Family of Steel Workers

Though our first Gallagher descendant to this country made his living as a Carpet Weaver, the next three generations of Gallagher males made their livings in the Iron Works and Steel Mills.

Patrick Gallagher came to this country and made his home in Manayunk in the year 1880. He arrived here with his wife Hannah and a baby daughter named Grace. Patrick's trade was in the weaving business so he set out to find work in a carpet mill. Patrick and Hannah had three more children, another daughter whom they named Mary, a son William and another daughter Sally.

William Gallagher did not follow his father's footsteps in the weaving business but found his trade in the Iron Works. This made him the first Gallagher in our family to work in the Iron trade. He was also the first Gallagher male who did not marry an Irish girl when he set out to marry the very German Mary Keller. Both settled as their parents did before them in Manayunk. It was not long before they became parents to three children, William, Anna and Patrick. (died shortly after birth) It should be noted that Mary Keller's father John Keller was also an Iron/steel worker.

Like his father, William set out to make his living in the Iron trade and like his father set out to work at Pencoyd Iron Works located along the Schuylkill River. But like his grandfather Patrick, this Gallagher married the very Irish Anna Marie McCaffery and it was not long before William and Anna had five children of their own, William, John, Collum (Uncle Gene), Mary and Ann Marie. By the time William retired in the late 1960's, he was working at Midvale Steel located in Nicetown. It should be noted that Coll McCaffery (Anna's Cousin) was also a steel worker.

All three of William and Anna's sons set out to work in the same trade as their grandfather and father before them when they went to work at Midvale Steel in Nicetown. Sadly, Midvale would close its doors after more then one hundred years as a Steel plant in 1973. Though John would leave the plant ten years before it closed, William and Gene lost their jobs when Midvale closed which ended the legacy of steel workers in the family.