52 Ancestors #2: Robert Fagan (1852 - 1932)

I'm writing about my ancestors for the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge.  Please join me in taking a moment to appreciate some of the people who helped me be here today!

My great-great grandfather, Robert Fagan, was born in Hazleton, Luzerne County, Pennsylvania to Irish immigrants from County Westmeath, Peter and Elizabeth* Fagan.  His birth date as recorded on his death certificate was the 24th of May, 1852.  What is certain is that his parents were already in Pennsylvania by the time he was born, as they are found on the 1850 census living in Hazleton with their Irish-born children, Julia, Garret and Eliza.  Family tradition says they arrived in the US overland across the Canadian border and that they arrived initially through a Nova Scotian port.  In Pennsylvania, sons Robert and Michael and daughter Mary would be born, the family's first American born citizens.

As a youth, Robert was one of the "breaker boys" or "slate pickers" who sat over chutes picking chunks of slate and other unusable materials out of the anthracite.  One of the slate pickers' supervisors at the time was a Mayo native, Edward Treston, whose niece Adelia O'Reilly would leave her home in Dublin for Hazleton sometime around 1882.  In 1883, Robert, by this time a superintendent, and Adelia were married.

1881 patent for bending railroad rails

Robert was also an inventor, holding patents on devices to bend railroad rails and to dispense powder from kegs safely, reducing the risk of explosion.  His obituary in the Wilkes-Barre, PA newspaper also mentions a "device for fighting mine fires, which was used successfully", and an industry journal noted when he had been granted a patent for eliminating rock drilling dust.  As some of the inventions he patented indicate, the safety of the men under his supervision was always a top priority.  The 1888 Report of the Pennsylvania mine inspectors contains the account of a serious fire in the Lattimer mines, and the following citation: "Much praise is due Joseph Dixon and Robert Fagan, and also to their assistants, John Burns, Oliver Rohrbach, Archie Boyd and John Carney, for the great care they took of the hundred and twenty men that were fighting the fire on the inside; and, indeed, I congratulate them on their success, as not one person was seriously injured during the one hundred and eight days and nights that they were engaged fighting this fire."  Given the number of men involved and the length of time the fire burned, it was surely no small task keeping them all safe.

He died the 30th of September, 1932 at the age of 80, having left behind three sons who all became doctors and four daughters who became teachers.

 *Robert's death certificate gives his mother's maiden name as Rogan, his brother Michael's has it as Grogan, and his sister Elizabeth's has it as Brogan.