Andrew Brady

Andrew Brady was another brother of my great grandfather, James E Brady.  Andrew was born to Thomas A Brady and Bridget Convey Brady in 1870, in Gordon, PA.  The best I can tell, he lived with his parents and is listed in the 1900 Census in their home in Scranton Pa.  That is pretty much all I knew about him until I found a record of his service in the Spanish American War.  A couple of weeks ago, I found an article in the Scranton Tribune from 13 Mar 1899.  I found it on Chronicling America, which is on the Library of Congress website.

In case you can't read it, the article talks about the First volunteer engineer corps who served in "Porto Rico" during the recent "unpleasantness" with Spain meeting to arrange for their part in the reception and parade to be tendered the Thirteenth regiment on March 22.  It goes on to list the men from Scranton who went to Porto Rico, and among them is Andrew T. Brady.

I never really knew much about him, besides his service in the Spanish American War, but I figured that he died before his father in October 1904.  I figured this because I found his father, Thomas A Brady's obit.  The obit lists family who survived him and Andrew is not among them.

Then I subscribed to Newspapers.com and hunted around old Scranton newspapers.  I located an article dated 19 Mar 1904 and it indicated that Thomas A Brady of Birch St was traveling to Boonton NJ to identify remains of man killed there.  It goes on to say that the man may be a brother of Dr W F Brady of Scranton.  In case you have not followed my blog closely, Dr W F Brady is my great grandfather's brother.  I called the Boonton Library and a woman there said that she would check the old newspapers there for me, but I have not heard back yet.  Apparently, patience really is a virtue, it must have passed me by when it comes to researching my family tree.

I then called the Morris County Historical Commission, I was referred to the Morristown - Morris Township Library, which has a genealogy center.  So instead of waiting, I decided to drive up there and see what they had.  Then my sister from Scranton called me.  So while I had her on the phone, I invited myself to her house for the night. (after checking the Scranton Library for material).  So off I went. to Morristown and Scranton.

Morristown - Morris Township Library was very nice, and the woman working there was very helpful, but alas, I found nothing of help.  So it was off to Scranton.

I got to the Scranton Library about 45 minutes before closing, thanks to some heavy traffic.  I was able to get microfilm of the Scranton Times for March of 1904 and was lucky enough to find two articles.  One from 18 Mar 1904 and a second one from the following day, 19 Mar 1904:

The first article talks about a Scranton man being killed on the Railroad in Boonton, NJ.  The second article is essentially the same article as the one I found in the Scranton Republican on Newspapers.com.  It says that Thomas A Brady left for Boonton to identify the remains as his brother.  The paper is mistaken, I think they were stuck on the fact that his brother was the famous Doctor W F Brady, and did not realize that Thomas is actually his father.  Apparently Andrew had left Scranton for New York about a year before, but I don't know why.  His occupation was listed as machinist in census records and a couple of Scranton City Directories, so maybe he left for a new job in the City.  The Scranton Library closed before I could find anything else.

So it looks like my first generation Irish American great grand uncle was killed on St Patrick's Day 1904 by a train in Boonton, NJ.  I hope I find out more at the Boonton Library.