The story I always heard, or at least my memory of that story, is that my great-great grandfather, Joseph Gallaher, was a steamboat captain who made a lot of money in that exalted profession, then, when the riverboat days were about over, moved onto the land and made more fortunes by speculating on land in the Midwest. He supposedly had connections in the railroad and went to where the new stations would be built and bought up the land, selling it off later at high profit. The only trouble with this story is it isn't true. Well, not all of it, anyway.

Instead of being the glamorous riverboat captain, he made his money on the shore as a merchant. He was a daring and adventurous merchant, to say the least, so let's give him credit. He just wasn't a captain.

He started out in Pittsburgh with a dry goods store. When the entire part of the city his store was in burned down, he was the first merchant to reopen, while the others, we suppose, licked their wounds and considered other lines of work.

When everyone else was going west he went that way too, but he stayed along the river. He settled in Peoria, IL. I don't know, but would guess that he had a store or two there. In any case, he recognized the great growth of that city and, by the time he left, was said to own one third of the land area in the city. This made him pretty rich.

He went farther west and attempted to do it again, this time in Jefferson, IA. Why he thought Jefferson would be another Peoria I have no idea. It was on the railroad and perhaps he had decided that the railroad was the new river. It was, but the population along it was sparse and remains so today. No city developed in Jefferson.

The Gallahers were the rich people in town. They built the grandest house, opened the grand stores, and bought up all the land on the west side of town. When the railroad finally arrived it proposed to put its station about a mile east of the center of town, which would have encouraged all further development to go that way, away from "our" land. Gallaher, probably reacting exactly as the RR barons intended, offered to build the depot himself on land he donated. It was robbery by the railroad, plain and simple, but they got away with it. It is said that over a span of his 25 years in Jefferson, not a year passed when he was not the mayor, on the town counsel, or school board. I have copies of his obituaries, Joseph A's obit, and plats of the town showing his properties.

I visited Jefferson for the first time in my adult life in 1998. I had no idea what I would find. I inquired at the courthouse about Joseph Gallaher and everyone knew who he was. Considering it was 94 years after his death, I was amazed. Oh, yes, they all said, there is a Gallaher Addition in town. I have maps showing the Gallaher addition, which encompasses about 20% of the town. It was once considered the grandest part of town.

The Gallahers, as I said, built the grandest house in town, a couple of blocks from the center of town, the splendid Greene County Courthouse. The courthouse is surrounded by a square of buildings, one of which was a Gallaher store and one of which, I think, was a Gallaher real estate company. Today the town is run down, most of the stores are closed, and -- unusual for a county seat -- even the restaurants around the courthouse are closed or have turned into seedy bars. It wasn't like that back then.

The Gallaher house burned down many years ago. It was such a huge fire that it was the big news in Jefferson that year. That (houses burning) happened a lot in those days, as you will see.

The Gallaher household comprised Joseph, about whom much is known, his wife, Diana, about whom very little is known, and children Joseph A, Josephine, another daughter (The other daughter is listed in the obiturary as Mrs Frank Thompson) and Cornelia. Joseph A became an attorney and land speculator, Cornelia married Zachary Taylor Funk and became my great grandmother.

Zachary had come to the neighboring town of Grand Junction and opened a store there, I guess as a sort of franchise. He was well educated for the area and was probably almost in the Gallaher social class. It was probably inevitable that he and Cornelia would marry. They were one stop away on the railroad and probably an hour buggy ride away.

Land sales must have been slow in Jefferson and the Gallaher fortune started to slip away. In an attempt to revive the sagging fortune, Joseph went farther west (TDY -leaving his family in IA) to Boise, ID where he more or less founded that city. But things went even slower there and he was now in more serious financial difficulty. Josephine had gone out to Boise and then he had to send Joseph A, a successful attorney in Jefferson, out to try to save the day. In quick order everything failed. Both Josephs died, Josephine's big house burned to the ground taking everything including melting the silverware. At that the Gallahers sort of faded from sight.

As they say, timing is everything. Boise is a thriving city today, and the Gallaher land was eventually sold for good money. Our relatives weren't there to get it

Thee Gallahers had encouraged the new Funk family to buy land in Grand Junction and had presented them with lots in Jefferson. Whereas it appears that Zachary devoted most of his energy to his stores, it is quite possible that he continued buying and selling land as he moved west.

It's amusing to me that we McGrews seem to still be afflicted with the land bug. Cornielia's daughter, Theo, married Ray McGrew who got in such serious trouble with land speculation that he had to flee Nebraska to avoid prosecution (so said his former wife, so this may not be true.) I'm selling a piece of property as I write for what should be a big profit. I've got it, too. Only I went east.