BIOGRAPHY - THOMAS DORAN
Among the citizens that Ireland has furnished to Ford county is numbered Thomas Doran, who follows farming on section 23, Pella township. He was born in County Carlow, Ireland, in 1848, his parents being Patrick and Margaret (Gain) Doran, natives of that land. The mother died in Pella township in March, 1896, at the age of seventy-six years, having long survived her husband, who passed away in Grundy county, Illinois, in the spring of 1867, one week after his arrival. He had previously followed railroading in Pennsylvania, and in other localities in which he lived carried on farming. At the time of his demise he was about forty-four years of age. The family numbered three sons: Edward, of Pella township; Thomas, of this review; and James, a blacksmith of Nebraska.
Thomas Doran spent the first eight years of his life in the land of his nativity and in 1856 crossed the Atlantic with his parents to Hamilton, Ontario. A year later they removed to Oil Creek, Crawford county, Pennsylvania, where they resided until 1867. In the meantime he worked as a switchman on the railroad and then removed to Morris, Grundy county, Illinois. A year later he came to Piper City, arriving in Ford county in 1868 and since that time he has lived in Pella township, making his home for thirty years upon his present farm. This district was to a large extent unimproved, there being only four or five houses in Piper City at that time, while much of the land was still uncultivated, awaiting the awakening touch of the agriculturist to bring forth bounteous harvests. Mr. Doran secured one hundred and twenty acres of land on sections 22 and 23, Pella township, for which he paid twenty-five dollars for the first eighty acres and twenty-seven and a half dollars for his second tract of forty acres on section 22. His residence is situated on section 23 and all of the improvements upon the farm have been placed there by Mr. Doran, who is practical and progressive in his methods and a man of unfaltering diligence and perseverance. What he undertakes he carries forward to successful completion and he forms his plans readily.
In 1874 was celebrated the marriage of Mr. Doran and Miss Anna Milligan, a native of New Jersey, who in early girlhood came to Illinois with her parents, William and Alice (Taggert) Milligan, who were born in Ireland and became early settlers of Ford county, Illinois, where both the father and mother spent their remaining days. They had a family of five sons, while Mrs. Doran was their only daughter. By her marriage she has become the mother of twelve children: Patrick, now living in North Dakota; William, a resident of Piper City; Margaret, the wife of John McGuire, of Pella township; Alice, the wife of George Carter, living at Streator, Illinois; Edward, whose home is in North Dakota; Anna, who died at the age of five years six months and two days; Archie John, at home; Elizabeth, who is a nurse in Chatsworth Hospital; Irene, at home; Lawrence and James, upon the old homestead farm; and Thomas, of Brenton township.
In politics Mr. Doran is an independent democrat, usually voting for the men and measures of the democracy, yet never seeking nor desiring office, nor does he consider himself bound by party ties. His religious faith is that of the Catholic church. From early age he has been dependent upon his own resources for a livelihood and whatever success he has achieved or enjoyed is attributable entirely to his own labors.
Extracted 17 Oct 2016 by Norma Hass from History of Ford County, Illinois, From Its Earliest Settlement to 1908, author E. A. Gardner, Volume 2, pages 773-774.
