Places of the Name

Village/Town/City:
Northfield, Vermont
Country:
USA
Who the place was named after?:
Jeremiah Cornelius Donahue
Who was he/she?:
My grandfather, Jeremiah Cornelius Donahue, son of Timothy O'Donoghue, came to Northfield in the mid 1850s from Glenflesk, Kerry. He was, according to oral family history, one of the many descendants of the O'Donoghue of the Glens, one of the Four Poets of Ireland, proprietor of Killaha town house, famed at the time for his poetry, wild parties, and fighting Cromwell, for which last pastime Killaha was destroyed. Baptismal records showing this line of descent were said to have been destroyed by a fire. Jeremiah was the first to buy land in Northfield, and we now live on part of the old family farm. Jeremiah was the fourth son and fourth child of Timothy and Mary (Doherty), and the third to be born in Vermont, in 1856. An industrious lad, he was only 21 when he bought his first property, a farm on East Hill, for $400, in 1878. Four years later he purchased more land to expand the farm to 100 acres. He was a railroad man on the new Vermont Central Railroad (the attraction that brought many Irish to central Vermont) and eventually rose to be a conductor. His parents lived on the farm he purchased. Later he became a successful businessman, buying a feed, food and general merchandise store in downtown Northfield in 1892. He rented out the farm until he retired from the store. He died in 1918 at age 61, two years before I was born. From research my daughter Anne was able to do, Denis O'Donoghue was the first of four brothers (or cousins) who came over from Glenflesk and apparently sent back word of jobs available building the railroad. Over the next decade or so there were 13 separate O'Donoghue families (by then all spelled Donahue) from Glenflesk in Northfield
Why it was named after him/her?:
When it was named after him/her?:

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