Cornelius Sylvester Dwyer

“Con.” Father of Edwin C. Dwyer. Born in New York on 19 March 1862, the youngest child of John Dwyer and Mary Ryan, Irish immigrants who followed the work: the iron country of Black Brook, Clinton County, the mill town of Cohoes in 1875, and from about 1876 a farm in Birch Cooley Township, Renville County, Minnesota. In 1880 the Dwyers and the Tisdells were next-door neighbours on the same census page (record), and about 1882 he married Martha Tisdell.

They farmed in Renville County (Norfolk Township in 1895), at Newton Township, Otter Tail County, in 1905, in Montana about 1906-1908, where a son was born and his sister Kate and brother John lived at Butte, and from about 1909 at Turlock, California. In 1910 a Patrick Ryan, 60, born in Ireland, was living with them as a “partner,” perhaps kin of his mother (record). They retired to San Francisco, to a house worth $5,300 in 1930 at 138 Edinburgh Street (139 on his son Edwin’s 1942 draft card), and he died there on 18 October 1941, aged 79, of a heart condition he had had for ten years. The funeral home recorded him as a retired dairy rancher, 32 years in California, born at “Jackson Hill, New York,” the son of John Dwyer and Mary Ryan, both born in Ireland. The death notice pasted into the record names his wife Martha, his children Mrs. Boudinot, Mrs. Newman, Mrs. Golden, Henry, Edwin, Lawrence, John and Raymond, and his sister Margaret. Mass at Corpus Christi; burial at Holy Cross (record).

In the records the tree attaches (not checked here):

• 1875. Cohoes, Albany, New York; relation: Son (record)
• 1900. Newton, Otter Tail, Minnesota; Occupation: Farmer; marital status: Married; relation: Head (record)
• 1910. Turlock, Stanislaus, California; Occupation: Farmer; marital status: Married; relation: Head (record)
• 1920. Turlock, Stanislaus, California; Occupation: Farmer; marital status: Married; relation: Head (record)
• 1930. San Francisco (Districts 1-250), San Francisco, California; marital status: Married; relation: Head; Occupation: Farmer retired (record)
• 1935. San Francisco, California (record)
• 1940. A D 21, San Francisco, California; marital status: Married; relation: Head (record)

Other records the tree attaches: Washington, U.S., Death Records, 1907-2017.

The tree also carries a “Cris S. Thyer” and three Thyer children, Henry, Agnes and Martha B. (1889-1895). “Cris S. Thyer” is very probably C. S. Dwyer misread: Henry and Agnes are his own children (the 1895 census and his 1941 death notice), and Martha B. is probably Martha Veronica. Edward Cornelius Dwyer is Edwin entered twice.

Open questions

• His birthplace: Black Brook (likely), Troy, or the “Jackson Hill” of his funeral record. The death certificate itself may say more.
• The 1882 marriage record (Renville County) and the 1900 census, not found under Dwyer, Dwire or Dyer.
• Patrick Ryan.