Family:Hugh Donnelly and Ellen McLaughlin (2)

Hugh Donnelly was born in Ireland say 1809. According to his death record at St. Peter's R.C. Church, Belleville, Essex Co., New Jersey, he was born in County Antrim. This has not been verified, and indeed it is quite as likely that he was born in County Tyrone or County Donegal. It is not known when he came to America. He may have been living with Henry McLaughlin in 1830. He is perhaps to be identified with the “Henry Downly,” aged 30-40, enumerated in the 1840 census in Belleville, with one female aged 30-40. In the 1850 census he is 41. In the 1870 census his age is given as 60. According to his death record, he died of paralysis in Belleville on 22 August 1875, at the age of 67. He married Ellen McLaughlin, born in Ireland about 1820. She is perhaps the sister of the Henry McLaughlin who appears in the 1830 Bloomfield, Essex County, N.J. census. It is known that she was related to George Vincent McLaughlin, the NYC banker who was police commissioner under Mayor Jimmy Walker. She died of bronchitis on 25 October 1886 in Belleville, and was buried in St. Peter's R.C. Church cemetery.

At the time of the 1870 census, Hugh was working in Hendrick's Copper Mill. His real estate was valued at $800 and his personal estate at $150. He had also by this time become a citizen. Neither he nor his wife Ellen is able to write.

Ellen is somehow related to the McLaughlin/Slevin clan of Dromore, County Tyrone, Ireland, many of whom settled in Brooklyn. If the Henry McLaughlin of that family can be identified with the Henry McLaughlin who owned two houses in Belleville in the 1830s, where 20 men were living with him, which houses he lost in a court judgement, then he would have returned to Ireland soon thereafter, where he married Susan Slevin on 25 June 1838, at Dromore. Perhaps Hugh Donnelly returned with him, and married Ellen McLaughlin there, since a Hugh Donnelly and Ellen McLaughlin were married at the Roman Catholic Church at Dromore on 30 November 1838, with Bernard McLaughlin and Patrick Slevin as witnesses. They then would have returned to New Jersey sometime before the 1840 census, in which Hugh Donnelly appears.

1.   .

   Hugh “Donally” household, 1850 U.S. Federal Population Census, Belleville Township, Essex Co., NJ, Dwelling 220, Family 264.
   
   Hugh Donally, 41, M, laborer, b. Ireland
   Ellen Donally, 35, F, b. Ireland
   Peter Donally, 10, M, b. N. Jersey
   Mary Donally, 8, F, b. N. Jersey
   Margaret Donally, 6, F, b. N. Jersey
   Rosa Donally, 5, F, b. N. Jersey
   Catherine Donally, 4, F, b. N. Jersey
   Henry Donally, 3, M, b. N. Jersey