California Quaids

My great-grandfather Thomas Steven Quaid emigrated to the United States in the 1880s. I don't know a lot about the circumstances -- I don't know why he left, or even when, precisely. I also don't know why he went to Chicago, but I've always assumed that there must have been family or friends already there.

David Joseph Quaid (1846-1925)

I have not yet found any close relatives who preceded Thomas in Chicago, but along the way I found that Thomas' aunt and uncle had emigrated to California a few years earlier. This is what I know about them.

To back up a step, Patrick Quaid and Ellen Dundon were farmers in Ballymacamore in County Limerick, Ireland in the mid-1800s. They had my great-great-grandfather Charles Quaid sometime around 1835, then a bunch of other kids, then Ellen Quaid in 1844 and David Joseph Quaid in 1846. In 1848 they had their last child that I know about, a daughter named Mary.^[1]

David Joseph Quaid's baptism in Ballymacamore, March 25, 1846

In 1867, the siblings Ellen and David Quaid emigrated to California. They appeared in the 1870 Census working on a farm in San Rafael, California. Ellen was a domestic servant, and David worked on the farm.

Ellen and David in the 1870 US Census

Sometime in the early 1870s Ellen married Peter Murtha. He was another Irish immigrant, in his case from County Cavan. He became a citizen in 1871, so he most likely arrived some time around 1865. Peter was a stone-cutter, and the couple soon settled down in West Oakland and had three sons.

David, for his part, became a citizen in 1873. On May 22, 1878 he became a San Francisco police officer, according to a later newspaper article. Somewhere along the line he also married a woman named Mary, and by the 1880 Census they were living in San Francisco.

David J. Quaid: Police Picnic Planner.
Note all the Irish names.

San Francisco was a young and rapidly growing city, with a much smaller police force, per capita, than major cities like New York and London. Miners and sailors sought entertainment in the notorious red-light district, nicknamed The Barbary Coast due to its lawlessness. David Quaid occasionally appeared in newspapers participating in various arrests, some of which sound harrowing. For example The San Francisco Examiner reported on August 27th, 1879:

Gang Arrested

A crowd of about twenty toughs were in the Casino on Market street, near Stockton, last night, and there engaged in a general row, during which C. Pfieffer and Martin Klumpp, who were not of the party, were struck on the head with beer glasses. The crowd attempted to leave, but were prevented by Officer Quaid and J.P. McMurray, a citizen. On complaint of Klumpp the officer arrested Robert Gardner, George Clark and James Stewart. He turned the latter over to McMurray and then handcuffed Gardner and Clark. While he was doing this, Stewart resisted violently, and attempted to get away from the citizens who held him, so he left the handcuffed prisoners in charge of another citizen while he went to McMurray's assistance. In the meantime the handcuffed prisoners got away from the citizen who held them and boarded a Market street car, but they were soon recaptured by Quaid, who, assisted by McMurray, conveyed the three prisoners to the Central Station, where they were charged with battery.

On May 12, 1881 Ellen Quaid Murtha went into premature labor, lost the child, and then died two days later of double pneumonia. She was 37.

Remains of almost 40,000 people from Mount Calvary
in five acres at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma.

Peter buried his wife and daughter in the Mount Calvary Cemetery, which at the time was on the outskirts of San Francisco. He had purchased the plot just a few months earlier for a man named James Murtha, possibly his brother. In 1940 their bones were moved to the "cemetery city" of Colma, California, now resting in a mass grave with almost 40,000 others.

The San Francisco Examiner, April 21, 1883

About a year and a half later, Peter married Margaret Madden, another Irish immigrant. In April of 1883 he sent his then-pregnant wife back East, and days later committed suicide by jumping off the ferry into San Francisco Bay. A little over a week later his body finally washed up on the shore, not very far from their home in Oakland.

An obituary in The San Francisco Examiner said that Peter was the brother-in-law of D. J. Quaid and Mrs. Mary Toomey. I think that must mean that David and Ellen's younger sister Mary also emigrated and married someone named Toomey. But I haven't been able to find anything more about her, not yet anyway. Apparently the author of Peter's brief obituary (perhaps David) only mentioned local relatives, because by this time their next-older sibling Thomas Quaid was running a ranch in lovely Miramar, just outside of San Diego.

David Quaid was appointed executor of Peter Murtha's estate. He buried Peter in the grave that held Ellen and Florence, and in due course he sold off the Oakland property. Margaret Madden Murtha lived out her life in Alameda County, and died in 1924. Henry Murtha, the child born in 1883, lived with Margaret for a while, but I don't know what became of him.

The San Francisco Examiner, January 25, 1887

On Feb 17, 1886, David and Mary were granted a divorce, on grounds of intemperance. Two months later, David J. Quaid "was summoned before the Police Commissioners on the complaint of William Price and William F. Burke, who preferred charges of misconduct against him, and dismissed from the force." Maybe some intemperance there, too. William F. Burke, at least, was a fellow officer. David Quaid's appeal to be reinstated was denied on March 18, 1887.

Also some time in this busy 1886, David married the gloriously-named Urania Cheesman. She was from a prominent family -- her father was David Williams Cheesman, a lawyer and politician who had supported Lincoln in the 1860 election, and was appointed Treasurer of the U. S. Mint at San Francisco in return. He had just died a couple of years earlier. Her mother was Urania Macy, a member of one of the first five "American" families in the pueblo of Los Angeles.

David and Urania had a boy named David in early 1887, but the child died in May at just four months old. He was buried in the same plot that contained the Murtha family.

After getting kicked off the force, David was a "special policeman", which I assume means something like a security guard. He was later a teamster. By 1891, David was the superintendent of the power house at the New Idria Quicksilver Mining Company in San Benito County. New Idria was the second-largest mercury mine in North America. And what was the largest mercury mine in North America, I hear you ask? It was in fact New Almaden, next to where I used to live in San Jose. Mercury was instrumental in the gold mining process, hence the importance of having supplies near the gold fields elsewhere in California.

On July 4th, 1891, David and Urania welcomed Charles Dundon Quaid into the world. This child's middle name, matching David's mother's maiden name, was what initially indicated to me that this David Quaid was indeed the child of Patrick and Ellen. Since then, DNA matching has lent additional support to that idea.

Charles Dundon Quaid (1891-1957)

In the next few years David recorded a number of different occupations: night watchman, poultry man, farmer, laborer. His obituary notes that he was also a Justice of the Peace in Idria. In the 1900 Census, David is listed as a farmer in Panoche township, but Urania is helping to run a boarding house 90 miles north in Los Gatos. This census asked women how many children they had, and how many were surviving. Urania said that she had given birth to three children, but Charles was the only one surviving. And speaking of Charles, he doesn't appear to be living with either of his parents, and I can't find him among his in-laws, either.

The San Francisco Call, June 10 1902

By 1902, Urania had just about enough of all this. She filed for divorce, on charges of desertion and failure to provide. The divorce was granted two days later. Urania apparently moved to Napa County, possibly to live with family, but died there on May 26, 1907. In her will she appointed her aunt Lucinda Macy Foy her executrix, although her mother was still alive. She explicitly granted David guardianship of Charles.

Urania Quaid's will -- but not her handwriting

In the 1910 Census David Quaid was still in San Benito county, now a poultryman in Hollister Township. Charles was still nowhere to be found.

The 1920 Census again found 73-year-old David living in San Benito County, but now in the household of Charles and his young family. Charles was a farmer on a stock farm, which apparently means they raised livestock. In this case that might have been poultry, because elsewhere he is described as a poultryman. David was a laborer on the farm.

David Joseph Quaid died on March 11, 1925 at the age of 78. His obituary says "Recently the work [poulty farming] proved too onerous for his advancing years, and he retired to the home of his son." He left most of his estate to Charles, but left a property in Hollister, half of the mineral rights of his ranch, and one of his two scarf pins to his nephew Tom Murtha, Ellen's son.

Charles and his wife Edna Viola Hall raised two sons and a daughter in San Benito County. Lucien Hall Quaid (1913-2000), Kenneth Eustace Quaid (1915-1988) and Velna Elizabeth Quaid Smith (1918-1993) lived out their lives in the same area, and raised families of their own. Many of their descendants still live in California. Charles, Edna and David are all buried in the same plot in the Odd Fellows Cemetery in Hollister, California.

The Quaid plot at Odd Fellows Cemetery

Ellen Quaid Murtha also has many descendants scattered around the American west. James Patrick Murtha married Margaret Cantwell, and was a train engineer in Colorado. As far as I know they had no children. Thomas Francis Murtha was a grocer in northeast Oregon, and his descendants live in the Oregon/Washington/Idaho area. I don't know what became of her youngest son, Peter Joseph Murtha.

I know of no direct contact between my great-grandfather Thomas and his aunt or uncle, but he must have known about them generally, and their story may have influenced his decision to leave Ireland. I like to think that my great-granduncle John Pier Quaid, another émigré, might have met up with his cousin Charles Dundon Quaid when John lived in nearby Sacramento around 1915.

As for why Thomas chose to settle in Chicago rather than California or anywhere else, I still have no clue.

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[1] I've never found a baptism record for my second-great-grandfather Charles Quaid, so his link to Patrick Quaid is tenuous. It's clear that Charles' mother was Ellen Quaid, because she was living with Charles when she died in 1883. But she could have been married to some other Patrick. Finding David J. Quaid was therefore very helpful to me, because his baptismal record names both of his parents, and multiple DNA matches link his descendants to me. Through this link I was able to confirm Charles' parents names.