:: { Hannibal, Missouri

Margaret Brown: Library of Congress (Bain Collection)

Margaret "Maggie" Tobin Brown was born in Hannibal, Missouri, home of the Mississippi River, July 18, 1867. Her parents migrated from Ireland to escape starvation and depression. Both Maggie's parents had been married and widowed previously. Both John and Johanna had a daughter from their previous marriages. Margret's father, John Tobin (Born in Ireland 1823) had originally moved from Charleston, Virginia after the death of his first wife Bridget. Her mother, Johanna Collins (Born in Ireland 1825) ventured from Pennsylvania after the death of her husband, John Reading.  John and Johanna would marry and have four additional children; Daniel (1863), Margaret (1867), William (1869), Helen (1871). Margaret and her siblings were very close throughout most of their lives, including the half-sisters Katie and Mary Ann.

The Tobin family was not wealthy, Maggie was brought up in a family that struggled. The Tobin home was located at the corner of Denkler Alley and Prospect street, not far from the Mississippi River. Their home was a humble home "four room cottage, with a kitchen, bedroom, front room, and a larger room on the lower level set into the hillside, not only housed the growing Tobin family but had enough land to support one cow, several chickens, and a small vegetable garden." [1]

 

               Brown Family Home, Hannibal Missouri.  Western History/Genealogy Dept., Denver Public Library.

The Tobins were active members in the Irish Catholic church and within their community. Their family had deep roots in progressive reform; Maggie's father had worked with the Irish underground railroad and her mother was involved in the Irish resistance. They were strong advocates for education, even for their daughters and were strongly apposed to slavery. The children attended school until age 13 at Mary O'Leary's grammar school, across the street from the Tobin home on Prospect Street.  Despite what early plays portrayed, Maggie could read and write.

The neighborhood was full of homes similar to the Tobin cabin and most families shared similar financial circumstances. John Tobin worked at the Hannibal Gas Works, as a laborer for more than twenty years. He was responsible for "firing coke furnaces, [digging ditches], and other types of manual labor". [2] John, like so many working class men, spent long hours on the job and received minimal pay, making supporting his family difficult.

Margaret joined he laboring class around age thirteen; she took a job at Garth's tobacco company to help support their family. Margaret had dreams of more than her simple life. Those dreams would take her West, where she would stay with her brother Daniel in Leadville. The west was romanticized as the land of opportunity, a message that was would be reinforced by the railroads and the gold mining opportunities in California and silver mining of Colorado.

          "I longed to be rich enough to give him [father] so that he could be happy and not have to
           work. I used to think that the zenith of happiness would be to have my father come to his
           home after a pleasant day and find his slippers warmed and waiting for him. It was a little
           thing to want, I thought. Of course, we would have had slippers ready for him in those days
           you will say, but Father was too tired when his work was done to enjoy any comfort. His life
           was bound by working and sleeping." [3]

1-Iverson, Kristen. Molly Brown: Unraveling the Myth. Boulder, Colorado: Johnson Books, 1999,63.
2-Ibid, pg 64.
3-Lanau, Elaine. Heroine of the Titanic: The Real Unsinkable Molly Brown. New York: Clarion
     Books, 2001, 35.