorporated into the 10th Wisconsin Light Artillery. Thomas would be appointed 1st Lieutenant when this unit would be reconstituted into the 37th Wisconsin Infantry. He would continue to serve in this capacity until October 1864 when, due to sickness, he was discharged from service in the Union Army. Thomas had participated in several major engagements during the war including, The Battles of Corinth and Stones River, where he was injured falling from his horse during battle.

After the war Thomas Carmichael would become heavily involved in local politics in the state of Minnesota serving on many local committees. In 1874 he was elected to the Minnesota State Assembly as a Democratic candidate, representing the Eau Claire constituency, and would go on to serve 4 more terms over the next 12 years.

By the year of his death in 1902, Thomas Carmichael had amassed an extremely large amount of property and land, over 900 acres in fact. He also would be in partnership in several other business in the state of Minnesota and involved in several different ventures. Accounts in the newspapers at the time mention that Thomas’s “mental condition” had failed in his last months of life and that a Mr. A.F. Ellison had been appointed as guardian of his estate. It is also stated in newspapers reports that some of Thomas’s business dealings in his latter years had not gone well and that he had lost a lot of money. Whatever the case it would seem, as things transpired, that Mr. Ellison had knowledge of the family history of Thomas Carmichael and would be a fair hand in the unravelling of who was entitled to inherit the estate.

John A. Jacobs, also a business man in Minnesota, and a person that Thomas had been in partnership with was the prime candidate to purchase all of the estate of Thomas Carmichael. Mention is made of members of the Jacobs family arriving on the same day as the funeral of Thomas to conclude a deal with Mr. AF Ellison. It is only conjecture but it is more than likely that it was then Mr. Ellison revealed to John Jacobs that in order to complete the purchase of the estate of Thomas Carmichael he would have to make the long trip to County Offaly (Kings County) Ireland and to an area called Ballykillen, located between Edenderry and Clonbollogue and make contact with the sole surviving member of the Carmichael Family.

As mentioned earlier, there were five boys in the Carmichael family, but on the death of Thomas all five Brothers had died. Furthermore all the brothers never married leaving their Sister, Ann Carmichael, the sole surviving member of the family and the sole heir to her Brothers estate. Ann Carmichael had married Patrick Kenna in 1871 and settled in the Ballykillen area close to Edenderry and Clonbollogue.

Marriage Cert of Ann Carmichael–Irish Genealogy

Representatives of the Jacobs family would make their way to Edenderry in the early months of 1904 and conclude a deal with Ann Kenna for the full control of the estate of her Brother to the tune of $4750, an amount which converts to $170,000 today.

Kenna Family, Ballykillen , 1911 Census – National Archives: Census of Ireland 1911

It had been and interesting life for the man from Clonbollogue in County Offaly. He had parted from his family as a young man in 1852 and took his chances on a new life in America. He had made his fortune through hard work and also fought for his adapted land in a war that was up to that point the most bloody in human history. And at the end of his life the fruits of his labors had made their way back to his family in Ireland.