Over the course of my research, I've gone off trying to see if I can locate any relatives of my great great grandmother Bridget McDonough Murray. The only lead I have discovered to date is a reference in her death notice that "Chelsea, Mass., papers please copy" which would suggest she had family of some sort in Massachusetts. I've also discovered some records in San Francisco for some McDonoughs who may or may not be connected to Bridget. The connections at this point are very tenuous, and really mostly supposition on my part.
In the 1880 Census, there is a Patrick McDonough living at 2026 Filbert St. which is just 2 blocks from where John and Bridget Murray lived at 6 Harry Place. Patrick was born in about 1835 in Ireland, which is about 5 years before Bridget was born, so they are close enough in age to be siblings. I have no evidence whatsoever that Patrick and Bridget are related in any way, but on the chance that there might be a connection I have taken a look to see if I can find something that would prove one way or another if there was any relation.
Patrick married a woman named Honora Connor in Philadelphia in about 1858, though I suspect that date may be fudged a little bit as I found Patrick and Honora living in the household of a Martin Murphy in the 1860 census and they are not yet married. To further support this, the oldest of their seven children, John H. McDonough was born in about 1860 in Philadelphia. Patrick and Honora are in California by the time their daughter Mary E. McDonough is born in 1864. Bridget McDonough arrived in San Francisco some time between 1864 and 1867, so again a tenuous connection.
Unfortunately, tenuous connections are all I have at this point as I have found no evidence to indicate any family relation between Bridget and Patrick. However, in my periodic checks on Patrick McDonough's family, I stumbled on some really interesting information about a couple of his sons. The youngest two of Patrick and Honora's children were Thomas and Peter McDonough, and when I did a search on their names at newspapers.com I was flooded with news stories, particularly about Peter.
From what I've uncovered through these articles, it seems that Thomas and Peter owned a saloon and also operated as bail bondsmen. Neither of those occupations seem particularly unusual for the sons of an immigrant in the late 1890s/early 1900s, and when you take into consideration that Patrick was a police officer the bail bondsmen makes some sense as I would imagine they were familiar with the operations of the police department and courts of the time.
Their story starts getting interesting in 1909, when a story appears in the San Francisco Call with the headline "GLEAN HARVEST FROM CROOKS IN BAIL BOND FEES." The sub-headlines go on to read "McDonough Brothers accused before police commission of impeding justice" and "Effort being made to have liquor license of saloon keepers revoked." From what I can tell in the article, being a bail bondsman in 1909 was not a particularly approved of occupation. The assistant district attorney was expected "to declare that the saloon's co-operation with criminals has seriously handicapped the prosecution of offenders."
In 1912, Peter and Thomas seem to have had a falling out which resulted in Thomas retaining the saloon and Peter operating as "a bond and money broker with offices in the Bank of Italy building, entirely separate and disassociated from the saloon business owned and carried on by my brother." That quote appeared in an article in the San Francisco Chronicle in July 1913 wherein Peter was denying accusations of bribing police officers.
The stories continue on through the 1920s and 1930s and include tales of bribery, corruption, graft, and prohibition violations. I've not delved too deeply in all of these reports as it's a major rabbit hole to fall down, especially since the bits of the stories I've read are so fascinating and would easily take up days if not weeks of reading and research. The online availability of San Francisco based newspapers ends in the early 1920s which also limits my ability to follow up on all of the scandalous news (which includes accusations of bribing a judge in 1920) just through online sources. There is even one story that includes one of Patrick's grandsons, Harry Rice. The latest bit I've been able to find was an AP story that appeared in the San Bernardino County Sun in November 1937 that reported Peter McDonough was going to lose his license as a bail bondsman for being a "fountainhead of corruption." Peter does turn up in the 1940 census as a bail bond broker, so I don't know if that means he regained his license or that it was his former occupation. Peter died in 1947 at the age of 75.
Should my periodic attempts to find McDonoughs turn up a connection between Bridget McDonough Murray and Patrick McDonough somewhere down the line, you can bet I will delve in to all of the stories about Thomas and Peter!
