Michael Tiernan (b. 1783 - d. 1845)
MSA SC 5496-050622
War of 1812 Claimant, Baltimore City, Maryland
Biography:
Michael Tiernan was born near Hagerstown, Maryland, on February 25, 1783, to Patrick Tiernan and his wife, Margaret McKiernan.1 Michael and his wife, Elizabeth, had at least seven children, six of whose names are known: Margaret (b. 1815), Eliza Jane (b. 1818, later Sister Mary Xavier), Seth Clarke (b. 1825), John M. (b. 1826), Michael (b. 1829), and Francis (b. 1831).2
As early as 1806, Tiernan owned Michael Tiernan & Company, a mercantile firm with branches in both Baltimore City and Pittsburgh.3 In 1808, Samuel Stones, a Philadelphia agent for the Leeds' woolen industry, described Tiernan as "truly obstinate and eccentric."4 Michael Tiernan was also one of the original stockholders in the Patapsco Insurance Company, incorporated in Baltimore in 1813.5 During the War of 1812, Tiernan co-owned the Caroline, a privateering ship based in Baltimore. In March 1814, Rear Admiral George Cockburn complained about the "large Armed Schooners which were hired by the Government being now again in the employ of the Merchants as Privateers" in the upper Chesapeake Bay.6
Following the war, records showed Tiernan heavily indebted to the Union Bank of Maryland. When he could not pay back the $13,800 he had borrowed, the bank foreclosed upon 11,000 acres land that Tiernan owned in Allegany County, Maryland. The tract was called "Cornucopia."7 Tiernan then lived for a short time in Ohio, where his sons Seth and John were born.
He had moved permanently to Pittsburgh by 1833, when he founded the Merchants' and Manufacturers' Bank. Tiernan served as the bank's first president from its inception until his death.8 Michael Tiernan's main residence stood on Stockton Avenue in Allegheny City, just outside Pittsburgh.9 However, his business still brought him into contact with Baltimore, if only by correspondence. On December 29, 1835, Tiernan wrote to "Mrs. Emily McTavish" of Baltimore City (b. circa 179510), who was the "executrix of the will of Charles Carroll." Tiernan enclosed a check for $597.02 from "Revd. Demetrius Aug. Galitzen" of Loretta, Pennsylvania, for McTavish to deposit in the Commercial and Farmers' Bank in Baltimore. Tiernan sent a second check from Galitzen to McTavish on March 1, 1836, this time for $386.96.11 Drawn from the Merchants' and Manufacturer's Bank, both payments went towards Galitzen's large debt to the late Charles Carroll of Carrollton.12 Incidentally, Tiernan may have been the same Michael Tiernan who had joined Carroll in contributing funds for building the old Roman Catholic Cathedral in Baltimore.13
Tiernan died on April 10, 1845, likely in the family home near Pittsburgh.14
On April 15th, the Baltimore Sun ran a notice of his
death: "At Pittsburg, Pa., on the 10th inst., Michael Tiernan, Esq., in
the 62nd year of his age."15 In his will, he ordered
that his son Seth and his son-in-law Morris Jones take over his business,
Tiernan & Jones (he had taken on his son-in-law, Morris Jones, as a
partner prior to his death).16 Tiernan was buried at the St.
Mary's Roman Catholic Cemetery in Pittsburgh. Bordering the larger Allegheny
Cemetery, the St. Mary's Cemetery was the burial place for many of Tiernan's
family members.17
1. Charles Bernard Tiernan, The
Tiernan Family in Maryland (Baltimore, MD: Gallery & McCann, 1898)
7.
Martin I.J.
Griffin, The American Catholic Historical Researches. Vol. 12 (Philadelphia,
PA: Martin I.J. Griffin, 1895) 190.
William Shepherd
Benson,
Catholic Builders of the Nation (New York, NY: Catholic
Book Company, 1935) 164.
F. Edward
Wright, ed.,
Western Maryland Newspaper Abstracts, 1806-1810. Vol.
3 (Westminster, MD: Heritage Books, 2006) 65.
United States
Civil Service Commission, Register of All Officers and Agents, Civil,
Military, and Naval, in the Service of the United States on the Thirtieth
September, 1835.... (Washington, D.C.: Blair & Rives, 1835) 79.
2. 1850 U.S. Federal Census
Record (PA) for Seth Tiernan, Allegheny County, Ward 4, Page 21, Line 5.
1860 U.S.
Federal Census Record (PA) for Morris Jones, Allegheny County, Ward 1,
Page 132, Line 2.
William Shepherd
Benson,
Catholic Builders of the Nation (New York, NY: Catholic
Book Company, 1935) 163-164.
Pennsylvania
Supreme Court,
Weekly Notes of Cases Argued and Determined in the Supreme
Court. Vol. 2 (Philadelphia, PA: Kay and Brother, 1876) 251.
Pittsburgh
Sisters of Mercy 52.
3. Henry Clay, The Papers
of Henry Clay. Vol. 1 (Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky,
1856) 255-256.
James Aloysius
Burns, The Growth and Development of the Catholic School System in the
United States (New York, NY: Benziger Brothers, 1912) 49.
Mississippi
Supreme Court, Cases Argued and Decided in the Supreme Court of Mississippi.
Vol. 2 (Philadelphia, PA: T.K. and P.G. Collins, 1839) 786.
Herbert Heaton,
"Benjamin Gott and the Anglo-American Cloth Trade." Journal of Economic
and Business History 2.1 (November 1929): 154.
4. Qtd. in Heaton 154.
William Bunting
Crump, Joseph Rogerson, and Benjamin Gott, The Leeds Woollen Industry,
1780-1820,Vol. 32 (Leeds, UK: The Thoresby Society, 1931) 249.
5. Kilty, William, Thomas
Harris, and John N. Watkins, eds., The Laws of Maryland from the End
of the Year 1799, with a Full Index, and the Constitution of This State...
5 volumes (III - VII). Annapolis: J. Green, 1820. Available through Archives
of Maryland Online, Volume 192. Pg. 1469.
Phillips,
Willard, A Treatise On the Law of Insurance, Vol. 1. New York, NY:
Hurd and Houghton, 1867.iii.
6. Michael J. Crawford, ed., The Naval War of 1812: A Documentary History, Vol. 3 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Goverment Printing Office, 2002) 42.
7. CHANCERY COURT, (Chancery Papers), 1820-1822, Case 10431: Union Bank of Maryland vs. Michael Tiernan. AL. Mortgage foreclosure on Cornucopia.[MSA S512-13-10292].
8. Chamber of Commerce
of Pittsburgh,
Pittsburgh and the Pittsburgh Spirit: Addresses at the
Chamber of Commerce (Pittsburgh, PA: Robert L. Forsythe Co., 1928)
271.
George
H. Thurston,
Pittsburgh and Allegheny in the Centennial Year (Pittsburgh,
PA: A.A. Anderson & Son, 1876) 252.
9. Pittsburgh Sisters of Mercy, Memoirs of the Pittsburgh Sisters of Mercy (New York, NY: The Devain-Adiar Co., 1917) 388.
10. U.S. Census Bureau (Census Record, MD) for Emily McTavish, 1860, Baltimore City, Ward 11, Page 80, Line 1 [MSA SM61-185, M 7208].
11. SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, Michael Tiernan
to Emily McTavish, December 29, 1835 [MSA M 4221-5740].
SPECIAL
COLLECTIONS, Michael Tiernan to Emily McTavish, March 1, 1836 [MSA M 4221-5746].
H. Niles,
ed., The Weekly Register, Vol. 2 (Baltimore, MD: The Franklin Press,
1812) 195.
12. Hugh Chrisholm, ed. "Gallitzen, Demetrius Augustine (1770-1840)." The Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed. 1911) 421.
13. The Catholic Church in the United
States of America, Vol. 3 (New York, NY: Catholic Editing Company,
1914) 50.
"Old Roman
Catholic Cathedral," National Register of Historic Places, http://mht.maryland.gov/nr/NRDBDetail.aspx?HDID=32&COUNTY=Baltimore
City&SEARCHTYPE=locationSearch&PROPNAME=&STREETNAME=Cathedral&CITYNAME=Baltimore&KEYWORD=.
14. Allegany County Bar Association,
Pittsburgh
Legal Journal, Vol. 31 (Pittsburgh, PA: John S. Murray, 1884) 185.
Pittsburgh
Sisters of Mercy 388.
15. "Died," Baltimore Sun 15
April 1845: 2, Baltimore Sun Historical Archive. Enoch Pratt Free Library.
Thomas
L. Hollowak, Index to Marriages and Deaths in the (Baltimore) Sun, 1837-1850
(Baltimore, MD: Genealogical Publishing Co., Inc., 1978) 599.
16. Allegany County Bar Association 185.
17. Norman J. Meinert. "Cemetery Inscriptions
from St. Mary's RC Cemetery." http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~njm1/stmyk.htm.
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