Greeley County, Nebraska
IRISH CATHOLICS IMMIGRATION

While many Catholics were among the immigrants subsequent to 1849, there was no attempt at Catholic colonization until 1855, when Father Tracy induced a number of Irish families to settle in Dakota County, where their descendants constitute the wealthiest and most prominent people in that section.

In 1874 General O'Neill, with eighteen Irish Catholics from Boston, colonized a tract in Holt County; they were followed by others, and a town was laid out which they named O'Neill. O'Neill is now one of the most progressive cities north of the Platte and the centre of a prosperous Catholic community.

In 1877 some of those who went to Holt County with General O'Neill, dissatisfied with the outlook there, took up land in Greeley County.

In compliment to Bishop James O'Connor of Omaha, General O'Neill named his first town site, O'Connor. The town was subsequently moved to where the church and convent of O'Connor now stand, while the present county seat, Greeley Center, was built half a mile north of the original site. A colonization company was formed and a tract of land was secured by Bishop O'Connor, John Fitzgerald, William Quan, and William J. Onahan of Chicago, and others, and sold at $2 per acre to Irish colonists from Massachusetts and Pennsylvania. This is now a very prosperous Catholic section embracing the thriving towns of Greeley Center, Spalding, and Scotia, and comprising a wealthy farming population.

Land purchased by the colonists at $2 per acre is appraised in 1910 at from $60 to $100 per acre. Besides these organized colonies, many Irish Catholic families drifted into Nebraska during the years preceding 1874.

(The Catholic Encyclopedia, 1913) page 732
Submitted by Cathy Danielon