John Connelly, Veteran Plasterer Reminiscences
Submitted by Martha J. Martin-Kounse
SOURCE: Ironton Register, February 2, 1905
In conversation with a Register reporter, John Connelly, the veteran plasterer, who has been a resident of Hanging Rock for more than half a century, gave some interesting reminiscences of the early days of Ironton.
Mr. Connelly served an apprenticeship of three years in London and came to New York in 1848. From there, he went to New Orleans and heard of the proposed town of Ironton and the great mineral wealth of the Hanging Rock iron region, took passage on the old “United States,” and landed at the Ironton wharf on December 23, 1849.
He ate his first meal at the old Buckeye House that stands back of E. F. Moore’s cigar store, across from D. C. Davis’ dry goods store. It was the only boarding house in that place, and all the men employed in and about the new town site boarded there.
David Cochran, the painter, was the proprietor of the boarding house. The Ironton Hotel had just begun, and work was suspended because of the cold weather.
The town was in name only as it was simply a cornfield. Since then, Mr. Connelly has watched the town rise out of the cornfield and become a thriving city with furnaces, mills, and factories and a population of 15,000 souls.
He is the only living representative of the class of men who helped lay the city’s foundations in Ohio.
Being an expert workman, Mr. Connelly practically did all the work in this line for the town’s leading men. He plastered the residence of John and Hiram Campbell and the early churches of the city.
Mr. Connelly said that while working on the house now occupied by Dr. Dunn in 1865, Mr. Wilson came by, and he ordered the Register and has never missed a copy since.
On July 18, 1852, Mr. Connelly married Miss Mary Brooks within one hundred yards of where he now lives. They have had almost 53 years of happy wedded life. He will be 83 years of age on May 10 but is active and vigorous both in mind and body.
He is an ardent temperance advocate, and his life has been most honorable and upright. He has accumulated some property and is spending the sunset of his life in comfort.
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