PIERCE MAHER was born in County Tipperary, Ireland, in 1830. At age twenty-one he emigrated to America and settled in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, where he married Bridget McHugo. He worked as a hired hand on farms, which he continued until he and his wife came to Cass County, Iowa, in 1858. He purchased 40 acres in Section 32 of Brighton Township, and gradually expanded his operations until he owned several hundred acres of good land in Brighton and Washington Townships of Cass County. Pierce Maher died February 27, 1893, in Pasadena, California, where he had gone for his health, and the terms of his will provided for the construction of the St. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Atlantic. Bridget McHugo Maher died in Atlantic on February 6, 1894, and left her estate to the church to which she and her husband had been so devoted, since their only child, Mary, had died at age eight.

Transcribed from "The First Century, A History of Marne, Iowa 1875 - 1975", published in 1975, Marne, Iowa: The Marne Centennial Historical Committee, pg. 33. Transcribed (2015) by Cheryl Siebrass and contributed September, 2019.

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