Hardie – My Family History

My Ryan Ancestors

Patrick Ryan and Catherine McGrath

Patrick Ryan and Catherine McGrath were born in Ireland, Patrick about 1813[1] and Catherine about 1818[2]. They were married around 1834, possibly in New York where their eldest child, Ellen, was born.[3] About 1840, they moved from New York to Illinois where their third child, Mary Jane, was born in 1841.[4]

Patrick likely died between 1845, when his youngest child, William, was conceived,[5] and 1860, when his wife Catherine is listed as a widow in the City Directory of St. Louis, Missouri.[6] A family story recounts that after Patrick died in Illinois, the family traveled in a wagon to St. Louis. The oldest daughter, Ellen, drove the team and Catherine held the youngest child, William. Supporting the stated timeframe for Patrick’s death and the family story, William H Ryan’s 1909 obituary states that he was two years old (about 1848), when the family moved to St. Louis.[7]

*Ryan Monument, Calvary Cemetery, St. Louis, MO (Section 1, lot 280)*

Frances Diamond Hardie: Ohio, 1897-1912

Her Early Years in St. Louis, MO

After their marriage in St. Louis, Missouri in 1877, Daniel and Mary Jane (Ryan) Hardie lived in Cincinnati, Ohio for a few years. Their first son, Daniel Eugene, was born in 1878 in Cincinnati.[1]

The family returned to St. Louis around 1879 and remained there until 1897, living initially on Papin Street and subsequently on Caroline Street then Bell Avenue. In addition to Daniel Eugene, the family unit in 1880 included Daniel Senior’s three daughters (Janet, Isabelle, and Elizabeth) from his second marriage as well as Mary Jane’s son (Eugene O’Neil) from her first marriage. [2]

**Hardie Family Residences, St. Louis, 1879-1897**

Daniel and Mary Jane’s first daughter, Frances Diamond Hardie, was born in St. Louis in 1881. She was baptized at St. Malachy Roman Catholic Church, 2900 Clark Street in the Mill Creek Valley neighborhood. Her godmother was her maternal aunt Ellen (Ryan) Diamond, who would later marry John W. Allen.[3]

In addition to her three half-sisters and her brother Daniel, Frances had a second brother, William Norval, born in 1883, and a sister, Marie Ellen, born in 1886.[4]

**Half-siblings & Siblings of Frances Hardie**

About 1889, Daniel Hardie became the proprietor of a pottery manufacturing operation, “St. Louis Art Pottery”, on 2135 Washington.[5] He is described in 1891 as a pottery dealer at 2135 Washington street who “lives comfortably with his family on Bell avenue, and all the members of his household are so uniformly healthy that he has said to his friends, laughingly, sometimes that the physicians of the city would never think of complimenting him by an honorary membership in their medical society”.[6]

*Business Listing, St. Louis Art Pottery, 1890, Gould’s St. Louis Directory*

Daniel Hardie (1838-1870): A Potter from Bo’ness, Scotland

Daniel Hardie was born in 1838 in Bo’ness, Linlithgowshire, Scotland. He was the fifth of seven children born to Robert Hardie and Janet Buchanan.

His parents were born and married in Bo’ness.[1] His paternal and maternal grandparents were married in Linlithgowshire: the former in Bo’ness and the latter in nearby Bathgate.

Between 1838 and 1870 Daniel Hardie lived in three locations in Scotland: (1) Bo’ness in Linlithgowshire, (2) Linktown in Kirkcaldy, Fife, and (3) Pollokshaws near Glasgow, Renfrew. All three locations are within easy driving range of Edinburgh and Glasgow. (See following map.)

**Scottish Residences of Daniel Hardie**

Daniel married twice in Scotland, in Linktown and in Pollokshaws, and he worked as a potter in both locations. He immigrated to the United States around 1870.

This article identifies events in Daniel’s life prior to his immigration and describes the potteries in the locations where he lived.