While moving from Chicago to Davenport, IA which was to be our next stop on the road trip, I wanted to visit Benton Wisconsin. Benton is where my father's mother's family first appear in the US. In the 1870 census Dennis and Ann Meehan are listed as being there with a couple of children, although my father's mother was born in Iowa, the family evidently moved there from Benton.
I was expecting an almost abandoned mining town but was surprised to find a relatively prosperous farming community instead. We stopped by the cemetery at St Patrick's church and found burials for many Irish families but none with the Meehan surname.
